The Channe4 show, Grand Designs,
in which TV presenter Kevin McCloud
follows some of Britain's most ambitious self-building projects, as intrepid
individuals attempt to design and construct the home of their dreams, is
exciting as the episodes depict how the almost impossible dreams of people
somehow materialise. But one always wondered if the price in terms of the
financial, physical and psychological struggle was worth it.
That was why when one of my close
friends and colleague told me a few years back that he and his wife too were
excited and serious about living their eco
friendly dream and were relocating to France
In fact it was another close
friend Salim, thousands of miles away in India, who dreamt and realised his
dream of building an eco
friendly home in his ancestral land, strewn with teak and rosewood trees hundreds
of years old, who proved to me that the art of living for Eco Love is not restricted
to the western world and is more universal than one would have thought.
While the Sheldons had to go
through the rigors of moving lock stock and barrel across the channel and
hunting, finding and developing a dilapidated property in a village with hardly
30 inhabitants, in reality a harrowing experience not much different from the
episodes you watch on the television, my friend Salim had to wait till his
retirement to eventually find the time to realise his dream home and had to
struggle no less, albeit for different reasons.
As it happened, Les had to dig as
deep in to the ground to build his swimming pool as he had to climb to repair
his crumbling roof and of course do all the hard labour of renovating the in
interiors to convert to modern habitable rooms which he lets out as well as
landscape the wonderful
garden space he and his guests surely enjoy.
Salim, on the other hand had to
get his tiles seasoned under rain and sun for a couple of years to get that antique
feel for his new roof so that it doesn’t stand out under the shade of the
old trees and surrounding greenery, small change in comparison to the task of supervising
and managing a horde of unskilled labour he could muster locally.
Nevertheless, looking at what
they have achieved, I must admit that perhaps the joy people derive from pain
and hassle they go through to fulfil their desire to go back to the nature and
find harmony with it is greater than what they derive from achieving more
material things in life.
While modernising, rebuilding and
developing your home is nothing new and in many cases something you can’t
avoid, if you love nature and give that love to your project, the whole process
can be a rewarding experience, like more and more people are finding out.
Article first published in TECHNORATI as http://technorati.com/lifestyle/green/article/the-joy-of-eco-love-and/
Article first published in TECHNORATI as http://technorati.com/lifestyle/green/article/the-joy-of-eco-love-and/