With its verandas, windowed balconies, wooden staircase and passages that lead into and out of large, cool rooms, the Malabar House inspires the romantic. “It is great to sit here and look at the rains or just sit here and look at nothing at all,” says Lalitha Varma, who owns the house and lives there.
In the middle of Church Landing Road, with all the din and dust of traffic rising like invisible clouds, the Malabar House remains a precious vestige of post-colonial architectural glory.
Built in 1938, the mansion is believed to have been designed by the legendary British engineer Robert Bristow. Lalitha’s parents bought the house from a doctor, Tharian Varghese, in 1948 when they got married. Lalitha was born in the house and grew up in it with her brother. She does not remember many changes that were made to it, except a few necessary modifications to the kitchen. “The kitchen area was open. For safety’s sake, the open passages were covered.”
The house, after 50 years, is being re-wired. “Till now, it had not given us any trouble. Of late, the wiring has begun to leak,” she says. The old-fashioned tiled roof hasn’t caused any problems either. Unless of course, when the mangoes fall.
Attached to the veranda is a room, where Lalitha’s husband, advocate K.P. Sreekumar, practises.
The drawing room has a wooden floor, perhaps originally intended as a performance space. A chiming clock, at least over a 100 years-old, rests on the wall.
“The whole house reverberates with its chimes,” says Lalitha, adding that it has always been a part of the house.
Her father, Kerala Varma, from the Royal family of Cochin, was a professor of Chemistry at Maharajas College and her mother, Saraswathy Varma, came from a prominent family in Kozhikode. “I guess they named it Malabar House, to bring in a touch of the Malabar,” she says.
The drawing room leads to a spacious bedroom with giant windows that allow proper cross-ventilation. Even in the oppressive heat of summer, the room seemed extraordinarily cool, owing to its high ceiling. The attached bath features large windows and doors, too.
The kitchen lies across a small room under the staircase, opening out into a brightly lit passage. The doors on either side open out into the courtyard aflush with flowering plants. “It serves the purpose of the traditional nadumittam,” Lalitha says.
Each piece of furniture in the house has years of history behind it – easy chairs, chests of drawers, tables, book shelves, full-length mirrors, cots with ornate woodwork and musical instruments. Many of them have come from Lalitha’s mother’s house. The dining table, for instance, is a fine work of art by itself—built in heavy rosewood with the ends of its legs designed as lion’s paws.
The staircase leads to a corridor with a row of windows opening out into the garden. On either side are the bedrooms. (The house has four large bedrooms—two downstairs and two upstairs). It has a living area, too.
The corridor provides a doorway to the terrace, with a soothing view of the lush lawn below neatly bordered by potted plants.
The master bedroom on the upper storey affords a spectacular view of the trees, so close, one can extend a hand outside the window and touch the leaves. “I don’t know exactly how many trees the compound has, but some of them I planted myself. They have become huge now. My dream is to have an orchard,” Lalitha says.
Maintaining a house as big comes with its troubles. “It has to be swept and swabbed every day. The red oxide is not as you see it now,” she says, alluding to the mess created by the on-going maintenance work. “It would shine like it has been polished.”
The pond in the courtyard was a later addition. “My paternal grandparents , were very traditional. When they came to visit, they would take a dip in the pond and only then have their meal. The pond was made for their benefit,” Lalitha says.
Her father, Kerala Varma was the nephew of Pareekshith Thampuran, the last official ruler of the Cochin Princely State.
The courtyard once had a badminton court, where Lalitha and her brother Murali Kumar played.
Today the space has been taken up by kennels for Salt and Pepper, two Labradors and an aging Dalmatian.
“We have never thought of doing anything to the house. Just a few nips and tucks here and there, for if we don’t do it now, the building may not be able to take it later. I am far too sentimentally attached to it,” she says.
