The word ‘Madras’ evokes many feelings in me. I feel quite nostalgic, possibly because it’s Navaratri, the festive season in India, and each region observes it differently. However, I’m not here to discuss the festival. 

I am a Madrasi (an inhabitant of the city of Madras or someone who hails from the city, or a Tamilian), at least in the eyes of my North Indian friends. The term’s accuracy is debatable. I wasn’t born or raised in Madras; my father was born there. I visited as a child during holidays, and as an adult, I lived there for about seven years. Yet, I was a Madrasi even before I moved. Heritage, roots, and belonging are fascinating ideas. I’m not a social anthropologist, but I often reflect on these concepts to understand myself better. Madras, now called Chennai, remains captivating to me, and I feel connected to it even when I’m not living there.

The Madras I heard from my father and the Madras I experienced were not identical. Additionally, Chennai, about which I can honestly say I know nothing, having not lived there for more than twenty years, feels like the same place at three different points in time, yet each version has a distinctly different character.

I’ve always had a fondness for the Madras my father described. It holds a special charm. I know it reflected his perspective of the city he cherished—his walks to school with his brothers, cricket games, beach outings, and trips to the Chepauk Cricket Stadium. I often wonder how it would feel to visit those places today, to see if they still exist and how they’ve transformed. Rather than visiting in person, I often travel there through my father’s stories.

I recognize I am biased because I lack first-hand experience of that place and time. I love my father and am particularly aware of his storytelling abilities. He sometimes took creative liberties when recounting incidents.

One such place that held a special place in my heart was Moore Market. A market I have only known from anecdotes, and I have never visited the market itself. It sounded magical to me; it was a place where you could get second-hand books. Or at least that’s what my father used to go for, and being an ardent book lover, the place sounded like a paradise. Imagining the market from his accounts was my favourite pastime. It was a closed or covered market, made mostly of wood. I imagined it to be dark woods with paint on them, where the wood, paint, oil, and dust over the years had merged, giving it a distinct colour and smell—a smell that was not bad or rank but rather evocative and earthy. It had several alleyways selling different kinds of used and new items. It would sell flowers, vegetables, and various curios. Over the years, it acquired a reputation for its curios and used items. It housed and sold unique used objects, art, curios, and books. The one I was most interested in, and the one my father used to frequent, was the alleyway full of second-hand books. Used books have a certain quality; they have travelled sometimes from faraway lands, and the scribbles and notes on their margins have tales to tell of their own. I would imagine my father as a young boy of 15 or 16, scrounging through the books. He bought several from there: political science, philosophy, and old copies of Charles Dickens’ novels. The stories from those books he would narrate to us, along with tales of his adventures. The market was a source of joy, obviously for him and me, because he would regale us with such fun anecdotes of the place and his explorations. As a child, I was fascinated with the market, and I would beg him to take me there whenever we went for vacations.

One day, as he was reading the newspaper with his morning coffee, I heard him exclaim, “Aiyoo, Tcccchh ..,” shaking his head. His reaction made my mother come out of the kitchen, holding a batter-covered ladle and looking at him quizzically.

He said, “The Moore market burned down.”

My mother, who didn’t grow up in Madras and had other things on her mind like the dosa burning on the stove, just shrugged her shoulders, mumbled something under her breath, and went back to her sweet sanctuary.

My father looked forlornly at the wall clock for a few seconds, then let out a sigh and flipped the page of the newspaper, continuing to read the news on the next page.

Though the newspaper that day reported that the market had burned down and no longer exists, the market my father visited and described still lives on in my memory. I wish I had seen it in its former glory someday.