Madras turns 379 today Happy Madras day!

Madras turns 379 today. While Chennai is the official name associated to the city, it is perhaps for nostalgic reasons that the local Chennaites still call the celebration as ‘Madras Day’

Madras turns 379 today… for those who didn’t know, that was the old name of Chennai. It is widely believed that it was on August 22, 1639, that a deal was struck between British administrator Francis Day and the Nayak rulers to buy a sliver of land — where now stands Fort St George — to establish the East India Company.

The state government in 1996 renamed the city Chennai, getting rid of the colonial tag. The idea of a festival to honour the city was conceived by three people – the city’s famed historian S Muthiah, journalist Sashi Nair and publisher Vincent D’ Souza in 2004.