A chance conversation with a distant family member led me to Palayil, the name bestowed on my ancestral tharavad. The latter is the name given to a house designed around women. Ours had stood, in some form, since at least the 17th century. My great-grandmother, Palayil Sreedevi, was the last woman in my line to live in one. It was in the southern Indian village of Tholanur.
My great-grandmother belonged to the Nair community, a matrilineal caste with its origins in the state of Kerala. Historically, it was a martial nobility that served royal dynasties. For centuries, Nair boys left home at 12 to train as soldiers before being dispatched to serve the Travancore royal family. When men returned, they often slept in outhouses – satellites to the tharavad of women.
