Have you often had the itch to leave behind your urban life, and start off afresh somewhere in the hills? Do you see yourself actually following through on this lofty dream? Well, some people do, and this is the story of one such couple.
Malika and Theo bid goodbye to city life about 25 years ago, and have since been living in a village of Munsiyari, in the Pithoragarh district of Uttarakhand. This is their abode, which has everything a city home has, with the added benefits of clean air, simplicity and mountain peaks when you look out the window.
Malika and Theo’s home looks straight out of a fairytale from the outside, and is testament to a life well-lived. Inside, the house is filled with books, maps of the hikes and trails completed by Malika, charts displaying the Hindi alphabet, and reports of Theo’s conservation work. The house has a small kitchen on the side, and a spacious sitting/sleeping area upstairs.
Equipped with large windows, even when you’re inside the house, you feel close to nature.
This is Malika, with one of the kids from the village community. Malika was an army kid living in Delhi, yearning to do something meaningful with her life. When she grew up, she followed through on her dream, and moved here. She has since been working on issues impacting the village and its households.
Among her many achievements, she has been elected as the village Panchayat more than once, has created and led women self-help groups, trekked across the Himalayas from Arunachal Pradesh to Ladakh, and has established a community-based tourism model that helps local families earn a dependable living.
Apart from the usual rooms, Malika and Theo’s house has a huge library that has books about the environment, wildlife and travel; which also serves as a personal creative quiet space. There is also a lush green field outside. The couple use this space to meet guests, write assignments, do their research work, and sometimes even let it out to travellers.
Malika and Theo live the life most of us dream about. They wake up, and look out at this view. Their meals are cooked with the freshest and cleanest ingredients you can find, in a traditional mud kitchen or out in the open. At the same time, both of them have also dedicated their lives to make the community they live in better, and more prosperous.
If ever you ever feel like you’re stuck in a rut, and need some inspiration about what you should do next, come back and read this story!
‘Houses of India’ is our weekly photo-story project, where we discover one home, and its story. Follow us on Instagram @housingindia, and join us on this beautiful journey across the country.
