Nalli Kuppuswami Chetti. | Photo Credit: Johan Sathyadas Nalli Kuppuswami Chetti has been a patron of the arts for long. Over the decades of seeing the December Season flourish in Madras and then Chennai, he’s presided over tremendous change. In 1954, he was a 14-year-old boy who stood mesmerised outside his family textile shop in T. Nagar as music wafted through the air from the nearby Krishna Gana Sabha. In 2024, the 85-year-old rasika of music still marks out his favourite concerts without fail. In numerous interviews, Kuppuswami Chetti has spoken about how he learnt to understand the music that he already enjoyed.