Back in the 1970s, Chennai was called Madras. And in the Hindi-belt, everyone from southern India was classified as Madrassi. Never mind what the ‘Madrassis’ spoke at home - Malayalam, Kannada, Coorgi, Tulu, Telugu or even Badaga; most North Indians (including the educated ones) believed that anyone from ‘down-below’ spoke an exotic language called ‘Madrasi’ (that is Madrassi with one ‘s’ removed)! It did not matter where they actually came from: Kanyakumari, Kakinada or Kozhikode. Bollywood took the stereotype to a whole new level and the idea of a Madrassi was here to stay.

In 2015, on the banks of the river Vaigai, near Madurai in Tamil Nadu, archaeologists unearthed, among several other artefacts, a potsherd with the name ‘Kuviran' scratched on it in Tamil Brahmi script. And that offered many clues to the archaeologists about that civilisation: it told them about the language and literacy levels, the social hierarchy, and the age of a civilisation. What is now known as the ‘Keeladi excavations’ point to the existence of a literate society in parts of South India nearly 2,500 years ago! But how can broken pottery fragments give archaeologists such great insights into our past?

Close your eyes and imagine a Hindu goddess. Any goddess. Parvathi, Lakshmi, Saraswathi... Did you see a beautiful, fair-skinned woman with a generous figure, dressed in a perfectly draped sari, and adorned with gorgeous jewellery? Who gave her this image? The credit for that goes to a painter from Kerala named Raja Ravi Varma, who lived in India between 1848 and 1906.

The Pallavas were a powerful dynasty who ruled huge parts of South India between the 3rd and 9th centuries CE. They commissioned monumental works of art during the 7th and 8th centuries CE. It was then that the much celebrated Mamallapuram monuments  came up along the coast, about 60 kms from Chennai.  Mamallapuram attracts huge tourist crowds every day. Atiranachanda Cave Temple, 5 kms to the north of Mamallapuram, attracts far less. But it is this cave temple that excites Epigraphists, archaeologists who study ancient scripts. There are 2 stone inscriptions on either side of its entrance. They contain verses […]