Katwa (West Bengal): About eight kilometres from Burdwan town towards Katwa is Palitpur village, home to Loku Roy, a widower who has been living away from society, in a tree house for the past 25 years. He built this house on bamboo tree at a place situated two kms from the village road near a dry canal running along the paddy fields.
A television series called 'The Legend of Mike Dodge' on the National Geographic Channel was a massive hit as a man named Mike was shown to have built a tree house near the Pacific Northwest rain forest to escape modern civilization. Taking a leaf out of that series, Loku Roy of Palitpur in Burdwan has built a similar house on top of a bamboo tree.
Roy once led a normal life in the village with his wife, son and two daughters. After his wife's death some years ago, he lost his mental stability and started living aloof. The tree house is his new home, which he has decorated fervently with a small garden around the fence.
He has even dug up a pond for himself and connected it with the canal. He catches fish here in the rainy season. Roy looks after his garden, does his daily chores and has lunch at one of his daughter's homes.
He does odd jobs and earns a little, leading a simple life. After a whole day's toiling, he comes back to his pavilion, his only asset now, his tree house. Originally from Bihar, he moved to Burdwan with his parents at a very young age and never left the place.
"Apart from working here and there, doing petty jobs all through the day, he spends his free time gardening. He wants to spend the rest of his life like this. He has his meals at his daughter's house," villager Montu Roy said.
Sailu Dube, the son-in-law of Loku Roy, said, "After the death of my mother-in-law, he started living in the tree house. He works all day in the fields or wherever he finds work and comes home only to eat in the afternoon and goes back to the tree house at night. We wanted to build a house with help from the government, but doesn't have any documents which got burnt in a house fire."
