IBEYA'S PHUMDI

Ibeya's Phumdi

One enters a small opening that gives way to a larger waterbody spacious enough for the household to accommodate their canoe boats and form their private driveway. The entryway formed by isolated, floating chunks of biomass anchored to the phumdi forms a protective barrier against the stronger waters during the thunderstorms thereby housing their boats safely. A bright pink temporal haven made of bamboo as the structural member sits amongst a sea of Napi grass thereby forming this “floating” island on the still waters of Loktak lake.

A bright pink home sits in the middle forcing your eye on it. Made up of numerous scraps of tarpaulin the home is seen as a bricolage of materials ranging from plastic to cloth to GI sheet. Long bamboo pieces form the entrance which double up as a compound for people to sit and relax. The house is 5.6 x 3.1m. It also provides for a sturdier ground against the shifting, porous biomass. On entering the space is dark, damp with hardly any daylight filtering in. The home is a collection of everyday objects like plastic buckets, utensils, Mora(bamboo stools),discarded plastic, ropes etc. gathered together over in 10 years.

A low lying structure with bamboo members hanging almost touching your head from time to time made up the ceiling of the house. The home is clammy and dark and certain sheets of tarpaulin are folded up to promote cross ventilation. Ibeyai sits at one corner of the house trying to make sense of what we are trying to understand. The cat moves around shying away from us, trying to find a safe hideaway in the Gom (fish-roasting chulha). Borgey has a ready smile for us trying to communicate and help us while preparing to go for casting the fish nets. The home is a collection of materials where the structural bamboos are used as hooks and tied things upon.

Sensorial Biomass

The sensorial drawing is an attempt at understanding the surface textures and porosity. It maps the land and its shifting undulations through the method of stippling. The denser stipples indicate thicker meshes and entanglements of the biomass where the land is thick enough to walk normally. The areas with less intensity and frequency of stipples indicates porous landforms where water seeps up easily when pressure is applied.

Movements of the Biomass

The Biomass is constantly moving and shifting because of wind and water pressure and hence there is a constant sense of movement that one feels when on the phumdi. The movement felt is of the wobbly type during the storm whereas during the calm waves there is a constant sideways shift that the drawing is trying to map.

Napi Grass

The biomass is essentially made up of the napi grass and the phum entangled together over the years to form a thick layer of land. These households also grow cabbages and special plants used as condiments in chutneys and curries. It forms a part of their everyday diet. Whatever grows on the land is given back to it such that the process of life form continues. The phumdi does not have any soil and the plants have a symbiotic relationship dependent on each other for various nutrients.

Structure

The structure of the house is essentially a temporal one with bamboo members lashed together forming the structural frame and tarpaulin as the wall and infill material. GI sheet forms the roof of the house. Loktak as a region receives heavy rainfall for half the year with thunderstorms and hence it is necessary to fix these structures to the biomass such that it does not get floated or blown away. Long bamboo members are pushed into the ground with ropes attached to them that come up to the surface. The bamboo pieces are pushed as deep as possible in the land and the rope tied to them is then brought up to the surface and tied to the super structure thus anchoring it as firmly as possible. Materials such as tarpaulin, bamboo and GI sheet are lightweight such that it helps the land to not sink.

Mesh

The biomass of phum and napi grass is seen as a landscape of bulges and swells that makes up the land. As an attempt to understand the topography and the flowing water, the above drawing maps the land and process of how a phumdi is made. The newer, dead layers are pressed below with the the help of long bamboos thereby increasing the thickness of the biomass section making it habitable without sinking. The mesh is a method that works like the contours but goes along the landform in 3d.

The different layers come together to form the Phumdi as a whole

Everyday

The people living on the the lake do not follow the circadian cycle as they operate according to the process of fish catching. Borgey and Ibeyai have their first full meal at 11 am and take rest till the afternoon after which Borgey goes for casting the fish nets. Meanwhile Ibeyai dries and roasts the fish on the Gom (fish roasting stove) and spends her day on the phone talking to her children studying in Moirang and listening to bollywood songs. After Borgey returns, they have their evening red tea and sit around, relax and have dinner after which they go to sleep. At 3am in the morning Borgey goes to collect the fish and then in the morning they sell it to the market in Moirang. Occasionally, they also go to Moirang to buy the necessary goods and thus their connect to mainland remains constant with the exchange of goods and gossip.