I was warmly invited by a Ladakhi family to their home during my recent visit to Ladakh in Jammu Kashmir state of India. It would be an understatement to say that I was overwhelmed with their hospitality. I was also filled with wonder and amazement by the simple sophistication with which their home was built and maintained adding authentic touch to the life in mountains.
Built of mud bricks, Poplar and Willow, the house has been carefully designed with respect to solar heating orientation. The climate of Ladakh is very cold and dry and is devoid of green vegetation. I also learnt that due to the absence of rainfall and moisture, the sky is usually very blue and clear (as can be seen in the many ubiquitous photos of tourists and travelers) and thus solar radiation is very high in this area. Symbolically, a house in Ladakh is usually two storied with a slanting timber roof on the upper floor to efficiently let the snow melt downwards in winters. They live in the ground floor during winters in the sub-zero temperatures and shift to a more open and better ventilated space in the upper floor during summers.
I was also told a typical ladakhi family spends the summer gathering fuel and drying the vegetables in preparation for the gloomy winters. I was dumbfound when they introduced me to the traditional heating system – Bukhari. A bukhari is a natural and inexpensive space heater that has a furnace as a base in which the wood/coal is burned, and the furnace is connected with a narrow pipe running to the top of the room to keep the space warm and to also act as a chimney. It also has a valve through which drinking water can be cascaded and stored inside the cylinder at the base to be able to naturally heat the drinking water in winters. You will typically find a bukhari in the living room and bedrooms that have to be warmer than the other part of the house.
The traditional Bukhari
Bukhari
The fine carpets running along the wooden floor and the short wooden dining tables with intricate vibrant carvings adds to the authentic feel.
The lady of the Ladakhi home – The kitchen too adorns cushion seating with a small coffee table
On similar lines, the Ladakhis employ many such natural techniques in their day-to-day lives to conserve energy and resources. Personally, there is so much to learn from them, the very simple, humble, blatantly witty yet warm people who try to make the most of scarce resources & technology available to them in the extreme climate conditions. Here’s to a day in the life of people in the mountains and their simplicity.
A DAY IN THE LIFE OF... 