"Smut" or Female Pornography

Did you know that romance novels (Mills and Boon, Harlequin, other single title romances...) are slangly called "smut" or female pornography? Well, this post is a rambling about the romance novel because it has been the subject of intense and casual conversations (both face-to-face and online) more than a few times in different contexts in the last ten days or so.

Most modern urban women would agree with the statement that the romance novel is probably their second best friend, or at the very least a comfortable cushion. It is probably the most widely read genre (it is being called a genre by the literature people?! as well as the Romance Novelists Association who first called it that, and so let us also go by that name) by women and also churned out every year at a very high speed. Today there are more and more romance novels that are in sync with the changing times - modern career women, enterprising, independent, spunky and struggling against odds in a male-dominated workplace, balanced relationships between the hero and heroine and so on. Right?

This may be true but this is only a part of the picture. Looking again and thinking without the worship holding the kidnapped, a victim of the kidnapper (!@I?!!! - a devoted reader would only defend her novel), one may perceive that there is more than meets the eye. There is more than meets the eye in these times especially, because everything is played out so subtly. Earlier where there were skimpily dressed women on the front cover, today we probably have landscapes, the bare-chested man perhaps or even profiles of both the hero and heroine kissing maybe. Earlier where there was no delusion in the language of the novel and so perhaps the reader's interpretation too of the portrayal, of the conventional positions of men and women as protector and protected respectively, today the language is outwardly that of modern feminism. However there is a subliminal dissemination of the same stereotypical roles, labels and patterns that feels even dangerous sometimes just because it is veiled and cloaked in language appropriate to the current trends. There is a whole system of metalanguage at insidious work here. Perhaps 'insidious' is a strong word, and perhaps individual authors are not to blame for this.

One of the important aspects of the romance novel that reveals itself to someone who wants to examine it, is that it is the heroine's perspective. The romance novel is mostly for women and mostly by women. It is by now quite intensively studied and surveyed (in the UK and USA), that the romance novel is the comfort and escapism from daily humdrum for scores of women. A casual perusal of the situation here (urban India largely) indicates a similar situation. All the scholars seem to agree on this. The matter of concern is that it is also an invisible guide to 'how to be a perfect woman and a heroine' and 'how to get the perfect hero to become your boyfriend / husband' or even 'what is true love?'. We have to understand the origin of this genre for understanding this aspect - England. The first romance novels are a delight, whether it is Samuel Richardson or Jane Austen or even Georgette Heyer. But they provide an insight into English society at that time, which had an enormous list of Do's and Dont's, how to behave in polite society, elaborate grooming rituals and etiquette and whatnot, for ladies and once a lady is out, her sole aim is to find and tie to herself in holy matrimony, a Man. A Hero. Of course, so we also have the books which tell the stories of rebel women, stories of women who are not 'gentle', not born in elite families but in traders' families and so on... However, the ultimate aim of finding the man and preparing oneself for this has not fundamentally changed over the years and until date. Well, duffer! this is a romance novel, obviously - man meets woman, they fall in love, they struggle, then they unite, has to be the central plot. But of course! So why is it a matter of concern? Because these invisible guidelines condition our minds surreptitiously and tell women one way of leading their lives, one way of being and becoming a heroine, one-answer solutions for all problems of womanhood. Fortunately or unfortunately or propitiously or happily or unhappily (I am not sure I want to specify a particular qualifying adjective I should use here so I leave it to the reader to decide this, but there must be one!), it is primarily the woman's job to hook the man. That may sound crude, but it boils down to that when one removes the glossy packaging. She has to look, dress, speak, behave, eat, breathe... in a particular way to get this man. If she is not so, then the story is also about her transformation (in its crudest form, makeover) so that she is deserving of her Hero.

Believe it, THE code for being a female is very much present in the most rebellious stories of the earlier years as well as in the most 'progressive' and 'modern' stories of contemporary authors. I have read several of both kinds. Another matter of serious concern is that this code is today dazzling women who are barely into their teens. Should we even get into the details of this code? It is obvious and it is all around us, conditioning us and our children, especially the teenagers, in the form of advertisements, soaps, movies, the works. A friend pointed out a very interesting observation a couple of months back: the supplement paper of a leading national daily that is popular here (chennai) has almost on every alternate page if not every page, some mention of 'slimming' and having a perfect body - either in the form of food articles, or ads for gyms and cosmetics, or an interview with a beautician. You name it, it is there. And the marketing language is very clear - it is directed at women, the objective of all these pursuits for women is one, peer acceptance, and two, either getting into a relationship or maintaining one or even getting back an estranged boyfriend. An article in Tehelka Magazine, speaks about how teenagers today function on "American Remote control", describing the soaps that are being watched on television. Women, young and old are being groomed, polished and manicured with this code.

Let us now take a look at our Hero for whom all the above must be done. According to the romance novel, He is the Man in the men, the perfect being and epitome of manhood. He is always, either covertly or overtly in the position of the giver (of security, riches, status, recognition, validity in the eyes of society...) and the heroine in the position of the taker. It is simply that while this was explicit in the earlier novels, it is not so in the modern romance novels that are largely single title romances in paperback. If we deconstruct the language, we arrive at the same conclusions that the man has to be a "Hero" and neither can he be a physical weakling nor a "wimp". According to several studies and discussions on this issue, we have a perfectly manufactured and orchestrated hero, just as the perfectly groomed and conditioned woman.

Did you know that, "the 'Alphaman' was based on what Alan Boon referred to as a 'law of nature': that the female of any species will be most intensely attracted to the strongest male of the species, or the Alpha. In other words, the Hero must be absolutely top-notch and unique. The wimp type doesn't work. Women don't want an honest Joe,' Alan Boon seems to have said." For the uninitiated, Alan Boon was the son of Charles Boon who started the Mills and Boon company in the early 1930s in the UK, and one of the rules given to the authors was the "Alphaman" one. Although by now there have been many developments (for instance, Harlequin bought over M&B in the 70s and we have a large number of single title romance novels today), the alpha male seems to be a standard unwritten code among all romance authors.

So what have we here? A perfect hero, a perfect heroine, and the perfectly true love story. Herein is the third lesson: True Love. One of the most important rules is that for true love, it is a must to feel physical attraction of the kind described in these novels. And one must of course discover suddenly or over a period of time that one has fallen in love madly. So today we have a true love that can only be true one way. The result of this is that we have more and more women out there waiting for that chemistry, and waiting for that zip in their "heart" and zing in their "core" before they can commit. I know a couple of such women and have heard of many more. There will be many more waiting if the trend goes on because the truth is that neither are they such perfect women nor are there such perfect heroes. God forbid!

One corollary to this is also that we completely miss the hard work, the commitment, patience and time it takes in actuality to make an imperfectly perfect marriage or relationship. There are more and more young people out there who are not ready to give time to a relationship, they want it perfect, and now! And the responsibility of bringing perfection always belongs to the other in the relationship. What seemed like a natural phenomenon in the first bloom of "true love" becomes very difficult to accept or understand as time goes by - that it takes two to tango.

It is very easy to dismiss all this by saying that it is after all a story. Why make such a fuss over a story? This is exactly what I said half a dozen years ago. But I have come to understand what a foolish and simplistic belief that is. Stories have the power to transform people. And stories make you believe. They have done so now for all of the history of mankind. And we are just being naive if we say these are just stories and they do not have it in them to condition and direct minds. Just as naive as saying that advertisements have no impact on children. When we believe that this is 'just a story' we forget that many many times the stuff that we consume, we are made to consume because there are big stakes in the consumption, including the romance novel. As a matter of information, the Romance Writers of America and the Romance Novelists Association are two entities that are not simply a bunch of home makers alias authors who are able to put words on paper and put together a romance plot in a thrilling fashion. These are two significant groups which fund research and scholarship on romance and romance novels.

What makes it all even more worrying for me is the "American remote control" and that teenagers and young adults of urban India have a near-death grip on it and it wont take very long for the rest to follow. We now have the romance genre for the teenager. There is this new book called "Twilight" and it truly horrifies me, and not because the teen hero of the book is a werewolf. You can read one review here to see how all the stereotypes of the 'adult' romance novel are repeated here and quite in an empty fashion. Clearly, teenagers now are not credited with much intelligence. I have not read the book, but have read several excerpts, synopses and descriptions given by various people, both critics and devotees and a few reviews. These do not inspire me to pursue the book further, except faintly perhaps to understand what makes teenagers go gaga over it.

Having said all that, I have to add that there are some really good romance novels too. But unfortunate that in the tsunami of romance novels hitting shelves each year, these perhaps make for a few drops.

