CHENNAI: Bashyam Basheer Ahmed Street, for its Vaishnavite-Muslim name combination, the explanation is simple — it commemorates two men — K. Bhashyam Iyengar and Basheer Ahmed Sayeed. Both were giants of the legal field.

Bhashyam enrolled as an advocate in 1906.  But it is his services to social causes that earned him immortality. Active in the freedom struggle he was beaten by the police and also sentenced. He took to representing in court, people charged for participating in the independence movement. He died in 1959.

Basheer Ahmed enrolled in the High Court in 1925. An expert in languages and also Islamic law, he rose quickly in practice and was later made a judge of the Madras High Court. Like Bhashyam, he too was actively involved in social causes, one of the prime beneficiaries being the Music Academy. Justice Basheer Ahmed, in 1951, set up the Southern India Education Trust along with a few other prominent Muslims of Madras.

When the surrounding area was developed in the 1940s, roads were laid and one connected Sadr Gardens to Mowbrays Road. In an inspired moment, it was decided to name it after both men and so we have it, Bashyam Basheer Ahmed Street.

Read more: Communal Harmony