In the densely forested areas of central India, temperatures soar in the summer. Trees shed their leaves, the grass underfoot dries up and the heat is such that the merest scrape of twigs is all that it takes to kindle a forest fire. Sitting in a camp in the forest buffer zone of Pench, I watched the Gonds herd their animals from the water hole to the relative cool of their homes before the sun rose too high in the sky. As they hurried to escape the sun, I wondered what they did to survive the heat. So when I received an invitation from Bhaulal, a Gond, to visit his home, I leapt at the opportunity. It was in Awargani, a village nearby.
Bhaulal’s house was a pretty structure, with a pagoda style double sloping roof and mud walls and floor plastered with cow dung. As we stood at his door, a waft of cool air from inside greeted me. “How,” I asked him, “do you manage to keep your house this cool?” He said the Gonds used many natural means to beat the heat.
“For instance, Gond people usually build their own homes out of mud and straw,” he said. These mud walls weren’t just strong, but they also kept the heat out quite efficiently. Bhaulal pointed to the sloping roof of his house that had been tiled with clay tiles. “The sloping roof stops the rain from getting in,” he said, “and when water evaporates from the surface of the tiles, it keeps the roof very cool.” The regular plastering of the walls and floor of the house with cow dung was also done for good reason. “We believe that a coat of dung every few days on the floor and walls is the best way to keep the temperature inside the house low,” he said.
Another noticeable feature of traditional Gond dwellings, I saw, was that they had really tiny windows. “These are big enough to keep the air inside fresh, but too small to let the really hot winds in,” he said. Next he showed me the gap between the walls and the sloping roof. “The space between the sloping roof and the walls allows warm air to leave the house and cool air to take its place,” he said. As we walked around his house to see his backyard, I noticed the hearth in a shady nook. “In the summer, we prefer cooking outdoors so that the stove doesn’t heat up the house,” he said. “And luckily, mornings and evenings here are always quite pleasant, making cooking outside quite enjoyable.”
Lost in admiration for these wonderful, traditional ways of staying cool in the summer, I wandered towards the back entrance of the house. Suddenly, another blast of cool air blew against me. “I’m so impressed with the amazing cross ventilation in these traditional structures,” I said. “There’s so much that urban architects can learn from you.” The Gond grinned, his teeth white against what looked like a permanent tan from years of working outdoors: “Well, we have also learnt a lot from you city people about keeping cool...” I asked what what he had learned. “The use of electricity of course!” he said laughing. “When it gets too hot to bear, all we have to do is turn on the cooler with the flick of a magical switch!”
That was when I saw the big desert cooler on a rear window. The pleasant drone of what I’d thought were cicadas was the sound of the cooler. Suddenly, I was hotter under the collar than ever before. Was it the heat or something else? Who knows.