Topic > Contemporary Identity of Chettinad Houses in Tamilnadu

This proposal examines the production of visually striking and brilliant palatial houses built by the Chettiars during the colonial era between 1860 and 1930 as a result of industrial capitalism. I mainly consider the ornamental houses richly painted by bureaucrats as a statement of social achievement, using the method of history and ethnography. Furthermore, the current transformation of those now abandoned houses into a tourist network is also seen. I argue that empty dwellings are rapidly being confiscated to become new gadgets of visual capture through global tourism, thus transforming into public spaces. Through heritage tourism, the geospatial data of the community is recreated. In this article I discuss the architecture of adorned hybrid dwellings to illustrate three considerations. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay First, because the Chettiars felt the need to create an architectural and visual identity for themselves through the event of hybrid vernacular domestic design. This domestic project in modern India can be a fascinating analysis even though only a few scholars have studied the transformational aspects of these homes. My second concern is to look at nativity scene associations in relation to migration. The crucial question that comes to mind is: why did migrant merchants build elaborate palaces when they don't live in them? Why did they contribute so much wealth to the construction of these buildings? The above sentence outlines the bhakti-centered regional community with some recognition of the hybrid modernity of the British era. However, it is to be noted that the actual symbol of their community is present only in their ancestral homes, which in a way shows the unique characteristics of chettinadu. Ultimately, the spectacular homes thus become places that evoke memories of homeland and ancestors, visually exemplified by the paintings on the walls. The discussion of "places of memory" in the work of Pierre Nora (1996) helps me identify the historical relationship between chettiar in an era of colonial capitalism and the production of a type of visual gadget. My concern here is how with visual narratives as representative of history, memory, migration can help recreate the past for the future. The Chettiars left the country for their business to gain huge wealth as moneylenders and returned with materials from different places to build elaborate palaces as an identity of their social status in their native land. Far from being in decline, as Huizinga (1994) argues, “the image is a vital part of contemporary India and is being reshaped at a crucial social moment”. This will be understood, in my opinion, by a selected moment of historical transformation in the colonial era that led to the assemblage of those ancestral houses as a kind of visual object. I also want to add that although the Chettiars boast of their economic and social status legitimacy through visual aesthetics, they have also openly expressed their devotional feelings by adapting to the devotionalism of bhakti. “By creating ancestral homes for ancestors who never lived there,” the Chettiars want to acquire native rights to their territory to showcase their reputation among the British colonials. The construction of these houses marked an immediate control of the capitalist categories in India. Observers ranging from colonial administrator and ethnographer Thurston (1909) to anthropologist Yuko Nishimura (1998) have commented “that the decorated Chettiar dwellings were their entry point for gaining interest and familiarity with the community.” The.