FIELD TRIP REPORT

      FIELD TRIP REPORT

As  part of the curriculum we the students of 1st year B.Ed batch went to kuthiramalika and planetarium for a monument visit on 24.11.2018.We started our journey at 7.30 am in the morning by Airbus. We reached kuthiramalika at 9.45am. Kuthiramalika was a historical palace built by Swathi Thirunal Rama Varma on the south eastern side of Padmanabhaswamy temple,Thiruvanthapuram.

    

Etymologically, the palace got its name from the 122 horses that were carved into the wooden wall brackets that support the southern roof.The official name of the palace was Puthen Malika(New Mansion).The palace forms part of a vast complex of royal buildings in the vicinity of padmanabaswamy Temple.The building was left unoccupied for more than a century,following the demise of Swathi Thirunal in 1846.

   Although built in the 1840s,kuthiramalika was an example of traditional kerala architecture, with its typical sloping roofs,overhanging caves,pillared verandahs and enclosed courtyards intricate carvings adorn the wooden ceilings with each room having a distinctive pattern.

The construction of the palace was completed by 5000 vishwabrahmins in 4 years. The palace was made from teakwood, rosewood,marble and granite.The roof of the palace was made of wood and 42 beams support the carved patterns. In all,the palace contained 80 rooms, of which 20 were opened for visitors in 1995. The floor inside the palace was made of egg whites, charcoal and limestone, which made it cold and smooth even in hot weather conditions.

  There was also a portion of kuthiramalika which had been converted to a palace museum that houses some of the assets owned by the Travancore Royal Family. Although,so rooms were there in the palace only 20 were opened for visitors. The palace collections include 14 life size. Kathakali, Mannequins, Belgian harpoons armaments,musical instruments,traditional furniture, Greek statues, a musical tree which produced 8 sounds on tapping and other artifacts.The palace had on display two royal throne,one made from 24 elephant tusks (Dantasimhasana) and the other of Bohemian crystal with the Travancore emblem conch adorning the top of the backrest. 

On the first floor, were rooms that once served as the audience chamber, library and an alcove that Swathi Thirunal used for meditating and for conceiving many of his famous musical compositions. One of the rooms displayed an illusion  portrait of Sree Chithira Thirunal Balarama Varma painted by svetoslav Roerich. The face and the shoes of the king appear facing the onlooker from every corner of the room. The courtyard of kuthiramalika was the venue for Swathi Sangee(also known as kuthiramalika festival) a yearly music festival,commemorating the legacy of Swathi Thirunal. These music festivals were conducted from 6 to 12 January every year. It attracted many of the leading stalwarts of carnatic and hindustan classical music.

Then by 11.30 am we left from kuthiramalika palace and started our journey towards Priyadarsini Planetarium which  was situated in the heart of Thiruvanthapuram city in kerala science and Technology Museum. We reached there at 11.45 am. Planetarium was a theatre built primarily for presenting educational and entertaining shows about astronomy and night sky or for training in celestial navigation. The most feature is that planetarium was the large dome shaped projection screen on to which scenes of stars ,planets and other celestial objects could be made to appear and move realistically to stimulate the complex motion of the heavens. The celestial scenes were created with a wide variety of technologies such as precision engineered stars ball that combine optional and electro magnetic technology slide projection,video and full dome projector systems and lasers. Typical systems were set to stimulate the sky at one point in time,past or present and depicted the night sky that appeared from any point of latitude on earth.

The show started at 12.00 pm and the name of the show was 'Hello Earth'.It lasted about 45 minutes. The show mainly focused on the origin of words,printing press,technological development and also proved that how man became the supreme being of all inventions. It also made us wonder about the place we sat upon was a miracle of the advancement of technology and mesmerised our mind and eyes using a three dimensional image which was exactly like a 3D show without glasses.

The monument visit to both the places was awesome and also made us wonder to the world from a traditional palace to a place of technological advancement.It made us proud to be a citizen of kerala to witness these wonders of excellence. Anyway it was an informative as well as a pleasurable trip.