Skip to main content

Our houses

This is called historical writing. Ranita Sinha wrote Sweet Home - encapsulating the changes in structure and in the designing of the houses in villages. Now, Rebati Mohan Sinha has gone even farther, to the pre-independence era.



We can expect article like 'Sweet Home' only from Mrs Ranita Sinha. Anyway her last two words sentence ‘Do share’ had inspired me to take you all a decade and a half century back i.e., pre-independence era to apprise how people were living then. First of all I would like to discuss on house lay-out, then to material used for roofing and boundary-walls and at the last a brief on people’s life style in those days.

Quite often, elders were heard discussing about the sizes of the house, when some one liked to build, say ‘noi-e-sotoroi’(breadth- nine haat, length- sotero haat), one haat=18`` inches, means really no partition required, as mentioned in the article ‘sweet home’. A peculiarity was there, the main entrance doors of Bishnupriya Manipuri houses always opened to eastward, very seldom one could see houses having doors opened to either south or west; but not to north. In those days, there were never used to be “L” or “H” type houses, only rectangular type, standing easterly, called chaar-challigo (Tongigo) owned by rich and another one standing on north-south, called dwee-challigo, owned by poor, both having no windows and no back doors. The kitchen used to be always at the corner of rear end of the house. The Tongigo type houses had bigger verandahs as compared to Dwee-challi type.

The houses were having varieties of thatched roofs, called ‘Shonor Chaal’, khapakor chaal, Torjaar chaal (made of split bamboo)and the roofs of corrugated tin sheets, called Tatar tin (Tinor chaal); but very rare. The boundary walls were of either split bamboos or type of shrubs grown on marshy lands, called ‘eekor’ and was more durable than the split bamboo. The shrubs, ‘shon’ are grown on high lands; but ‘khapak’ grown on marshy land. The final coat of best wall-plastering was of special river clay, named ‘aathali maati’, which was shining very much. The primary coat for the wall plastering was an adhesive paste of cowdung and mud which was easily available.

Now let me write something about the people living in those houses: the people had very much community feeling. They help one another at the time of house building or house repair, in fact in paddy reaping time also. In those days, people had never charged for the services rendered to their neighbors, unlike these days. People always showed their respect to elders. There are plenty of things could be written, but people may feel boredom, so let me draw a line of ending here.

Read all the articles written by Rebati Mohan Sinha.Click here.

Comments

  1. I exactly saw this happening, when i was small. it was my grandmother's house my father had built for her and it was done with the help of mutual understanding and cooperation (penny less labour). Time was 1980 (around) in my grandmother's village Chamtilla, Dullabhchara. karimganj.

    ReplyDelete
  2. REBATI KAK NIce job by bringing back memories of older days thanks for reminding me to go to india once

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

We all love comments. It is moderated

Popular posts from this blog

Sri Sri Bhubaneshwar Sadhu Thakur

By Ranita Sinha, Kolkata Sri Sri Bhubaneshwar Thakur, the great saint of the Bishnupriya Manipuri Community was born on 26th October, 1871, in a remote village of Cachar district called Baropua in the state of Assam. He was born to a Xatriya Manipuri family. His father Sri Sanatan Pandit was a Sanskrit teacher and mother Srimati Malati Devi, a house wife. Sadhu Baba from his childhood was indifferent to all worldly happenings. He was engrossed in chanting the name of Lord Krishna. Along with other students of his age, Sadhu Baba started taking lessons of grammar and other spiritual literature from his father. At a very young age he lost his mother but he was brought up with utmost love and care by his step mother. At the age of eighteen, Sadhu baba lost his father, so, to continue his spiritual education under the guidance of Rajpandit Mineshwas Swarbabhwam Bhattacherjee, he went to Tripura. But within one year he made up his mind to visit all the holy places and as such he took permis

Assam Search Engine: Bisarok

Exclusive search engine on Assam Manash Pratim Gohain, TNN Jun 16, 2012, 01.46PM IST NEW DELHI: Assam got its own search engine ' Bisarok '. The search engine has been launched to get results exclusively on queries and information related to Assam. 'Bisarok', means 'to search' in Assamese language, has been launched and has been linked to various websites of the Government of Assam and departments, educational institutions and media. The search engine is likely to give a new online experience related to searches on Assam. Built on Google custom search engine, the search engine would be collating and building a database of web properties exclusively of the state in the North East region. 'Bisarok' has been developed by RK Rishikesh Sinha, who had earlier created a similar custom search engine ('Bisarei') on Bishnupriya Manipuri. According to Sinha, apart from Google there was no link to get results particularly on Assam. Any web entity related

A short history of the Bishnupriya Manipuri and their religio-cultural consciousness

Undoubtedly, the accurate period of the emergence or the development of religious consciousness of the Bishnupriya Manipuri is difficult to ascertain, but it is an old one that is undoubted, writes Rini Sinha , Guwahati . Religious beliefs are found virtually in every human society. Religious beliefs usually relates to the existence and worship of a deity or deities and divine involvement in the universe and human life. Religious knowledge according to religious practitioners may be gained from religious leaders, sacred texts or personal revelation. The development of religion has taken many forms in various cultural communities. The accurate period of emergence or development of religious consciousness of the Bishnupriya Manipuries is difficult to ascertain, but it is an old one that is undoubted. However, on the basis of the views of different scholars, pre-historic and historical remain whatsoever is available and from the logic of personal observations, we may put forward some view