The Week India - July 29, 2018

78 THE WEEK^ • JULY 29, 2018

COVER STORY

TRAVEL

BY LAKSHMI SHARATH

“WE WERE LIKE fools who had discovered an

incredible treasure,” said my host, an architect from

France called Michel Adamant. “We went from vil-

lage to village, discovering streets of decaying man-

sions with ornate facades and interiors, which left us

to imagine the fascinating stories of their owners.”

I was in the small, obscure village of Kothaman-

galam, staying in a 108-year-old mansion called

Saratha Vilas—the ancestral property of the wealthy

merchant, Subramanya Chettiyar. As the morning

light fi ltered through the stained-glass windows, it

seemed like the entire world nestled in this sprawl-

ing mansion. Th ere were pillars of Burmese teak,

ART AND CULTURE Chettinadu in Tamil Nadu

A palatial past

When the Nagarathar Chettiyar community left the region

of Chettinadu in Tamil Nadu, they left a part of themselves

behind—their palatial ancestral homes

mirrors and chandeliers glistening with Belgian

glass, tiles from Japan and the Netherlands, and

Italian marble under my feet.

Kothamangalam is one of the 75 villages of the

region of Chettinadu in Tamil Nadu. Chettinadu,

famous for its cuisine, handicrafts and saris, and

Athangudi handmade tiles, was once home to the

affl uent Nagarathar Chettiyar community, who

were elite bankers and merchants. Th ey traded in

everything from spices to jewellery with southeast

Asia, and eventually migrated to Malaysia, Myanmar,

Vietnam and Sri Lanka in the 19th century. But, they

left a piece of themselves in their ancestral homes,

referred to as ‘naatukottai’, or regional forts, which

displayed the wealth that they had brought in from

HOUSING HERITAGE

An ancestral home of

the Chettiyars