I have always considered myself a Madras guy, not a Chennai guy.

For me, Madras is an emotion. Chennai is just a place.

And this photograph explains that emotion better than I can.

This is Lily Pond in the old People’s Park. Look at the size of the water body, the huge trees around it, the walkway along the water and the people spending their time there.

It is difficult to believe that this was once the landscape around what we now know as the crowded Park Town–Central area.

People’s Park itself was once a beautiful recreational space of Madras—with gardens, ponds, walkways, boating and the old Madras zoo. The larger area included Lily Pond, Moore Market, the zoo, My Lady’s Garden and other public spaces.

I never saw this Madras

I was born in 1980. When Moore Market burned in 1985, I was just five.

So I cannot claim nostalgia from memory. I have never seen Lily Pond with my own eyes.

But when I found this old photograph in an archive, it genuinely pained me.

I kept looking at the water, the trees and the people and wondering how such a beautiful, large water body could simply disappear from the city.

For my own satisfaction, I added colour to the old photograph—to the pond, trees and people. Not to change history, but simply to imagine for a moment how alive this place must have looked.

And strangely, adding colour made the loss feel even greater.

The pond disappeared. The name survived.

After the old Moore Market was destroyed by fire in 1985, Lily Pond was eventually reclaimed as part of the effort to accommodate displaced traders. Historical accounts describe the pond being filled and the Lily Pond/Allikulam commercial complex being developed on the reclaimed land.

There is something painfully ironic about it today.

A large water body was filled in a city that would later struggle repeatedly with water.

And yet, Madras left us a little reminder.

Alli Kulam.

Alli — Lily.
Kulam — Pond.

We managed to erase the water, but somehow the name survived.

Cities have to grow. Roads, railways and buildings have to come. But sometimes development happens so gradually that we don’t realise what we have lost until decades later, when an old photograph suddenly appears before us.

I never walked beside Lily Pond.
I never sat under those trees.
I never saw people boating there.

Yet looking at this photograph, I miss it.

Maybe that is why I continue to call myself a Madras guy.

Chennai is the city I live in.

Madras is the city I feel.