Crynant
11/6, McNicholl’s Road, Chetpet
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Thatikonda Namberumal Chetty was a leading building contractor of Madras from the 1880s to the 1920s. The Victoria Public Hall, the Connemara Library, the Hindu High School and the Victoria Memorial Hall (now the National Art Gallery) were all built by him, based on designs by architects such as Robert Fellowes Chisholm and Henry Irwin.
Namberumal Chetty became very wealthy and acquired many houses in the Chetpet area. It is said that he had 99 houses in Chetpet and the locality was originally called Chetty Pettai (Chetty’s place). He refused to acquire the 100th house on astrological advice! Namberumal Chetty was the first Indian and third resident of Madras to acquire a motor car. The vehicle bearing registration number MC-3, was imported from France.
Crynant was Namberumal Chetty’s residence in Chetpet. Set in vast gardens, the house is two-storeyed with colonnaded verandahs on two sides and a porte-cochere in the front. It is surmounted with a flat Madras roof and, unlike Namberumal Chetty’s creations, has always been painted white. The house has an intimate association with the mathematical genius, Srinivasa Ramanujan (1887-1920). Namberumal Chetty looked upon him as his own son and when Ramanujan was terminally ill he was looked after at Crynant. Ramanujan, however, felt that the house had a melancholy name (he objected to the syllable ‘cry’) and was shifted to yet another Namberumal Chetty home nearby, called Gometra. It was here that the genius breathed his last.
(Courtesy: KALAMKRIYA)
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