Claimer: The above are views of a lay reader who has read several hundreds of these romance novels including the master of the romance genre, Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, and still likes it best.

Death

Couple of days ago, an elderly friend of ours, an allopathic doctor was sharing his chagrin and concern about the direction which modern medicine and the beneficiaries of it are taking. He said that there are many things that are going not quite okay, but more than all that what affects him deeply is the changing attitude of the patients who come to him as well as his colleagues, since this is something he comes across personally.

He spoke about how everyone wants the doctors to work miracles, nothing short. No matter what the disease, what the conditions and circumstances, and no matter the age of the patient, they all want the miracle of life. No matter how it is done, they should be saved. Even if the patient is 85-years old, with a weak heart and some other irreversible condition. He added that his colleagues thought him heartless and sometimes even brand him unethical if he says so-and-so must be left in peace to die since he / she is 76 or 85 years old and the body cannot take the trauma of surgery and complicated procedures. Even those patients themselves ask him to save them somehow.

He exclaimed, "Am I a magician or God or something? Is medicine invincible? After all we are human beings and live according to the rules of creation. Why cannot we accept death as a part of life any longer? This never used to be the case before. A patient who has a wise attitide about death is a rarity. I remember that in the last so many years, there was one old man from a village who had this wisdom. He was 75+ years old and came to me with a block in his intestine that was in a really advanced stage. To top it, he also had a weak heart."

After examining him, my friend tells him (he believes in stating it as it is to the patient which also is not acceptable to many) that because of his age, his weak heart and his advanced age there is a greater possibility that he may die during the required complicated surgery or even in its immediate aftermath. It seems that the man told him, "So what? I have lived my life and it has been alright. It is just that in this age I am unable to endure the pain, if you say that after the surgery the pain will go away then by all means please do the operation and if I die in the process, all the better. I am happy". The man came through the operation successfully and started walking within the week and was discharged soon after. My friend lamented that if only people had this sort of an attitude actually there is more chance that they will pull through rather than a beggar's appeal.

Traditionally in India, death has never been something to be pushed away, or shied from. Death is in a cycle with life, or is a completion of it. Our understanding has never been that we have to live on, no matter how, and be kept alive even artificially on life support systems. As my friend said, the medicine system and its stakeholders are going in a direction where they feel that they have to overcome death otherwise they would fail. Somehow in an earlier generation, the value was not for going on endlessly. Personally in my life, my great grandmother was an example for this. I lived with her the last few years of her life, and in the last one year, she said she was near death and welcomed it and said her work in this life was over.

This would be the understanding in theory as well. For instance, in Ayurveda while diagnosing a disease there are three ways of looking at it: sadhya, pracharasadhya and asadhya, meaning, controllable and curable; curable but with difficulty; and no cure, respectively. I think this is a very significant category that places limits on what humanity can do. This treats death as a natural phenomenon that occurs as a continuation of life, and not something that needs to be battled against and won over. I also feel that this approach to life, and death places human arrogance in its place and puts us right there as part of the nature map, interdependent with all of creation, and not out of and on top of it lording over nature. Which is the reality. The reality is that humans dont control and manipulate nature. We try to understand it, and now also tamper with it and think that we are controlling it, but we have no way of knowing it to be so. But there is ample evidence in human history that nature is not subservient to man. There is no possibility of such a comparison, we are part of it. Hence nature and man are not enemies, we dont have to conquer nature, dont need to feel this compulsion to fight death. We could take it gracefully as a part of life, as we have been doing.

But as the doctor mentioned, this value seems to be changing in ordinary life now. The more that people are in touch with wonder drugs, hospitals and the greater and greater struggle against death in the form of modern medicine, the more they are taken in by the seeming invincibility of it all. Why?

"Singam" - A short Review

The film is as any other Tamil masala formula for Tamizhnattu makkal, with dramatic dialogues and declarations meant for the Tamizh masses. True time-pass if one wants to spend time doing nothing much else.

However, there is one aspect in the movie which redeemed it for me. It dissented from the usual formula in modern tamil masalas, in showcasing the rural vs urban character. Usually in most movies (Take Gilli for instance), the hero is the guy from the metro (chennai of course!) who is intelligent, also knows all his martial arts and has the law on his side, ultimately. The villain is the goonda from the village, a country bumpkin who is all brawn and no brain.

Happily, in 'Singam' the hero is from the village; he is intelligent, smart, also knows to fight but tries always to avoid conflict, and of course has mass support. (You should watch the movie to see how this mass support is presented in the movie. Classic! and real). The villain is from chennai city with all the arrogance of coming from the capital. The juxtaposition was delightful for me.

A true-to-form scene is the dialogue between the police inspector hero and his corrupt superior, where the latter asks him, "do you think this (chennai) is a village for people to be illicitly brewing liquor?" And our hero lets loose a harangue that goes on and on about how we can think the village is inferior and chennai superior, and instances of all that is happening in chennai and so on. When the other guy can edge in to make his presence felt, he uses words like "remote tuticorin district potti kaadu", "small fry from dokku police station".

Response: I come from Potti Kaadu of Tuticorin district, from a dokku police station, bathing every day in Tamairaiparani river, and you come from this big city bathing in the stinking rotting smell of the coovum river. This is the difference between us.

Classic. No other word.

'the curious incident of the dog in the night-time'

A novel by Mark Haddon

An insightful and moving piece of work, it is written as a narration of a child who is autistic. Not only draws a beautiful picture of the world and thinking of such a person, but draws out the sense and simplicity in the understanding of a child. I found the book a profound reflection on life itself. It is a must-read for parents, teachers and educationists.

An Ode

This is a poem I wrote for someone:

Just as water flows,
Untiringly, relentlessly, to it's end
Ceasing not for celebration or sorrow.
Sometimes a comfortable gurgle,
Gently drenching souls in its path-
Sometimes an unstoppable force,
Sweeping empires into it's tiny drops.
Neither seeking favours nor giving aught;
Filling all emptiness.
Clear, transparent, beyond shape,
Assuming colour and dimension-
Taking, or giving Beauty?
Life-giving,
Almost unnoticeable in it's simplicity.
My song to the idea of <>

I lost my spectacles!

This was written when I was in class 9:

The next few lines that you are to hear,
Are the funniest, do not fear.
That suny afternoon, at school-
It was destined that I play the part of a fool.
There I was, - studiously typing -
And my friend was showing off her new ring.
All of a sudden, my spectacles! they were missing!
And then started a great deal of fussing
I searched and searched and searched everywhere -
By now the typewriters had begun to stare.
I searched every place I could find,
Telling myself that God is kind.
Then the lavatory found me in there,
For my skirt had developed a tear.
Back to class, I then came -
To find that I'd gained a lot of fame.
My friend suddenly pointed at my pocket,
There lay the culprit, right beside my locket!
My teacher exclaimed, "You are Great!"
While I sat down cursing my fate.
------------------------------

Well, I have used poetic license here. My friend was not showing off her ring but something else I dont remember what and there was no locket in my pocket, only the missing spectacles!

A smile rains

it is a typical tropical summer noon.
the heat is stifling in the jam-packed bus,
I am praying for mercy and at least a light shower.
a girl sits down beside me; asks me the time.
I answer her, and we continue our journey -
a brief unnoticed, orphan togetherness.
until she gets off the bus,
then turns and gives me a beautiful smile –
big lit-up eyes and a perfect row of teeth, on dusk.
for me, it rained.

Night Sky

Wrote this after I spent almost half the night up on the terrace once, not thinking but just being:

I met Night Sky today,
And what stories he had, to tell me.

He has been right above me all this while -
What a surprise, I met him only today.
Came everyday, and waited for me,
Or so he says!
But fool that I am,
Caught up with Good Fellow Life;
And what he has, to offer me -
That I missed Night Sky.
He just smiled at me, ordered me to shut up,
And started his tales.

He stopped the Birds,
In a hurry to return to their nests,
To stay a moment for me.
He beckoned to Gentle Breeze-
Who blew in and ruffled my hair.
He asked me to meet his little friends,
And they twinkled their greetings merrily.
Pointing out the solitary plane,
He told me about the little girl in there -
Returning from boarding school,
Her face one big smile.
He promised to introduce his other friends,
Who were just then on their roofs, chatting with him;
Some, about crazy traffic, weddings, and the coming vacation-
Others demanding that he command his absconding friend Rain to come.

He began telling me about Morning Sky,
When, "oh!" I said, "it's time for me to go -
"Good Fellow Life will be waiting for me"
Came the answer - "But, who's that sitting next to you then?!"
We're old friends now, Good Fellow Life, Night Sky and me.

