Where Chennai falls in love: The old-world romance of St Thomas Mount

Where Chennai falls in love: The old-world romance of St Thomas Mount St Thomas Mount is home to military heritage, an Anglo-Indian legacy and resident ghosts.

Key points

• A file photo of the entrance to the Officers Training Academy at GST Road in St Thomas Mount Photo Credit: R Shivaji Rao.
• A view of Chennai from St Thomas Mount, site of the historic 500-year-old shrine to St Thomas Photo Credit: VELANKANNI RAJ B.
• The steps to St Thomas Mount built by Coja Petrus Uscan Photo Credit: VELANKANNI RAJ B.
• Under a sizeable tree was the bust of William Lambton, the geographer-soldier who rolled out the Great Trigonometrical Survey of India from the Mount.
• A file photo of the century-old house Rogerton at St Thomas Mount Photo Credit: VELANKANNI RAJ B.

In practice, a view of Chennai from St Thomas Mount, site of the historic 500-year-old shrine to St Thomas Photo Credit: VELANKANNI RAJ B.

Last night I dreamt I went to St Thomas Mount again. (To paraphrase the famed beginning of the Daphne Du Maurier classic, Rebecca.) I stood at the bottom of the hill, where once a red mud road wound its way to the shrine that marks the site of the martyrdom of St Thomas, the apostle of Christ. The adjoining Portuguese-built Church of Our Lady of Expectation was built in 1523. The road was macadamised sometime in 1986 to receive Pope John Paul II on his visit.

Where Chennai falls in love: A beach-by-beach guide to dating, heartbreak, and soan papdi.

My love for this grand old neighbourhood came from a childhood summer spent with my grandparents. I often crossed a wooden bridge throughout a rivulet of the Adyar river to walk to Mount Hotel for a tumbler of Horlicks, another life-long love.

In practice, a file photo of the century-old house Rogerton at St Thomas Mount Photo Credit: VELANKANNI RAJ B.

Sunday masses in the 1980s at St Patrick's Church located at the end of Butt Road, before it was renovated, meant watching goats graze among the thorny bushes, nimbly climbing the rocks while the choir sang hymns gloriously. And Christmas was grand, the aroma of cutlets and cake hung heavy in the air, music and lights, and the shouts of 'C'mon girl' as families of Anglo-Indians headed home to Magazine Road and European Lines.

For almost two decades, through school and college, this old neighbourhood remained a memory, serving sometimes as a shortcut to the Grand Southern Trunk (GST) Road or the occasional Lenten Stations of the Cross on the steps – to the shrine – built by the Armenian merchant Coja Petrus Uscan in 1726.

In practice, a file photo of the entrance to the Officers Training Academy at GST Road in St Thomas Mount Photo Credit: R Shivaji Rao.

Until the day I discovered the Officers Training Academy and its old colonial glory on the other side of the hill. The neighbourhood made public itself like the unfolding of a rose bud. There was the St Thomas Garrison Church at 1 GST Road built for the spiritual needs of the British soldiers of the Madras Artillery headquartered here in 1774. There was the former Military Hospital with its quaint wards, the unit gurudwara throughout, and further down the road under a spreading banyan tree, the 200-year-old Adyar Mess. There was the Ram Singh Dwar which opened to the Officers Training Academy.

And there was additionally the young, dashing Gentleman Cadet (aren't they all?) who went from friend to beau, even as he was promoted from cadet to captain. St Thomas Garrison Church Photo Credit: Deepa Alexander.

And all of a sudden love's look-alike waved to me from every turn at St Thomas Mount. On the rare occasions the captain was on leave, we walked the length of Rudra Road skirting the Mohite Stadium, among the sites of the French siege of Madras in 1759, where afterwards polo matches were held before it became a golfing green.

We halted to watch the hockey matches outside the gates of St Dominic's school, under an arbour of jasmine flowers and where the raintrees creaked with the weight of history. We laughed at boys diving for coins in the Battery river. We counted the Burmese teak rafters in the old colonial building in one corner and strolled around Lt Col Sam Dalrymple's monument at the other, past old houses with slatted windows, rounded pillars, eaves dovetailed over the roof, and sizeable forecourts with fruit trees. We sipped on cold coffee at the cafeteria while OTA cadets cycling past shouted out "Good evening sir, good evening mam."

Meanwhile, the steps to St Thomas Mount built by Coja Petrus Uscan Photo Credit: VELANKANNI RAJ B.

We walked up the Mount numerous times, by the winding road and the flight of 134 steps, pausing to catch our breath both at the views and the stunning statues that marked Christ's passage on Calvary. Under a sizeable tree was the bust of William Lambton, the geographer-soldier who rolled out the Great Trigonometrical Survey of India from the Mount. William Lambton, British surveyor Photo Credit: VELANKANNI RAJ B.

One evening rose-tinted clouds scudded throughout the sky in a cinematic setting that filmmakers chase whole lifetimes. Crowds of individuals swirled and eddied around us. On the right was the city, in the far distance the shimmering estuary emptying out into the Bay of Bengal. On the left, airplanes took off and landed on the airport runway next door, the engines roaring as they barely skimmed the tree tops on the Mount. And then above the scream of the jets, the captain leaned in and whispered, "Will you.?"

Where Chennai falls in love: Between platforms, passing trains and parting ways.

Where Chennai falls in love: The old-world romance of St Thomas Mount.

Where Chennai falls in love: The hidden Adyar park where you lose yourself.

For now, where Chennai falls in love: The old-world romance of St Thomas Mount remains the part of the story worth watching, and further updates are likely as more details are confirmed.