Rama Mandiram is one of the last but proud remnants of a vast household complex in Vazhuthacaud

It was once the centrepiece of an expansive complex of buildings that was the home of N. Raman Pillai, son of Dewan Nanoo Pillai, and excise commissioner of erstwhile Travancore. Today, the 100-year-old Rama Mandiram, a double-storied mansion opposite the Freemason’s Hall in Vazhuthacaud, stands tall as a small but regal glimpse of a bygone era.

At first sight itself Rama Mandiram’s quiet grandeur takes your breath away and that’s despite the hugekannikonna (golden laburnum), the pride and joy of a well-manicured garden, obstructing the view of the house from the road. As you walk towards the well-maintained house, set at the far end of the property, the simple, columned portico draws your eye as does the traditional sloped, Kerala-style tiled roof and the four huge wooden windows, supported by wrought iron railings, which enclose the veranda upstairs. To the left, almost hidden behind the leaves of a tree, is a relief of Goddess Lakshmi, flanked by two elephants.

“I’m told that Rama Mandiram was part an ‘ettukettu’ (a traditional house with two central courtyards). Raman Pillai, known as ‘Tiger’, reared horses and there used to be a stable for them somewhere in the back of the compound, before it was all torn down to make way for buildings. This particular section of the complex was the men’s quarters,” says Mrs. Nair, great-granddaughter of Raman Pillai, who now lives in the house. She rents out the upper floor of the house, which has a separate entrance.

Her grandmother Madhavi Amma, one of Raman Pillai’s five daughters, inherited this portion of the house, which she then passed on to her son, Krishnan Nair, a doctor. “My sister and I were brought up in Chennai and so I don’t know much about the house’s history. It was only in 1969 that my father moved to the city and began restoring the house. Until then and for a time afterwards the house was given out on rent. During my grandmother’s time, I believe, it used to house an annex and hostel of the Government Women’s College. Later it was rented out to various government offices,” she explains. Mrs. Nair and her late husband, N.G.K. Nair, a geologist with the National Centre for Earth Science Studies, and their children, set up home in Rama Mandiram in the early 1980s.

Not much of alteration has been done to the house since her father’s times, claims Mrs. Nair. “He enclosed the downstairs verandah but retained the original wooden staircase,” she explains, pointing to a small but wide wooden staircase on the left side. The staircase is reminiscent of those in old Victorian public buildings that dot the city.

“A bunch of architectural students who visited the house suggested that it might be this wide because Raman Pillai used to hold court in his office here,” explains Mrs. Nair. The verandah leads into a spacious living-cum-dining room, dotted with vintage 1970s/80s furniture, and a high wooden ceiling. It has bedrooms and a small pooja room on either side. “Once upon a time, the pooja room used to be my grandmother’s brother’s meditation room,” says Mrs. Nair.

The bedroom on the left (with an old world four poster bed), in turn leads to what the family calls ‘the dark room,’ which still has an original tiled floor. “The dark room was the section of the house that connected the men’s quarters to the other areas. It once even had a separate entrance (over which the relief hangs) and has since been enclosed,” she says.

To the back of the dining room is the kitchen. “When the house was divided among the six children of Raman Pillai, this portion did not have a kitchen. So, my grandmother had one constructed. The house also has a cellar and a huge attic upstairs,” explains Mrs. Nair, rounding up the tour.

(A column on houses in and around the city that are more than 50 years old)