This house is unlike other houses which have featured in this column. Every decade a house lived it gathered stories and in every generation its storytellers. One hoped these houses live on defying mortality. Maintenance costs are discussed but with affection, never demolition. If that happens what of the stories? One has never met an announcement of demolition, so septuagenarian Tresa Varghese’s announcement “We are demolishing this house next week” takes a minute to process.
“The house is more than 100 years old. And every thing has its time and the time of this house is up,” she says. She is standing at the half-door, the top half open, while a parrot in a cage hung outside the house, looks on curiously.
After more than a century of bearing the elements, ‘development’ and growing families it is time to bid adieu. The house, Illiparambu , on Deshabhimani Road, is a former shadow of herself, broken in parts, from time to time, to accommodate life. Double-storeyed commercial spaces, a hulking workshop, a few houses including a partly-constructed building drown the structure. What was once white paint is now light ochre. Tresa has been living in the house for the last 59 years. She came here as the late Varghese Ipe’s bride, seen the house in all its glory and witnessed the change. Varghese and she went on to have nine children. Her sons live around the ancestral house.
The house was built by Varghese’s father, who was known as Ipe. Tresa’s eldest son, I. V. Joseph says, “It is definitely more than 120 years old. My grandfather’s tharavadu , Nettaveliparambu , was 10 houses away from here. When the property was divided he got this portion, 80 cents in all. He built the house here. And my father inherited the house.” Today the house stands on 55 cents.
Tresa says when she came here, Deshabhimani Road was a kucha road and there was plenty of space in front of the house, around the house. The space shrunk over the years, the family had to give land for road widening a couple of times. “For the sake of development we, as ordinary citizens, should do our might and we are not complaining,” Joseph interjects, as his mother starts talk of the road widening.
The house is small, “because parts of the house were demolished to accommodate the needs of a growing family,” Joseph says. Ironically the small house grew to make space for more rooms and later shrank to make space for more houses. The living room is horizontal, with a window facing the entrance, a window (now closed) on one wall and a door on the other side. “That way my father could sit here and see what was happening on all sides,” jokes John Sabu, one of twins who are Joseph’s youngest brothers. “It is for purposes of cross-ventilation and that kept the house cool,” Joseph says. The windows are large, possibly to let in light and air. The house extended on both sides to include many more rooms, today there are a couple of rooms, a kitchen and a couple of halls.
The wooden rafters have been changed to keep the house safe. The roof used to be more prominent. The hall parallel to the drawing room used to be large enough to accommodate more than 50 people, John says. “Those days’ family functions were conducted at home.” The kitchen, as was the norm those days, was outside the house. “At meal times, if it rained, we used to cover our heads and make a run for the kitchen to eat.” There used to be a cowshed too. The house holds memories, but dealing with a structure this old requires pragmatism. And the family has, rightly, decided to put the safety of its inhabitants first.
As if defying everything concrete and metal a lush ilanji tree flourishes outside. Other trees in the compound included koovalam and anjili . Hopefully, the ilanji will live to tell the tale.
