Paruvakkat house Trichur,Kerala where we lived upto 1958
Many of the elders including Appa Amma and children upto Shobhana lived happily in this house ,,,,,,,,,
A recollection of the house by Sundaramoorthy Parameswaraiyer is given below ..
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Paruvakkattu House
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This is the house which is on Vadakke Angadi Road in Thrissur, Kerala where many of the piyers had the golden days in life.
Many children like Narayanan, Sobhana, Susi, Vimali , Raju were born there and the Midwife Narayanikutti used to take care of delivery of all children.Our family Doctor was Venkatachalam who used to come from his house in Naickanal by a hand driven rickshaw .. There were other Doctor like Dr V N Krihna Iyer nearby .We had one Pallan Medicals near Bus stand from where Konthai Anna used to buy medicines ..
The whole house had tiled drooping roves, on wooden frames and proper ceilings on all rooms.
The built in area area of the house is around 60 ft by 200ft.say 2400 sqft including the construction on the first floor...The surrounding land area was over 12000 sq ft.
This is the house which is on Vadakke Angadi Road in Thrissur,Kerala where many of the piyer had the golden days in life. Our Eachara periyaopa and family also stayed in the side portion of house for sometime and were happy there ..Krishnaperiyappa and Mangal athai who lived in Trichur used to visit us often and their children etc remember the house ..
The whole house had tiled drooping roves, on wooden frames and proper ceilings on all rooms.
1.Entrance:Had big doors with a sitting place , with considerably big platforms on either side (with tiled roof dropping type) , wherein vegetable vendors used to sit and do the sales.It was called a padippura in Malayalam meaning small house at entrance our Raghavan had an incident accidentally closing the door with a snake in between the doors which he closed without noticing the hanging snake on top of one of the doors.
As one enters the house a few feet to the right was an open enclosure about (6ft by 6 ft) with 4 sides of 2 feet high walls and 3 granite statues of snake/ god , was known as Sarpa kavu.. There were idols in stone of some Gods, snakee etc....Probably it was retained by the Royal family of Cochin which lived in the Place directly opposite to the house as some parihara or something ,,There was no regular puja or anything done thre except it used to be kept away from entrance of unclean persons and womenduring menstruation etc
2.Garden: (A). Front(flowers): Had the following flower plants
Rose button, Rose red and other colors,Kashi Thumba, Nandiyar vatta,Gandarajan, malli(double and single pettled) and coimbature malli, the thin one.,kanni kurka, thumbapoo,Decemberpoo,Jandu malli,Nalumani poo,Cockscomb and Perakka plant.
(B). Vegetables grown on back side: Avarakai,Cholam, Chembu,Kurka (Chinese Poatato),Kuruthola payar(Karamani),Ginger,Manjal,Vendakka,Kathirikka,Mat han,
Marudhani plants plancted and cut dressed were on both sides of way leading to the thinnai of the house
Elavan,Chenai,Pachamilagai,Chuni Milagai,
There were about 5 to 6 varieties of plantains(trees) all round the house totally about 100 numbers in all. avrakka had a pendant raised with bamboo sticks etc about (10ft by 10 ft) for the creeper to grow and spread, we used to collect avarakkai fresh about an arikinchatti full ( may be about 5 kgs).
3.Front Veranda
At the entrance to the main house, there was thinnai extending either side with platform on either side for people to squat on.They were black in colour almost resembling marble but were cleaned often .
4.Hall: This was the main place where everything takes place, had a round table with an AC/DC Radio set on it, in another corner there was pooja room like all swami photos on wall, was bed room for almost all , golu used to be arranged in front of swami photos.The rooms had ceilings with wooden beams and in the hall from those beams with nails plantain bunches used to be hung and each one used to eat as and when liked from those bunches.Even Mathan/ elavan used to be hung I think. 5.Bulb Pottina Room: just as you enter from hall this room,
While playing ball in this room , the light bulb happened to break so the room was named after that .
6.Passage Room to Right: This is to right of hall, in front of it was the thittil room and to further right of it was the pathayam room.
7.Thottil Room: This room had a small thottil(Cradle) in the centre of the room.Almost all piyer kids must have grown up in this thottil.
8.Dining Hall/ Pathayam Room : This was high roofed without ceiling . In one corner there was this pathayam( granary storage container) wherein paddy used to be stored, had a capacity to store about 100 kgs may be 9.Kitchen:Had firewood aduppu, kalchaties,kories,Idli panai,etc for cooking.Aduppu muttal daily was an ordinance.