Rain

Written in 2007 madras monsoon time:

Today, the skies opened up.
One moment, there was nothing,
And the next, storming us unawares -
A thick curtain of movement.

Torrents and torrents of water,
Beating upon my world
And washing it new.
Washing away all longing, all fear, all want.
My spirit, the spirit of the water, all one.
Now glistening on the leaves,
Now gushing by the side of the tar road,
Now crashing on the roof,
Now streaming down the stairway.

I am the wind howling,
I am the thunder rumbling,
I am the lightening -

For a breathless while, boundaries were hazy:
where did God stop? where water began -
where did water stop? where I began.

Wedding

Wrote this while sitting in a wedding a few years back:

So many worlds,
so many explosions---
one togetherness beginning,
so many others in the making.

Loud music,
so that the bride and groom
can hardly hear
their own thoughts;
lest they flee the altar!

Tiny steps...
laying the foundation,
for bigger strategies and stories-
"see, I've got a Big bangle, it makes this clink sound"
"see my new dress, mm... ammaaaa, I want new bangles"

Pitter patter, little feet tapping in rhythm to the noise, ahem, music.
One solitary soul sitting in deep contemplation of his surroundings...
next door gossip on one side,
"my great-aunt's daughter's husband got her the gold chain she's wearing"
"so, your daughter has become a big girl now, I remember her in her chaddis"
"by the way, I heard that he is a software engineer. How much does he get?"
one little finger picking a little nose and enjoying the spiritual experience...

Twinkling eyes, glittering sarees, reminiscences, laughter, mouths
involved in frenzied activity - no time like now to talk, no time like
now to eat, no time like now to smile, laugh...golden necks and hands,
an occasional golden nose, pearled hair, be-jewelled bodies.

The eye of the hurricane,
the centre of all the hullaballoo -
their wedding will begin
when the audience is gone,
and the glitter & gold locked away.

Romance

One of my earlier poems, written I think during a trek in the kodai hills way back in 2001!!

Romance in the air I breathe now,
romance in my soul....

is it this place?

But, we can find romance, can't we
in that elusive dream...
in tomorrow's hope?

My feet feels the morning dew on the grass,
I feel romance in my nerves...

Racing by, through the fields,
a battered tape player playing my favourite classics,
smell of pine and eucalyptus,
village sounds and smells
a backdrop of hills,
the picture of romance.

But then again,
is the romance in the picture
or in me?

Sensing Nature Through Arts - Summer Camp

Summer Camp for children aged 8 – 12 years, 4th – 9th May 2009
A Review-Report 

Kalakshetra Foundation and The Aseema Trust jointly conducted a six day summer camp, “Sensing nature through arts” for children aged 8 to 12 years. The camp activities were spinning and weaving on a frame, printing from nature and paper making, clay work, kolams and pot decoration, and kalamkari. There were also movies to watch and talk about. The camp was hosted in the quiet and natural environment of the Kalashetra Art centre. The vasanas and energy of the space were just right and suited for a camp-full of people trying to sense nature.

More than anything else, the beauty of the organisation of activities was in the qualities required for the minute hand work – silence, reflection, observation and a sense of aesthetics. In an urban set up we have moved too far away from doing useful work with hands, and the connection of hand work to mind and heart is seldom acknowledged. A dichotomy of academic (mind) and non-academic (hand) work that is non existent has been fed into our psyche, and we fail to see how the hand can be intellectual and emotional. And we have too soon forgotten that science begins with observation. And that man can come closer to the nature that he is part of only by first observing her closely.

The camp introduced and facilitated these qualities in a vibrant manner wherein the children discovered the same in themselves even as they were producing beautiful works of art.

They were learning to walk peacefully, carefully, observe, gather and categorise pieces of nature (leaves, flowers, twigs…) without disturbing her;
they were discovering the joy of being concentrated and focused in one activity unmindful of mild physical discomforts as they were working on their paintings and clay;
they were realising the usefulness of observation and precision;
they were experiencing the intangible pleasure of struggling and completing a creation of their own;
they were imagining, thinking, visualising, and also expressing their ideas through their work;
they were learning to be patient and perseverant in getting that thread just right through the loops;
they were strengthening ties of friendship and cooperation while helping and teaching each other,
they were discovering that being gentle is also being strong while modeling clay;
they were feeling the excitement of numbers as they were counting threads, measuring without the use of external aids, working with different sizes of clay models, teaching each other complicated kolam patterns;
they were experiencing a non-hierarchical, non-pressurised learning environment where learning is for learning’s sake;
they were learning to learn from nature, to mention a few.

Besides all this of course, they were picking up skills of spinning, weaving, threading, painting, clay modeling, braiding, paper making, kolam-drawing... They were also getting an understanding of different materials and their properties through experiential work with cloth, clay, paints, sand, water, stones and so on. We also had very interesting sessions of history, film appreciation, unorganised play, contemporary social issues and listening to music thrown in. We watched a movie on Khadi cloth and its making by Kanika Myers, extracts of a movie that revolved around school children in rural Karnataka and their discussions on caste discrimination, and Satyajit Ray’s movie titled, “The adventures of Goopy and Bhaga”.

An open session was planned for the last day when the children exhibited their work to their parents. There was also a potluck snacks party for the entire camp team including the faculty, volunteers, children and others. The children’s theatre on this day deserves special mention. The play by Shri. Velu Saravanan and his team was entrancing and very interactive. Judging by the laughter and complete involvement of the entire population in the hall, all of us were children for that duration. Set in the background of a fisherman’s child finding a pot with a genie inside while at sea, the team also kept asking some fundamental questions on what is knowledge and what is development through the course of the skit. This is very relevant since the success of the summer camp is not simply in it being conducted well, although it is a part too, but in the continued internalising and practice of these qualities in each of us who were a part of the camp.

A fitting finale was a running presentation of the delightful memories and moments of the camp captured digitally.

Himalayan Time

Notes from a 'work' trip to the kumaon region:
(Visited SIDH, an organisation doing very insightful and pioneering work in education...).
Backdrop: the magnificient, breathtaking garhwal himalayas.

Getting up at 6 every morning to find the entire place under blankets. Nobody gets up before 6:30. By 6, only if there is a Sahjan programme (one of their educational initiatives) and consequently the Yoga class in the morning.

The first night spent with creeping, crawling and flying things in the small room; ready to get back to Madras. What we are afraid of and run away from comes back to us, and if we are aware and observe, we learn.

No work on the Sunday. Getting to know the teachers, Sonal and Madhu. Discussion time, music time, washing clothes time, washing hair time, cleaning up time, playing with Jagmohanji’s kids time…. The quality of life away from the city – more time for meditative things, more time for the things around one’s self, life doesn’t stop if the electricity and phone lines are down – pretty much the same. There is always time to stop and do pranaam to anyone one happens to meet and enquire after their family, home, health and work. The living with nature, not trying to bend her to suit one’s needs but the other way round, not as much man bending as living in harmony.

Raining continuously here. Rains now untimely; it may have been snowing in Badrinath was the prediction. (It was snowing in Uttarkashi was the news we got later). Even Delhi had rains, I came to know later. Electricity down almost continuously; Phone lines on and off.

GOOD lunches in the roti-dal-sabji-rice 'Mess'. All kinds of local greens cooked for sabji and tasting real good. We get half of this in the city.

Beautiful Earth. and Beautiful Man. Rainbows twice. And such clear, huge ones coming right down on to the hills. Everybody came out to watch the rainbow, talk of how rainbows are formed, it forms here and not there, why it disappears here faster etc. The normal phenomenon is: if the sun comes out, most people are out basking in the sun which at its scorching best here is a pleasant warm for the sparse humanity below. Tea, and talk of from which direction (slight shifts etc) the sun comes out and goes behind the hills, uttarayan and dakshinayan and so on, flowing into talks of festivals, when which festivals are celebrated and why, what they do etc. Closer to nature, life doesn’t move at breakneck speed, more time for watching the sun, observing his movements over the year, more time for finding out why we celebrate some of the festivals, and why we observe some rituals and some others in other places and so on.

Beautiful Earth. and Moments of just ‘being’. For as much as the eye can see, only mountains and valleys, sky and clouds of all colours (because it was raining), sparkling sheer-drop cliffs, mist rolling in and out, cold cold wind not wanting to be left out. Nothing much else existed except maybe in one’s knowledge and imagination, if they actually dared, and managed to intrude in this simply ‘being’. Beautiful earth, she is my mother.

Beautiful Earth. and Beautiful Night. Walks after dusk. Smells and sounds heightened, sharpened. animals in the bushes, not knowing that their glowing eyes give them away. Darkness and mist vying with each other for attention and dominance. Look up, and there are only stars in your world.

