We had guests at home last weekend. We had offered them to stay in one of the rooms in our two BR home. They wanted to know which is our room, and which is our son’s/ uncle’s rooms. I guess they wanted to know if they were disturbing us and our ‘usual’ spaces. That triggered a set of reeflections for us, about home design in the traditional Indian household.

When growing up, we have lived in agraharam houses. In that design, there are rooms from the front of the home to last part, but all these rooms are interconnected. Rooms were not allocated to individuals, but space was designed and defined for functional use. Depending on who needs that space, based on the context, they take that space for that purpose. So, the central hall (called rEzhi ரேழி) is the bed room in the night, and the same hall becomes the drawing room when visitors come, and the same place is the dining room when we eat. No one can claim ownership of any space for thenselves.

Last month, we had gone to a palatial home in Karaikudi (Athankudi to be precise) for a function at our friend’s place, and I was surprised to see that the same concept was used here as well. It did have rooms, but that would have been less than 10% or so of the total area of the house. Even the few rooms that were there, were allocated functionally, not to individuals (e.g. pUjA room, Store Rooms etc). This particular “palace” primarily had three large halls (perhaps each measuring 1000+ square feet in size), two of which had the central portion open to sky (mittam மித்தம்  as we call that space), and some beautiful meeting spaces (thinnai திண்ணை) in the front.

Fortunately, unconsciously though, we have followed this even in our modern day home to this day. We did not allocate any particular room for anyone. All the spaces are used according to the emerging functional needs only.

I recall, back in the early 2000s when I was working for Bharti Airtel, I used to keep moving between meetings in different offices/ floors, and I took my office in my laptop and my mobile. I occupied whichever seat/ room was empty, I could set up my office there. I guess this even helped me later when I took to organizational consulting, working from home. So, WFH was a thing that we were quite used to, much before Covid.

I guess, today, this is an idea that many corporates are warming upo to – the idea of putting function/ process above rigid structures/ hierarchies – though, I reckon, a long way to go to bring in the subtle essence of the idea, rather than getting caught with space efficiency as the primary driver.

Charity begins at home. So, the question for reflection really is, where am I getting caught up with myself, my space; and what could be some of the shifts I can make to place the functional needs above all else.