Every Madras and Salem has a rich history

When I accepted the job at Western Oregon University, triggering our relocation from California, I told my parents that I would be moving to a place close to Madras and Salem. We chuckled at the inside joke — there is a town called Salem in India not too far from Madras (now called Chennai), in the southern state of Tamil Nadu.

Almost six years after moving to Oregon, I visited Madras. Finally. Coincidentally, it was almost on the very day — Aug. 22 — that marks the anniversary of the founding of Madras in India. Lacking a melodramatic background music for the special event, the best I could do was to hum — in the privacy of my car in which I was the sole occupant — Mel Tormé’s “Coming Home Baby.”

Hey, I couldn’t think of any other song.

The first time I heard about a town called Madras in a state called Oregon was, however, way before the interest in my current job at WOU. It was when the Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh and his followers started gathering in large numbers in nearby Antelope.

For those who may have forgotten the stories, Rajneesh and his assistant purchased a large ranch, which in a matter of weeks became the gathering place for thousands of his followers. The commune swiftly disbanded within a couple of years after it became known that the leaders had engaged in illegal activities of many kinds, including the notorious salmonella poisoning in The Dalles. Rajneesh returned to India after a plea bargain, changed his name to Osho, and died in 1990.

I was tempted to swing by Antelope and look for any remnants of the Rajneesh years. But I suppose I gave in to apprehensions of how this bearded guy with Indian origins would be viewed after all the confusion caused by the presence of a bearded Indian only a couple of decades ago!

I find it fascinating that Oregon’s Madras got its name from the textile color patterns. I wonder if the town’s founders would have thought twice about the name had they known that we never actually called them “Madras shirts,” even though these colorfully patterned shirts are popular not only in Tamil Nadu but all over India. They were simply referred to as “check shirts,” as opposed to the “plain shirts.” I should note here that the cloth itself is rarely manufactured in Madras, but in towns scattered all over Tamil Nadu.

India’s Madras is, of course, a much bigger city than the Madras here. With a population of more than 4 million — more than the population of all of Oregon — Madras is a huge metropolitan area that is gaining power, prestige and prosperity thanks to the rapid growth in the information technology industry.

Meanwhile, Madras has had a name change. The city officially became Chennai in 1996, at a time of political and populist interest all over India to revert the names from the Anglicized spellings and sounds to those in the local languages. However, there is still international recognition of the old name of Madras. In fact, I think it is primarily because of the need for recognition that the University of Madras, which was established in 1857, continues to operate without having changed its name to University of Chennai.

Thanks to the international recognition for Madras, I don’t imagine the world will start referring to the colorful shirts as “Chennai shirts” any time soon. Which means there will be no pressure on Oregon’s Madras to change its name to Chennai, either.

The origin of the name Salem in India is from the local vernacular, unlike the story of the Salem here. Of course, both Salem and Madras here in Oregon have been home to the American Indians for centuries. As much as names in India were Anglicized, many native names here in Oregon also got erased. Otherwise, our capital city would be Chemeketa, as it was once called.

If you feel giddy with excitement or from information overload after reading this, well, now you know how geographers feel every single day!

Published in the Register Guard on Sep 16, 2008