10.Kalavara: Store Room where we used to steel Jaggery/Vellam (achu),Coconut pinnakku etc and munch at leisure.
11.Kollathavaram:
This is a thinnai like long platform, some washings were done here, in front was the home grown Keera pathi.May be servant maid used to ash vessels here.
12. Main Bath Room:No taps or showers but only Anda and buckets and a (njalingina) pathram for bathing. 13.Small Bath Room attached to well: Here there is a pulley drive to collect water from the well and have bath or wash vessels or water plants.
14.Passage Room Left:
This room had the wooden ,fully covered storage space with shutters, just below the space of staircase.
15.Kattil Room : is the only room with a cot so was named thus.
16.Madi Padi (staircase): was of wood and had a storage space below with shutters.
17.Passage Room Right:
Was more like general purpose room, used to ennathelpikkalthe kids etc.( oiling children for taking bath )
18. Almirah Room( in the madi): Is a bed room but had a glass doored almirah on which once I happened to hang on its door and fall down with the whole almirah and went to Dr Krishna Iyer for dressing with help of Manni.
19 . Hall( upstairs): in the upstairs was big and tiled floor ideal for murukku chuthaling and such activities.
20 . Passage Room left & right:(up stairs):These were upstairs and were general purpose passage rooms.
21. Konthai/Manni Bed Room : was their bed room upstairs.
All rooms had Attached nadan/local toilets , just a granite platform with outlet.No Indian/ Anglo Indian / western toilets those days. One room with toilet on left side of first floor was occupied by Kuttan Anna when he was studying in Trichur and later occupied by Eachara periyappa later .Appa was the Founder secretary of Pensioners Asdociation whose office was there in sane room .,, There were four chairs , table etc of Association and regular meetings of pensioners. Main among them were KN Menon ,Kochunni Menon , Pandit and others.
There was a bamboo pole in front of house to which external antenna.was connected Or aerial was connected through first floor windows . Radios required aerial and grounding those days and we had a wonderful GE valve Radio used in house by all.
Also we had a well for water one side attached to kitchen and another from outside containing pure water .. We used to drag water from well using bucket.
22. Left veranda: we used to store vaikkol or hay here because the thozhuthu with madu (cow shed with cow) and kannukutti was attached to this.
23.Back side Veranda outside Pathayam room, viragu(FireWood) and Nelagathil (a big brass vessel with two hooks hung from the roof of veranda with the help of long S hooks) used to be kept to store water exclusively for outside Toilet usage purpose.
24 Toilets(2)outside , 500 mts away from house.
One has to go with a chombu/bucket of water from the nilagadil.
There were the following trees at the back side: podiyini , konna, veppu(neem),Puli(tamarind) and a coconut, teak,
25. Fence(veli):
It was customary to build this fence, which is on on the left hand side and back side of the house,with bamboo bushes and bamboo strips once in a year .
White washing used to be done by an old man.
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There were about 5 to 6 varieties of plantains(trees) all round the house totally about 100 numbers in all. avrakka had a pendant raised with bamboo sticks etc about (10ft by 10 ft) for the creeper to grow and spread, we used to collect avarakkai fresh about an arikinchatti full ( may be about 5 kgs).
It was customary to build this fence, which is on on the left hand side and back side of the house,with bamboo bushes and bamboo strips once in a year .
White washing used to be done by an old man.
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◦ Raghavan adds ....,,,I add some more details like the Gateway or approach to the house from all sides .,,
◦ The present building is situated in Shoranur Rd Truchur .Kerala.
