India lives in its villages, so people say, though the headfirst rush towards urban centres of recent decades has been uprooting the rural landscape. An ongoing migration to cities continues to cut many people off from village life, negatively impacting local cultures of crafts, festivals, music and folklore. In reaction to this phenomenon of market-guided mobility, boutique villages have sprung up in many of India's cities. But a more unique effort at encouraging an appreciation of the rural has borne fruit just 21 kilometres from Madras, on the road to the first millennium CE port town of Mahabalipuram. The Dakshinachitra museum has charged itself with the duty of celebrating south India's diverse village housing styles.
In most cases, the museum 'exhibits', which may date as far back as the 17th century, have been dissembled from their original locations and reassembled inside the museum's grounds. The museum's curators have collected a representative array of houses from across the states of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu to showcase the varying houses that for centuries characterised south Indian villages, many of which are now being subsumed beneath a bland modernity.
On visiting Dakshinachitra, one is struck by the range of artefacts on display, each encapsulating an aspect of traditional life. Amidst the transplanted homes of artisans, farmers and merchants, one can stop for a chat with the village craftsmen employed at the museum, or spend an afternoon trying to match steps to the tunes of folk musicians. The craftsmen are a foil for the unique structures in which they work by offering lessons in many forgotten village trades, making the museum a living dynamic unit.
On my visit to Dakshinachitra on a crisp, sunny afternoon, I first passed through the small crafts bazaar. On the edge of the marketplace, a lady at a Tamil Chettiar (merchant) house greeted me with the traditional "vannakam". The century-old teak woodwork and floors of the house came to the museum, beam by beam, slat by slat. The house once accommodated four generations of a merchant family, with each room around the centre courtyard the property of a son, patriarchal lineage determining housing arrangements. The house demonstrates dual histories, of a family and a building style, each complementing the other in their common presentation at Dakshinachitra.