no, we have not moved into the
house we built. the house was built as a back up should the pavilion thatch give away or leak during the monsoons. as we also
re-thatched the pavilion last year, it is unlikely to leak for a couple of years now. so the house will remain as a back up accommodation.
in-spite of the steps taken to prevent them, we saw a heavy infestation of termites as soon as the monsoon started last year. they completely took over the walls and
flooring. our brand new house suddenly had a haunted look early this
year. post NE monsoon we did a complete lime-wash on the walls as an
experiment to deter termites. it has worked so far. we have
since been maintaining it with regular cow dung dabs on the floor and
have installed a kutty fan and a light. this is how it looks now.
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| the front |
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| mud floor with cow dung dab |
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mud floor does require regular maintenance and cow dung dabbing is the common practice in the village to keep the floor smooth and to prevent the mud surface from chipping off. we will not be able to use any wooden furnitures because of termites. otherwise the floor feels very good.
we also had to put a long awning in the front to prevent the walls from
taking a direct rain splash. after much deliberation we decided to put up a keeth pandal ourselves and it was
great fun.
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| skeleton for keeth pandal |
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| we learnt the rope knots from the pavilion |
finally done and cost us little over a lakh of rupees.
