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They stand as
tiny pieces of history, a reminder to many, of their rich past and
their forgotten glory. But in actual life, nobody has the time to
look back and reflect on the significance of history or the
personality they depict. On the contrary, various statues that we
have seen in and around Chennai are left to face their own plight.
The first to hit our sight was the
statue of King George V besides the Flower bazaar police station.
Letters engraved under the statue read, "The statue of his
majesty King George V, Emperor of India, was presented to the city
of Madras by Govindoss Chathoor Bhoojan Doss in 1914". Evident
from this note is the prestige and importance given to this statue
when it was erected in 1914. But today, poor King George stands as
if he is guarding a long row of vehicles starting from just under
his feet at the High Court. The black ash in which he is soaked
shows that he, like many inhabitants of the city, fret and fume to
see the commotion caused by incessant traffic jams and fatal
accidents all around them.
The replica of
the statue is found in Kamaraj Salai, close to the War Memorial,
such is the dilapidation, that the rock on which it stands is
surrounded by weeds, hiding the message engraved on it. Yet, we manage to remove them to find out that this replica of King George
V's statue was in fact opened in 1938 by the then Governor of Madras
Province Lord Erskine. |
The specialty of this
statue is that it is chiselled by the local sculptor Mani Nagappa whose
name most of the statues belonging to the early part of the last
century bear. He is also the creator of the statue erected near the
office of Chennai High Court's Bar council. The person behind this
statue is Vanbakam Bhashyam Iyangar, who enrolled as a high court
lawyer in 1872 and served as a Senior Judge in 1901-1904. The statue
shows him sitting on a chair holding a thick book in his hands,
which is rested on the chair's bar. Although there seems to be
interest in knowing about this great personality, his statue is now
useful to many law college students to comfortably sit and have
lunch.
Nagappa's artistic
hands have also caved up the statue of yet another great personality
in 1927. But unlike others, the statue of Lord Wilmington now
languishes in the secretariat museum. Perhaps the only companion to
this statue is that of Lord C. Wallace, smiling happily in marble.
According to the information found beneath the statue, it was
erected in the early years of 1800 - "As a grateful testimony
to his rule as Governor General." Also the statue reads the
expense incurred in erecting the statue which was shared by the East
India Company and by the staff of Fort St. George. Somehow, we
discovered a tinge of extra happiness in the statues of both these
noble men. The reason could be that they are far away from the din
and not smitten by the day to day life of this chaotic city.
Anupama
Shekar,
ark Commercials
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