A walk through the history of Mint Street, Chennai
Mint Street is one of the oldest and longest thoroughfares of Madras; that is Chennai. It stretches from Park Town near the Central Station to Washermanpet. In 1700 or so it was called Washers Street as the washers and bleachers employed by the East India Company for its cloth business, settled here. Many of these were Telugu speaking and following them came the middlemen or dubashes (men who knew two languages), largely Telugu speaking Komutti and Beri Chetties. The area to the west of this str