Tamarind City: Where Modern India Began

Bishwanath Ghosh

Tranquebar Press

344 pages, R295

While Chennai is usually known as a conservative, orthodox city, almost every modern institution in India—from the Army to the judiciary—traces its roots to Madras’s Fort St George. To present his portrait of this hybrid nature of Chennai, the author meets a wide variety of people—from a top vocalist to a top sexologist, from a yoga teacher to a hip transsexual, from the ghosts of Robert Clive, Richard Wellesley and Warren Hastings to those of Periyar and MGR.