I had managed to get hold of Pa.Singaram's "puyalilae oru thoni" from a book exhibition cum sale held near my house. This book was introuduced to me by Dr.Jaybee. I have only read about 5+ chapters. So far my impression about this book is that it gives us a rare hindsight into the life in the forties. The names, places and the situations are simply too much for an average reader can handle.
Scenes of madurai, rampant prostitution of that age, by both devadasis and simple folk are revolting to the human senses, makes me wonder about the cultural brain-washing with themes like karpu, etc that we have been put through for the last 30 - 40 years. Language employed is mostly of Chettinad, its nativity, slangs are wonderfully bought in different situations.
I am sure, there is no author who would have described the scenes of japanese marching into any territory through first-hand, second-hand or even with borrowed expressions. Simple but powerful scenes, when the marching japanese soldiers look at our indian hero and remark of Indo-Nippon friendship forged by the Bose. The description of the sway of the Chettiars over the Heads of the Chartered Bank(of current Standard & Chartered Bank) clearly talks volume of the amount of transactions and the value of transactions.
More impressions will follow later.
I wonder, where have all the Chettiars gone??? What happened to their never-say die spirit of free-enterprise?? One of my chettiar friend remarked that chettiars have long ago got out of the pawn-broking business or banking business, when the govt. took over the banks. They have diversified mostly into other retail trades, but definitely not found any more in the retail or export business. It also seems that many have gone out of the traditional professions into finding more stable employment avenues.
There is a wonderful paper by Sean Turnell on Chettiars in Burma. A fascinating piece. Google for "Sean Turnell Chettiars Burma". Sean went on to incorporate that paper in his book too.
> > I wonder, where have all the Chettiars gone??? What happened to > their never-say die spirit of free-enterprise?? One of my chettiar > friend remarked that chettiars have long ago got out of the > pawn-broking business or banking business, when the govt. took over > the banks. They have diversified mostly into other retail trades, but > definitely not found any more in the retail or export business. It > also seems that many have gone out of the traditional professions into > finding more stable employment avenues.
where have the chettiars gone?
nice question and I request people to view this answer on a historic angle
where have the chettiars gone? no where at all . in fact they have gone out of chettinaad. our huge palatial houses have 2 or 3 members living if we are lucky. otherwise they are locked.
its a success story engraved from grave adversity.seventy percent of the community went bankrupt in the forties. the huge shrithans the women had was sold and used to restart the community. the community numbers around a lakh. almost 10 percent is abroad both due to learning and business. the community has lostall its holdings in burma, vietnam and mostly ceylon too. their foreign holdings are now only in malaysia and singapore. some chettiar run mega business are murugappa grup, spic, chettinad cement loyal textiles and paramount airways.
we have a lot of lawyers, doctors, and soft ware engineers. of course lots of publishers both magazine and book including vanathi come from this community. lots of people in cinema production and creative. we have writers folllowing the path set by kannadasan.
the union home minister and the chairman of the law commision of india come from this community. one of obamas close co workers harry sevugan was a chettiar as was reported by the hindu.
Discussion on Nagarathar is a motivating subject to any budding person in any business ...
far, I can mention that ::
1. Nagarathar origin is traced prior to Sangam "Karikalan" days;
2. Tsunami fear forced them to move towards Inlands and elevated plains (with lesser river access) and thus present Chettinad, (though Kumudham Jawahar Palaniappan - in his book Nagarathars) cited certain differences with Chola Emperors, which is not supported by any evidence.
3. During Rajendra I overseas expeditions, we found that THE ENVOYs SENT TO THE EMPEROR OF CHINA BY RAJENDRA I and THE MERCHANTILE GUILD (present Nagarathar) did enjoy the same status as far back in 1015 AD;
4. That a Siva Temple in China was built by the said Merchantile Guild as early in the 11th Century itself !
5. That at the request of the Merchantile Guild, Chozha Navy protected them from Pirates and other intrusions - which did include such intrusion by Srivijayam atleast ..
6. Fromn Thiruvisalur discussions we find that Nagarathar renovated several temples (in the process some valuable inscriptions lost - say History lovers, the temples themsleves would have been lost otherwise say some patrons of History) and a rare photo of Rajaraja with his wife Danthisakthi vidangi is still avl in the Nagarathar house (who renovated the temple atleast 60 years back) in front Sivayoganatha swamin temple, Thiruvisalur, where RRC & DSV entered Hiranyagarbham and Thulabaram !
7. With Nandakumar's lively observations, we are reaching the details close to pre-Indepence era too.
Indian Bank and Indian Overseas bank - were promoted by the Nagarathar community .. and subsequently Bank of Madurai (by Karu Muthu Thyagarajan - which was taken over by Std Charted)...
Even now money lending does happen in small scale.. and they have acquired lots of lands from persons who could not redeem.
Chrome Leather (after which Chromepet is named) belonged to them.
Of course Chettinad Raja's Educational institutions as Annamalai University, Alagappa Chettiar's Alagappa University etc., represent their contributions to our Soceity and younger ones.
ACM's SPIC (Southern Petro Chemicals ) was even a forerunner to Reliance and should have been at par with them, but missed the race.
PC & his son represent them in the Polity. Justice ARLji represents them in Judiciary. PCs wife and ARLji's sons represent in Legal.
Our Venkat should be able to throw more light / suggest corrections..
Dear Nanda, it is interesting to read more on Dr. Subash Chandra Bose. pls put more details.
Here is the link to the google book, Fiery Dragons: Banks, Moneylenders and Microfinance in Burma" by Sean Turnell. Chettiyars are discussed in Chapter 2.