By Sunil Amrith
A recent trip down the Tamil Nadu coast took me further inland, to the heart of Chettinad. The Chettiars of this region once had a commercial empire that stretched from their arid corner of the Tamil plains to Rangoon, Penang, Singapore and Saigon.
In the early-twentieth century, Chettiar agents could be found in every small village in Burma, and they were the main bankers to Burmese rice farmers. Young men from this tight-knit community moved constantly back and forth across the Bay of Bengal. The usual pattern was three years in Burma, and then a period of “home leave.” Read the rest of this entry »