Chettinad (Karaikudi)

Overview

Chettinad is a group of roughly 75 villages in the Sivaganga and Pudukkottai districts of Tamil Nadu, spread across about 1,550 sq km, and Karaikudi, in Sivaganga district, is its main town. The region rewards people who enjoy slow drives between small villages, old merchant houses and a distinctive home cuisine, and October to March is cooler for driving.

The mansions came from the Nattukottai Chettiars, bankers and traders who worked in Burma, Ceylon and Malaya and built big family homes between about 1850 and the end of the Second World War. A typical house has more than 50 rooms around three or four courtyards, with raised porches at the front door where business was once settled. Owners imported Burmese teak, Italian and Belgian marble and European chandeliers. The region has been on India's tentative list for UNESCO World Heritage since 2014. Many houses are private, and some stand empty. Kanadukathan, about 14 km from Karaikudi, has a large cluster, although the Chettinad Palace there has been described as closed to visitors and worth viewing from the road.

The floor tiles in many of these homes come from Athangudi village, in Sivaganga district. Makers lay patterned cement slurry on glass plates, cure the tiles in water for a little over a week, and finish them in the sun with no kiln and, according to Tamil Nadu Tourism, no electricity. The glass gives the glossy surface. Karaikudi itself has antique shops, and nearby weavers make Kandangi cotton saris.

Food is the other reason people come. The Nagarathar community's cooking relies on freshly ground masalas, with spices such as kalpasi and star anise, along with sun-dried meat and salted vegetables, and snacks like paniyaram, kozhukattai and athirasam.

Pillayarpatti, about 12 km north-west of Karaikudi, adds a different era. Its Karpaga Vinayakar temple grew around a rock-cut cave dated to roughly the 7th century, and the ten-day Vinayaka Chaturthi festival there includes a chariot procession on the ninth day. Karaikudi has hot summers, averaging around 37 C, and about 60 percent of its yearly rain arrives with the north-east monsoon, so winter is easier for walking between houses and temples.

Known for

Large courtyard houses built between about 1850 and the 1940s