It was October 2nd; I got up late as there was no
office. Two students knocked on my door and asked whether I can accompany them
to Ammachi Kottaram. As I was free and I was looking for opportunities to go
outside the campus, I said YES. When students came with this idea, I was in a
prejudice that the students knew everything about that palace and its route. I didn’t
know I was stepping into a new adventure.
We got ready by 12:30 pm and went outside. I got the details
at that time; there were 53 students and me for this journey. None of them knew
the exact route except a rough idea. I am the faculty here and so it is my sole
responsibility to take care of 53 students. I said to them that we will go by
auto. To our luck there was no auto. So we planned to go to next bus stop by
walk. It was 30 minutes walk. Students really enjoyed it. Some students were
tired. And then when we reached the stop, it started raining. It was at that
time I realized that most of the students didn’t carry an umbrella. Peermade is
a place where frequent raining occurs and yet the students dared not to carry
an umbrella. It started raining heavily. Under one umbrella there were at least
5 or 6 students. There were 8 or 9 groups like that including mine.
Two students went to catch auto. 5 auto’s came as per their
request, others climbed the bus. We reached Ammachi Kottaram by 2pm. I told the
students that we will spent one hour here and will go back. They said Ok.
The steps leading to secret passage
The Secret passage
I wouldn’t call this a palace. It would be better to say we
found the ruins of Palace. What makes a palace a palace is its architecture,
indoor decorative, antique collections etc. This is my concept about a Palace. But
here we won’t find anything like that. If we search in the nook and corner of
palace, we may see some beauty.
Our Guide
Dharma lingam was the name of our guide. He was a very old
man. It is from his words I get a glimpse of the palace history. I don’t know
how far it is true. But let me narrate what I heard.
Ammachi Kottaram, (the Palace of Queen Mother was built upon the ghaut at Glenrock Estate ans was opened by J D Munro. The Palace was built by Thiruvithamkoor Maharaja and is 210
years old now. It was like a olden summer resort for them. The palace consists
of 3 rooms, 2 halls, one visiting room, Dinning hall, Kitchen, store room and 2
secret passages. One secret passage is for movement within the palace and the
other secret passage will take one to Sree Krishna Temple in Peermade. But that
passage is closed for security reasons.
Another view of Nadumuttom
The visiting room is a small one with chimney in it. This will
lead to a hall which was used as an assembly room by the king. At the end of
the room there is a semi circled portion which adds beauty to the room, there
is also two French windows which give more light to the room and easy entry
from outside. The next room is ‘Nadumuttam’ which is an open area covered by
walls on the 4 sides. Here 3 rooms are there on one side. One used by Raja, One
by Rani and One by maids of Rani. A secret passage laid here ensures that any
time anyone in any room can go to the other rooms. Our guide told that this was
used by the maids, so that they can go to any room when they are called. (Something
just popped in my mind- (WHY CAN’T THE MAIDS GO NORMALLY USING THE DOORS?)
The Italian made windows
One room is used by the guide now. In other room all
furnitures are dumped. The third room was used by Maids. It was there I saw the
window which was imported from Italy. The design for that was given by
Maharaja. Now this is one among the few things in palace which has not been
destroyed in the wrath of time. The design, the craftsmanship and the look of
the window was magnificent.
Entertainment hall
Then there was one more hall which was used for
entertainment activities like dance, singing etc. This was similar to that of
assembly room expect for the fact that there was no French windows.
Then we have the big dinning hall. I saw the majestic
washbasins there. If it was renovated it would be a superb palace, but here it
is in all its ruins, neglected by government and people. The Kitchen was very
big and it could fit 100 people there
Nadumuttom
Guide said that the palace is now owned by an IT company at
Bangalore. He doesn’t know the name of that firm. Our guide was so nice to us,
so we gave him a nice tip. Anyways Students and I enjoyed the trip very much.
It was so good and nice. The students have already done the photo session of
it. Yet I let them have their photo session for a bit longer. When I saw them I
was recollecting my college memories. We don’t remember the classes but we do
remember the trips and IV’s. So I said to them, enjoy very well, for these are
the one among the most beautiful memories one can have.
