Summer (oh, ya..the true summer months are yet to arrive!), this year, Malayalees are already indoors, trying to escape the unusually HOT sun. The traders of Kerala, meanwhile, are already in the red-they are finding it difficult to meet the demand for AC units! Day time temperatures have already touched 40 degree C in most Kerala towns.
I remember, my ancestral home in Trivandrum during 1970s. I used to spent my summer vacations in that "Tharavadu"-with a coconut leaf thatched roof-set amidst a stretch of "Green Umbrella" of coconuts, jack, mango trees and other sundry plants. The interior of the house, I still remember, has that "AC effect"-so cool and calm. Of course, there was a fan-one table fan-which was just there, as a fancy (maybe, a luxury symbol) item. The house was having wooden panels as false ceiling and as walls (in some rooms), which doubled the cooling effect. No AC, no air coolers and almost no fans-but the GREEN HOME and the adjacent "GREEN UMBRELLA" kept away the tropical sun. And the heat too. There is a lesson to be learnt here.
Meanwhile, is it possible to bring back our "green homes"?
That sounds like a lovely way to have spent your summers. I'm afraid we depend far too much on the ac units here.
ReplyDeleteIt gets up to 115 degrees sometimes here in the summer and can be quite miserable. We try to add a couple of trees every year in our yard to help combat the sun beating down on the house. We also have lots of fans to try to keep the air moving around.