Down Memory Lane - My Coimbatore
People born after independence may not know that Coimbatore played an important role during the World War II. Coimbatore hosted an evacuees camp accommodating about 3,000 British refugees during the period from 1941 to 1945. For this purpose the then British Government closed down the Madras Forest College and cleared several acres of forest land, West of the College. Initially they put thousands of tents in the open area across the Tadagam Road to accommodate the British refugees mostly from their European Colonies like Malta and other islands. Then rows after rows of small tenements were built for them in the space cleared in the Forest College Campus. Of course initially this area was out of bounds for civilians in the Town. It was a novel experience for us to see groups of white skinned families cycling in our R.S.Puram area. Most of them were refugees from Malta and Greece. I was told one prince belonging to Bulgarian Royal family was also stationed here. There were a few families of Anglo-Burmese stationed there.

Incidentally the first town bus service in Coimbatore was commenced during this period only. Two buses were introduced to run between the British Evacuees Camp and the Bazaar area and Cinema Halls on regular duration. These Buses were run only for the use of the refugees and civilian population in the Town were not allowed to use these Buses. Only interaction between the people of Town and the Evacuees is Football matches between the evacuees team and the Local team. Though BEC inmates confined themselves to the activities within their camp area, it is not uncommon to see minor frictions between the locals and inmates. Some of the inmates from of the Camp were enterprising people. A few of them from Malta and Burma studied Book keeping and Accountancy under my father, who was a Chartered Accountant.

This camp was closed in 1945 after the end of the War and the refugees returned to their home lands.

Another important War time development was the Air Force base at Sulur which is about 26 Kms from Coimbatore. This base was established during the World War II by the British as Royal Navy's Fleet Arm - RANS. It was also repair base for their South East Asian Planes. A good Concrete Road was laid by the British Government from the Air base to Cochin, passing through the Coimbatore town, Palghat and towns in Malabar area. This Air Force base was torched by the freedom fighters on August,26, 1942 in response to the "quit India" agitation called by Mahatma Gandhi. Now this Air Base is under the control of Indian Air Force.

One day in the afternoon (I do not remember the year) during the wartime many people from our street were rushing to the Mettupalayam Road to see the procession of hundreds of bullock carts moving through that road. What was special in it? Nothing except these carts and the well fed big bullocks were different. We were told these were sent by the then Maharajah of Mysore as his contribution towards war efforts of the British. These were stationed at the specially built barracks built in the eastern side of the Goschen Park (Barati Poonga).

The War period saw large scale exodus of people from Madras to Coimbatore. Many Government offices and industries too shifted to Coimbatore during this period. This gave a short term economic boost to the Town. I had the opportunity to see some prominent citizens of Madras like Dr.Arundale, Rukmani Devi Arundale of Theosophical Society and Rt. Hon. V.S.Srinivasa Sastry taking walks in our R.S.Puram area.

My School which was an Elementary School got upgraded to Middle School during this period due to sudden influx of students. But the sprawling sports ground was taken over by the ARP Corps ( a war time institution) for their offices and training. Air raid sirens were fitted in prominent place in the Town.Street lights were fitted with "blinkers" and all glass windows in the buildings were painted black to effect back-outs. Trenches were dug in every available vacant grounds. Periodic Fire drills were conducted to train the public in case of emergencies. All the Doctors and Nurses were drafted for war time duties. All these preparations in the Town, which is in a corner of the Province, looked as though it will experience airborne bombings any time by Germans or Japanese! Of course for youngsters like me it was a real fun with imagination and fear. The net result was that most of the jobless vagabonds got temporary jobs and some discipline was brought into the lives of these people.

posted on Friday, November 09, 2007 9:54 AM