My dear Mia,
This is just to tell you that I agree with you 111%. Life is not always all about creature comforts, and then again,
a great deal what is today considered a necessity in the West is in fact very far from being so, beginning with ACs. Thanks to opulent houses having an AC in every room, not only does the thermal pollution in the areas near the house shoot up, but there is never any fresh air in the house, and the whole style of living is like being in a cocoon. Even the US did manage without ACs till the mid-20th century.
Moreover, heavy use of ACs in the metros in countries like India drives up peaking power requirements, leading to more and more power plants being built and more and more pollution, not to speak of the inability of these nouveaux riches to adjust to anything outside their AC rooms. In the old days, say 40 years ago, there used to be a window fitted contraption called an air cooler, which used only about 1/10th the power an AC does, and produced moisturised air about 15 degrees lower in the temperature than the outside air. Now all that is old fashioned and we have the AC disease everywhere.
I have lived half of my professional life as a diplomat in 4-5 million dollar ambassadorial houses. But when I visit my grandmother's old ancestral house in Tamil Nadu, where all of us cousins, as kids, used to spend 2 months of summer holidays every year - a huge, cool, dark house with wide verandahs and thick walls, naturally cool in summer and warm in winter, with trees all around, a well in the back courtyard and a mango tree next to it, and a huge cement trough which used to be filled with water drawn from the well for us kids to splash about in, the bathroom with an enormous copper pot holding about 15 buckets of very hot water for our baths and kept hot all morning, the cool fresh water from the earthernware matka in the corner of the dining room where we all sat on the floor and ate on (disposable and recyclable!) plantain leaves, washed and glistening with water drops - I still feel totally at home, more than in my ambassadorial residences. And no, there was no running water when we were kids, and drawing the water from the well was a favourite pastime, and it also taught us not to waste water. Rainwater was collected in huge brass tubs and used, long before rainwater harvesting became fashionable.
And believe it or not, there
are people who get along perfectly well with very little or no TV. TV is mostly junk, and it keeps children away from books and from family time. I read far more in my childhood, when we had no TV, than any kid does these days. Getting addicted to something like PR should be more than enough reason to be anti-TV!
It is not just nostalgia, it is getting back into a way of life that makes far more sense, environmentally and otherwise, than the one forced on everyone who is well off in Gurgaon or New York. No wonder celebrated architects like Laurie Baker go to Kerala and design houses built of baked mud bricks with no ACs, but totally natural cooling!
Much of our environmental problems of today are self-created. For example, American cities were deliberately built for the car, not for public transport, and the result in there for all to see. You cannot get even a quart of milk or a loaf of bread without driving 5 miles. If everyone the world over were to adopt an American lifestyle, the world would collapse, for the US, with 6% of the world's population, uses up 25% of the world's resources. Chinese cities are already reeling under smog and pollution-linked illnesses. The Indian metros are getting there as well. Pretty soon, the potable water supplies will give over, and there will be water wars.
It all comes down to trying to manage with less, rather than always wanting more, more, more. The good thing is that in a couple of generations, we will all have to do a considerable amount of back pedalling to survive.
Unless of course the asteroid Apophis, which is going to make 2 passes very near the earth on April 13, 2029 and April 13, 2036, actually hits us and solves all our problems at one stroke!
Shyamala B.Cowsik
Originally posted by: miadelrosario
I'm talking about the possible reason why some "old poor families" who became rich still prefer to go back to their old homes and way of living. I am mainly talking about what makes a person choose to go back to their old homes and their old lifestyle... the upgrades are just secondary to my main point. I am speaking based on experience and what i saw. If this is unbelievable to you, i don't mind. It's your opinion and i respect that... so i hope you don't question my view coz' everyone has different experiences in life.
Originally posted by: Laila2009
But these people didn't even do any upgrades...they have not even got a new TV. And an ancestral home that is large is one thing...this is a two bedroom house with six adults! And these people ahve great wealth. I hoep your family also had running water and more space (assuming since it is an ancestral home that is the case). Another factor is the family lived 20 years in Canada therefore would have not adjusted to the old way of life.
Originally posted by: miadelrosario
I know some people from the province who became rich but their wealth never went to their heads but instead stayed humble and lived a low profile life. These people i mentioned are my brother's in-laws. Inspite having great wealth they prefered living in their old house. A little renovation on the house was done replaced old material of the house but of the same kind and just added airconditioners to the rooms. When asked why they still live there, it's because it's their ancestral house and it's their comfort zone. Memories of their childhood with their parents is one of the reasons too. I don't expect perfection on serials. Most of the time they're unrealistic, it's not real life... but a t.v show. (No offense to anyone, just my opinion)
