The Chettiar Heritage (English)

A coffee table book on the Chettiar community covering all aspects of its culture, heritage and lifestyle.  All aspects of Chettiar life are recorded and it forms a valuable documentation for the future. Now going in to its 4th edition.

THE CHETTIAR HERITAGE is a Coffee Table Book about the Nattukottai or Nagarathar community. This small mercantile community, is based in an arid area referred to a ‘CHETTINAD’ in deep South Tamil Nadu. During the colonial years, starting from the early 1800’s till independence they ventured overseas to Burma, Malaysia, Singapore, Vietnam, Indonesia and Ceylon for trade and commerce. They were immensely successful and were a significant Economics influence in all those countries. Amazing substantial wealth that funded on Architectural and Cultural Heritage that to this days seems amazing. THE CHETTIAR HERITAGE is a record of a life style that is rapidly disappearing. It is a coffee table book that you will enjoy browsing.                 

The Chettiar Heritage records in word and picture the past and present of the Chettiars and Chettinad in South India. It provides as comprehensive a pictorial records as possible, supported with explanatory text, to remind Chettiars in India and the increasing numbers living abroad of their rich heritage.

The text is brief, and the focus of the book is to create a pictorial record. Over 800 brilliant and colourful photos reveal a picture of the community few know about. The Chettiar Heritage is a document for posterity, providing a glimpse of the social, cultural and economic life of a unique community whose lifestyle is spoken of in awed terms in South India.                     

BOOK REVIEW: India Today by P Chidambaram on 29.01.2001:-A journey through the glorious history and rapid development of a close-knit community. The Chettiar community can trace its origins to the 2nd Century A.D. Two great Tamil epics of that period describe the Chettiars as traders and merchants who eventually won the honour of crowning every successor to the Chola throne.                             

From ship-chandlers, salt merchants and gem dealers to bankers, industrialists and professionals, the community proposed for over 1,000 years. Its most glorious 150 years began when the Chettiars ventured into Ceylon in 1796 and Burma in 1824. Its darkest period were the 1950s and '60s which witnessed an exodus from these two countries and led to the impoverishment of many Chettiar families. At the end of this turbulent phase, the Chettiar population is only 1,25,000 and claim as their home only 75 villages in the southern part of Tamil Nadu. That cluster of villages is called Chettinad. It is also the home of an extraordinary heritage of temples and mansions, customs and rituals, arts and crafts and hospitality and cuisine.                                                                                                         

The three authors confess that they have "studied deep at the well of Chettiar heritage". They have put together a remarkable book of 800 pictures and a narrative that is marked by understatement and an economy of words. Their contribution, no doubt of great value, is however outshadowed by the outstanding genius of the Photographer, V.Muthuraman, also a Chettiar. Muthuraman and his camera have gone into the villages and homes of the Chettiars to caputre in brilliant colour the sculpture of the temples, the architecture of the mansions, the ancient paintings, the village festivals, the family rituals, the glitter of metal and stone and the artifacts gathered over the years.                                         

He has also captured the contemporary Chettiar village affected by migration and now, like any other village with crumbled houses, neglected tanks, old women-folk and families struggling to reconcile their rich heritage with their poor economic status. Other photographs, lent generously from family albums, record the rapid transformation that has taken place in the past 50 years.                                             

The numerically small community has moved out of the villages, creating its own diaspora in India and abroad. Nevertheless, thanks to its contributions to banking, industry, education and temple-building, it has a disproportionately large influence on the social life of cities like Chennai, Madurai and Tiruchirapalli.                                         

The authors have no illusion about the heritage they have chosen to record, and readily acknowledge that it will be overwhelmed by the march of time. Yet, they were determined to document in word and picture the community's legacy of a glorious 100 years. It is a labour of pride. The authors call the book a pictorial record for posterity. It is a pictorial treasure to cherish.                                     