Beautiful Earth’s Child. The expert? in Delhi, or Chennai knows the numbers but the Himalayan Light Foot has seen and knows how they twinkle right above his head, he also knows their different groups and how friendly they are with each other, their movements according to the changing seasons. The light foot knows her moon, half-eaten, just nibbled away, or hidden from human sight, she does not need sight on the path lit by her moon, her knowledge is enough for her, and me. She is up before her sun, and is still up after he goes, preparing to meet him the next day.

Sonal and her yoga. New inspiration for me.

The Cold is a person, biting and all over the place. And demanding my body heat. she is on my hands and feet, making them numb. She is on my bed, and the blankets – my body warms her in the night. She is on and into my socks, and disappointed with my feet. She is not too happy with my hands either. I told her to wait a couple of days, I would conquer her in my turf.

The SIDH story and about Sahjan and Sanjeevani at different times from Jagmohanji. A story of organic evolution, lots of hard work, numerous questions, and still more doubts, and a slow building and nourishing of relationships with the help of not just sheer brilliant creativity but backing it with painstaking work with details. Reading lots of material on Sanjeevani, and Sanmati courses, how they were conducted, course content and so on. Working and thinking along very similar lines to Samanvaya.

Jagmohanji – one big sense of humour with a voice that sung jaunpuri folk with a lilting as well as a rending quality both at the same time. English lessons with him (one english speaking exercise with him, describing his one work-day, other times talking in English, bits and pieces). A riot of an antakshari session with him, the girls – sonal and madhu, and rajesh. His people management, knowledge of the pahad (mountain region), his play with the kids, and enthusiasm to learn… all the people are multi-skilled, with a variety of interests, and none went through the pipeline of recruitment etc. All coming in naturally, doing what they like doing and staying for the sheer love of what they believe in and do. For all the teachers, their children are never far away from their minds.

The teachers’ meeting on the 11th – on teaching methods where the gap between the ‘weak’ students and students who do well is reduced, how to do such a thing, plans to remove class system and bring in group system from next year, child to child teaching, parents involvement – a dance-drama programme for them etc. It was a brainstorming session and the similarities between Samanvaya sessions and now here are striking. The only difference is that there are fewer people back home.

Tea and Dinner time in the Mess – time for various discussions on a whole host of issues from serials, TV and the harm that this is doing, education today, modernity, culture to what kind of foods are eaten in various parts of India and why, festivals and clothes in various parts, marriages, music, great people of India being just a few. The point to be noted here is that this is a regular happening, as also the other records – these are not happening because a guest is present, these are things that happen every day or as a matter of routine. They also mentioned that when the women in the villages get together, or at work talk about a whole lot of these things, besides about their families and local politics etc. Similar thing that was observed during the shodh yatras in Tamil Nadu and Uttaranchal – people might be living in apparent ‘poverty’ and a thread bare existence, but the wrinkles never show. There is only hospitality and smiles, and lots of time to talk, greet each other and catch up on local gossip and larger issues and so on. It is as they move away from this life and nearer to a city existence that people forget to celebrate and nourish life; mere existence becomes a burden and a grinding routine without vibrance, compassion and creativity. (There was also a candle-light dinner once, and a ghazal night once, most of them sing beautifully)

Beautiful Earth. and Silent Spirit. & Peaceful Spirit. A walk in the hills and my spirit subsided to silence. Simply silence – the cup is emptied and it is beautiful silence inside, or ‘at peace’. The outside sounds and other talk being not at all intrusive. The silence inside has taken into it the sounds and ideas outside. Nothing was jarring, nothing was wanting, nothing was out of order. Everything a part of the silence.

Thoughts on Diversity and Indigenous – What modernity calls ‘diversity’ and consequently India as ‘unity in diversity’... What it is, is actually local, indigenous. Each locality / region is a complete whole in itself and all these together interact with each other in various ways and make other systems, smaller and larger, they are all interconnected (I have to think and put down how), because they work on the same fundamental worldview of dharma / God / creation is manifestation of God (the dharma is not man-made, but the order itself, it is already there). Diversity as we understand it, sees differences and draws lines where there are none, cutting a larger entity into smaller parts, but here there is only building from smaller systems into larger units and systems and there is only synthesis.

Thoughts on Quality of Life – To look at it from the angle of man-made systems and natural systems. These 2 systems are not actually independent of each other. The natural system of creation / the natural order of how things work is actually the inner-most, or the core. It is also the outer-most circle, the ultimate system within which everything is. So, understanding this is also understanding our limits – ahimsa. When this does not happen, when man deludes himself either by thinking that man-made systems are independent of the natural system that actually sustains him, or that he can manipulate the natural system of which he is a part, then there is adharma. Meaning the natural order is disturbed, and we see the consequences – that is why the temperatures are increasing everywhere, that is why weather conditions are so unpredictable – patterns getting distorted and awry, that is why the society is degenerated today.

The childrens’ prayer / assembly time. All their voices as one, in a clear ringing tone. None of them in a hurry to catch a train. It was good to be there with them for the prayer. All the children were also actually there and in their own way were with their prayers.

A Date to Keep

I went on a nature walk this morning,
And discovered that I am on a date with You.
They gave you all these exotic names
Paradise flycatcher, warbler, purple heron, dab chick…
That I cant remember much of–
But oh! You beauty!

You are all around me,
In blue, white, black, yellow, brown, violet, green…
You are calling out to me,
Through myriad bird calls-
Sweet, raucous, musical, whispery, screeching…
I am drowning, filled.

Then I look around,
To see You shimmer, evaporate from the lake’s surface,
And I am in a classic romantic duet.

Even as I rush to catch that elusive glimpse of colour,
You pull at me with your prosopis hands.
I laugh at my whimsical self,
And fight with it to brush You off my clothes;
But oh! You beauty!

They are talking of a civet –
How it helps in dispersing seeds.
I see only Your design.
I turn to my companion to ask about-
Oh! You are grinning down at me!
They are lamenting about the disappearing landscape,
I watch You jump across the wall,
To chop trees for firewood.
I look up – the length of You,
Standing tall, fluttering your leaves for the wind.
Vulnerable and euphoric is the moment.

And then its time to leave you behind,
You bursting with riotous colours,
And You devoid of colours.
You of the rich and scaling sounds,
You of the invariable electric-saw drone.
I leave You,
Whooshing in my ear, ruffling my hair, kissing my cheeks –
Calm, still and nourishing, not a ripple to be seen.
You beauty!

We head to a hotel for breakfast,
And what’s this?!
You are serving me my cup of nirva-
Oh, what’s that You said?
That I have time yet to conquer You?
You of my laughter!
No hurry at all,
As long as I am on this date with You.

Pink Chaddi Campaign

A Review. 


I heard of the pink chaddi campaign a couple of days back and got an invitation on facebook to join the 'Consortium of Pubgoing, Loose and Forward women' which I rejected. I am happy to say that I am not pubgoing, I am not loose and I am not forward and I do not see the need to label myself any of the above to fight bully pseudo-moral tactics. I find the motive and the methods of this campaign completely disgusting and disrespectful to the spirit of  women. Where is the quality of fight and satyagraha? That such a cheap, disgraceful, petty act by a nobody in a corner of the world can cause a proportionately much much larger cheap, disgraceful and petty reaction by a large section of the urban-educated and internet surfing and online social networking woman population of the world just shows the quality of thought and response of us women. Wake up guys. We are making Muthalik! - Satish in a blog post, http://ibnlive.in.com/blogs/dpsatish/237/53146/how-media-made-muthalik.html.   We are validating local goons and lending them voice and media space, http://indian-reflections.blogspot.com/2009/02/media-hurry-to-insert-taliban-into.html by our thoughtless reaction. In our hurry to react, we women have cheapened ourselves thoroughly and reduced it all to a media hungama and joke. 

