Dehradun, May 24 -- Manu Bahuguna

Our old thatch-roofs were no match for the onslaught of an Indian monsoon. 'The last storm discovered all the joints in our harness,' says Elizabeth Ross, wife of a joint magistrate from Meerut, in her diary in the 1880s: 'It was at night, and my endeavours to sleep through it were put to an end by heavy drops beginning to fall on my face. The first drop murdered sleep effectively, and a few more made me jump up to drag the bed into a dry place.'

Our attic was born when the then-owner, the Rani of Sheikhupura (now in Pakistan), decided to put a stop to leaks that happened whenever it rained. She used GI or galvanized-iron sheets (a surplus after the First World War) above the old thatch roof. This creat...