The Modern Makeover Of Assam’s Centuries-Old Stilt Houses

The Modern Makeover Of Assam’s Centuries-Old Stilt Houses

The Modern Makeover Of Assam’s Centuries-Old Stilt Houses Living Paradigms is a series about what we can learn from the customs and cultural practices of others when it comes to solving problems. It is sponsored by Wonderstruck. U mananda Pathuri keeps a watchful eye on his eight-year-old daughter while his wife naps with their toddler. Outside their house in Nikori, a village in one of northeast India’s most flood-prone districts in the state of Assam, flood waters are rising and the rains are incessant. “We’re the Mising, Assam’s river people, so of course the child can swim,” says the 42-year-old. “We’re used to floods. But they now seem unpredictable, more treacherous somehow.” Pathuri and his family live in a low-lying area near the Dhansiri river, a tributary of the Brahmaputra, where floods are an annual feature. He is one of a handful of remaining masons in the village who build raised bamboo houses, known locally as chang ghars . With walls made of porous grass mats and stilts tha…