Telugu-speaking Tamils

On the day of Ugadi recently, my grand-aunt was here and we got talking about the Telugu-speaking communities of Coimbatore, for whom the day marked the beginning of the New Year in their calendar, which seems to follow the Shaka era. (The Shaka calendar is approximately 78 years behind the Gregorian calendar, so that this Ugadi marked the beginning of the Shaka year 1930.) The most prominent among them are the Vishnu-worshipping Naickers, who also call themselves Naidus. The word Naicker seems to come from Nayak, which was the title for middle-level chieftains under the Vijaynagar Empire. The Naidus of Coimbatore are a prosperous community who have who contributed much to Coimbatore’s twin reputation as a city of entrepreneurs as well as a centre for higher education. Their enormously successful foray into the textile industry in the first half of the 20th century was made possible by the investment of sizeable agricultural surpluses accumulated by virtue of money-lending and shrewd economic sense, a sine qua non in matters of commerce. Even today, almost the entire stretch of Avanashi Road, from LIC at one end to SITRA on the other, is Naidu territory. (One must add that there are some sub-castes of Naickers whose mother-tongue is Kannada. E.V. Ramasamy Naicker ‘Periyar’, for instance, belonged to one such sub-caste.)

There is then the Telugu-speaking community of Devanga Chettiars, weavers by tradition but carrying the belief that their ancestors were kshatriyas. They have contributed to the city one of the landmarks of Coimbatore – the Devanga Chettiar High School near Poo Market. They worship at the Sowdeswari Amman Temple on Raja Street, along with another Telugu-speaking sub-caste of the Chettiar clan, the Komutti Chettiars, who apparently prefer to be called Vysials. The latter are businessmen, and seem to specialise in jewellery. Besides, some of the famous saree showrooms, such as Nalli’s are also believed to be owned by members of this caste. (Somebody correct me if I am wrong!) The Vysials have also left their imprint on the city. Many of the jewellery shops on Raja Street supposedly belong to them; in addition, they have a whole street named after themselves, Vysial Street in the heart of Coimbatore.

A Telugu-speaking community with a curious name is the 24-Manai Telugu Chettiar. They are again a trading community, but are clustered mainly around Madurai and Thanjavur, and in Kongu Nadu they are spread across the towns of Pollachi, Udumalpet and Coimbatore. T.S. Avinashilingam Chettiar, a doyen of education, and founder of the Ramakrishna Mission Vidyalaya as well as what is now the Avinashilingam Deemed University, was also a Telugu-speaking Tamil, belonging to the cotton-trading community of Tiruppur Chettiars (I presume they have a more formal name that I am ignorant of). Both of the remarkable institutions that were founded by this Padma Bhushan awardee and lifelong bachelor were born out of the enormous profits earned by his family during the War years.

There are probably many more Telugu-speaking communities that I am not aware of (and which I shall be extremely happy to be informed about). The upshot of this discussion is that contrary to perception, Tamil Nadu is not as homogenous a land as it appears. It is a land enriched by the presence of various communities that are Tamil by virtue of many generations of residence here, and speak the language eloquently, but break into a non-Tamil tongue (which, besides Telugu, can be Kannada, Tulu, Marathi or Malayalam) upon their return home. They have preserved, in more or less pristine form, many of their traditions and customs, even as they have probably evolved new ones. Such ecumenical diversity is a cause for pride and celebration.

Whence and why did such various groups of people make their way to these parts, abandoning their original towns and villages? History probably has elaborate insights to offer but I choose to end this song of sixpence with a delightful extract laced with wry humour:

My ancestors were Telugu-speaking Naidus, but the family had lived in the Tamil country for many generations. My seventh grandfather cut down the forest, ploughed the first field and built the first house in our village. We must have been in Tamil Nadu even before that, but from where in Andhra we came and where we lived until we made a home in our present village remains unknown. Nor do we have any idea as to whether we came as conquerors or perhaps as refugees…The only clue is a very old sword sheathed inside what looks like a walking stick, which has been in our family for as long as anyone can remember. On the strength of his slender evidence, the martial background of the family was presumed, but rarely insisted upon.

(The passage is taken from the memoir Climbing the Coconut Tree, authored by Kasthuri Srinivasan, industrialist and founder-director of the South Indian Textile Research Association - SITRA. Srinivasan was a recipient of the Padma Bhushan, and an illustrious son of Coimbatore. There is today an art gallery in his name on Avanashi Road in the city.)