Lapod Diary: Part 2

The Built Environment

Architecture:


It is refreshing to see the modernity has yet not adulterated the village to a large extent. In whatever taste modernity has been appropriated, it doesnot really deface or affect the village adversely as a visual journey. People here are conscientious and understand how their building techniques help them contextually.
One can find few typologies of houses here (Drawings have been made by students which shall form a part of the official publication):

1. A basic enclosure with bare minimum rooms: This kind of house consists of an enclosing wall. This thick wall has niches carved inside it where people store all necessities for daily activities. The only covered spaces are the kitchen and living space, which too are sometimes open – depending on the season.

2. A minimum set of rooms with an open court in the centre: These are houses which are typical of joint families. Various rooms are shared by individual families and the courtyard is the common space. Such houses have made these rooms ‘pakka’ over time and thus have a common terrace over them. This terrace becomes space to store various things like pots, dry twigs, etc.

3. Havelis: There are smaller havelis and larger havelis. Havelis mostly are more than one floor. Both types have various sets of rooms. However, the size of the courtyard in the centre varies. Some courts are just for bringing in light while others are voluminous spaces that connect internal public spaces across various floors.

4. Those with storage: Based on occupations, houses have different storage areas. These storage areas include those for pots, livestock like sheep, cows, buffaloes, etc. etc. These areas are just added rooms which connect either from inside the house or outside for servicing the buyers.

Water Supply

Water is supplied to houses in the morning. Currently, few people collect water from the tubewells installed around the village or wells present in the village. Larger houses (more than one storey) have water tanks installed while other keep them stored in containers.The basic houses have a partitioned bathing area and sanitation facilities. Waste water is let out in open drains that can be seen throughout the village. Soil water is collected in grouped soak pits.

Construction

Houses in the villages are mostly made by the local material such as stones, bricks and timber. The roofing is done either in clay tiles or in weeds. Newer constructions are in concrete and hence hace beams and slabs. Concrete construction is mostly unfinished due to unskilled labour.

Floors use kota stone or dholpur stone. Pink seems to be a dominating colour of the buildings. However, many of the smaller self-made houses use cow dung plaster on floors.

The traditional choolha is still a part of their daily cooking activity. Women folk collect firewood from the nearby forest edge. The choolha brews out sweet smelling smoke which acts as a disinfectant and gives the houses a peculiar sweet smell.

One can find neem trees in the village. Generous plantations of bogain villa shrubs can be seen over the village. As mentioned earlier, there is a wheat farm that bounds the place.
Peacocks fly over the entire village, hiding themselves from the people.