◦ Four sides of house
◦ Left Road d leading to Thiruvambadi Krishna temple ...Main persons ...places on the way .. Govindan Nair shop, Illam , Kunnath mana, Janaki teacher,vadhyar, Manian, Rajan,Menon etc
◦ Mariyamman temple
◦ Ayyappan cycle shop
◦ Compounder’s house
◦ Auditor Vaithi ... Seethalakshmi Lakshmi’s classmate
◦ Coffee shop Natarajan
◦ Happy home
◦ Jagannathan Tiles factory owners
◦ Vakil
Malayalam vayanasala,
◦ Indian express office
◦ Leading to Patturakkal where Chinna Manni’s periyappa CR Balasubramanyam lived
◦ Behind Thiruvambadi temple we had Ganapathi temple .. velichappadu was famous in Bagavathi temple and breaking coconut in Ganapathi temple by throwing . Apps used to take us to Ganapathi temple and join chanting Rudram, chanakam etc
◦ Vivekodayam school Head Master VG Ramaswami Iyer and science teacher P S Krishna Iyer also lived in Neighborhoods
◦ Next right side
◦ Road leading to Naickanal and touching Swaraj Grounds and Vadakkunnathan temple and Devaswom Commissioner’s office
◦ Passing through
◦ Nalapachagam Hotel
◦ Hotel Kuttan
◦ Ponnuchami, Milkman Gounder , Muslim Family ,
◦ Driver, Dakshin Bharath Hindi prachar Sabha of Hindi teacher Karunakaran, Pottan vegetable shop ,Provision shop
◦ Opposite side Judge Vaidyanatha Iyer , Kamala Medical , Ramutti Nair Ayurvedic pharmacy,street leading to Sharam houses , Pallithamam, vadakke chira etc
◦ Opposite to house
◦ One corner was Ayurveda Hospital and another corner Land Record Office
Road leading to Palace and grounds nearby Visweswaram and Bakthapriya temples .,,
having Dhanalakshmi Bank and TR Rama Iyer cloth stores in corner ...
Back of house behind a big tamarind tree was illam of Nambudiris
Appa was a member of Trichur Public Library .., we used to get periodicals delivered at home
Vegetable vendors like umma used to come and sell vegetables..
I have tried to cover all I remember ....
Our school .... Vivekodayam schools .....we were able to reach walking within five minutes 🐸🐸🐸🐸🐸🐸
◦Note...The house belonged to one Govindan Nair of Guruvayur of Paruvakkat house earlier rented out to us ,later converted to Auditorium by Thiruvambadi Dewaswam Trichur.
Previous post ........,,,,
PARUVAKKAT HOUSE TRICHUR WHERE WE LIVED TILL 1958..APPA WAS THE DEVASWOM COMMISSIONER COCHIN .HIS OFFICE WAS ATTACHED TO VADAKKUNNATHAN TEMPLE TRICHUR ..ALL THE MEMBERS OF OUR FAMILY STARTING FROM KONTHAI ANNA, KUTTAN, PARVATHI AND TILL SOBHANA HAVE LIVED IN THIS SPACIOUS HOUSE. SUSI AND VIMALI AND RAJU WERE BORN IN THIS HOUSE I HAVE PREPARED A ROUGH SKETCH OF IT AND ASKED SUNDARAM TO EDIT AND RECTIFY IT PRESENTLY THE PLACE IS HOUSED BY KOUSTHUBAM THIRUVAMBADI DEVASWOM ,AUDITORIUM TRICHUR
EACHARA PERIYAPPA AND HIS FAMILY ALSO STAYED IN THE SIDE OF THE HOUSE ALL OTHER PERIYAPPAS CHAMA,SUNDARAM,KRISHNA HAVE ALWAYS VISITED US AND GIVEN US A SENSE OF TOGETHERNESS. THEIR CHILDREN TOO VISITED US OFTEN AGAIN AMMA"S BROTHERS RAMASWAMY,SANKARAN AND OTHERS I DON'T REMEMBER THE NAMES HAVE VISITED US WITH THEIR FAMILIES. APPA"S SISTER ALAMELU MANGA ATHAI USED TO VISIT US OFTEN AND ALL HER CHILDREN OUR ATHANS USED TO COME MANU ATHAN ANOTHER SON OF LAKSHMI ATHAI AND HIS SISTERS ALSO CAME. OUR ,PARVATHI'S "S HUSBAND ATHIMBER AND HIS PARENTS,SIBLINGS KRISHNAMANI.DORAI.BABY,.NATRAJU WITH CHILDREN USED TO VISIT US FOR TRICHUR POORAM. AGAIN CHINNA MANNI"S PARENTS, PERIYAPPA AND HER SIBLINGS HAVE ALL VISITED US, OUR APPA"S COUSIN DR SUNDARESAN AND HIS WIFE VISALAM WITH CHILDREN SYAMALA AND KRISHNAMURTHY .OUR PERIYA MANNI'S PARENTS AND SIBLINGS WERE ALL REGULAR VISITORS TO THE HOUSE ALSO USED TO VISIT US WHO HAS NOT VISITED OR WHO HAS VISITED AND NOT LISTED BY ME ?
THIS HOUSE WAS OPPOSITE TO COCHIN RAJA PALACE GROUNDS,,,IN FRONT ONE CORNER WAS OCCUPIED BY AYURVEDA HOSPITAL AND ANOTHER BY THE LAND RECORD OFFICE. THERE WAS A BAGAVATHI TEMPLE NEARBY,
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