Madras Week | An old city and resilient industry
The Hindu
Wherever we go, there it is. The COVID-19 pandemic has overwritten several scripts, laid to waste the plans of all. And this year, as the city celebrates Madras Day, in commemoration of a pact inked 382 years ago, it makes sense to anchor the overarching theme to the disruptions a pandemic causes. For a week, these columns will open a window to the past to examine aspects of the city that are in some way connected to such disruptions. While Madras Day events are low key and the usual pomp and frenetic activity that Chennaiites see during this week in August are missing, people have taken the online route, as with most things these past couple of years. For Chennai is still a city that its residents love, and harking back to its connect with good ol’ Madras is an annual ritual that has come to stay
While nearly all sectors have taken a hit due to restrictions imposed on account of the pandemic, when businesses are impacted the minuses last a long time. The ability of industry in Madras to bounce back has been tested frequently in the past and as is inevitable, some business houses have given way to others but several have been resilient enough to survive the crises. From Madras to Chennai, business houses have seen two pandemics along with several natural disasters, including floods and cyclones, all of which led to a dent in the balance sheets. While the century-old deadly Spanish Flu is too far back for recall as part of oral history, the floods that occurred in 1985 and 2015 have had a major impact on several business. Heads of various business houses and historians in the city said, “Many companies did not even exist then (referring to the flu). No one has any data or evidence to prove what businesses went through then.” But a news report that appeared in The Hindu in 1919 has a line which mentioned that the economic effect through the disorganisation of trade cannot be estimated but must have been high.