He walked in the street with his arm around his wife, Chellamma. In the conservative early 20 th century, this was seen as public, explicit display of a man’s affection for his woman—a cardinal sin.

A deep sense of nostalgia and pride pervades the century-old building on Thulasinga Perumal Koil Street, close to the Parthasarathy Swamy Temple at Triplicane. Subramania Bharathiyar, one of the ...