Coimbatore :

Just opposite the busy Flower Market on Mettupalayam Road are four narrow lanes called the Devangapet Streets. The streets appear to almost be an extension of the commercial main road. Streets are densely populated with garland makers, ceramic tile outlets, hardware stores and bakeries. With two-wheelers and auto stands parked on both sides of all the streets and the connecting bylanes, parking is a nightmare. It is difficult to imagine that these streets were closed to vehicular traffic for years around two to three decades back. These streets were where threads used to weave sarees were woven from cotton and dried on the road.

The streets were named after the community that used to weave these cotton threads —the Devanga Chettiars, a community that migrated from in and around Hampi, within the erstwhile Vijayanagara empire. The Devanga Chettiars were Telugu-speaking people who specialised in hand-weaving threads and saris. “Their cloth was very popular among the North Indian community, especially among people from Rajasthan,” recalls historian Rajesh Govindarajulu. “The cotton was considered very good for turbans,” he says.

This community is considered the people who created the Coimbatore cotton. “They were hard-working and industrial people. They were responsible for the advent of modern textiles 70 to 80 years ago,” says Govindarajulu. “This led to them making a fortune out of it,” he says.

Many in the community continue to manually weave threads, dye them and leave them on the streets to dry. They mainly lived on the four streets forming Devangapet and a few streets on the opposite side like Light House Road, R G Street and Oppannakara Street.

“They used to live on one-storied limestone and roofed houses,” remembers an employee of CSK Tubes, which has been on Devangapet Street for the past 30 years. “We used to know many of the residents living here till they sold their houses away,” he adds. Govindarajulu describes the houses as modest but well-constructed. “They used to have nice large windows, even if the houses were narrow. Many of their houses are considered heritage buildings,” he says. Today, only a handful of them remain. Most have them have converted to two or three-storied concrete buildings or commercial establishments with large frontages.

One of the streets during the 70s was also renamed as the Nanneri Kazhagam Street or the NNK Street. Though no stretches of the road bear the name, a few auto drivers remember that the Devangapet Streets were renamed NNK Street a few years ago. The Nanneri Kazhagam was founded in 1956 by Baburaj to promote Tamil literature. “It started in a small place above a jewellery shop on Big Bazaar Street,” says Perur K Jayaraman, a city historia, adding “We still meet once every month and host an event..”

source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / Home> City> Coimbatore / by Pratiksha Ramkumar, TNN / April 27th, 2014