Houses in Chaul Revdanda

CONVENTIONAL HOUSES IN CHAUL

The Conventional Houses in Chaul constructed in early 1900’s were mainly in wood and local brick/mud plasters and kaul (mangalore tiles). There was no cement then.Wood was exclusively used for columns/beams from coconut, mango and jackfruit trees and are referred as ‘vassey’.

Mostly, houses face the eastern direction and have a sitting verandah locally called ‘ootee’ with wooden grills facing the road . The ‘zhoppala’ or swing is the main attraction in the ‘outee’. Visitors would first take a halt and depending upon their intimacy would move in to the house. But still, most of the men folk would sit here. In case of a house with an additional storey, the steps originated form here to go up.

The verandah on the back side of the house was called ‘padvi’. Ladies folks/visitors would make a move here and call upon the main lady of the house. This could be the area for kitchen related activities of washing of clothes and utensils. The washing area had a small pool of water called the ‘houud’.The roof is pyramidal, and in the centre of the pyramid is a place to sleep in the night, called ‘maadi’. Infact, one slept in a pyramid, and that reminds me of, the current day healing concepts of sleeping in a pyramid, canvassed by so called Vastru Shashtra experts.

In the night one would sleep up on the ‘maadi’, but during the day, no one would even attempt to go and sleep up on the ‘maadi; as it would be oven-hot.

This brings me to the thought behind sleeping up on the ‘maadi’ during the night, but never during the day.I was told the simple science of hot air being lighter stacks up in the pyramidal roof making it oven-hot during the day but as a result keeping the ground floor cool even in hot summers.

As the day ends, the hot air outside cools down, but relatively, the higher the cooler air the more cooler it is. Air close to the land is hotter than far above the land. Hence, as one opens the windows of the ‘maadi’, the cool air pumps in, and it becomes comfortable to sleep up on the ‘maadi’.

The windows have MS rods as grills in a wooden choukhat (or frame) and are floor touching to admit good light and make it airy to control interior humdity. The 'maadi' window had two doors, the upper and lower door.

The mud-plaster stacked bricks had plasters made of lime mortars. Lime Mortars tend to age and become hard with every rain and never leaked. On internal walls one finds a wooden ‘taka badi’ to hang one’s clothes.

A ‘raath’ with a bullock would do the ‘shimpne’(irrigation by flooding). Modern Houses are now made of cement with concrete beams and columns. The roofs are flat and adds to leakage.

Have we progressed ?

Were the ancients more wiser than us?

Did they make houses which were environmentally friendly suiting the climate and ecology?

Can their houses be classified as “green houses” or “eco-house”?

Were they technologically ahead?