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Helping green Madras

Celebrating its Platinum Jubilee this year is the Soundarya Nursery, which for decades has helped green Madras and lay out many of its gardens. It was started by a man who preferred plants and cows to studies, even though he was born in a family known for its scholarship and erudition. P. S. Swaminatha Iyer, founder of the nursery, was the son of Justice P. R. Sundaram Iyer of the Madras High Court. Sundaram Iyer had worked closely with his friend V. Krishnaswamy Ayyar in founding the P. S. High School, the Mylapore Club and the Indian Bank. Swaminatha Iyer's interests were different; apart from rearing flora and fauna, he was interested in diamonds and photography (the lastnamed `genes' being passed on to grandson P. C. Sreeram, the well-known film cameraman and director). Much against his inclinations, Swaminathan started with his brothers an iron business. When it, predictably, failed, he decided to go into what he knew best, rearing plants. The first nursery was where Soundarya Apartments now stand on Eldam's Road. The garden stretched from Eldam's Road to Murray's Gate Road and belonged to his brother P. S. Ramachandran, the Mylapore fast bowler who took all ten wickets in an innings in a match against archrivals Triplicane and who played for Madras in the very first Ranji Trophy match but did not bowl a ball! A few years later, on the advice of his brother P. S. Balakrishnan, he moved the nursery to where the Justice Basheer Ahmed Sayed College for Women now is, leasing it from the Mahant of Tirupati initially and then buying a considerable bit of it. In the early 1950s, the Justice suggested he exchange this site for one not far away on Mount Road, next to the poultry farm. And with that move, Soundarya Nursery became a Madras landmark.

"Thotta Brahmar", as Kalki described him, propagated in-house most of the plants he sold or used in gardens. His hibiscus, ixora and bougainvillea and his grafted roses from the Bangalore nursery he established, as well as his mango grafts and guava saplings, were famous. He specialised in the hybridisation of hibiscus and bougainvillea. And he introduced several varieties of crossandra (kanakambaram), including those called the Soundarya and the Mahatma. Ironically, the Soundarya was called by local flower-sellers `Delhi Kanakambaram'... even though the species did not grow in Delhi! Wherever Swaminatha Iyer travelled, he carried a budding knife in the fold of his dhoti, ready to be whipped out when he saw a new species. He would right away cut a branch and, once back in the nursery, prepare cuttings for propagation himself. Swaminatha Iyer passed away in 1972 and his three sons carried on the nursery in Mount Road. When two of them retired, the Mount Road property was sold. Today, his third son, P. S. Raghupathy, and a grandson, P.R. Mohan, keep the name alive, at Vetuvankenion the East Coast Road and Pudupakkam off the Old Mahabalipuram Road.

S. MUTHIAH

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