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COORG PERSON: SUPER ACHIEVER BRINDA SOMAYA IS NOT IN RACE

By P.T. Bopanna

While selecting ‘Coorg Person of the Year’, I am very particular that the candidate should be a home-grown one. The idea is to pick a ‘role model’ with whom the residents of Kodagu could identify themselves and get inspiration.

That is the reason why I have not included architect Brinda Somaya (in picture) in the list of probables for the Coorg Person this year.

Brinda, daughter of K.M. Chinnappa, the legendary managing director of Tata Electric Companies, Mumbai, is an internationally renowned architect.

The American Institute of Architects named her earlier this year among its 2025 Honorary Fellows, recognizing her transformative contributions to contemporary architecture and cultural preservation.

Brinda’s father Chinnappa, had provided jobs to many Kodava youths in the Tata group, and is remembered with affection in his home district of Kodagu (Coorg) in Karnataka.

Brinda, who heads Somaya & Kalappa, a Mumbai-based company, has put together the book ‘Silent Sentinels – Traditional architecture of Coorg’ published in 2005.  

The book documents three major building types of Coorg architecture: the ainemane (clan house), the temple, and the independent house. In addition to providing a record of a distinctive architectural tradition, the book attempts to inculcate a fuller understanding the appreciation of the values, beliefs, and practices that shaped it.

Married to Dr Anand Somaya, a cardiac surgeon. Brinda did her Master’s from Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts, USA. Brinda was the recipient of an honorary doctorate from her alma mater, Smith College. Her sister Ranjini Kalappa too is an architect.

Brinda has merged architecture, conservation and social equity in projects ranging from institutional campuses and rehabilitation of an earthquake-torn village to the restoration of an 18th-century Cathedral, showing that progress and history need not be at odds.

Interestingly, K.M.Chinnappa (Kuppanda) had hired me in his company Tata Electric, where I worked for little over a year in late seventies at India’s first 500 MW thermal project at Trombay in Mumbai.

In gratitude, I dedicated my book Rise and Fall of the Coorg State, to Chinnappa. The book deals with the wiping out of the erstwhile Coorg State and its merger with Karnataka in 1956, following the reorganisation of states. The book is close to my heart. The paperback copy of the book is available on Amazon: