Chettinadu isn't just about the food

Chettinad cuisine is famous throughout India. I personally have dabbled with making Chettinad chicken curry many a time. Of course, I am still not confident enough to make my masterpiece available to others. Anyway, when I visited India recently, I made special note of something else: architecture. To that end, I had posted some photos in an earlier post. But here are some photos I came across on TrekEarth over the weekend. These are photographs of several houses/mansions sporting Chettinad style architecture.


A classic exterior.


A paved open space in front of the house. Would this be where Deepavali fire crackers are lit, where Pallanguli is played under a setting sun and where kids hop, skip and jump (probably not good for the lower back, huh)?


Interior with an open courtyard. The afore-mentioned activities could happen here too.


Similar interior but with a closed ceiling. Well, maybe not the fire crackers then, huh?


A walkway for late night ponderings. A lightness or heaviness of heart would have been evident in anyone who habitually walked here eons ago.


Hide and seek on a lazy Sunday afternoon. Anyone?


The closest I have come to seeing something like this would be in the home of my friend, Vijayabaskar, in Madurai (my hometown). It was a long house and the doors were situated along a single line. You can view the wall at the back of his house from the door at the front entrance. But his house did not have any open courtyards that is evident in this picture.

These mansions are from Karaikudi and Madurai (according to TrekEarth).