There are talks about how the lockdown might be extended further (which, by now for most of us in India does not seem new) and it makes one think about how to be more self- reliant.
Being in Kerala during this period (for about four months) has shown how it can be a great option to grow your own vegetables and fruits, have your own water source, recharging wells in order to maintain and improve groundwater levels, making use of a compost pit, using the compost thus obtained as manure for your own vegetables and fruits. Life comes a full circle! Or does it? I look around. But all around I see huge palatial structures. One seems to be bigger than the other. Another seems to be more spacious than yet another. Fancy lights, huge walls, pictures of demons in front (to ward off the evil eye) stare back at me.
But all I do is stare. I am wondering how people manage to clean their houses. They may keep servants. But on a daily basis, isn't maintenance a pain? And that's when a thought from a friend rings in my ears once again: "What if you could build your own house with your own hands?"
My instant reaction was : "Then won't all your jobs be lost?" (He is an architect)
Pat came his reply, "But those jobs are anyway useless." ( I still have my doubts about it, though)
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| Men at work |
I look at my home, which my parents spent years to build with their hard-earned money. Each year when we visited during school vacation, there was a new addition- a tiled room here, another there (some I liked, some I disapproved of but yet it was home!). The first floor's tiling and bathrooms were postponed for much later. I was too young to understand the joy of finally seeing it completed and the subsequent housewarming ceremony. But each time dad looks at that house, I see the sense of accomplishment in his eyes. Each time mom cleans it, I observe the wonder in her eyes. It's their house that materialised because of their money and care.
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| Work in Progress at Kannamedi, Karnataka, India |
Wasn't it while raising that platform that our daughter came first in school? Wasn't it that step which caused you to tumble down and look like a joker with swollen, red lips? That plinth has been witness to all the things you tried to keep on it in order to finally decide on that terracotta vase with your favourite tulips. Oh, wasn't it to the left of the hall that you made a little structure of how you wanted our second baby's eyes to look like? A hundred moments, a thousand memories.
I heard it first from this friend -- "The need to de-globalise living." What an utter slap on the face of the one who spent hours mugging up globalisation and its impact on the society; advertising in a globalised economy. Years later, the same dialogues were uttered to a packed class that mugged it up for their graduation degree certificate. End of story.
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| Athey (meaning Aunt) |
'The ones who see things differently – they're not fond of rules. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them, but the one thing you can't do is ignore them, because they change things… Because the ones who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.'
Why else would I end up writing this? These people mess with your heads. In a good, I would like to believe.
De-globalised living. Turning back in time, you ask? It would rather be like adjusting the hands of the clock to suit our times. Imagine corona or no corona, we would be responsible for our things. A sustainable lifestyle where we wouldn't have to spend a fortune on things we do not need, where our wants would include 'building a house on our own, with our own hands', where our favourite vegetables would greet us each morning instead of bickering about sly vegetable vendors each day.
But then I asked him, "What about cities where lack of space is a reality?"
"The idea is to stop creating cities. The problem is the urban class."
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| Adobe Blocks |
Again, a blow to the poor little girl who was born and brought up in the lap of a city throbbing with life (but now throbbing for dear life). Mumbai, of course.
"But won't livelihoods be lost? The construction workers, vegetable vendors, what about them?" It was not that I was being defensive but the very thought sprung up numerous doubts for a city dweller.
"The point is that. A carpenter shouldn't have to live like a poor man in a city. Instead, there should be development of rural demographics for it to succeed. Don't congregate. Segregate as much as possible so that each village becomes an autonomous entity -- economically and skill wise."
We have to start somewhere. Start with a house, maybe. After all, were cities built in a day? Rome was not built in a day.
He believes he can change the world (of course one step at a time).
The last line was mine. He would describe it as a way to solve his confusions (of course, never did the ones who changed the world think that they had set about to change it, when they did).
You can read an article by the architect here: https://www.adivasilivesmatter.com/post/the-traditional-homes-of-the-muthuvan-tribe-faces-an-uncertain-future
(Excerpts from an interview with Akash Puthuparambil from the Uravu Studio. Uravu Studio is a multidisciplinary design-awareness collective, which functions with an intent to explore the possibilities of responsible and responsive living, through design. The initiative, kickstarted by Ar.Anjith KV, Ar.Prinsha P Jose and Ar. Akash Puthuparambil in Bangalore, India in 2016, has since been involved in conservation of different social environments. It involves a deeper learning and propagation of the use of natural and locally sourced materials and practices for building construction.)
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