A Rediff Travel feature on Vijay Amritraj's Madras


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Like any other city, there has been a dramatic change in the way Madras looks between the time that I was a school-going kid and now. The first thing that hits you today is the traffic. And how the city has exploded. It has grown so much wider. Prices have skyrocketed. The real estate industry, of course, is going through a big boom.

There is tremendous culture in Madras. We have wonderful temples. We have great beaches. The Madras beach is one of the best I have ever seen. The area between Fort St George and St Thomas Cathedral - the place where I got married and is very special to us - has one of the most beautiful beaches in the world.

Madras is the heart throb of industry. The explosion in investment has been tremendous. The city's potential is great. People have the ability to buy. Everything has grown tremendously. We are in a very strong stage of growth. A lot of money has come into Madras and the money that will continue to be invested in the city will be phenomenal.

Personally, I would like to see not too many high-rise buildings because it does not provide the kind of environment children should grow up in. Just a twenty minute drive out of Madras and you find yourself transported to a very, very nice environment. Particularly, if you happen to be driving all the way to Mahabalipuram or Pondicherry.

Being a tennis player I feel concerned that the growth of Madras has left hardly any place in the city to put up new tennis courts. Anyone waiting to put up new tennis courts has to look outside the city. But that's the way, I guess, things would be in any other Indian city, be it Bombay, Calcutta, Delhi or Madras.

Vijay Amritraj, tennis star and movie producer, now lives in California, but returns several times each year to Madras where his parents reside.

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