Meet Ria and Joseph, your hosts at Nirvriti. Together they embody graceful etiquette, warm hospitality and an expansiveness that comes from years of international travel, meaningful interactions and quiet reflection. Global in outlook yet deeply rooted in the native and local, they offer a unique world of experience.
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The couple along with their two children, Elia and Paul, have spent more than two decades living outside India. They travelled extensively during this period visiting new places, meeting new people and having new experiences that enriched their lives as a family and as individuals. Now, after several years of living outside of India, they have come back home - to a new and different life in rural Kerala, slower in its pace but richer in its variety and deeper in its quality.
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The family used these rare travel opportunities to delve deep into new cultures and ways of life, avidly trying out new foods and basking in the hospitality of myriad hosts across the world. Their own playbook has been influenced by these defining elements taken from their varied travel experiences that include inspiring hosts, great food and congenial surroundings. This is the template for their own unique vision of hospitality that will find expression at Nirvriti.
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Nirvriti, their new abode, is a restored heritage house built in 1865 that was gifted to Joseph by his brother Thommy in 2004. It has now become Joseph and Ria’s home where they will co-create a lifestyle that matches the rhythms and dynamics of Kulukkapara , a small agricultural community located near Kozhinjampara in Palakkad district of Kerala. This small rural settlement, which borders the state of Tamil Nadu, offers a diverse mix of languages, religions, customs and traditions worthy of experience and celebration.
Our extended family
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Saravanan and his wife Suganthi are the two unseen pillars of Nirvriti, complementing the efforts and carrying out the agenda of Ria and Joseph with charm and dedication. They are an integral part of Nirvriti and extended members of Joseph’s family.
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Saravanan was the last of 8 siblings born into a family of tea plantation workers in the lush hills of Munnar in Kerala. Though he has not had much by way of formal schooling he was blessed with a practical sense and a flair for learning new things quickly. He is the quintessential jack-of-all-trades with experience in farming, cooking, masonry, plumbing and other such vocations of the casual economy.
He entered the life of Joseph’s family at the age of 9 and learned many things while with them for almost a decade. He then went back in his late teens to work in a tea factory in the hills of his native Munnar. While there he got married and returned five years later, with his wife Suganthi and their two children, to become caretakers of Nirvriti following its acquisition by Joseph’s brother in 2004. He has been an essential part of the property ever since, being responsible for its running and upkeep. Together with Suganthi he ran the kitchen, turning out great meals for Joseph and his family and their guests during the long years of Nirvriti’s hibernation before being restored. Today they are part of the team that takes care of the guests, lavishing upon them the same care and attention that forms part of their emotional vocabulary and defines Nirvriti’s soul.
They look forward to meeting you as much as you will enjoy coming to know them when at Nirvriti.
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