Nalukettu type houses-Do we really need it?

In the last week, I visited Cheruthuruthy near Shornur, Anchal near Punalur and Thalayolaparambu on the way to Kottayam from Cochin for site visit before design and construction of houses.
Cheruthuruthy person is an NRI working in Dubai.Anchal person is settled and working in Delhi. Entire family of Thalayolaparambu chap is settled in Bangalore
One common feature for all three guys is that they want house with Nadumuttom or Nalukettu house in the traditional Kerala Architecture style.
For those of you who are not familiar with this Nadumuttom and Nalukettu I will give some basic information. Nadumuttom is an open space in the middle of normally single storied house. In the earlier days roof with wooden rafters and large tiles over it used to be the normally used roof in Kerala. Anyone who climbs up the roof can easily remove one or two tiles and if the wooden rafters are not closely laid, he can easily enter inside the house from top. Probably in the earlier days of Kerala there were no such robberies
Portions with slope roofs on all four sides will have sloping down roof portions merging in the open space called Nadumuttom which is exposed to sky. So any one who climbs up the roof of the house can easily reach the open court yard in the centre of the house called Nadumuttom. Probably due to Joint family living system each of these Nalukettu houses were having large number of people staying together and may be due to the presence of large number of people in the house, they were not afraid of any one climbing down to the centre open court yard of the house.
In the present nuclear family set up, most of the houses in Kerala have only one male occupant and hence insecurity among occupants of the house is very high. Again most of these NRI owned large houses in Kerala has got only old parents staying with nobody else with them. Their children reach home only once in a while on vacation from abroad where they work. Houses are built in anticipation for their retirement days when they return to native Kerala after making enough money by working abroad
House with one Nadumuttom is called Nalukettu. House with two Nadumuttom is called Ettu kettu. Similarly there used to be even Pathinaru Kettu with four nadumuttom in a single building. Obviously in a Pathinaru kettu set up, lot of relatives must be staying together as a joint family and due to presence of large number of male members they were not afraid of any robber even though the house is easily accessible from above.
Nalukettu style of construction also requires a wide passage to be kept on all four sides of Nadumuttom for easy access to Nadumuttom. This feature also increases built up area for the house. When you are going for a Nadumuttom type house, you will naturally have to go for Poomukham and Chuttu verandah, again features of old houses of Kerala land lords who never ever worked with their body. They had low class persons working for them in the field, plantations and paddy fields. Their only activities were eating, sleeping, doing sex and for those interested in arts and music to enjoy arts and music
My clients who might have acquired enough wealth working abroad consider having a Nalukettu house simply to satisfy their ego. In reality a Nalukettu type construction does not give any benefit other than increasing cost of construction in the present scenario. You cannot have an open to sky central court yard now with rain pouring inside at the centre of the house due to security reasons. So you will have to close that portion above with steel fabrication.
Apart from these three persons at Cheruthuruthy,Anchal and Thalayolaparambu a lot more are asking me regularly to design and build Nalukettu houses. I have written all these mainly to stress the futility of going for Nadumuttom and Nalukettu type construction in the modern day Kerala
On the way back from Cheruthuruthy I simply dropped in at Trichur Engineering College where I studied. It was vacation time there. Still a few classes were going on. I walked around the campus noticing new blocks and buildings occupying earlier open spaces. Students still looked insecure like in my days of college. Each place of the campus could rekindle memories in me. Apart from few new buildings, everything looked the same. Even the large drawing halls are still having wooden drawing boards refusing to accept the fact that professional engineering world outside do not even use them as show piece in offices. When outside world is fully computerized, Engineering College is still having closed air conditioned computer labs as sort of show pieces. When will the academic training will get tuned to professional world outside so that engineers capable of working in industry will come out of these engineering colleges? Now those who come out of engineering colleges have to be re educated and retrained to suit industry requirements and demands of the profession
I have noticed name of one of my old classmates in a notice in notice board with a tag professor before the name. I could not meet her as it was vacation time
At Thalayolaparambu, they already have more than 100 year old Ettu kettu which is in a dilapidated condition. I suggested demolishing of this building and constructing a two storied modern Nalukettu which can be used as a Home stay for western tourists. With nearly two acre land around and river flowing in one side with lot of greenery, the place is ideal for Home stay for tourists. Bangalore based owners of the land can come and stay in the Home stay during vacation

This story will not be complete if I do not write about my walk through familiar inside campus road by the side of hockey play ground to reach Engineering college post office. That building which had only post office is now expanded to have a Sate Bank of Travancore branch with an ATM counter.
This time I have noticed several huge mahogany trees in the campus. One huge size tree is there just in front of the post office building by the side of main road in front of Ramavaramapuram Church. The old church is no more there. In the same place there is a bigger church building showing the financial strength of Catholic Church.
Very close to post office building facing the main road, there is the old women’s college, Vimala College. The outside painting of the building and general look and appearance of Vimala College is simply marvelous. Probably when I used to walk in front of this building I used to notice only the living colours in and around the building. They are not there may be due to vacation time. I have also noticed the renovated gate and security cabins of Vimala College which is done well with aesthetic sense