About Madras City

Chennai, till recently known as Madras the world over, is a sprawling metropolis on the coromandel coast of southern India, that has been visited by people from different parts of the globe, be it from Greece or Rome, China or Portugal at one time or the other, from time immemorial. It is cosmopolitan, multilingual and one of the fastest growing cities in South Asia, having come into existence 350 Years ago.

In April 1640, the Fort. St. George, which stands as a landmark even today, was built. This Fort soon grew into the metropolis that is Chennai today and the capital of Tamilnadu. In those early Years, as it grew the men and women who lived in it set in motion a chain of events that changed the world. For here was born the British Empire- ushered in by Clive and Dupleix on the dusty plains of the Carnatic, the Madras presidency (now Tamilnadu) - the kind on which the world had never seen before and then, the revolt against it, as astounding as the drive to create the empire had been. This led to a world, far different from anything anyone might have imagined in themid-17th century.

And as the British pioneered a new era of colonization, they bequeathed to India a lingua France, its new standards and new institutions. Be it politics or administration, jurisprudence, education or medicine, surveying or engineering, social life or sport, commerce or banking, agriculture or industry, the beginnings of the forms we know today and accept as part of our daily lives were established in early Madras, the city the East India Company founded and the Raj developed.

India's first Corporation and constabulary were organized in Madras as were the pioneering hospitals and courts, banks and mints and other civic amenities. While Yale made this possible the other great British's Claude Martin and George Thomas founded a great school and a great state respectively. Parry and Binny laid the foundations of modern commerce and industry, Petrie and Goldingham inscribed their names on the buildings of the city.

Bentinck and Macaulay enacted legal and educational reforms and Trevelyan established Civil Service. Munroe and Malcolm, Metcalfe and Elphinstone devised and implemented land reforms. Most of these names are utteredeveryday, even today, as they denote a place, a building or a landmark.

In the years after Independence there were Bhaktavatchalam and Kamaraj, Krishnamchari and Venkataraman who showed the way to industrial progress. The justice party was born here and became the first non-congress party to rule a state in India. Out of this was born the regionalism in politics. Sathyamurthy advocating the use of stage and screen, as a political platform was a world first, that continues to have an impact on the Tamilnadu political stage. The list of firsts the city has contributed to can go on and on.

The old blends well with the new in Madras. The Marina as a legacy formed a horizon both in the past and the present. Just as the Fort. St.George, the St. Thomas church, the Lord Parthasarathy and Swamy Kapaleeswara Temples and the Adyar Banyan tree are part of old, that attract scores of people even today.

The new attractions are the planetarium, the Open Air Zoo, Kishkinta, Little Folks and MGM amusement parks for children, the modern departmental stores, the posh shopping malls, the modern stadia and wedding halls, the luxurious five star hotels and the ultra modern restaurants that serve multinational cuisine and advance centers of learnig such as the IIT and the innumerable colleges of arts and science, music, acting, and of technology.

While the suburbs reflect industrial growth with petrochemical complexes and establishments of multinational companies, the central part of the city expanding to 60square kilometers and home to around seven million people, is dotted with high rise buildings and residential apartments while the roads are sprinkled with Hondas, Opels and Marutis. The swimming pools and the farmhouses, the health club and the parlours speak about the growing living style of people and the fitness conscience. The Kumbabishekams, the Mahashivrathri, the Hili and Ramzan and the Pongal fair reflect the religious fabric of Madrasis or the Chennaiaites, who love music, cricket and pawns.

The blue skies and the rising tides of the bay of Bengal, along with the occasional rainbow have remained nature's own. And yet again you see a rainbow in the horizon. RAINBOW FOUNDATIONS adding color, convenience and comfort to the lives of chennaiaites! Be it office space or residential apartment, farmland or farmhouse. Rainbow Plaza... Rainbow Arcade... Rainow Resorts are all there to add to the skyline of Chennai.