The only disappointment is that the recording seems to have stopped abruptly somewhere in the 1970s, as if the film roll in Muthuraman's camera had run out. The revival of the community in the past 25 years, its emancipation from rigid tradition and the Chettiar diaspora surely deserve another volume.                                                             

ABOUT THE AUTHORS:

S.MUTHIAH: - Muthiah, even though born in Pallathur, one of the Chettinadu villages in Tamil Nadu, Muthiah came from the Nagarathar Community in Chettinadu. He inherited the community's passion for publishing and history. He coauthored a coffee-table book The Chettiar Heritage with Meenakshi Meyyappan and Visalakshi Ramaswamy. Muthiah was educated in Sri Lanka, where his father worked. He also studied in India and the United States. After completing a B Sc Degree in engineering and an M.A in International affairs, Muthiah began his journalistic career with the Times of Ceylon and worked for the paper between 1951 and 1968. He was its Foreign News Editor and then Features Editor and was later in charge of its Sunday Times and magazines. From 1954 to 1968, he represented in Sri Lanka first News Chronicle of London and then Daily Mail. He also represented The Observer, London, and its Foreign News Service from 1959 to 1968, besides working for two other British features services.                     

After he returned to India in 1968, he joined the TTK group and was in charge of T.T.Maps in Madras, which published maps, atlases and tourist guide books. He was also an eminent cartographer.  He was a regular contributor on Chennai's history for The Hindu Metro Plus. His column Madras Miscellany was very popular, and revealed several unknown facets of the city that was once Madras, and its connections with other cities of the World. He was also the founder of the magazine Madras Musings and his book Madras Discovered was published in 1981. He was one of the personalities instrumental in organising Madras Week Celebrations every year. Mr.Muthiah has worked hard to save a number of heritage monuments in Chennai. He died on 20 April 2019.                                 

MEENAKSHI MEYYAPPAN: Meenakshi Meyyappan was born in Bangalore but moved with her family when very young to Colombo in colonial Ceylon. With the outbreak of World War II, she returned to India and continued her education in Bangalore and in Yercaud, going on to graduate from Queen Mary's College, Madras. The daughter of a hospitable family, whose table was renowned for its superb Chettinad fare, Meenakshi married into the MSMM family, which was equally renowned for its food. She then lived between Madras, Karaikudi and Malaysia. When The MSMM family opened The Bangala as Chettinad's first 'heritage hotel', it gave her the natural opportunity to hone and showcase her flair for hospitality and to present and serve the most fabulous food in Chettinad.                                           

VISALAKSHI RAMASWAMY: Visalakshi Ramaswamy, the founder of the M.Rm.Rm Cultural Foundation is an enthusiast of craft and culture and has been an active advocate of craft development for many years. She has documented the craft and heritage of the Chettiar community along with S. Muthiah and Meenakshi Meyyappan in the book ‘The Chettiar Heritage’. She realized that several old and traditional houses were coming down at a fast pace, and several craft and hobby crafts of the region were disappearing.

Documentation of all these craft was crucial because even though many of these crafts were not in practice today, people who worked on these crafts were still around, most of them being octogenarians. The need to document everything while there was still access to information seemed vital. The M.Rm.Rm Cultural Foundation was set up in 2000 with the primary objective of documenting, preserving and reviving the many crafts of the region. Project Kottan was one of the first initiatives of the Foundation, and this book is the culmination of many years of being involved in the collecting, researching, resurrecting and reinventing of the humble kottan.

Ms. Ramaswamy is an Executive Committee member of the Craft Council of India, and is very much involved in its projects. She also works with the World Crafts Council in projects to promote and encourage craft education in schools. She is a member of the All India Handicrafts Board of the Ministry of Textiles, Government of India, and on the advisory committee of DakshinaChitra, working with them on several of their initiatives.

Ms. Ramaswamy is passionate about the textile traditions of India and has been working for many years to revive the handloom weaving traditions of Tamil Nadu. Kandanghi is her line of traditional Chettinad silk and cotton sarees that have many admirers in India and abroad.

Ms. Ramaswamy has also curated a lifestyle exhibition of the Chettiar community at her home in Chettinad and is currently involved in setting up an in situ museum to recreate the actual experience of a traditional Chettiar home.

Ms. Ramaswamy’s zest, enthusiasm and deep passion has sustained her work in the craft sector. Her vision and forethought has helped her maintain a balance between the ideal and the practical, and this has been the key to the achievement of her goals.

Recently she authored a book ‘The Kottan – palmyra basket of Chettinad’ which was released by the Indian Finance Minister Mr P.Chidambaram in October at Chennai.