Visitors to Chennai usually never miss a fail-safe recommendation when they head out for Dakshina Chitra, the heritage ‘museum’ experience on ECR. It isn’t like any showcased exhibition you could imagine — entire homes representative of the different regional architectural traditions of the four southern states have been transplanted and restored here, their walk-through streets and spaces home to aesthetic displays that recreate the people and traditions that once inhabited these stately homes. Other attractions include performances, shopping, food and interactive experiences — DC makes for a full and fulfilling day.
What’s frequently overlooked is the Madras Craft Foundation Library that’s tucked away to the right of the main building, behind the Kanali restaurant — its Laurie Baker Brickwork, terracotta flooring and shiny woodwork make it a welcoming place to be.
Libraries are like that, of course, unassuming and reflective, but this one is also sunny and if you come by in the afternoon, the breeze sweeps in from the casuarina grove by the sea nearby. If you listen quietly, you can hear the waves as you read.
The library is possibly the finest resource for Indian art and crafts, especially the south. It has some 7,000 books, 2,000 newspaper clippings, 150,000 photographs, 525 catalogues of contemporary artists and museums, two dozen documented reports, subscriptions to 80 specialized journals and a couple of hundred hours of digitized audio and video recordings. Copies of these can be arranged for a nominal fee from the carefully archived collections by the eternally patient Indhu, librarian since its inception.
Everybody’s welcome. Visitors to the library don’t even have to pay Dakshina Chitra’s entrance fees of Rs 50 per person. It’s open from Wednesday to Monday, 10am to 6pm.