Chettinad, a 600-square mile area in the southernmost reaches of India that is home to 75 villages where the Nattukottai Chettiars, or the Nagarathars as they call themselves, live, still hosts scores of mansions built in the heyday of the Chettiars. From the last years of the 18th Century till the mid-20th Century, the Nagarathars lavished the wealth they earned in South and Southeast Asia on these homes and on the lifestyle, they enjoyed in these villages. More than their homes, it was members of the extended family and their lifestyle that they recorded in pictures, taken in studios and outside. And it was with these photographs that they adorned the walls of their homes.
In the post-Independence era, as their businesses in South and Southeast Asia collapsed around them, the Nagarathars went through a traumatic 25-year period when mansions were pulled down and the treasures they held disposed of. Amongst the hundreds of items that found their way to the antique shops were countless photographs. And several of those photographs are what form the nucleus of A Chettiar Album. Other photographs are from collections that have been stored away, their maintenance proving difficult, and still others come from the halls of the few homes that still proudly display them. Together they are a record of the Chettiar lifestyle during that splendid 150-year period.
These pictures in glossy black-and-white include unique ones captured on 10" x 12" and smaller glass plate negatives then used in studios, frozen with box cameras, or taken with the Kodaks of the first half of the 20th Century. They reveal a hard-to-believe clarity that seems to make many a picture come alive. And it is in that coming alive that you discover the lifestyle of the Nagarathars of that era.
This is a book not only for every Nagarathar proud of his community's past but also for lovers of photography and scholars of social history - not to mention those who want something eye-catching to adorn their coffee-tables.
S. Muthiah, a chronicler of the historical, is the author of A Chettiar Heritage with Meenakshi Meyyappan and Visalakshi Ramaswamy.
A Chettiar Album is in many ways a companion volume.
Author of over 35 books, a journalist for over 65 years, and whose hobby is the past 500 years of South Indian history, Muthiah has added a quest for Nagarathar heritage to his numerous and wide-ranging interests.
He was awarded the M.B.E. by the Queen of England in 2002 for his work on heritage and environmental preservation.
M. Meyyappan Jr., planter, stock-broker and one of those responsible for developing The Bangala, Karaikudi, into an international prize-winning heritage hotel, is passionate about his heritage. That passion led to collecting photographs of the Nagarathars' past and a good part of that collection is the core of this book. He looks forward to that collection growing as will this book when readers catch up with it. One day it will all be a part of a museum in Chettinad, he hopes.
Hindu (931)
Agriculture (122)
Ancient (1098)
Archaeology (778)
Architecture (564)
Art & Culture (920)
Biography (719)
Buddhist (545)
Cookery (167)
Emperor & Queen (570)
Islam (244)
Jainism (318)
Literary (893)
Mahatma Gandhi (379)
Send as free online greeting card
Email a Friend
Visual Search
Manage Wishlist