MONTREAL PART 2 - Mrs. K.R, as my mother used to often address herself, and the KSEB team led by my father K.Ramachandra Warrier, arrive at Montreal, Canada – a lot of hard work has been put in over a period of three months at least by my sister Chandrika to collate the data which makes very interesting reading!!!
As the first snows softly and silently spread everywhere Amma and Achan landed at Montreal. Red leaved Maple trees, the Canadian emblem, bereft of their enchanting and colourful autumn leaves could be seen as mournful black silhouettes against the white snow. Nevertheless, Achan and Amma must have considered being present during Xmas in the Metropolis of Montreal itself as a bonanza. Though Montreal derived its name from the neighbouring Mount Royal hills, they did not come across either reindeers nor for that matter – luckily - any Polar Bears ! Even so, they would have surely tasted Maple syrup, Canada’s lip-smacking honey that bursts out of its trunk with a loud bang sounding like cannon shots!!Their stay in Montreal in the first stage was only for a few days - from the 13th to the 23rd of December 1968. The team has reached their destination…half of their journey just above the Equator was over. It had taken them almost one whole month of slow journeying, to cross over parts of the Continents of Asia, Africa, and Europe.
The cold of Montreal did not seem to have doused Achan’s excitement…shared of course by Amma. She used to be so averse to cold that if we happen to be in an A/C room she would wrestle with us children for blankets…taking away ours too and often all of us would find ourselves, after all the pulling and pushing, hugging and laughing, snuggled together inside the blankets. To see her now in the first photo taken in Montreal nonchalantly standing in the snow as if the weather is extremely fine and she is enjoying the summer warmth is unbelievably dramatic.
Achan had meetings and discussions with the SNC team and Amma … wonder what she had been doing at home. Amma being a strict vegetarian we often wonder how she cooked for Achan, particularly during their stay in Canada. To Amma it must have been like time travel – from the firewood stoves of Kerala to the sleek cooking ranges kept in their compact but tiny apartment of Montreal must have been from another age altogether.
However the saving grace being that in those days we had an electric stove which needed repairs nearly every month, as the coils get burnt or some similar calamity happens due to Amma’s carelessness. Generally cooking was done using firewood collected from the garden, dry leaves of the coconut tree and other sundry materials, which quite often resulted in pungent and smoky smell of burnt leaves in the dishes, a fad nowadays maybe, but rarely appreciated by us. To avoid it is an immense task, especially during the rainy season when the dying fire in the mud stove had to be relit by continuously blowing into the burning embers with a metal tube. Cursing the leaves kept in a bunch on one hand, the fire had to be lit with the smoke getting into the eyes causing irritation and watering as well as changing the taste of the foodstuff in the pot of course!! The dry stir-fried kind of vegetable dish called “thoran” which goes with rice frequently smelt of the musty, smoky, half dry leaves, a homely taste we yearn for now!
However though Amma knew how to operate the cooking range in Montreal, being the first time, I suppose, having left Trivandrum a month before. Achan or Amma never made much of their food nor told us about their menus or dishes. Finally being in an apartment they were possibly happy to taste home food. Most of the time she must have spent watching the TV to which she was introduced only during the trip. The only account of their visit to a restaurant was in Paris when they ordered a pure vegetarian meal and was served a cart load of sea-food with a lobster and a bottle of wine at the top!!! We do not have any documents about any further gastronomical adventures they had. They hardly ever mentioned about food apart from the fact that the pickles and dried stuff they carried came to be handy. This is in sharp contrast to the travelogues seen these days in which one remembers the place more by the food one eats, the new cuisines, the swanky restaurants and the juicy drinks, and of course, the comforts provided or the experience in the hotels where one stayed. How times and manners have changed….. luxurious surroundings and food have captured our imagination much more than the wonder of seeing and trying to understand a new culture at close quarters!
Their hotel was situated very near the then tallest building called 1, Place Ville Marie. Achan was well aware that it is the most earthquake resistant building in Canada, with its 48 storeys and cruciform structure and with an anticlockwise powerful rotating beacon on its rooftop . To think that the four white horizontal beams could light up the sky and be seen, even today, 31 miles/50km away !!
A giant post card of Montreal at night that Achan had bought shows 1,Place Ville Marie with the beam of light emitting from the then tallest building!
The Montreal, the team saw was not the one above with the 48 and odd skyscrapers, owing their presence to the second construction boom which had started in the early 1960’s. The earlier boom had started off with with the completion of the eight-storey-tall New York Life Insurance Building in 1888 and seemed to have ended by the 1930s. Some skyscrapers were even demolished to make room for a new higher one and in 2014 the rate of high rise construction topped in Montreal. Amazingly, Montreal was in the champions league comprising of Toronto and New York City.
The water body is the Saint Lawrence Seaway. The giant post card of the Montreal harbor shown above rummaged out of Achan’s collection says in tiniest of fonts: “Today the Montreal harbor is one of the largest in the world; installations stretch out over a distance of 12 miles and facilities allow for unloading of over 3000 tons of cargo per hour.” But the astounding fact is that the Port of Montreal is found 1,600 kilometres inland from the Atlantic Ocean yet ships can sail upto Europe and the Mediterranean through this shortest direct route. Apart from its humungous lines of business, its sheer engineering would astound anyone. Now I know why Achan would have been attracted to buy this post card. His interest in irrigation and canals would have been the basic instinct! but why not?
Amma and Achan would visit the underground city with its nexus of shopping complexes covering half of its total constructed area of 2,80,000 square metres! One of the real wonders of the world that many in India were probably unaware of - the existence of supermarkets!
Head office of the Royal Bank of Canada 1,Place Ville Marie in 1967, the then tallest building in Montreal from 1928-31, and the first building to exceed the Notre Dame Basilica in height, was later replaced by the 48-storied cruciform structure with a height of 188 m (617 ft). To think that it hides the world's busiest subterranean shopping complex with indoor access to over 1600 businnesses were mindboggling!
Even for Canadians, it would have been a highly appealing attraction not only for its history as the Royal Bank of Canada but for its underground maze which protected Montreal denizens from extreme cold weather throughout the year.
Of course it now vies with1000 de La Gauchetière, the tallest building in Canada the 51-storey, 205-metre-tall (673 ft), and 1250. René Lévesque IBM-Marathon Tower, at a height of 226 metre tall. Though slightly shorter and less in the number of storeys, this tower gains height by being on higher ground. The maximum height of these buildings were aligned according to some interesting eco-centric Municipal Regulations. They include the prohibited heights exceeding the height of Mount Royal, i.e 233 m (764 ft) above mean sea level.
Notre Dame Basilica of Montreal from outside and the altar.
The Montreal skyline with tower constructions boom seems to be competing with the skyscrapers on the Manhattan Island in New York. The famous and ancient Notre Dame Basilica of Montreal which was the tallest with its high towers and the impressive altar and Gothic vaults, between its construction in 1829 and 1928 was one certain visit for Achan and Amma.
Courtsey:Associated Press in Montreal-the guardian
Today.. the 21 st century scene and the 20th century scene . A lower skyline, a great light blue sky and majestic St.Lawrence flowing with its light cargos….The one on the right is the Montreal skyline at the time of Achan and Amma ‘s visit to Montreal in the mid - 20th century!
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