Wednesday, November 3, 2010

An attempt

.. to explain some of things I've seen and done in India! Much love, Jess
Durga Puja- a shrine to the Goddess Durga (aka Kali Ma), the destroyer of evil. Staying in Chittaranjan Park, a 99% Bengali neighborhood, during Durga Puja was TOTAL CHAOS as dusk fell and streets were closed to allow pedestrians access to the festivals. There were several, but this photo is from the most elaborate of the shrines nearby, and after 4 days of offerings and celebration, Durga was taken to a river and submerged (and could be seen en route in a convoy of truck beds) or exploded with fireworks in effigy.


Delhi-Chennai Trunk Express- The group of 20 left Delhi for our next stop: Nagpur, Maharastra. After 15 hours in A/C sleeper class (triple-decker bunk beds, my feet dangled into the aisle), watching the lush countryside fly by, we had 2 minutes to throw our bags onto the platform in Betul. Appropriately, we've taken to calling the group a "traveling zoo" because every action attracts attention as if we're on display.

In Maharastra, we stayed on Vasant and Karuna Futane's farm. The daily schedule was usually yoga (at 6 a.m.), breakfast, farmwork, lunch, class lecture or discussion, dinner at 8 p.m. One morning I picked peanuts (a legume, NOT actually a nut) off the vine for farmwork, another day I learned how to roll and cook chappatis (aka roti, Indian flatbread).

The dining hall space. All of the houses on the farm are made of a mud concrete with bamboo and timber supports, bamboo roofs with tile on top, because that can be locally sourced and is actually the most comfortable (in the summer, temps get up to 120 F).
Cattle! The farm keeps cattle for dairy production, but follows Gandian philosophy of non-violence and therefore cares for the animals like family, using them to work the fields but allowing them to graze each day and giving half the milk to nursing calves. The waste from the cows is completely reused: urine is liquid fertilizer, manure is the raw material for a slurry that feeds the methane digester, producing bio fuel for cooking, and the leftover from that process is added to the vermicompost.

Class lectures were usually held in the bamboo grove! On the left is Savysaachi, the IHP India coordinator and anthropology class professor, and on the right is Vasant, the farmer and one of our gracious hosts. Vasant has an incredible knowledge of his land, more than a third of which is "natural" forest agriculture, meaning it looks like wild overgrowth of trees and plants but is consciously selected companion crops for fruit, fodder, fuel, and other uses.

Karuna Futane, translating for farmers who gave us a tour of their village and its dairy cooperative during our stay in Sevagram (at one of Gandhi's ashrams).

Continuing the conversation with the dairy cooperative, who operate with a consensus-based structure (self-governed) and deliver milk directly to surrounding local villages, eliminating the middle man. The village has about 1,000 cows and they are very proud of their system, though at this level of production the cows are not able to graze and instead spend the day in open-air sheds being fed hand-milled grass/grain fodder.

The next day, sitting in a lecture literally in the middle of the road, on a visit to the village of Dhorli (spelling?) where the livelihood situation is almost the opposite. Farmers in Dhorli grow Bt Cotton, a genetically-modified plant resistant to Boll worms, now the only seed available for purchase. Only 10% of the land has access to irrigation so production is unstable and price is dependent on the market, which in turn depends on cotton production in USA, China, and Pakistan. As promise of increased yields falls through and price fluctuates, the farmers have been trapped by their loans and unable to make living off the land viable. In response, as an act of protest, farmers have said that the entire village is up for sale-- a message to the government that if Bt cotton is a "miracle seed," and farming is the basis of the economy, then you come and do it. No takers yet.

Monkeys outside my window at the accomodations next to the ashram in Sevagram! I was trying to nap and heard rustling in the bushes that are maybe 10 feet from the window, only to see a whole troop of baboons (?) with babies on their bellies and everything, eating leaves and berries, then jumping on our roof. The ashram is part memorial to Gandhi, part living history museum, with multifaith prayers twice a day (never made it the 4:30 a.m. session though..) and an emphasis on truth and non-violence.