Tamil Nadu | How the Museum of Chettinad keeps a community’s memory alive

As you drive towards the Chettinad region in southern Tamil Nadu, the landscape gradually gives way to dry shrub. Palmyra trees line the farmlands, their spiked leaves casting shadows on the tar road. Large tamarind trees shed their fruit, which crunches under the tyres of passing cars. 

Over the years, the Chettiar community has settled here, building a formidable network of trade and commerce across India and Asia. It is a small and proud community. Today, its members are scattered all over the world, from the U.S. to Europe to Southeast Asia, yet their ancestral homes remain in Chettinad, in their natal villages. And they return, almost like homing pigeons, for festivals, weddings and death ceremonies. 

With the men often away for extended periods, they built vast residential compounds enclosed by high walls and filled with numerous rooms for their joint families to live in. Within these walls, Burma teak was intricately carved with deities; kitchens were stocked and food prepared with whatever was in season, with provisions carefully stored to last through the dry summer months.

Today, there is a growing effort to preserve this extraordinary heritage through the M.Rm.Rm. Cultural Foundation, led by the visionary Visalakshi Ramaswamy, a committed Chettiar revivalist deeply conscious of the fading traditions of her community. “While working on the book, The Chettiar Heritage (with co-authors S. Muthiah and Meenakshi Meyyappan), my job was to photograph the homes. Over the four years we put the book together, I saw so many Chettinad homes being broken down, their things sold, and so many elders who were guardians of the tradition dying,” she says. 

Documenting a community

Ramaswamy has been passionately involved in the restoration of traditional crafts such as palm-leaf basket weaving (kottan), Chettinad sari-weaving (kandangi), Chettinad lime plaster, and the now-ubiquitous Athangudi tiles — almost mandatory in a South India-inspired space. Her approach to it, however, has been rooted in understanding before intervention. And she has taken this philosophy forward with the newly opened Museum of Chettinad.

Housed in Ramaswamy’s 125-year-old family home in Kanadukathan, the museum is a culmination of her years of research into the Chettinad way of life. “Once when a group of visitors arrived, I took my husband’s grandmother’s things and, with whatever knowledge I had, put on an exhibition for them in the attic. It stayed there for many years. Soon, people began coming to me for more information. I decided that I would answer all their questions through a museum and that’s how we now have the Museum of Chettinad,” says the 80-year-old.

The museum visit begins with the history of the Nagarathar community — the myths of its origins, and the reasons why the community came to settle in this particular region. Visuals of community temples and festivals offer an introduction to the traditions that continue to bind the community together.

Moving through the rooms, one learns about the Nagarathars’ routes of commerce, migration and religion. The home museum’s traditional architecture also becomes a part of the story, allowing the various crafts that play an integral role in Chettiar domestic life to be seen in their original context, rather than as isolated objects in display cases.

The domestic life

One of the first rooms curated by Ramaswamy was a collection of Raja Ravi Varma prints, seen in homes across India. Here, however, the gods and goddesses depicted in the prints are partially covered with cloth and embroidery — one of the first things you see when you enter a Chettiar home. It was also a pastime of the Chettiar women, or aachis. 

Women have been the cornerstone of the community, as important to its continuity as the men. In many ways, some of the most compelling stories are to be found in the subtexts of the displays. The Chettiar homes were almost minor fortresses, organised and run with great efficiency by the women who remained behind while the men travelled for trade. 

We move to the rooms that reveal the rhythms of domestic life. Kitchens, storerooms and galleries are filled with everyday utensils, grinding stones, copper water heaters and large storage jars — the paraphernalia required to feed large families and host elaborate festivals. Other rooms are dedicated to basket weaving and the classic Chettinad sari, a delightful interplay of colours, checks and stripes, set off by contrasting borders and pallus in cotton and silk. 

There are collections of colourful imported enamelware and Burmese lacquerware, used for both everyday and special occasions. Beautifully lit found furniture and display cases sit against walls painted in Chettinad’s vivid palette of magenta, emerald and terracotta — the colours of its landscape and architecture.

Finally, we arrive at a gallery devoted to festivals, marriages and ceremonies marking seniority, each accompanied by distinctive jewellery and carefully observed traditions. It would be a spoiler to reveal more.

Keeping memory alive

Having worked with several young people, students and arts colleges over the years, Ramaswamy has built a core team that can carry forward the museum and the Foundation’s activities. The intention is not simply to preserve a disappearing past, but to create a model for curating community museums that hold both tangible and intangible histories — and that have the capacity to evolve. 

The Chettiars, who traded across the world, were global citizens long before globalisation became a way of life. Each room at the Museum of Chettinad, while inviting curiosity, reflects years of detailed study into Chettiar traditions. 

“We hope that all written and published information on Chettinad and the Nagarathars, by anyone, will be collected here. The museum will become a repository for stories of this community, from across the world. Perhaps several generations from now, someone will come looking for information on their forefathers — it will be available here in so many ways,” says Ramaswamy. 

The writer is a cultural activist, philanthropist, and founder of Prakriti Foundation.

Published – September 17, 2026 08:42 am IST