When I was a kid, since I grew up in the north, my parents explained Chettiars to me as “the Marwaris of the South.” When you’re done with this shattered lands book tour, maybe your next book can be about “Five trading communities and the connecting of premodern South Asia” … the 5 that occur to me are Marwaris, Gujaratis, Chettiars, Mapillas, and perhaps Hakka? I was also told that Shetty is just the Kannada/Tulu cognate for Chettiar, but afaik they were nowhere near as influential historically?
Is Tamil a national language in Singapore due to the Chettiar influence? I thought it was because of the significant minority of Tamil speakers, descendants of mostly plantation workers and labor brought into then Malaya by the British, starting in the late 19th century.
Very interesting! I’ve read somewhere recently, not sure if from you or where, that black rice from North East or Burma is popular in Chettinad. History influences food
I had Pre ordered your book on Amazon In April Last week i got a shipping update . But yesterday I got a notification from Amazon the book has been “ retuned” and I was refunded . They never delivered
When I was a kid, since I grew up in the north, my parents explained Chettiars to me as “the Marwaris of the South.” When you’re done with this shattered lands book tour, maybe your next book can be about “Five trading communities and the connecting of premodern South Asia” … the 5 that occur to me are Marwaris, Gujaratis, Chettiars, Mapillas, and perhaps Hakka? I was also told that Shetty is just the Kannada/Tulu cognate for Chettiar, but afaik they were nowhere near as influential historically?
Is Tamil a national language in Singapore due to the Chettiar influence? I thought it was because of the significant minority of Tamil speakers, descendants of mostly plantation workers and labor brought into then Malaya by the British, starting in the late 19th century.
Both! They were part of the same wave of migration
Very interesting! I’ve read somewhere recently, not sure if from you or where, that black rice from North East or Burma is popular in Chettinad. History influences food
I had Pre ordered your book on Amazon In April Last week i got a shipping update . But yesterday I got a notification from Amazon the book has been “ retuned” and I was refunded . They never delivered
Sorry to hear that. Where were you ordering from... I know that the Iran conflict last week left many international deliveries stranded...