Our Royal Visit in Tamil Nadu
- Asmie
- Jan 4, 2020
- 2 min read
We travelled to a neighboring state, Tamil Nadu today. And the difference? Bumpy roads, poorer houses and all of the hoarding boards in Tamil. The visit was to Padmanabhapuram Palace which is still governed by the Government of Kerala State despite being located in Tamil Nadu. The palace is famous for its traditional Kerala architecture, with the use of local, sustainable materials that contribute to the cool interior of the tropically situated palace.
We entered through a big wooden door which had sharp metallic bolts attached to it, meant for injuring majestic elephants during wars. Then we entered the Poomukham, which literally means the entrance hall. It has elaboratively carved out ceilings and flooring of interesting mix of materials like coconut shells, jaggery, eggs, limestone, etc. The floor has a shining black finish but keeps the interior cool in the tropical climate. On the upper floor there lies the very beautiful council chamber called the Mantrashala with elaboratively carved wooden ceilings. The windows in the room are slanted ones, which act as lace windows and is used abundantly by Laurie Baker in his designs as well.
There’s a large dining hall that could accommodate 1000 people, traditional meals would be served to the public every day. The whole palace is built without nails, depending only on wooden and metallic joints. Another element that we would keep finding in the palace premise was courtyards. As courtyards help keep the air circulation moving, it helps with keeping the indoors cooler. There are also a lot of greeneries and green patches inside the palace which help to maintain the coolness.
We went through the royal bedroom, the queen’s restroom and her big bathhouse and a personal pond. As we transitioned from women’s area of the palace to men’s area of the palace, we could see the windows being elevated and being designed bigger and without the laced patterns. It was all because of the restriction on women to be seen by any other male than their husband. There were also separated seating for royal women and royal men to watch the dance ceremonies in the stone dance hall.
The patterns on every turns and corners of this palace were very decorative, intrinsic and rich. The green aspect of the palace acts as the cherry on top. With very beautiful images on our heart, we went back to Kovalam Beach to overwhelm our heart with more of the beauties.
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