My grandfathers house was in an Brahmin agraharam in Kollengode in Palghat District. We had one of the better houses in the Village. 64 houses in two rows, with the Lakshminarayanaswamy temple at one end, the Perumal kovil village even today is vibrant, though the brahmin families are long gone.
The house was almost a closed system. There was a well (though the water was hard) in the compound, the 'rendam kollai' had enough space for couple of mango trees, mehandi tree, vegetables, the inevitable 'keera paathi' ( where a version of palak was cultivated), the cow shed had 3 cows that gave milk (for personal use and as a revenue generating model that enabled my enterprising grandmother to sell milk and laban to neighbours) and cowdung, that was used as a manure for all the trees, there was a 'marthangalikkai' plant, tomatoes, green chillies, ladies finger,......... the list was endless. Then there was the 'nadu muttam' where the roof slanted to give a huge opening. This was meant for rain water harvesting. The rain water that fell on the roof was collected in the sump constructed in the front hall for that purpose. This opening also allowed sun light to illuminate the house. Grandmother used to make 'vattals' (a dried version of vegetables soaked in laban, that when dried can be roasted in oil) and 'Vadaams' (rice pappad). And she used Solar energy to dry them.
I am reminded of all these when modern management gurus talk of Solar energy, rain water harvesting, leading an environmentally friendly life and so on. These were all practiced for centuries by our forefathers as a way of life. In the quest for modernity we disregarded them, only to realize our folly and revert back to them much later paying a very high price.
Are we not reinventing the wheel?
