I as a little boy I often heard that some relative, usually old, fell off the chajja and died. Now I know why. A village house is absolutely bland, not having any aesthetic value. The entire emphasis is on functional requirement;the cheapest, simplest and speediest construction. One expects ages of living and repeated construction evolves into the best building design suitable for that milieu. Nothing of the sort happened in Garhwal. May be it still is evolving....Essentially a village house in Garhwal like any other in hills have two or three storeys in the front, one less on rear taking into consideration slope of the hill. The house is long, a set of shoe boxes juxtaposed against each other . The lowest part caters to storage/kitchen etc the upper part for living. Bland stairs lead to upper floor, a narrow passage made of stone slabs protruding into free space about one and and half feet wide along the length of the house leads to different room. This passage is usually responsible for death of old people falling into their death. With age our reflex weaken therefore what is so surprising about it? The picture above was taken from the ledge making the author uncomfortable.
My view is that there shouldn't be any geometric shape in particular the box like construction. Hills have irregular feature therefore house should have curves melding with that milieu.... The unsafe and obnoxious outer passage along the length of the house should be done away with.
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