Guwahati: Marooned by floods for over a week, Tipomia’s residents have revived an ancestral practice to survive without abandoning their homes.Families in the Sivasagar district village have built “chang ghars” — elevated bamboo structures traditionally associated with Assam’s Mising community — inside their flooded houses. The platforms keep them above the water and allow them to remain close to their livestock.The villagers, descendants of Ahom royals, have embraced the structures as Tipomia battles one of its worst floods in decades. Their ancestors built a raised dyke, or garh, near the village to resist Mughal invasions.“After so many days, floodwater has been receding very slowly from our Tipomia village. Almost the entire village remains inundated. So we have built chang ghars inside our rooms, and we use boats to enter and come out whenever required,” said 44-year-old Simanta Gogoi.For younger residents, the disaster is unprecedented. Amid the devastation, the chang ghar has emerged as both a lifeline and a reminder of how traditional knowledge can provide protection when floods strike.Most families have refused to move to relief camps, determined to protect their cattle — their primary source of livelihood. Tipomia, located farther from the Nagaland hills than neighbouring villages, was inundated later, giving residents time to move many animals to a nearby road on higher ground.“We love our village. Though the fish have escaped from our ponds, vegetables have been destroyed and paddy saplings damaged, our people have not gone to relief camps. We managed to save many of our cattle. We will live in marooned waters.”The words are those of 42-year-old Diju Gogoi, who has spent several days on a makeshift chang ghar inside his home.“Till the 1980s, we heard that many Ahom families in Tipomia had chang ghars to save themselves from floods. But in those days, floodwater entered from the Brahmaputra and receded quickly. This time the water has come from the Nagaland hills, and there are no proper channels to drain it. So our village may remain inundated for several more days,” he added.Home to nearly 1,000 families, Tipomia has rarely witnessed flooding on this scale in recent decades. Older residents recall that Brahmaputra floods in the late 1980s left fertile fields behind. This time, muddy, silt-laden water has devastated farmland, emptied fish ponds, destroyed vegetable gardens and ruined freshly transplanted paddy.
