Cooking gas has been in the news for all the wrong reasons over the past one week. And that set me off on the story of domestic fuel in Madras. I realised in the process that I was old enough to have seen almost all variants in use.
First – wood and charcoal. As late as the 1980s, there were plenty of wood and coal depots in all the older parts of the city. The wood, chiefly casuarina, arrived from plantations to the north and south of the city. These were planted as early as in the 18th century, when the demand for firewood began growing in Madras. By 1802, the North or Cochrane Canal was ready to transport wood from the groves, all the way from Pulicat and beyond. The South Canal, for the same purpose, came up later, linking Adyar to Cuddalore. And then, in the 1870s, work began on Buckingham Canal to link these two through the city. Firewood now began arriving by water, not at the outskirts but within Madras as well. Old Firewood Bankshall Street in Triplicane is a remnant of that era. Likewise, the site of City Centre Mall was a giant firewood depot and even now, to its rear are wood shops.