Special Interview with Michel Adment and Bernard Dragon
By Kailash PL
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| Saratha Vilas |
Many tourists from other states and countries visit Chettinad, exploring and photographing the Chettinad houses and temples and they moving on to their next destination. But, two tourists from France who visited Chettinad fell in love with the Chettinad houses and have been living there for over two decades. They have also played a significant role in getting "Chettinad" included in UNESCO's "World Heritage Sites - Tentative List."
Last month, I met these two gentlemen, Mr.Michel Adment and Mr.Bernard Dragon, at "Saratha Vilas" in Kothamangalam during lunchtime.
This "Saratha Vilas" is a beautiful mansion built in 1905 by Mr.Chellappa Chettiar. They now run this house as a heritage hotel.
I started a conversation with them over lunch...
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| Bernard Dragon and Michel Adment |
■Do you speak Tamil? Are you relatives or friends? Tell us about yourselves.
Adment: We are friends and we are french. We both are architects. We understand a little tamil but We can't speak it.
Dragon: My hometown is Marseille, in the south of France. Adment was born in Algeria, which was then a French colony. His family moved to Paris when he was two years old, and he grew up in France.
■How did you learn about Chettinad? When did you come here?
Adment: It's a long story. I'll tell you a bit, and Dragon will fill in the rest. We were both working as architects for a multinational company in France, designing buildings all over the world. Around 1998, we were working on a big project in China. We had daily work and very little free time. Due to the heavy workload, we decided to set everything aside for six months and travel to India.
Dragon: We first landed in Mumbai. We missed our flight to Chennai at Mumbai airport. There weren't as many flights in 1998 as there are now. While waiting for the next flight at Mumbai airport, we saw pictures of the Madurai temple towers in a guidebook. We went straight to Madurai and visited the Meenakshi Amman Temple. The temple looked beautiful at night with the lights. It was beyond words! Then we went to Kochi, Kerala, and bought old wooden pillars and chairs, which we sold in France in just three weeks for a huge profit. We continued to buy and sell antiques from Kerala. Once, we bought a wooden pillar in Kerala, and they told us it was a Chettinad pillar. That's when we first heard the word "Chettinad." We first came to Chettinad in 2000 and were overwhelmed by its grandeur! We thought there were only ten or twenty big houses, but we were amazed to see thousands of mansions.
■How did you bring Chettinad to UNESCO's attention? What attracted you to Chettinad?
Adment: What attracted us was not just the Chettinad architecture, but the sheer number of large houses. There are no other places in the world with so many houses like this in one location. When we first came to Chettinad, the first village we saw was Pallathur. We were mesmerized by the beauty of the streets. Back then, no one would allow us to see their houses, but we managed to enter and see a few houses in Pallathur, which made us happy. After returning to France, we told our friends about the Chettinad houses. A few days later, when we returned to Chettinad, we met many people, including Mrs. Meenakshi Meyyappan, Mrs. Visalakshi Ramasamy, and Mr. M.V. Subbiah Chettiar, and learned about Chettinad architecture and the Chettiar lifestyle. Before us, in the late 1990s, a Frenchman named Mr.Robert Dulau had researched Chettinad houses and Chettiars and written a research book in French, which we also read.
Dragon: We met with UNESCO representatives in France and told them about Chettinad. They introduced us to UNESCO's Indian headquarters in Delhi. In Delhi, a woman was in charge of UNESCO, and neither she nor anyone else there knew about Chettinad. After I presented information about Chettinad with photos, they launched the "Revive Chettinad Campaign" in 2006. The campaign included the district collector, MLAs, ministers, architecture students from Anna University, Chettiars, and local residents. It was held in Karaikudi. The aim of the campaign was to save Chettinad houses from destruction. Later, in 2008, along with French and Indian architecture students, we started surveying Chettiar houses one by one in Kothamangalam, Lakshmipuram, Kanadukathan, and Pallathur. We collected information by going door to door. We categorized the houses based on their facade and design to estimate the construction period. We measured and drew a map of the villages, including streets, old houses, drainage systems, ponds, and temples. We documented Chettinad's geography, economy, Chettiar history, and the current lifestyle of the people. Then, in 2010, on behalf of UNESCO, we published a book in English titled "Chettinad Village Clusters of Tamil Merchants." In 2012, UNESCO also published the book in French. After many stages of work, in April 2014, UNESCO included Chettinad in the "World Heritage Sites - Tentative List."
■How did you start this heritage hotel?
Adment: The story of the UNESCO work and Saratha Vilas started almost at the same time. In 2007, I joined a multinational company in Chennai as an architect, while Dragon continued the UNESCO work in Chettinad. At that time, Saratha Vilas was introduced to us by Francis Wacziarg, a Frenchman and owner of Neemrana Hotels. He said, "Let's run Saratha Vilas as a heritage hotel together." But he withdrew for some reasons. Then we both jointly registered a company in India called "Adment & Dragon Tourism & Cultural Development P.Ltd." After that, in 2009, we leased the house from its owner, Mr. Chellappan. We started renovating the house little by little. The big story is yet to come!
Dragon: Yes! Renovating this house was a challenging task. First, the house leaked in many places, so we removed the country tiles and relaid them. Some tiles were broken, and we used the country tiles from the house's cowshed as replacements. Nowadays, no one repairs country tiles. They replace them with Mangalore tiles or sheets. But we wanted to renovate the house without losing its antiquity, and we did. We avoided painting the walls as much as possible, using bleaching powder from France to remove dirt from the walls. We also removed the chemical paints applied later and restored the original paintings underneath. We didn't use new granite anywhere, only using Athangudi tiles where needed on the old flooring. The stucco sculptures on the exterior of the house were completely damaged, and we had them redone by specialized artists. We have been running the hotel successfully since 2010. Tourists from many parts of India and abroad stay at our hotel.
■What would you like to say to the people of Chettinad?
We would like to say in one line, "Revive Chettinad." Don't demolish old houses. When renovating, renovate without losing the authenticity. Let's work together to bring Chettinad from the current tentative list to the permanent list of UNESCO.
- Namadhu Chettinad Magazine Feb 2025 -
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