After watching the movies "Ponniyin Selvan" 1 and 2 when they were released some time back, I had a renewed interest in the far reaches of the Chola king's empire, which is supposed to have reached Malaya back then. As I had nothing on my hands here, I asked a friend in India to check if there were any written records about the Chola king's conquest in Malaya. As he was not too keen to help out, I left it at that. Today, my wife calls me to her side and shows me a PDF copy of a 1938 edition of a book on the origin of Malaya in Tamil, மலாயாவின் தோற்றம் "Happy Malaya" shared by a relative of hers, Mr Ramani, who had returned from Australia and was tracing his family tree. Flipping through the pages of the 492-page digital book, what caught my attention was a chronology of events listed by the author, P.N.M. Muthupalaniappa Chettiar, of Bukit Mertajam from as far back as 454 AD. During this year, the Saivite ruler of Sumatra, Eswara Narendran, sent one Rudran as an ambassador to China. Going through the list of dates, there it was - the year the Chola king stepped on our soil was stated as 1017 AD. The Chola king took arms against the King of Kalinga Sailendra, @ Maharaja, who, having fled Java, had taken possession of Singapura and Malacca then. The Chola king then took possession of Kedah, Acheh, and the Nicobar Islands in 1030. Both my wife and I were pretty excited to know this fact. I have yet to read the book from start to finish, but I will do it. I thank Mr Ramani for his effort in collecting these documents and sharing.
While history records the coming of Indians to Peninsula Malaya, as being brought by the British to work the rubber estates and lay the railways, my father and his brother, hailing from the Chettiar community, came as "bankers". The site http://eresources.nlb.gov.sg/infopedia/articles/SIP_2013-12-11_165654.html, mentions that,
The Chettiars were traditionally merchants and traders in precious stones but later became involved in banking and money lending activities. Their role in finance expanded with the growth of British colonial rule in Southeast Asia. Many Chettiars emigrated from India to Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), Burma (now Myanmar) and Malaya (now Malaysia) as the British expanded their presence in the region.
My late father, like the others who were moneylenders both by clan and profession, took the leap too, seizing the opportunity as new frontiers opened up. He left his homeland in search of greener pastures. I was always proud of my father for his courage to travel far to do business in Burma, Ceylon, and Singapore, and finally settle in Malaya in the years when the only means of travel was by foot, horse cart, bullock cart, and ship. He began his business with his peers in Ipoh and later at Market Street in Taiping. If my father continued his family business of lending money, or "Money Lenders" as they were known back then, my uncle ventured to start a driving school, the New Star Driving School.
Having purchased properties and assets, life was promising until the war came. When a string of machine gunshots from a Japanese fighter plane missed my father by inches, he realized that moment that all the wealth and money he had could not possibly bring him alive if he had been hit by a stray bullet. He became a philanthropist thereafter. We believe that all the merits he gained from doing charity have saved us to this day. Money and food were scarce, yet they raised all of us well, giving us all an education, a roof above our heads, and meals too. Though my late father never shared his story and his ties with his family in India, however, my brother managed to ask our mother to talk about life back then.
I went in search of my father's village home in the hope of meeting my relatives on Indian soil during my maiden journey to India in 2003. But for some reason, it did not materialize even as I stood on the street where he played and grew up. As I stood at the door of his ancestral home in Kilsevalpatti, Sivagangai, I came to know from a relative a few doors away that the whole family of my late father was gathered at the home of my cousin, who had passed away the previous night. As I was on a pilgrimage of temples listed out by Agathiyar, and the highlight of it being my circumambulation or Girivalam of Annamalaiyaar of Tiruvannamalai the following day, I had to shelve my wish to step into the ancestral home of my father. I just took some photographs of the exterior of his home and the street and left.
I understand that the Chettiar's have records of their ancestors and ancestry kept in their respective temples. I am told that they have nine temples each for their sub-clan. I have to look up Madhur temple to know mine.