Narrative

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The streets of Kattuputhur were all busy at 5 in the morning with men heading to the neighborhood market and women decorating their house and the street with ‘kolam’.The house well lit with pleasant sunlight finding its way through the lively courtyards and clerestory windows, the front porch adorned with ‘Thinnai’ welcoming every passerby to the humble abode. The majestic stature of the Zamin’s Palace stood amidst the simple and lively habitats of the villagers; overlooking the village and its administration, the typical ambiance of a south Indian village in the 19th century reflecting its socio-cultural values on the physical realm.

 

Located in Tiruchirappalli district in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu, Kattuputhur is a village with lush farmlands enriched by the river Cauvery on its fringes.The village operated as a single biological unit with functions pertaining to every individual entity. The Zamin, being the head of the village has his palace at central location, fostering administration and controlling the farmlands. The palace is a complex of building spanning over 10,000 sq.m of land with habitual spaces for the Zamin family, their servants, farmland enclosure, a rice granary and animal rearing area. The structure is a Self-sustaining habitat with all requirements for livelihood at feasibility. The palace connects with the village on every part of its social activities. If only I could travel to the 18th century to witness the vernacular setting.

 

It started when my classmates and I embarked on a journey to witness the glory of a heritage structure for a national level competition, to aid in the conservation of such structures in India. On reaching kattuputhur, way-finding had lost itself among the streets, hence, we took help from few inmates of the village to locate it.The Zamin palace in the 21st century, stood desolated, hidden amidst the village, losing its identity to inevitable architectural influences of the modern era.Few houses along with the palace were the only authentic structures to have survived among the architectural upheaval.

 

We were deprived of permission to enter the palace until later we found the caretaker to the building, a retired teacher doing a favor to the wealthy landlord, with  his successors having settled on other parts of India.The owner spends an ample sum of amount for maintenance of the structure every year.

 

The Palace had a security supervising it, who was the official timekeeper for the entire village, whose job is to strike the iron bell for every hour without fail. This tradition is being followed in the palace since its origin.

 

We were to document the entire building with a team of 25 people in 4 days, with utmost efforts we seized permission from the landlord as well the college HOD to proceed, and everything was set to explore the hidden stories and treasures lurking in the palace.

 

The palace emphasized horizontality and the front facade reflected chettinad  architecture with its symmetry and the tower like structures. The front porch had a vast thinnai space, which are elevated platforms on either side of central pathway with adjoining storage rooms for documents . It was ornamented with wooden columns with carvings on its capital and the horizontal rafters of the madras terrace roofing, also possessed similar carvings. The zamindar had clerks work under them and the space was dedicated as their work premises with stairs, leading to the upper floor, accessible from the front porch and from the interior of the palace as well, used as supplementary meeting space by the officials.

 

The entry main door had highly intricate carving on teak wood. Craftsmanship stole the show, right from the beginning of the doorstep. Even the adjoining windows had its share of the skills of fine labor. The foyer is grand high storey structure of 7.5m with wooden panels covering the madras terrace roof. It was adorned with paintings by Ravi varma, the original ones and had furniture made with similar intricacies as of the main door. Parallel to the entrance was the pooja room with door detailing slightly less intricate than the main door yet significant to induce attention. The foyer had five other rooms adjoining it, for storage of valuables such as silverware, rice stocks and money for possession and for distribution to the needy. 

 

It took us around 2 hours to figure out the plan of the palace, a maze like structure which made us reach the same room more than once, circumnavigating along its courtyards, interconnected hallways and multiple rooms. It all made sense once we started keenly analyzing the spaces. The palace was rumored to be one of the terror invoking places where one could get lost easily and not find his/her way back and was also rumored to have a secret underground passage which we were unlucky to find false. Even the security would not dare enter the palace on late hours without company.

 

Though the facade was akin to Chettinad architecture, we did not find the palace to reflect the typical spatial planning of one. It was neither linear nor had a large courtyard planning. As the Zamin were the landlord and the administrative head of the village under British rule, they had servants for their everyday activities and the spatial planning reflected every aspect of it.

 

The foyer connects to the rest of the spaces through a corridor. To the left was a staircase leading to the upper floor of administration. The corridor abutted at an open to sky wash area for guests to wash their feet before they get into to rest of the palace and to its right was a closed room , which we were not provided access to; until I took a peek through its dusty windows from the wash area. It was paradise with books adorned all over the teak furniture with earthy upholstery and flooring matching to the wooden theme, adding to the beauty of the books. They laid still calling to the world to be noticed.

 

There were multiple linear corridors providing visually connectivity to the yard on the other side of the building. There were two large halls of 15m each ,lying symmetric separated by a corridor. Their entry supported by sturdy stone columns on either side, this too was double storey high and had clerestory windows flooding in light. The height of the halls were broken down by cornices on three levels, the halls were decorated with pictures of the family and artistic mirrors. These halls were used by the zamin for holding meeting with the British officials.

 

The palace had delicately zoned spatial planning with intangible territories marked for public, private and semi private spaces. All of these spaces, however, was connected to the service core  (i.e., kitchen and other utility )for the servants to access and service the Zamindars, yet had the privacy it needed. The private dwelling were all zoned on the upper floor with corridors overlooking the courtyard spaces below. The service core was zoned at the rear end of the palace with separate entry at the west, with connectivity to the animal rearing area and the farmlands.

 

Food was cooked in huge quantities and was served to the workers and the inmates of the village ,milk supplied at the west entrance of the palace to the needy at all times 

 

The public and semi private spaces were demarcated by two courtyard with colonnades made of stone. The flooring pattern added to the beauty of the open well lit spaces, intricate laying of tiles with the size of the it  varying from 50mm to 100mm and portrayed the craftsmanship of skilled labour.  

 

We were intrigued to find the structural stability of the building, it was heavy masonry with  layers of lime plastering with the finish of a smooth sea shell which had sustained itself for over 100 years and would continue to so.The palace had a separate yard for making the plaster from scratch and the process of lime plastering is a tedious time consuming task which has lead way for its sustenance.

 

We had the opportunity of talking to the person who used to work for the zamin family, who was almost 100 years old, who shared his stories about the zamin family, the culture and the social values  of the village. He explained us about the multiple halls and rooms in the palace and their day to day usage.

 

All along the palace we were constantly shifting our attention to one piece of detail to another. The mind, struck between deep scrutinizing and taking glances of every detail at one shot. The physical and the spiritual realm were in harmony along every part of the building, interacting with all living things habituating it.

 

Heritage structures around the world stand as cultural epitome of the particular region with endless stories and values engraved within their walls and it our dire duty to decode the values and conserve the structures from becoming obsolete.

The majestic yet forlorn structure stands in solitary, waiting to be adorned with souls, or be left in desolation.