Welcome to episode three of #WalkWithMe started by @lyndsaybowes.
I am taking a stroll outside the city limits. There are fields all around me and the background is overshadowed by huge chimneys of an industrial brick kiln. Tall structures are disappearing in the background and chimneys of industrial units have started to appear like extensions of mountains in the far off distance. I can see fields all around me and little kids running around in the fields chasing their siblings while their parents make their way back home.
But there's something amiss. I can only see single storey houses all around me. So much so that people have actually 'wasted' a huge plot of land just to construct four rooms. There's not a single house that goes beyond ground floor in the vertical direction.
In an Industrial Area where a piece of land values more than human life, this certainly doesn't make any sense at all.
I move forward and I enter the heart of the village. There are 'well-built' and appropriately designed houses, there are huge cars parked outside these houses but none of these houses go beyond the ground floor.
I inquire. I ask around. I am told that the village deity doesn't allow to construct first floor and the whole village follows this diktat unanimously. I was also told that once a few families tried to construct first floor and either someone in the family died or the whole newly constructed floor came crashing down to the ground.
Single Storey Houses All Around
Not A Single House with First Floor
People have constructed huge houses here in the village but these houses are built on a horizontal level. Like a series of rooms joined in parallel, adjacent to each other.
In an Industrial Area, where price of land is sky rocketing, this prevalent practice surprised me.
It has been rightly said, "Matters of faith are often incomprehensible to human minds"
Horizontal Construction
Horizontal Expansion
Horizontal Expansion
In the next episode of #WalkWithMe, I will take you to villages of Punjab where people love to construct colorful and creative water tanks.