I am not sure how many of you reading this have visited us during the monsoons. One of the features of our roof -”there”, where the two roofs meet, above the bookshelves- is that it has leaked almost from the very beginning, and has defied all attempts at fixing the problem.

The Cement channel was redone; the overlap between tile and cement channel was increased; the joints visible and imagined were M-sealed; the boys grew up and M-sealed the joints thoroughly, and the leak dramatically decreased. We were hopeful for a year but the summer peeled the M-seal off and we were back to Square One. We tried Wakaflex (a college-educated tar sheet as my father would have it). No success.

In our bedroom (the North bedroom) there is only one slope of the roof and it has never leaked. The other minor leaks have been in the other rooms where there is a cracked tile (easily replaced), or a crack in the cement where two roofs join using a ridge tile. These issues are minor, relatively. The tiled roof and the individual tile are amazing in their design.

We seldom give unsolicited advice, but when Ramsub and Rama were building their house, I did tell them to have a two sided roof and no roof joins. No leaks in their house whatsoever.

I remember Sundar Chatterjee telling me long ago about his own roof leak at Cholamandal: “Whatever you do, if there is a leak, you will have to deconstruct that part of the roof and reconstruct.” This is what I was loathe to do, though Sonati was quite sure that that was the only way.

Finally, after the rains were over in December, we hired Munnusamy to break the cement channel, and re-lay the roof with a new, wider tin sheet. No cementing, a la Goa houses. We finished on the evening of December 31st.

Yesterday (7 May), our 5 month drought ended in a mad cloudburst with terrific winds and thunder-lightning and 20 mm of RAIN in some half an hour.

And the roof didn’t leak “there”. For the first time in eighteen years! And now my mind can go “wandering where it will go”.