At Ek Chidiya, we believe in leading a simple, yet full life. The village ambience has only enriched this thought for us. Now we are taking steps that enable eco-friendly living, but we are still stuck with many issues, and invite your suggestions on how to tackle them.

We are lucky to be living here and having running water that's a gush rather than a trickle. But piped water supply is still a dream for many here. So while the bathrooms are fitted with showers, we encourage a bucket bath, which saves up to 15 litre of water per person.

The grey water from the bathrooms and the kitchen--we use eco-friendly toileteries sourced from local NGO's, and biodegradable detergent in the kitchen--is used for the plants grown in the Ek Chidiya farm.

Like most farmers in Kumaon, we too depend mostly on the rains for irrigation, and are installing a rainwater harvesting system.

To be honest, like most urban citizens, we earlier never bothered about garbage disposal. But now even the sight of a plastic bottle puts us in a flap. We have minimised the use of plastic but there is no escape from wrappers, containers, and yes, diapers. However, we have found no other way of disposing plastic than to deposit the collection in the municipality bins in Haldwani (thankfully ,the bins are different for inorganic and organic waste). The organic waste, however, is put into the compost pit at Ek Chidiya.

We only use CFL bulbs. The geysers for hot running water in bathrooms are switched on only during limited hours, or on specific request.

The Ek Chidiya cottage has been constructed in the traditional manner by local artisans. The walls of the rooms are plastered with mud, which naturally conditions the air. Minimal cement and iron has been used, and there is no column or lintel in the building.

All the members of our staff belong to the nearby villages. Most vegetables and fruits are fresh Himalayan organic produce from the farm at Ek Chidiya, or those of our neighbors.

Actually we owe a lot to the fellow villagers for helping us become one of them. They have shown us how different seeds are sown, shared local recipes, made us comfortable when we experienced torrential downpour for days together, carried our child in their arms when they realised the mother was not used to the walking and climbing...

And we would like it if you experience their warmth too. They would offer you a chair in their house while they sit on the floor. The young village cricketers will make sure they are the ones dashing downhill to chase the ball, even if it had escaped your hands. In a traditional Kumaoni house, the animals take up almost as much space as the human occupants do. We sure have a lot to learn from them, and we are trying.