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‘I, Kalari Kovilakom, grande maison, guardian of memories—births, deaths, marriages, hopes, dreams, laughter and tears—having gone through so many lifetimes, now stand witness to the march of time and the waywardness of fortune. I, with my louvered windows.’ This is the chronicle of a grand old mansion bursting to tell its tale! The House That Dhathri Built and Other Stories will lead you deep into the heart of a Malabar palace, a sequestered world behind high walls where life is veering towards an unlit crossroad, strange and unfamiliar. Throughout this telling, the life of Dhathri, Ranee of the ‘little kingdom’, appears and reappears like a skein of silken thread that draws the narrative together into a moving saga of the times. Sweeping from British-occupied Malabar—through the war years and Independence up until the ‘sea of red’ causes the feudal system to break up and implode—can Kalari Kovilakom, the house that Dhathri built, survive the stormy buffets of social change? Or will it be condemned to die an ignoble death at the hands of a common pickaxe?