Sojourn in Chettinad 

My memory of Chettiars is not as glamorous as their land and dwellings appear in a BBC portrayal. A British travel writer harks back to their halcyon days when fabulous mansions were built in the idyllic setting of Karaikudi  with timber from Myanmar, chandeliers from Belgium and marble from Italy. Ten thousand such mansions, some of them spread over an acre, with far too many rooms to be filled in with residents, are in ruin, bemoans the BBC.

Govinda Chettiar whose grandfather did not inherit the community’s opulence when he left their fanciful homeland  early in life in search of livelihood had no more than a little dark and dingy hut for a house for the best part of his life. He would do any work he could for any wage he was paid. He was full of laughter in spite of life’s drudgery. For my father, Govinda Chettiar was a trusted messenger to deliver some message or money to my mother.

It hurt me to hear this man so full of light and laughter passed into amnesia, my first ever tryst with the deadening experience of dementia. He spoke at home a language with a nasal twang whose origin or decline I could not trace. The origin of their community was better known. G Karthikeyan, a flourishing chartered accountant at Coimbatore, had once taken me home for dinner when his father accosted me along memory lanes, explaining the commonality of tongues, sait, seth, sethi, sreshthi, all representing the diaspora of merchants and money lenders, chettiars, from Karaikudi, since the late seventeenth century. 

Unnikkuttan, Govinda Chettiar’s son, broke the chain of tradition. He revolted against the prospect of doing any unskilled work for a living. He was not driven by any ambition to scale the heights of wealth and power his forebears showed. For him they had left behind a glittering saga of diamond trade in southeast Asia. Not so glittering was the story of itinerary vendors of goodies and cheap textiles, oil makers and carriers, rollers of pappadam, crisp wafers, on a small scale. Unnikkuttan skipped all of them, taking to wood carving and engraving. His son Biju came up with a creative shift. Biju is an acclaimed sculptor, exploring the surreal world of forms, figures and formlessness. It is a style of getting to terms with reality with which the village elite is not familiar.  

What overwhelmed the British travel writer was the enormity of Chettinad’s architectural extravaganza, not so much its creative splendour.  It  was a lavish display of resources.The Muthaiahs, the Chidamabarams, the Ramaswamis, the Murugappas and their hallowed ilk had risen to the peak of their prosperity in the late nineteenth and the early twentieth centuries. Besides banks and restaurants and industries, the Kings of Karaikudi have left behind a culinary heritage in terms of Chettinad cuisine, probably celebrating its pungency in a non-vegetarian preparation.

It is tempting to believe that Chettinad’s glory is a blessing of the local deity, Karpaga Vinayakar of Pillayarpatti. Vinayakar, Pillayar in perfect Tamil, can be depended upon not only to kick off all  obstacles from a devotee’s path but earn him prosperity in every venture. And, all this for nothing more than a modakam, a sweet ball or two. The mercurial Lord Shiva’s naughty son is easy to please.

Time was when an incredible story was doing the rounds that Pillayars had suddenly started drinking milk offered to them. The deity is made of myriad metals, mud, gold, wood, rubber, diamond, whatever. I remember former Attorney General G Ramaswamy confiding in me that he had by far the biggest collection of Pillayar idols in the world. Ganapathi Ramaswamy felt that was one good way to perpetuate his memory which was quite a turbulent legal exercise. 

When that milk-drinking deity’s story was passed on from ear to ear at an impossible pace, my concern was rather different. I have heard of people facing damnation for looking at the moon on the fourth night of the fortnight. If you want to be a victim of slander for doing or saying anything that earns it, watch the wicked moon on Vinayaka Chathurthi! .But the truant elephant god drinking any amount of milk administered through any hole in the idol did not excite me. There was a breath-taking rhythm with which the tale tapered off after circulating a whole sub-continent.

That Pillayar would bring prosperity to me, as he has done to generations of Chettiars, is reassuring. It was my friend Karthikeyan who gifted me a photo of the idol of Pillayarpatti with a hint that it was their community deity. What came to them by way of wealth could come to me too. A visit to the homeland of Chettiars, Pillayarpatti, could seal the possibility. Full of hope and faith, my wife and I were there to propitiate the easily pleased deity, kshipraprasada, 

We are still waiting to be turned wealthy!