KUALA LUMPUR, March 16 — When Nirmala Devi Padiachee left her hometown Melaka to pursue higher studies in Kuala Lumpur, she often faced questions and criticisms for not being able to speak Tamil.

Whenever she attempted to explain her Melaka Chetti roots, the instant response she would hear was, “Oh, so you’re a Chettiar!” — referring to the Chettiar caste within the Tamil ethnic group.

“Since I look like Tamil and have a Tamil-sounding name, I was expected to speak Tamil fluently,” Nirmala, 55, told Malay Mail. 

The Melaka Chetti is a close-knit community of devout Hindus with Malay as their mother tongue.

Amuthavathi Pillay, 60, said the community enjoyed wider acceptance from locals in Melaka since the state hosts various mixed cultures like the Baba Nyonya and the Melaka Portuguese communities. 

“What’s unique about us is that if you walk through the kampung, everybody speaks Malay. But, we also hang mango leaves over our doors and have Hindu altars in our homes. 

“Sometimes, you can even smell the sambrani — or kemenyan —  when you walk around our homes.

“Yes, we don’t speak Tamil but sometimes we are even more staunch (Hindus). 

“The Melaka Chetti never do shortcuts. Even if it means giving an arm to get a ritual done, we will do that,” Amutha said. 

Similarly, Nirmala said the lives of Melaka Chetti children revolved around the temples and the strong community spirit in their ancestral village in Jalan Gajah Berang, Melaka.

“As school-going kids, we would get ready to leave the house before the first temple bell rings. When the second bell rings, we should already be walking to school. 

“In the afternoon, the matriarchs sit outside their homes, watching the children return and question them if they’re coming back late.

“When we get ready to light up a lamp at the altar in the evening, another temple bell would ring,” Nirmala said, sharing her childhood memories. 

Nirmala is currently the assistant secretary of the Melaka Chetti Heritage Association of Malaysia (MCHAM) while Amutha serves as its treasurer. 

So, how did the Melaka Chettis come about? 

Retired writer and former educator Narayanasamy Karpaya, 84, said the Melaka Chetti community started taking root during the Malacca Sultanate when seafaring Tamil traders came to the port city. 

Narayanasamy, who wrote a thesis on the community in 1966 and co-authored the “Melaka Chitties” book for Universiti Putra Malaysia in 2017, said the trade missions — usually led by a Chettiar — also comprised priests, goldsmiths and other workers from at least 11 different castes.  

“Some of them stayed behind and married local women, especially from the Javanese and Batak communities. 

“So, the Chettis were not brought to Malaya by anybody; they came here on their own,” Narayanasamy explained. 

While the Tamil-speaking Chetti men were devout Hindus, their non-Tamil speaking local wives were responsible for raising the children and interacted with them in Malay.

So, Malay gradually became the community’s lingua franca while the use of Tamil was limited to religious rituals. 

The first Melaka Chetti temple — the Sri Poyyatha Vinayaga Moorthy Temple at Jalan Tukang Emas — was built in 1781 after the Dutch colonial rulers awarded a land grant to the community’s then leader, Thavinayagar Chitty. 

However, Narayanasamy said the Dutch rulers also gradually drove the Chettis out of trading by razing their original seaward side settlements and pushing them inwards to the riverside. 

“So, the wealthier Chettis ventured into brick-making business while the lower-income families made ends meet by farming in areas such as Limbongan and Jalan Gajah Berang.

“During the British rule, most Melaka Chettis enrolled their children into English schools to secure government employment,” he explained.

Narayanasamy said the community also practised the panchayat system — an Indian self-rule tradition where selected elders mediate disputes in the village — until the British legal system eventually rendered it obsolete. 

Five hundred years of tradition in a cookbook

In 2023, the MCHAM published the “Melaka Chetti Kitchen: Culinary Journey of 500 years”, a treasure trove of Melaka Chetti recipes and rituals that have been carefully preserved for generations.  

“Previously, we had many families living together in the village and whenever there were weddings or funerals, an elder would be there to guide us on the rituals.

“But, as families migrate out and with the passing of each elder, we were slowly losing that knowledge. 

“So, we decided to gather and document as much as we could about our culture in this book,” Nirmala explained. 

Nirmala said the book also guides younger Melaka Chetti descendants to observe cultural practices like Parchu Bhogi — a thanksgiving prayer to their ancestors on the eve of the Pongal festival. 

One interesting recipe, she said, is the peria rebus or boiled bittergourd that is cooked by the Melaka Chetti community, specifically to mark the end of their mourning period. 

Both the Melaka Chetti and Tamil Hindus usually observe a 16-day mourning period to grieve a family member’s death and eat only vegetarian food throughout the period.

They end their mourning by eating non-vegetarian food on the 17th day, but the Melaka Chettis are required to first eat the peria rebus — or what Amutha calls a “transition meal” — before they can eat non-vegetarian food. 

The dish is prepared by cutting the bittergourd into oblong slices and have the edges rounded before boiling them. 

“The Melaka Chettis always say, ‘biar mati anak, jangan mati adat’,” Amutha said, referring to the Malay proverb that stresses on the importance of cultural continuity. 

“Considering that the women were Javanese or Bugis, they have preserved the Tamil rituals so passionately and followed them to the tee,” she added.