We have reduced the problems and issues of "women in this country having enough curbs in their lives" to the selfish, individual, urban educated woman's problem and conflict of consuming alcohol, going to the pub and living the free life as a man can and would. Grow up! I live in an area of chennai which has mixed income groups, and do you know that women as much as men there get regularly drunk and then go about their work the next day. These are women who face back breaking work the entire day starting 3 -4 a.m., possible physical abuse from husbands and children alike, possibly have only tea for breakfast and lunch unless one of the houses where they work show them charity, slog on till 11 or so in the night and face grinding poverty themselves so that their children get educated and lead more comfortable lives. What does our bloody pink chaddi campaign mean to them? Excuse the horrible pun - I am furious and laughing at the same time. We are clueless about how the majority of women in this country are fighting their own satyagraha every day of their lives, notwithstanding all the development, all the NGOs, all the self help groups and the income generating schemes and all the media hype that they may have encountered. We are clueless about the real issues that are facing women in this country, whether it is the plight of single old women increasingly left homeless and family less in both urban and rural scenarios, or it is the pathetic situation of tens of thousands of widows in Vidharba because of the farmer suicides, or it is the sexual abuse of girl children or the issue of how India is the destination of foreigners who cannot bear children and so need proxy mothers who sell their wombs so to speak, and go away for 10 months lieing to the their families in order to bear the child in unmentionable conditions... or, oh! The issues are numerous if we want to respond, fight, take action. Or, if we wanted to discuss something more glamourous, we could even discuss the movie 'Fashion' and its sensitive and real portrayal of the conditions of women in the Fashion world. Instead, what do we do? We react, and decide to get down and dirtier than the 'enemy' and flaunt our soiled underwear to the world. (Exact words: "Look in your closet or buy them cheap"). Are we so curbed after all, having social networks to support us, having families to back us up when we decide to utter war cries, having access to technology, television and whatnot, indeed, having the luxury of choice of going to the pub or not?

I went into the Facebook group and looked at some of the discussions... and if anything I got even more furious. The selfishness, ignorance of issues and mediocrity of the conversation threads have to be read to be believed. Most of them do not stick to the issue at hand, leave alone raising it to have better understanding and give strong responses as the women community to pseudo moral elements in the country. 

What is our identity as women? What do we think are our strengths and weaknesses? What is our idea of feminism? What is our role as women in our own lives, in the lives of our near and dear ones and in society? Do not we as women have the freedom and strength to respond with dignity and imagination to bullying? And what methods do we use to do the same? These are all important questions to be answered at this time. There are so many issues and each has to be fought at different levels - individual, family, peer group, as the women of a community / society, as the better half of a nation and so on. There is no meaning in ballooning a small, petty local situation and make it a global issue and particularly in this manner. Should I blame the media? or Should I blame the internet technology? or should I blame us, the Foolish, Selfish, Individualistic, Educated, Internet surfing women of the world who have no sense of discrimination or no understanding of the tools of satyagraha, and have no understanding of our own power and freedom as women? 

We have not done anything to further our cause as women through such a 'campaign'. Campaign is not the word for it, it is an utterly ignominious, irresponsible and indiscriminate reaction on the part of one section of women (and supporting men) that is not at all representative of the women of this country and shows a completely disgusting and inaccurate picture to the world. 

I have the blessing of coming across many women who are true fighters, personally and at work all the time. Some of them have gone through intense personal struggles, ignoring the petty quarrels to win the wars, and come out trumps. These are the real women, real heroes and real feminists in my opinion. One such is here - http://www.samanvaya.com/main/fl-3rd-2005.html

Shodh Yatra 2003

Republished from www.samanvaya.com

The sun is scorching; the road stretches ahead apparently unending, throats are parched and the world around is at a standstill. Then who are these 40 odd people walking on heated chappals, in animated groups and / or solitary contemplation, asking for directions to the next village? People stop them once in a while to ask them in amazed tones, what they were up to in such harsh weather; and then listen to their explanations, some with scepticism and others with wonder and dawning comprehension. Welcome to the 11th Shodh Yatra (Journey of Exploration) organised by the Honey bee Network. - Priya

The Honey bee Network is an extensive group of innovators, policy makers, scientists, technologists, students and teachers, entrepreneurs and other like-minded individuals and organisations, committed to discover, document and support innovations, traditional practices and knowledge at the grassroots level. The network calls itself Honey bee, it's philosophy derived from the behaviour of the bee, which is to collect honey from the flowers without weakening them as well as connecting flower to flower through pollination. Similarly, when we collect the knowledge of people we make sure that they are not depleted by the sharing, and also that we link innovators and inventors. Other ventures and organisations have been created to support the network and its activities, namely SRISTI, NIF and GIAN (please scroll to the end of the article for details of the organisations).

The Shodh Yatra

(shodh: search and yatra: journey), is an expedition on foot, to discover those creative and innovative people in our villages, who have found / invented / built solutions to the local problems using their ingenuity and resourcefulness. The outcome of the Yatra would go beyond discovery to documentation, compilation of such knowledge and facilitation of communication between innovators from different regions. The first shodh yatra was conducted in March 1998, and since then the yatra has been to all parts of Gujarat, some parts of Maharashtra and Rajasthan, parts of Tamilnadu, and now, in the most recent one to Udham Singh Nagar district of Uttaranchal State. Shodh Yatris (Search Travellers) have seen and contributed to many ways and practices of organic farming and sustainable agriculture, animal husbandry, rural technologies, forest farming, methods of preserving and augmenting biodiversity, ways of combating short supply of water and also helped in rebuilding the process of education in Gujarat just after the earthquake, during the course of their travels.

There is an internal yatra, "the yatra to one's self", as Prof. Gupta, the founder of Honey bee network and SRISTI would say, that happens simultaneously with the external one. In his words, this is one yatra which each one of us has got to be aware of, observe, explore, question and share with the other yatris our findings and insights; the experiences of the external yatra would shape the internal one; and unlike the external, here we do not know where we are going to be led, but go we must. Accordingly, every yatra would have it's share of review and learning sessions among the 'explorers', and as I've been told, even the most shy and reticent person would come forward with his contribution to the discussion.

The 11th Shodh Yatra, from May 26^th to June 4^th, saw us traversing Udham Singh Nagar district of Uttaranchal, a stronghold of the exceptionally hospitable Sikh community, and slowly becoming the stronghold of organic farming too. We also crossed over the borders of Uttaranchal and visited Uttar Pradesh a couple of times.

Udham Singh Nagar District - A brief description
Udham Singh Nagar District in the Terai region was originally a part of Nainital district, and became a separate district in the mid 90s, getting it's name after freedom fighter Sri. Udham Singh, who killed General Dyer. (General Dyer was responsible for the Jalian Wala Bagh massacre) The district has both industry and agriculture flourishing. It has very many sugar, flour, and rice mills besides agriculture-related manufacturing units. Rice, wheat, and sugarcane are the major crops. Potato is also grown on a large scale. This district houses the famous G.B. Pantnagar Agricultural and Technology University, which has tourists visiting it's beautiful and verdant campus. Some other places to visit are Kashipur, Attariya temple near Haldwani town, Nanak Sagar Dam on the river Saryu and Nanak matta - one of the places of pilgrimage of the sikhs. Though the majority of the population are Sikhs, the district also has families from Bengal, Nepal, Haryana, Orissa settled here for many generations. The women of the region are very hard working and resourceful, taking care of most of the farming and support activities too. The prosperity in the area is attributed to them by all without exception.

Today, the farmers with sizeable land holdings in the region have converted from chemical to organic farming, and are planning to gradually bring in the smaller farms so as to minimise the risks that the latter might face during the conversion process. The Yatra's chief focus was organic farming, meeting farmers (both chemical and organic) in the district, listening to their problems and looking for solutions, and elucidating the advantages of organic farming and the only long term solution available.

The major local organisations of the honey bee network aiding in this attempt were Sristi Gian Kendra, an off shoot of SRISTI, working with the honey bee philosophy towards the documentation and dissemination of traditional knowledge and innovations, TOFA (Terai Organic Farmers' Association), an association of organic farmers who are making major efforts to spread awareness in the area, network with organic farmers of other regions and looking to new ideas and ventures like solar power, rain water harvesting and seed production, and Kumaon Seva Samithi, working majorly in areas of women and child development, organic farming and health, hygiene and sanitation for an all-round development based on Gandhian philosophy.

Village Visits, Gatherings and Other Yatra Do's

We started from Rudrapur, the district headquarters and walked westward stopping and/or passing through many places including Gokulnagri where the official inaugural ceremony was held, Bilaspur, Shantinagar, Rameshwarpur which was our first experience of staying in a Gurudwara, Anantpur, Indrapur, Nagla, Avantika Dairy Farm, Dhaura Dam the first of our no-electricity-&-sleeping-under-the-stars nights, Thiliyapur where we found an abundance of talent - a young self-taught medicine man, an old woman who had learnt to treat any kinds of burn from her mother, a self-taught herbs-veterinarian, a sculptor and an old man who could tell us the quantity of water under the ground with the help of a simple twig, and all services offered free! Devnagar, Shakthi Farm, Rekhal Katha at a slight elevation entailing a walk through the jungles to get to it, Chorgaliyan, Nakuliya, Gauri Kheda where we had 2 women 118 and 125 years of age sharing their knowledge of plants and recipes with us, Kargatiya, Bidouri wherein we were welcomed with a very beautiful lamp dance performance by some equally beautiful women in fading twilight, Goosra, Sisaikheda, Biriya, Sunkhadikhala, Nanak Matta the beautiful pilgrim centre of the Sikhs, Sadaasadiya, Khatima just 4-5 kms from the Nepal border and finally turning back through Bagga, consisting of people belonging to the pahadi (hills) culture, and Chowdhry farm near Pilibith, ending our yatra with a local meeting as well as a preparatory / planning session for the next one.

