T. Nagar (shopping)

T. Nagar (Thyagaraya Nagar) is one of the highest-revenue shopping districts in the country and the retail engine of Chennai. Centred on Ranganathan Street and Pondy Bazaar, it's a dense, frantic warren of enormous silk and jewellery emporiums, textile showrooms and pavement stalls.

The area is legendary for silk sarees and gold — Chennai families flock here for weddings and festivals — and the crowds during Diwali or the wedding season are a spectacle in themselves. It's chaotic, colourful and quintessentially Chennai.

• ›The grand silk saree and textile emporiums.
• ›The gold and jewellery showrooms.
• ›Pondy Bazaar's street stalls and snacks.

Avoid festival-season weekends unless you love crowds. It's walkable but intense — go early. Fixed-price emporiums sit alongside hagglable street stalls.