Kerala

Giving vasthu the credit for all things good

Auspicious: The Flower Horn Fish (vasthu fish) in a fish tank.

KOCHI: Rahul believes that his father died a premature death because of neglecting the principles of Vasthu Shastra in the construction of the house and the positioning of articles inside it.

After consulting an astrologer and Vasthu Shastra expert he reached the conclusion that positioning of clocks in his house had a role in it.

“As per Vasthu, patriarchs of houses where clocks are placed right over doors face a possibility of premature death,” he says.

Rahul became an ardent follower of Vasthu which he believes is more of a science than mere superstition as believed by many.

He roped in a Vasthu consultant from Udayamperoor before starting the construction of his new house at Maradu.K. Vasu, a retired government servant, was introduced to the world of Vasthu while constructing his new house back in 2003. The construction came to a grinding halt for months together after the completion of the ground floor. When every effort to resume work met with stumbling blocks, a visit to the astrologer followed.

The astrologer found fault with the positioning of the kitchen and the bedroom in the ground floor.

The vasthu consultant he approached also advised him to interchange the position of the kitchen and the bedroom. This meant a complete demolition of the newly constructed rooms. “Whether because of it or not the work progressed smoothly thereafter,” Sanjay, Mr. Vasu’s son, recollects.

Mr. Sanjay’s understanding of Vasthu is relatively simple. “It is all about ensuring free air circulation in the house so that air does not get trapped and turns into negative energy,” he says.

Manoj Kumar, who runs an architecture firm by the name Illusions in Kochi, says that Vasthu Shastra has assumed more prominence of late. “People irrespective of religion, caste and profession insist on complying with the basic tenets of Vasthu,” he says.

Earlier, he feels, people went to the astrologer and checked the compliance or otherwise of Vasthu principles when something went wrong in their household or in their personal life.

“The underlying factor is the sense of fear of something going wrong,” he believes. So now they are playing it safe and look for vasthu parameters prior to construction to avert later setbacks, which they fear may arise out of it, in the future.

He said that in the case of construction of houses position of the kitchen and bedroom is what most people are most concerned about. Mr. Manoj says that major alterations in completed structures after finding deviations from the Vasthu principles are not rare these days. “Earlier also vasthu was considered important, but nowadays it has gained more importance. It is now being considered an inherent principle of Kerala style architecture,” he feels.

Mr. Rahul recounts instances of how non-compliance with vasthu wreaked havoc not just in his family but even in that of his relatives. He attributes the death of a 11-year-old child of his aunt, the near death of her second son and similar such incidents to the failure in getting the intricate calculations of vasthu right.

Beliefs and principles sometimes gets so intertwined that people think little of the paradox in turning a blind eye to the violation of one for the sake of the other.

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