In this planning session, several issues, ideas, thoughts were discussed in preparation for the next shodh yatra; and the following points were put down as the things that should be done:
-Each yatri is to record his experiences / observations of the yatra and share it with everyone.
-He is also to gather information about his own surroundings and neighbourhood with regard to the purpose of the yatra so as to exchange this with the others during the yatra.
-Each one has to do continuous evaluation, and find out from people who have come already what has been happening, what are the changes, and what they think has improved, what needs to be improved etc.
-SRISTI has to build a database with the experiences of the shodh yatris
-A compiled report of all the 11 shodh yatras is to be prepared in both english and hindi.
-During the next yatra, there must be arrangements for the yatris to stay some of the nights with different households so that they all have different experiences, which they would share and the information and learning this way is immense.

As in every yatra, all the villagers gathered for a meeting with the travellers at each village that we went to. There ensued a discussion on the purpose of the yatra, the innovators and innovations of that particular village, how can there be a mutual sharing of knowledge, and the support that the yatris can give them. Most discussions led on to the many problems faced by that particular village and their attempts at overcoming these, going back full circle to the idea that it was their own capacity and presence of mind that did (or) might save the day. Prof. Gupta also specifically spoke to them about how their innovation can bring them revenue, and more importantly, (since there were questions about it) how they can protect their innovation during this process of getting revenue - the prior informed consent form offered by the Honey bee group asking them for their 'informed' consent before sharing the innovation or traditional knowledge with anybody "to balance the twin goal of dissemination and promotion of innovation, but protect from potential commercialisation". In several places there were also projector displays of the numerous innovations collected over the years and stored in the Honey bee database.

Biodiversity, recipe and local talent contests were held and the winning entries were given prizes during these meetings. Many times the results of the recipe contests were laid out in an enticing display for the yatris to taste, and once, at Shakthi Farm, a couple of us skipped lunch and made a meal of the displays! One of the prize-winning natural, medicinal (herbs) treatments was for joint pain given by a woman in Anantpur: to boil leaves of semulina with turmeric, garlic and bhang in equal quantities in sarson (mustard) oil and apply on the joints.

Finally, the innovators were honoured with certificates and given a resource kit containing copies of the Honey bee newsletters in Hindi. Some of the interesting innovators / innovations that we came across were Indraasan Singh, who discovered the Indraasan variety of paddy in 1972, a tube light device that made use of sawdust to show sound waves, a farmer able to grow 21 feet long sugarcane simply by tieing the leaves of the cane around the cane itself at equal gaps, and a tile-making machine.

A few villages had also organised cultural programmes that continued late into the night. Impromptu night discussion gatherings with the locals that similarly winded down quite late also happened a couple of times.

Highlights

All of us would have experienced our own high spots during the course of the yatra. Some might be common to all or many, and others of a more individual / personal nature. Following are some of them, both mutual and individual.

Guha, The Snake Man
On the first day of our yatra, we met Sri. Niranjan Guha, who we started calling the 'snake man', at Shantinagar. Half-closed, blood shot eyes with a drawl in his voice, many of us wondered whether it was an act when he made an appearance. Guha has been treating snake bites for many years now, by sucking and swallowing the poison from the bite! He could identify the kind of snake which had bitten the person by looking at his condition and the nature of the bite mark; and treat the person if he is still breathing. After treating him in his unique way, he also gave the patient herbs according to the bite. He said that he would be able to identify the herbs by sight only and not by name; they grew wild in the hills and around the villages. He also could not say clearly how and why he was able to swallow the poison and treat the bites. Because of this rare gift of his, no snake bite would ever kill him is his conviction. He has treated more than a 40 people till date, and does not take money for administering his treatment.

Mufth (free) Tea
On the first day, a couple of us left far behind the others in the long highway-road walk to Rameshwarpur, stopped at a typical roadside Punjabi Dhaba for tea. And the husband and wife managing the place plied us with curious questions as she made tea for us. They had seen others like us walking by, and were just waiting to ask someone who we were and what were we doing in their town. We explained to her the purpose of our shodh yatra, and that we were searching for traditional knowledge that is with the people; the innovative, ingenious solutions that people have come up with to overcome the problems of their neighbourhood. To our amazement, after the tea, she refused to take money from us! Any amount of persuasion did not move her. All we had, to offer her was our bewildered thanks before we moved on, with the realisation that people valued such initiatives enough to respond spontaneously with whatever support that they can offer.

Kabir - The Hero
Bright, intelligent, curious, imaginative, impish, stubborn and happy- our 3-year-old hero - the youngest shodh yatri charmed everyone with his wide, open and twinkling smile. Quite interested in everything and everybody around him, (when he was not going into the sulks) he incessantly questioned his mother about the people and their actions, events and things that he saw; his favourite question was why something was the way it was! He also picked up conversations and held his own with just about everybody. His imagination knew no bounds; he talked about lions on trees and flowers eating up birds, talked to the stones while playing with them, and made up new songs with lines from different current popular film songs. He also entertained himself by making up stories and giving foolish answers knowingly if the 'elders' caste asked him too many questions! He had an eye for beauty - he was forever making gifts of flowers, beautifully shaped twigs or smooth stones that he found on the way, to people. Showing a rare precociousness, when someone once greeted him after not seeing him for the entire day with "Hi! Kabir", he returned her greeting - "Hi, Sweetie!" to his mother's utter astonishment! We all will take his quick smile and happy gurgle of a laugh a long way.

An Indian Cocktail
Panna - is the magic refreshing cocktail, that I had for the first time on the first day of our tour, and many times after. The juice from mango is extracted and a combination of spices like pepper, black salt and chaat masala is added to it to get the slightly sweet and slightly tart taste that panna has. The practice of giving such a drink with salts and spices added to its inherent sweetness, to help the body weather the day's heat during summer is popular all over India - Panna or a similar drink in the North, and inji or adrak (ginger) added to a sweet drink in the South.

Water Divination - Mewa Singh
At Thiliyapur -the talents galore town, we had the elderly Dadhji Mewa Singh talking to us about his life and gift to be able to predict water. He uses a simple V-shaped twig and walks around holding it over the ground, and is able to foretell the quantity of water and the height at which it will be found below the ground based on the behaviour of the twig. He said that if the water content is high, the pressure of the twig in his hand increases accordingly, and now, because of continuous practice he is also able to predict the quantity of water by the pressure and the way it moves. Dadhji also mentioned of a pain in his ribs if he continued with the divination after the first couple of times at one go, and feels that this is because while he divines the water quantity, he unconsciously or involuntarily holds his breath. He has now been doing this for several decades, and has not once given an inaccurate prediction. On being asked whether he took money for predictions, he smiled quite indulgently, and said that he does not take money. He also added that the others, practicing medicine and treating men and animals also did not take money for it.

The same Dadhji could also correctly tell the speed of the vehicle in which he was travelling by checking the wind pressure on his hand! He narrated an incident related to this, that happened when he was in the army - his superior once challenged him to tell the speed of the vehicle which he (dadhji) was driving without looking at the speedometre! He simply put his hand out, checked the wind pressure, and gave an accurate answer - cool as you please!

Independent and Enigmatic - Manjula Behn (sister)
She came because her son, a farmer from Gujarat associated with SRISTI, could not participate in the yatra, and wanted someone to represent him. More than 60 years old, she was one of the elderly participants of the yatra. Determinedly walking on, most times ahead of others, Manjula kaki (aunt) never once asked to sit on the two-wheeler or the tractor that was coming along with us, while even some of the youngsters went on them a couple of times. A couple of times, because someone insisted that she sit on the tractor, and not walk in this heat, she got on very reluctantly. The wonder was neither did she even once verbally complain about the heat, or the blisters under her feet or the pain in her calves, nor did it show on her face or body language. But it was obvious that she was not superwoman who did not feel any pain. She had an array of home-made ointments that she carried all the time with her and used. At one of our lunch-stops, in the forest department guest house, there was a tall machan, which many of us climbed huffing and puffing, and some with a lot of trepidation, watching, and step by careful step. She came along and almost sprinted up and came down the very steep metal rods, smiling with almost child-like glee while we watched open-mouthed. She did not allow anyone to carry her bag and never took massages from any of the youngsters. (one giving another a massage is a common sight during the yatra) she did her own massage! She took careful, detailed notes of everything that took place and all the people that we met, and did not hesitate to ask if she did not understand something. She was very observant, and had a ready smile and a relevant concerned question for all of us every time that she spoke to us. Her keen observation noted the differences between the women in Gujarat and women here and she said wistfully during our review session about how bold the women are here, and that in Gujarat the women are seldom allowed to come outside the house and take initiative to do things. But at age 60, she has come! Her strength came from somewhere deep inside her; perhaps she got it from the japa that she did diligently facing the sun every morning, with the help of her japmala (beads).

