When I returned to my village of Hemisshukpachan in Ladakh in November after a hiatus of three months, I noticed a new architectural trend: steel roofing.
The next day, at a meeting in the community hall called by an NGO to distribute solar lamps, some villagers were in a rush to leave because there were workers at their homes installing steel roofs. This sparked a discussion about this new trend. There was a general agreement that all the residents should install steel roofs.
The impetus to build these roofs had come from the unprecedented rainfall we received in August. Leh recorded 80 mm of rain – roughly 930%. The flat mud roofs of the region’s traditional houses could easily withstand the historical average annual precipitation (both rain and snow) of around 100 mm. But my neighbours thought that steel roofing was necessary to face the changing weather patterns.
As a result, Ladakhis were spending their early winter getting ready for the summer instead of the phenomenon we have historically spent our time preparing for – the cold.
As I see it, the loosening ties of Ladakhis with the cold is responsible for the region’s new obsession with heritage preservation – and even our political anxiety.
Till the early 2000s, Ladakh’s winters…
Source: Why steel roofs in Ladakh are a sign of the region’s political and social crises
