E-Kantipur

Which one is more powerful: a termite or an elephant? This was a story I heard as a child. That was a silly question, I was quick to point out to my story-teller uncle. That was until I heard the story. The termite in the story won in the end, to my utter surprise, by sneaking into the elephant’s snout. There was no way the elephant could take the little crawly insect out once it entered its nose pipe. The elephant jumped wildly as the termite gave it the tickles of its life. It twirled its snout desperately when the termite reached slightly up higher inside the pipe. The elephant slammed its snout on the floor, hoping the invader would fall off to the ground. But that did not happen. At last, sadly, the elephant succumbed to the termite-bite into his brain. This probably did not really happen in real life, but it made sense. It had a moral, an obvious one, for sure: don’t underestimate the “small” creatures. 

If we ask whether a termite is more powerful than a human, what would be our answer? I have not yet tested this on my eight-year old son. But, it wouldn’t be a surprise if anybody

would respond off-the-cuff, that I was asking a silly question, and that humans were naturally more powerful than a puny termite. Perhaps we are. But we’re definitely not more intelligent than a termite when it comes to building our homes.

Humans spend the largest portion of their life time inside a built structure—personal home, office or places of learning. We sleep here at least eight hours of each day. We eat here. Agricultural peoples at least spend a significant amount of time outside the home, but people involved in a non-agricultural life, spend almost all of their time inside a built environment—working during work hours, and eating, living and sleeping during the rest. The rugged, battle-hardened, outdoor adventure folks are an exception. 

For most humans, building or buying a home is the single most expensive endeavour in their lifetimes.  The real estate boom helped some in some places. Many of my neighbours in Chitwan built their new cement, fired-brick, and steel homes because they could sell a small plot of land for a big sum of money. Many who went overseas came back to erect modern buildings with their money hard earned working in desert temperatures in the oil-towns of the world, or inside Malaysian factories. The cheap way of building has almost disappeared.

Add to that the fact that, modern constructions, of which personal homes constitute a huge part, make up a little over 50 percent of green house gas emissions. We are definitely up for a big modern ride.

But just because we spend huge amounts of our time inside a home, and a sizeable chunk of our life’s income on building and maintaining it, does not mean we are happy with it. Far from it.

When it is hot outside, our buildings become a furnace—unless we have air-conditioning running. When it is cold, as is currently the case in Kathmandu and many other places, our homes are cold mass, unless we have heaters in place. With electricity in short supply and prices of gasoline going through the roof, modern dreams of an air-conditioned

life have become unreachable for most. It is no wonder, then, that it has become common for almost everyone to complain about how difficult life has been in Nepal.

But take a pause and think about a termite. It builds its home—with the labour of its fellow anthill citizens—with spectacular balance of interior temperature. In most of Africa, it is common for temperature to wildly fluctuate between day and night and between seasons. But inside an anthill, it remains exactly at 31 degree celcius, plus, minus one degree. Termites create that interior condition through a network of vents, chambers and flues so that they can farm fungus—their only food.

It will not be an exaggeration if we say that most of the houses built in Kathmandu are not designed with serious thought about how best to create cosy conditions during the day and night and during different seasons. The old houses, because of the materials used in their construction, provided some comfort. But the rush of modern living soon overtook and those houses receded into our spatial and imaginary background. I don’t know how many of our graduates of engineering and architecture schools really learn about homebuilding which addresses the need of the inhabitants, without destroying ecological fabric.

The built form that has resulted in Kathmandu and across our modernising landscapes—through decades of arrogant and thoughtless building—is neither soothing to the neither eyes nor cosy for the body. It is wasteful of energy on every count. We can keep blaming the government for not producing enough electricity or not importing enough gasoline, but somewhere down the line we are stuck in a built form that is designed badly. We can escape this predicament only by thoroughly transforming the way we make our buildings.

Perhaps, termites can teach a few things on this account. Let’s be humble and accept: their intelligence can guide us towards a way out.

anilbhattarai@gmail.com

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