Thursday, December 20, 2018

[ French City Pondichery is now a few Streets ( In India ).]



French Consulate-General Office is now almost as it was when the French vacated India, before we got Independence from British.

I visited these buildings on December 15th, 2018.
The Catholic Church as old as the Consulate-General's office as you are seeing it here now.
Inside of the Huge Church.


We build statues but not build clean city or even a clean road all around our home / road / colony.

One of the clean coffee shops in French Colony.

A good place to have Dinner in this road of course it's in French Colony.

Beautiful to see and walk after Dinner. Where else it is the Beach in French Colony.

Villa Shanti it's only in French Colony.

This is the Home of a French National now living in Pondicherry. Only French have the privilege to paint their home in this color. Any building with these colours belongs only to French people.


Flag of France flying on the Consulate-General's Office

It looked like a memorial to the solders memorial, it was in French language I could not read.

On the Boat to Paradise Island most beautiful and well maintained.

Coast guard's watch the people on the beach and are fully ready till closed to visitors fully empty,

Spend hours sitting here.
There is a Boutique shop in the Hotel where gifts can be purchased priced moderately.
This is the WEL COME sigh of Auroville away from Pondicherry by 26 minutes there you will see the most breath taking engineering marvel out side the GLOBE and inside the globe built for over 2 - to 3 years . This will perhaps the worlds' best meditation hall where those who want real  place for high meditation can stay for ever but it has to be different not that you see in any giant ashrams who have made it commercial.

50 years completed yet perfectly looking fresh with gold disks and garden standing and challenging to mankind to make another one more complicated Globe coming out of a sea like this but this is coming out of mother earth.
Must buy the book costing Rs.600/- to study with plans and all details.

Saturday, December 01, 2018

[ Gold to Dust made at Binny Mill, Bangalore where I worked.]

The Holding Company of the Mill I joined was located at Madras (now known as Chennai) in the year 1914.This building was taken over after the mill which was sold and resold to 2 or 3 parties is presently a Hotel run by Tata's.

It's worth telling how a reputed textile mill of world fame closed due to so many factors is a history perhaps as recorded by Shalini Umachandran TNN. given below.

CHEQUERED HISTORY OF A TEXTILE COMPANY
Shalini Umachandran | TNN
For school children of the 1970s and 80s, there was no substitute to material from Binny Mills, whether their uniforms required striped shirts, muddy brown skirts, blazing red shorts or khaki ‘drill’.
    The massive mill that spun out material that reached stores across the country has been closed since 1996, but the news that Binny Ltd is being split into three entities is reason enough to look back at the history of a company that sparked industrialisation in Madras as well as organised trade unionism in the country.
    John ‘Deaf’ Binny, who arrived in India in 1797 to work for the Nawab of Carnatic, established Binny & Dennison (with Robert Dennison) in 1799. The firm, with its headquar
ters on Armenian Street, was an agency house representing British interests in south India, says historian S Muthiah.
    Binny & Dennison became Binny & Co in 1812, and by 1870 the Buckingham and Carnatic Mills was set up in Peram
bur, the first major industrial centre in the south. Agricultural labourers, weavers and artisans from the area joined the factory, according to ‘Madras - The Land, The People and Their Governance’. They found that the working day
stretched to 18 hours, there were differences in wages and they had no facilities for food and rest. The workers went on strike in June 1873. By April 1918, they had organised themselves as the Madras Workers’ Union, the first organised trade union in the country.
“There had been workers’ struggles in the country from 1914, but this was the first trade union with bylaws, rules and regulations. It was the beginning of trade unionism in India,” says AK Padmanabhan, president, TN, CITU.
“More unions of tram workers, municipal workers and electricity workers followed. Back then, trade unions were a double-barrelled gun — they fought against British oppression and for good wages and working conditions,” he says. Binny’s eventually grew into one of the biggest business houses in India, expanding into cotton, spinning, weaving and other activities, says Muthiah. “The British never modernised ( because the Gov't of the day did not allow them to import latest machines from their country ) and the mill made heavy losses,” he says.
    In the 1940s, the British sold it to SBI, which re-sold it to a Coimbatore group in the ’80s. But labour trouble dogged the company. WR Varadarajan, the CPM leader who died recently, led agitations at the mill. In the 1990s, the Udayar group bought it, primarily for real estate. The mills were finally shut down in 1996, after more labour unrest. Part of the mill property in Perambur is now set to become an integrated township. The Binny brand is likely to be revived by one of its stakeholders. And the original founder, John Binny, is still remembered by a short stretch of road, Binny Road, in front of Taj Connemara, the property he owned in the 1800s.


THE MILLS IN THE MOVIES 
The Binny Mills factory in Perambur has always been the site of fights — and not just between workers and management. Stunt scenes for a number of Tamil films were shot on its premises. Some blockbusters that were canned here:


Ayan | An entire cargo landing bay in an airport was created by art director Rajeevan, and a stunt scene with Surya and Akashdeep Saigal was shot over the course of four days


Billa | The theme song of the Ajith-starrer Billa, ‘My name is Billa’ was shot at Binny Mills and AVM Studios

Goa | A stunt sequence with Sneha and Vaibhav in Soundarya Rajnikanth’s film was canned here

Kanthaswamy | Photo shoots for the film starring Vikram and Shriya were organised across the city, including the mills

Saroja | Art director Vithesh erected a gigantic set resembling an industrial complex for action scenes

Shivaji - The Boss | The song ‘Athiradee’ in which Rajnikanth takes on dozens of villains was shot here

Tamil Padam | This fulllength spoof on Tamil movies could not have been complete without the inevitable climax fight sequence at Binny Mills


Vinnai Thaandi Varuvaaya | Songs for this Simbu-and-Trisha film were shot here

Holding Company Head Office & Registered Office at Channai (Madras Earlier)

TRADE AND TROUBLE: The company’s headquarters on Armenian Street (above) today and (below) in 1914; (inset) John Binny, who set up Binny & Co, one of India’s first conglomerates 

Courtesy: The Hindu, Channai.