Building A Permanent Mud Stove

The season was getting over as last month of June was approaching. The number of visitors to our guesthouse had significantly reduced. We would host few guests once in two weeks and that was also becoming lesser. Our days would be free to do nothing. The work routine which had gotten us used to during the peak season would be missed. Knowing that the next season would be 8 months away, was uneasy to digest. We were used to be around so many people everyday working actively and keeping ourselves busy. That drop in regular work was unsettling. We would search for things to do in the house. Like, managing the storeroom, cleaning house of unwanted things, spending more time in building garden, collecting woods etc. Madhu was a people person so I would see emptiness on her face. She needed people around her. Sometimes she would call her friends to visit Salli so that there would be some energy in the house.

 

On the other hand, Noor would be comfortable all by herself playing alone with her dolls roaming around in the garden and stream next to it. I would often spot her talking to herself while playing. Just like her mother she always had something to talk. She would collect stones from the stream and then keep them for sale by setting up her little shop. The stones would cost from 20 rupees to 1 million rupees. She had her reasons. I would then bargain to reduce the price of stones and after a while, she would agree to sell 1 million rupees stone to 10 rupees. She definitely wasn't trained yet in business by her super-smart mother. Noor was extremely fond of painting. She had a variety of colours from crayons to sketch pens to watercolours to oil colours to colour pencils. All her room walls would be taped with her drawings. The kitchen set in her toy store would consist of a few small mud pots which she had made by herself. She liked to play in the mud and build things, just like her mother. She would often invite me to play with her. Just being around a pure soul like hers would bring immense blessing for me.

As our kitchen would be free most of the days due to the drop in visitors, Madhu decided to renovate the kitchen and make it better equipped for the next season. Our current mud stove wasn't permanent and also was very small. A stove was the main tool in the kitchen so she decided to make that even bigger and permanent to the ground. There were some village women who were expert in building mud stoves. One day she called them to consult. While they were sitting in the kitchen brainstorming, I was in sitting in Noor's kitchen bargaining for the stones. I was spending my time wisely cracking business deals with Noor on the precious stones. The soil needed for building the mud stove was high up in the mountain. So we went uphill with some empty cement bags to carry soil in it. In mountains usually one would find red soil but for mud stove, one would need yellow soil. We found it after climbing for a while. We filled 2 full bags and then started climbing down. On the way, we also collected dried pine tree leaves which would look like needles. The village women suggested mixing those dried leaves in the soil while making the mud as that would strengthen the material. After 3 hours of intense work, those brilliant tribal women built a big multipurpose mud stove which I had not seen ever before. I was amazed by their skill. Like the season had changed, so did our work had changed from hosting people to building the house again.

Life Had Started Unfolding New Chapters.