The way we live : Mud houses of Jaiselmer

A little away from the city enclosed within the honey coloured walls of the Jaiselmer fort, Rajasthan,  lie  tiny little villages lost in the desert wilderness. As opposed to the opulent havelis of the city- some of which are said to be among the most ostentatious in all of Rajasthan - these villages house the local peasant and pastoral communities. In a sharp contrast to most newly built, modern habitats  that scar  the landscape of urban India - ugly haphazard concretized neighbourhoods- these villages with their little mud houses offer   quality housing in resonance with the local climate and needs.

Painted in striking yellow and white lime wash, the mud houses of Jaiselmer take one back in time:  to the earliest forms of human habitation perhaps. Simple  and pertinent, these homes are mostly constructed using adobe and readily available mud mixed with straw and cow dung.
The womenfolk take particular pride in their houses, painting the exterior walls and adorning the interiors with elaborate patterns and designs drawn from local experience. The paint and pattern is renewed each year during the festive season, ensuring bright  and beautified neighbourhoods.

Mud –a resource plentiful in the  region, is malleable  when wet and strong when dry, particularly when mixed with straw and cow dung. It is an easy-to-use, strong, cheap, renewable resource.  The material  helps insulate the buildings against the extremes of summer heat  and winter cold making it a logical choice for the hot- arid local conditions.

With time however, the popularity of  adobe is waning. Each village comprises of a cluster of houses usually interspersed by  an odd flat roofed, concrete structure, called a pucca or permanent dwelling. In the recent years,  concrete- a material  neither suitable for the climate, less eco-friendly and sorely lacking in the aesthetic quality of mud- has gained favour with the local population that sees it as a  status symbol.

Even as  concrete cubes proliferate the rural landscape, it is interesting to note  that most of these  constructions mimic their mud counterparts in essential features (the square house with ample open to sky spaces around) and external adornment !

A cement- brick structure adorned to look like its mud counterparts in Sam village  40 kms from Jaiselmer.

Humble and  non-aspirational as they may be, the mud huts represent  an ancient way of life, living within the environment rather than challenge it. Built by the home owners themselves without  formal architectural inputs, using locally available materials, these lend a distinct character to the villages. A factor that attracts  tourists,  students of architecture, designers and artists  alike.

With the change over to modern sensibility, age old techniques  and traditional know how  are  fading from memory.  Its a tragedy. Compared to busy, bustling chaotic modern developments,  old  habitats such as  the mud houses of Jaiselmer exhibit a  shared aesthetic and  love for elegance and beauty. The visuality of such a neighbourhood is more in the form of a collective choice,  creativity and consciousness.  Is it these choices that  reflect in how clean most of these neighborhoods are..?

An interesting term coined by architect Charles Correa comes to mind.  Describing  rural habitats such as the mud houses,  he uses the words: ' Low energy-high visual'. That is succinct. Responding to the position that -an aesthetic  sense is something  the poor cannot afford- he says-

“Nothing could be further from the truth! Improving our habitats requires visual skills. The poor have always understood this.  With one stroke of a pink brush, a Mexican artist transforms a clay pot. It costs him nothing… And the Arab had only the simplest tools: mud and sky- so he had to be inventive! In the process producing the most glorious oasis towns ever seen. And it is not a coincidence that  the best  handicraft comes from the poorest countries of the world.”

Elements of the Goan home

An article appeared in the discover India section of online design and style magazine Prismma. 

Startling colours of an exterior wall and window from a Margao house. 

Dream like, yet elemental, Goan homes preside over a lush green paradise. The warm and humid climate blurs the distinction between indoors and the outdoors.  Shaping in response to the fecund tropical conditions and long years of colonial rule,   Goan domestic architecture is enriched by the European experience, yet rooted deeply in the local culture.

Ranging from simple mud houses, to grand mansions displaying an agglomeration of Mannerist, Baroque, Rococo, Neo-Classical and Neo-Gothic influences, Goan homes are a palimpsest of architectural styles and influences.

In home after home, one will encounter delightfully syncretic architecture and elaborate interiors that blend pre-existing Hindu and Maratha motifs with European styles introduced by the colonizing Portuguese in the 16^th Century.

The broad elements of Goan houses result form a mixture of Indian and Portuguese styles. Homes that are Portuguese in origin are usually two-storeyed and façade oriented. Whereas those of Indian origin are single-storeyed with a traditional courtyard based orientation.

Between the two also, there is wonderful mixing and marrying of ideas, resulting in nuanced, hybrid architecture that is both impressive and inspiring- for example the two-storeyed house in which the top story is functional while the ground floor is merely ornamental. It was Portuguese custom to segregate the lower storey of the house for the household staff and retainers.  Since in the Hindu home the servant quarters were typically located at the back of the house, this bottom storey became shorter, until it reduced to an ornamental high-platform in time,  adorned with decorative arches, pilasters and colonettes.

For a better understanding of the Goan eclectic idiom of house building one may firstly, look at ways in which the local population adopted styles and precedents set by the Portuguese. And secondly, the ways in which the local identity asserted itself in shaping and adapting the influences passed on by the colonial masters.

As they grew in power and rank within the Portuguese administration, the upper class Goan aristocrats sought to emulate and even surpass the grandeur of the residences of their Portuguese counterparts: The examples of this trend are many- The practice of building grand staircases in the entrance halls, many windowed facades- like at the Braganza home in Chandor- busts of classical Renaissance figures in the pediments of façade windows, grand dance halls as a focal point of the home.

In an assertion of the local Goan identity, the erection of a columned porch with seats built into its two sides, called bollcaum, also became commonplace in the 19^th century. In time the bollcaum was extended to include the façade of the entire house effectively screening it from rain and the hottest midday sun.  Where on the one hand the covered porch with built in seating confirmed to the Indian ideas of decorum, it did so by extending the house into the public space- adapting to ` open-minded’ western mores. It is an interesting vantage point to observe life go by the house, a feature used frequently by the lady of the house.

Other interesting and unique aspects of the houses one will encounter in the state are the use of locally available building material such as laterite stone in place of brick and lime plaster, which make for sturdy and durable structures.  Additionally, in many homes, readily available mother-of-pearl is used to line window shutters.

The window shutters are particularly enchanting. The shiny iridescent patina of the shell lends luminosity to the spaces that glass shutters – used to replace shell increasingly- are not able to replicate.

Something has to be said about the bright colouring and unabashed love for pigment here.  In the early days of Portuguese rule, only churches and other religious structures were permitted to use white to color their exteriors. The domestic residential structures automatically adopted bold and sensational colors subsequently achieved with the use of vegetable and natural dyes in the past.

A corridor linking two different parts of the house at the Braganza home in Chandor, which seamlessly introduces the outdoors into the house.

Baroque style staircase at the Braganza and Menezes family home in Chandor.

Hindu style Jaali motifs beautifying the exteriors of newer  bunglow style homes in Candolim.

House with a high-seat, Abade Faria Road, Margao

The  Bollocum.

Window shutters lined with pearlescent  capiz shells.