Despite being an arid portion of Tamil Nadu, Chettinad is amusing, yet predominantly a conventional landscape brimming with olden times due to the legacy abandoned by the Chettiars – the ancestors of individuals like Meenakshi Meyyappan, the proprietor of an enchanting hotel named THE BANGLA, where we can encounter the Chettiar legacy.
The well-off Nagarathar Chettiars were a business clan of the Chettinad region which preoccupies the interesting town of Karaikudi and its encompassing regions. It’s believed to have been shaped in the 1800s and is perceived as a heritage city of Tamil Nadu.
This business-clan had expanded their impact over the oceans by the eighteenth century to remote spots like Sri Lanka, Burma, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and China among a large group of different nations. Being wealthy, they were fond of building enormous homes to exhibit their wealth. The gigantic manors they designed were potential treasure troves as they imported the best pieces from far-reaching nations . Being embellished. With the Italian marble flooring , teak pillars and elaborately designed furniture from Burma, enamelware from Czechoslovakian, ornamental artistic tiles from Minton, glass from Bohemia, ceramics from Indonesia and precious stone ceiling fixtures and huge mirrors from Belgium, their homes were virtual exhibition halls of excellence that flabbergast you.
The quiet towns of Palathurar and Kanadukathan are a portion of the other startling spots where you will discover paradigms of these lavish exhibition halls. Despite the fact that their homes were a varied blend of Western and Tamil engineering, the sumptuous insides strictly followed most of the rules of Vastu Shastra.
Apart from mastering the art of building extraordinary houses , they excelled in town planning and water harvesting as well. They additionally planned their roads in parallel lines, running east to west to give maximal coolness to their homes, as the Chettinad locale encounters extremely sweltering summer temperatures.
After the major financial dejection of the 1930’s, the Chettiars lost the majority of their organizations and were bound to moved out of the area deserting their mansions and leave them in the hands of caretakers . Now a large number of these wonderful houses have been changed over into renowned hertage hotels , including the Chidambara Vilas hotel which offers you an experience of the times of fantastic living !
Karaikudi , being located in the Sivaganga district of Tamilnadu, is 90km far from both Trichy and Madurai airplane terminals and trains or autos can transport you straight to Karaikudi for a remarkable ordeal.
