On Easwaran Koil Street stands a beautiful traditional house that is a blend of French colonial and Tamil styles. The grand wooden door and white pillars hide the fact that when you open the door, you walk into a house under major repair.
A long banyan root hangs from the ceiling inside a room on the left. Two banyan trees that grew inside the house have been pulled down – this is the state of Mahakavi Subramania Bharathiyar Memorial Museum now.
The Puducherry chapter of the INTACH has begun work to repair the house in which nationalist poet Bharathi lived. On this street also lived several persons including Ponnu Murugesan Pillai, Va. Ve. Su. Iyer, Vadhyar Subramania Iyer, Arumuga Chettiar, Raja Narayanasamy and Nagasami Iyer.
According to A. Arul, architect of INTACH, the work mainly involves roof repair, removal of cement plaster on the walls and replacing with lime mortar, rehabilitating the existing doors and windows, upgrading the electrical network and providing new cement floor. This part will show how the poet lived here by furnishing it in the style of his times.
The Puducherry government has also bought the adjoining building, which will be rebuilt and later will house a library and research centre. It will also have an exhibition hall that will have panels telling the story of the poet’s life and works. Both the works are being carried out at a cost of Rs. 99 lakh with funds from the Department of Art and Culture and are expected to be ready in nine months time.