Water, Water! - Artisan Springs
An amazing sight, especially for the few of us from drought-struck Tamilnadu were the artisan springs that were visible in considerable number within a certain circumference in the yatra route. Water simply gushed out straight from the bowels of Mother Earth without a pump, motor or any kind of pressure whatsoever. These artisan springs were strewn all over the area, with a tank or pond like structure built around them, for all to use.

The Biriya Wait
Biriya was our night stop on the 6th day of our yatra. Women self help groups were very active here and about 200 women from villages around this area gathered that night. We reached very late and as a result, most yatris dropped off to sleep after dinner. There were a only a few trying to talk to the women. Because of unforeseen circumstances, the cultural programme that was arranged could also not happen. These 200 or more women, after having been thwarted, sat on the grounds that day till about 1 in the night, putting up an unspoken determined front, almost as if they had expected a meeting and wanted something to happen, and so by sheer force of collective will would be able to make it happen. They left only after a projector display of innovations from across the country. The episode had many lessons for us, beginning from the importance of being punctual, to the spirit and determination that the women showed and what mass or collective force can achieve.

Anantpur - A Collective Strength
The meeting at Anantpur showed an exceptional community spirit with all the villagers present sticking together both in their doubt, as well as later with their convinced resolution.

In this village a novel idea has been executed successfully: libraries run by children. All over the village and neighbouring areas, there are several small libraries that are run by children themselves for other children. The children who manage these libraries came forward shyly to speak of their experiences. Their main trouble now is that most of them have completed reading most of what the libraries have to offer, and now they need more books. They were given the honey bee resource kit to begin with and the villagers decided that they would all pool in to get more books. The gathering also discussed how they (children) could themselves earn revenue, by getting members and lending out books.

Chemical farming is being practiced in this village and they reacted with doubt and hostility when we, and even the farmers from TOFA talked about organic farming. Their response was that organic farming does not give quick and enough yields to sustain them; where will they go for money and food if they start saving the planet? Ensued a long and detailed discussion on how organic farming is not simply saving the planet but saving themselves in the long run. The slow transformation to a stand in favour of organic farming was obvious to see, and even if some were doubtful, they were ready to go with what their neighbours and friends were saying. The discussion ended with them making a resolution that they will start organic farming from then on.

Sonia - The Rebel
Sonia was with the yatra only in the last 2 days but like kabir, left an impact that we will carry a long way. Very intelligent, sensitive, creative with an artistic bent of mind, eccentric and stubborn, always speaking her mind, fighting all authority and systems; questioning everything including herself, yet full of love and compassion, parts child and parts grand mother; at 20, she was an outright rebel. She paints very well, is very good at making things with her hands and an excellent cook. She chafes at all conventions in society and fights injustice fiercely. Her one big dream is to run a home for orphaned kids and talked of it all the time. The idea called Sonia even now is immediately followed by the idea of Intense Energy.

Open Jail - A New Idea
We heard of an open jail system, a few kilometres from Kishenpur as we sat down to lunch there. And argued the whole way there about how can there be an open jail, (it beats the purpose) and how would it all be organised. It was an eye-opening and a somewhat sad experience for many. We met a large group of the inmates of the 'house' and they were no different from ordinary householders with dreams, aspirations, disappointments, wants and needs. A couple of them, fathers, had their children with them at the meeting. (Their families are allowed to visit them and stay there for a few days) It was a revelation to look at them performing roles beyond that of 'jail inmates' - father, uncle, husband, son, friend. Many of them had businesses back home, and one of them said he had been building a new kind of metal shelf that has now stopped half way. He also said if given the resources, he could pursue it here and plans were made to do just that. The police official in charge of the place said that two of them had been framed wrongly because of petty fights and/or political skirmishes and have been in now for more than a decade. A few others whose terms had ended, but due to changes in laws and rules, had their term extended now. There was one who said that he came back in the second time, quite happily! (The implication was clear: he at least got food and shelter here)

The philosophy of the open jail was of course that Man is essentially honest and good, and will respond similarly if treated like he is so. Following this, there is no gate to the jail that is closed all the time, the men are given work to do, and are allowed to go out if their job requires them to do so. It is also another matter that we were told there are police employees positioned in different points around the area.

Young Fervour
We met a group of dynamic teenagers in the pahadi region of Rekhal Khatta, who have been trying in many ways to better the conditions of their villages and society. The people in the hills are without any land or voting rights, and are not part of any gram sabha. They only shepherd cattle, which brings them little money, and have no other occupation. Having attempted to get help from many government officials and offices and also making an effort to do something themselves, without any tangible results, when they came to meet us late in the night, it was with disillusionment and questions like "why are you here?" and "what can you do to help us?"

A lengthy discussion about their problems, and the creativity and strength needed to combat them followed. What we saw clearly through it all was their fire and the need to help themselves. In the end when they were ready to leave, though their initial hostility had vanished and they looked thoughtful with all that they had heard, somehow they also looked like that fire has been diminished. Perhaps, all that they need is support, in terms of ideas, opportunity, resources, and maybe a shoulder to lean on and talk to from time to time.

Encounter with a Religious Leader
On the morning of 2^nd june, at Nanak matta, Sri. Bapu Maan Singh, head of the Gurudwara there held us all spellbound in a charged session, wherein he spoke to us of knowledge, religion, history and politics of this country. He challenged us, "why are you searching for Gyan (knowledge)?, instead, search for the Self. That is today's problem, that we are not connected to the Self and God." His conviction is that Hindustan was always the first in Dharma and Religion, and again challenged us, "Why, instead of Dharma are we running behind the computer?" "What is the computer but an imitation of the human brain!" He also said that in this pursuit of Dharma and the Self, a teacher is very important, and also added that the greatest teacher for one is his Mother. "If you are unable to learn from your mother, you cannot learn from anybody!" And that like one's mother, one's mother tongue is also very important. "It is part of his identity, if you want to make a nation a slave forever, take away her language." Then he turned to our search for Gyan - "How can we connect it to money?, The Goddesses of Gyan and money are Saraswathi and Lakshmi respectively; and their vaahans (vehicles) are swan and owl. When do these birds come out? The swan during the day, and the owl during the night. There is no meeting point." He ended on a powerful yet romantic note: "Why is Man there if not to take his fellow-man's sorrow?"

The Institution of Langar
Food is so important a part in an Indian's life, that we worship food as God, and different cultures have different values and customs revolving around food. The Sikh community hold the practice of feeding people so sacred that they have institutionalised it, and call it - Langar (Prasad). The Langar is a part of Gurudwaras, where they have a separate langar hall, and food is given to anyone who walks in. They are also proud of the fact no questions are asked of the people who come for food. People are not asked where they are coming from, or what caste, sect, religion, group they belong to.

Nanak Matta runs an impressive langar system, entirely run by devotees as well as visitors (tourists, pilgrims) who come there. The food hall can seat more than 500 people for a meal at one go, and it is open for most of the day offering breakfast, lunch and dinner to everyone. What's more, the hall is full most of the time, and especially so during lunch. The administration, maintenance, cooking, serving and anything else that is needed to be done is taken care of by volunteers.

Internal Yatra Exchange
The exchange and sharing of our internal shodh yatras took place in small spurts through out the yatra, leading to one extended, detailed sitting on one of the last days. And it is true that even in the most diffident or timid person, the wanting to share an insight is so high that he overcomes his reserve at this stage of the yatra. Also, as Prof. Gupta put it, the "intimacy quotient" is so high and intense during these travels that people don't think twice about sharing very deep thoughts that they wouldn't otherwise.

