Childbirth room next to the period room: Kerala tharavads designed for women

A chance conversation led the author to Palayil, the name of her ancestral tharavad in Tholanur. The tharavad is a house built around women; Palayil had stood in some form since at least the 17th century and was last inhabited by her great-grandmother, Palayil Sreedevi.

When she returned in 2024 she found only a groundkeeper’s house, a serpent shrine and an old gate, but the house’s grammar — the rooms, routes and bodies it was built to hold — survives in other tharavads across Kerala. The nalukettu, or “four corners”, opens on to a roofless central courtyard, the nadumuttam, with four blocks facing the directions.

Male master carpenters drew and built the structures, but the brief was set by women. At a surviving tharavad called Kandath, its custodian Sudevan Bhagwaldas showed the purathalams — raised cushioned platforms where, he said, “It has been designed so that, acoustically, no word spoken by the women can be heard by the men and vice versa – even if you should shout.” Practical care was embedded in the plan.

kerala, tharavad, nalukettu, nadumuttam, purathalams, palayil, tholanur, kandath, women centred, sudevan bhagwaldas