There is a quality of red that characterises the earth of Tamil Nadu, which is as ancient and life-giving as the red earth and pouring rain of the Kurontokai — and we are in it. One hundred kilometres from Tiruchirappalli, driving south towards Karaikudi, we are winding through incongruous landscape. Flat and parched all around, interrupted by groves of leggy palmyra and swathes of eucalyptus. In the distance there are rocky outposts — forts and temples, sun-blasted, desolate. At regular intervals we pass rectangles of paddy fields so green, the eye stings.
Hidden histories
Then there are the famous mansions of Chettinad everyone comes to see, springing up unexpectedly amongst humble “fancy stores”, art deco cinema halls and heaps of roadside watermelons. Houses with bravura fortress exteriors — all cornice and swirl, arch and stucco. The Chettiar traders who moved here after their capital, Poompuhar, was devastated by a tsunami, rebuilt their lives in these red-earthed villages thanks to the generosity of a Chola king. They may have moved inland, but their houses still carried trademarks of their coastal life, and spoils of sea-faring tradesmen: Burmese teak pillars, Belgian chandeliers, Carrara marble floors. The men left their women behind in these large houses to rear their large families, and it is mostly the ghosts of these matriarchs I encounter when I walk through here.
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The mansions are repositories of memories. You pass rooms for daughters filled with dowry from the day of their birth. You sense the chaos of joint family living — how important it was, therefore, to find a breezy corner by the window grills in a courtyard. You understand why food is at the apex of the Chettiar experience by the vastness of their kitchens. But when you tire of the Victoriana of the bungalows, which you will, you should look outwards to the tapestry of time these houses sit in, and realise that the landscape exerts a much stronger pull.
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Our friends Bernard Dragon and Michel Adment, the French architects who restored, and now run, the beautiful Saratha Vilas in Kanadukattan, offer us an alternative itinerary. One morning we find ourselves scrambling up a steep rocky cliff in search of Vishnu. It is 34 C. We have no guide. “They said it was here,” the youngest in our group insists, scaling the cliff, and so the rest of us follow.
- French designer-architects Bernard Dragon and Michel Adment’s history with India goes back to 1994, when they collaborated with Kerala artisans to create the furniture line, Gondwana. A decade later, a book on the past glories of the Chettiars, which they found in a dusty antique store, led them to Karaikudi with its palatial mansions. Today, the duo runs Saratha Vilas, a restored early 20th century mansion. Here they give us their alternative tourist guide for the inveterate traveller:
- * The region is synonymous with mansions and, as architects, we have strong opinions about the best ones to visit. We recommend two lesser-known ones. The VVRM house in Kanadukattan is built in the early palatial style of the 1870s, with double columns, façades and multilevel construction, showcasing the beginnings of Chettiar wealth. On the same street is the CV Rm CT House, built at the height of Chettiar prosperity in the 1910s, with wooden ceilings, Italian marble, and tiles from Japan.
- * To see the evolution of the region’s architecture, take a walk in the village of Pallathur. As you climb up the sloped terrain, you will see the houses becoming more modern, revealing a mix of Tamil culture and Western influence, like Belgian murals and chandeliers.
- * The Karaikudi antique market (Muneeswaram Kovil Street) is a tourist staple, but we enjoy strolling through the Kallukatti Main Bazaar (Koppudai Amman temple area). Featuring a host of artisans, you can find jewellery, metal work and traditional woodwork here. It is a reliable source of authentic craft.
- * Workshops of Chettinad’s famous Athangudi tiles — inspired by the early 20th century mosaic tiles made in Maastricht, Netherlands — are everywhere. Try your hand at making them at Sri Ganapathy Tiles (Athangudi road), the first workshop to start producing the colourful glazed cement tiles in the 1950s. All the rooms at Saratha Vilas are laid with tiles from them.
- * Stop by the chariot makers (Pallathur road, next to Sathiyan Theatre) to admire their meticulous work, and also make time to observe the artisans at the Bronze Workshop (Palanivel East Street, Ariyakudi) firing their pieces.
- As told to Sindhuri Nandhakumar
After 10 minutes of intrepid rock manoeuvring, we arrive at the Narthamalai cluster of ninth century Shiva temples, which sit on a plateau in glorious solitude. Nothing like an abandoned ASI site. No pesky guards bossing you around. No ticket counters or queues. The Vishnus we are looking for stand ahead in a Jain cave — a row of 12, cut from the walls, elegant and bejewelled, gazing at us from behind the caged gate that separates us.
In Fort Thirumayam, we find Vishnu and Shiva side by side again — two seventh century rock cut temples divided by a narrow street, competing in size and gorgeousness with their gopurams . But it is the Jain frescoes at Sittanavasal that stun us. On the walls, there are faded representations of Samavasarana — the Jain idea of a heavenly pavilion. These 1,400-year-old frescoes are a profusion of pink lotuses. A monk in a loincloth carries two giant stalks lightly on his shoulders. Catfish, geese and elephants cavort amongst them. In one corner, we see the 10 stages in the life of a lotus. We gape upwards, straining our necks, thinking how happy a place this is, dreamed up for the dead.
Much as I adore lotuses, my idea of heaven would be where every meal was lunch at The Bangala. The food is exquisite and bountiful, and deserves a cook book of its own (which it has). But it is the way it is served — on a banana leaf, by a smiling man dressed in a simple white lungi and shirt, who winces slightly if you do not take that extra vadai — that seals it for me. After our feast we wander the maze of Karaikudi, and see people dressed in yellow, carrying pots of fire, so we follow, and are led to the local Amman temple.
Prayers and daggers
Women drenched in milk, clutching neem branches in two hands, prostate themselves and wave the branches around. There are drums, whistles, loudspeakers. A policeman befriends and invites us to watch the proceedings from a line of plastic chairs, but it is impossible to sit still with all this activity. Men and women strapped with medieval-looking wrought iron devices filled with fire lamps walk with bells tied around their ankles, the look on their faces something between devotion and despair. The calmest of all are the devotees who walk with tridents, daggers or spears skewered through their cheeks. They walk as if hypnotised.
On our final night, we return to the temple, and everything has erupted tenfold. Women are rolling around the entire circumference of the temple. The weaponry pierced through cheeks has grown in length and girth. We know now that these are pre-Vedic rituals for the Goddess Mariamman. That these are simple requests made in a frenzied manner: for rain to come, for diseases like the pox to be kept away. It is the oldest, most alive thing we have seen in Chettinad. Beyond the great Jain and Buddhist monuments, the many glorious Shiva, Vishnu and Ayyanar shrines, the mansions built by rich men — all invitations to admire a particular frozen moment of grandeur — it pleased me that the timelessness was held by a woman — rain-giver, goddess — who demands only a wild ferocity in return for protection.