Each one of our thoughts, ideas, criticisms, reservations and relevations; our learning basically was discussed. Many spoke about the high of meeting people from different backgrounds, from all over the country and getting to know about their culture, society and understanding them. Other also felt the added pleasure of being close to nature, and living a much simpler life than in their routine life. In this regard most people came to the conclusion that the quality of life in the village is higher, life simpler, the people very hard working, resilient and able to endure much more than the urbanites. Siddharth from SRISTI, "I have now seen the sheer hard work and suffering in rural India, which I had only read about. Coming across it for the first time, it has had a high impact on me." Several also said that they have learnt much about organic farming and would talk about it to many more people. Other personal insights were also shared: the shy ones said with some surprise that they have overcome their shyness to talk to everyone, some one else said that he has learnt to be accommodating, and yet another that she has learnt to listen to what people have to say before speaking.

The shortcomings of the yatra and how to resolve these issues the next time the yatra is being planned were also discussed. Some of these issues were that the distances were too much and had not been planned well, the participants not told of daily plans, and even that the days did not start with a collective prayer.

Of Hospitality, Generosity and Warmth,
Of the Sikh community. There were numerous instances of the service and generous spirit of the Sikhs. They consider it holy to feed people and take care of them and this perception is reflected in their dealings with all. One major example of this is their langar system of free food in the Gurudwaras. There were drink stalls all through the sikh community routes, manned by the Sardars. Besides this, even as we were passing by, women who were cooking offered us food and drink, readily able to put other work aside to cater to us. And most times, we were in groups of 10 or so, and more crowded in gradually to see what was going on.

How they served drinks and eats is also interesting - they perhaps have never heard of self-serving! However big the crowd of people, they always made it a point to serve them. Whenever Angad or Paramjeet, the 2 boys who joined us at Rudrapur since it was the vacation time, served me, I got the impression that serving me that piece of chapathi is the most important thing in his life at that moment! These 2 young sardars were simply available every time there was trouble and a pair of strong hands was needed, whenever work needed to be done. They never needed to be asked to do things, they always took it on, and endeared themselves to everyone.

Another example of this welcome and warmth that we encountered everywhere was the soft-spoken Dr. Salooja, whom we met at Rameshwarpur - yet another sardarji who was simply available with ready help when it was needed. There was only one bathroom at the Gurudwara we stayed in; there wasn't anybody around to ask for help, and the good doctor was quick to come up to us and offer his house for use for the ladies. He then fussed around us, saw to it that we were comfortable, telling us to feel free and make tea or anything else that we wanted, and then settled down to show us photographs of his wife and family, and their vacations.

Conclusion
The singular conviction that stands above all else after the yatra and the immense energy, talent, creativity, tolerance that was evident with the people, is about the ability, resourcefulness of the people of this land, their enduring capacity and the power of people force. The idea that people have it in them to be innovative and creative to be able to solve their problems and run their lives. Like any institution, community, society, this land is not without her problems and shortcomings, but the value systems and the unspoken, unwritten laws of society that are her own are very well able to also take care of the problems that will crop up, and restore order. What has happened is that people have lost the confidence that they are able to take control of their lives. What has also happened is that they have been given new value systems to replace their own, which does not work for them, and we have in our hands a fractured society. A group of women in Sisaikheda were talking to some of us about their life, problems, and society. One of the women, Sushmadevi spoke a long while about her life, daily routine, all the work that her friends and she have to do: her day, as other women's', starts very early and ends very late, since she has to finish her morning chores at home like cleaning and cooking, then go to the fields for work, come back and again take care of cooking and cleaning. They also have to seasonally take care of crushing grains, visiting the mills and the market. Now they have also taken on the SHG work and are involved in the process of understanding finance and loans and working as a group. She does not get much support from her husband for all this work that she does. In the midst of all this, she has managed to save enough money to send her daughter to a boarding school in town. And so life continues. After telling all that, she added in the same breath, that we (shodh yatris) have come here to meet them, we only have to teach them things since they don't know anything, "we women from the villages are no good, we don't even have the time to keep ourselves beautiful, we work the whole day and by the end of many a day have neither the time nor the energy to bother about our appearance." When she said that she did not realise that they have spruced up the place and themselves for us, the guests! All that people need is for their confidence and faith in themselves to be restored, their collective force will conquer the world. It is of course another matter that it is not in their spirit to want to conquer the world, as it is meant today. They would build their own brand of globalisation, that of endurance, an empathetic understanding of the world and how it works and happiness. Anything else that we think they might need is secondary.

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A brief description of the support organisations
SRISTI (The Society for Research and Initiatives for Sustainable Technologies and Institutions) is a non-government organisation working towards strengthening the ingenuity and resourcefulness of grassroots entrepreneurs, engaged in innovating, inventing and building solutions to local problems, and sustaining them.

NIF, the National Innovation Foundation was created in support of grassroots innovators - for the "evolution and diffusion, support and sustenance of grassroots innovations, linking innovation, enterprise and investment" and exploring commercial and non-commercial application of innovations.

GIAN (Grassroots Innovation Augmentation Network) also works towards strengthening and supporting innovation and creativity at the grassroots level by endeavouring to transform innovation into product, and aid the dissemination of innovations.

The Honey bee Network has also initiated other ventures like the Honey bee Newsletters - different journals carrying news and information related to agriculture, biodiversity and traditional knowledge in english as well as other local languages including hindi, gujarati and tamil; and it's bi-annual Shodh Yatra, conducted every year during the summer (Ma-June) and winter (December-January) seasons.

The other organisations associated with conducting this Yatra were:
-Uttaranchal DASP (Diversified Agriculture and Sustainable Development Project): who promote organic farming and foods, and involved in dairy farming, compost and bio-manure marketing.
-Krishi Grameen Seva Samithi: working with women self help groups in marketing organic food preparations, organic agriculture and horticulture promotion.
-Gayathri Seva Sanstha: working with women and child groups in and around Pantnagar.
-Vivekanand Educational Society: who run a school in Shakthi Farm based on the philosophy and teachings of Swami Vivekananda.
-Aditya Krishi Vikas Samithi: involved in organic farming promotion, animal husbandry and traditional knowledge documentation as part of the honey bee network.
-Bhagawathi Mahila Samithi: working with women self help groups promoting small scale industries
-Adarsh Yuvak Mangal Dal: works with Yuvak Dals (Youth Groups), functioning as pressure groups working with development issues in their neighbourhood.
-Tarai Yuva Sangh: is an organisation focused on conducting and coordination of blood donation camps in the area and campaigning for people's basic rights.
-Creation for a Creative Society: working for rural development in 13 districts of Nepal, in association with World Food Program
-EcoIndia: channelises and coordinates student groups so that they can work for farmers through and for the Honey bee concept
-Innovators Club: scouting for innovators and innovations in and around Uttaranchal as part of the honey bee network
-Sri Sangam Dairy: maintaining dairy farms, marketing dairy products.
-Mahila Mangal Dal: working with women pressure groups in the villages for development related issues.
-Adhar: working with women and collection of traditional knowledge with them
-Avantika Dairy Farm: managing dairy farm and dairy training institute
-Adarsh Haryana Krishi Farm: Managing extensive Sugarcane farms and research into organic method and practices of sugarcane farming
-Rupa Seed Farm: experts in seed production
-Samaj Sudhar Sabha: is an association of retired government employees honouring and awarding those government servants who promote good work culture in all government departments, especially in education, and
-SRISTI

30-hour Project, The School KFI

Event News from Chennai: 

Last week I had been to The School, Krishnamurthy Foundation, for a presentation by the (now) XII^th Std. students. These students were involved in a project called the 30-hour project the previous year. The deal was that during that year, each student would spend a total of 30 hours doing / learning something new, besides his academics. The objective of this activity was that s(he) gets to do something that s(he) loves and wants to do, besides being a shift away away from their scholarly pursuits. Each of the 20-odd students made a presentation on their 30-hour project.

Just before the programme began: the Assembly Hall in their school made colourful with different displays around the hall, students from other classes gathered to watch their seniors, parents and others joining the crowd, and the persons to be on stage busily tinkering around the place in preparation.

The event started with music and jamming. Three guys with their guitars, and drums playing an orginal composition. They then got the corwd tapping their feet to a spontaneous rendition of Jamming. The result: raw energy, pulsating music and high talent. There were other music sessions – one girl playing the veena, and yet another singing. There was one who said she didn’t know her own mother-tongue, and so started learning it – malayalam. She recited nursery rhymes in malayalam, and then went on to sing a malayalam song too. The business magnate shared the business experience that he got by working in his mother’s two-wheeler Showroom. The historian shared his learning and titbits from a book on Indian History that he had read, became quite impassioned with his subject until he was told to stop by his co-presentors. The pioneer who learnt and practiced tentpegging and proudly announced that she is one of the first tentpeggers in the country. The sportsman showing off the smart and smooth moves that he practices now while playing basketball and confounds the opponent. Besides these, there was capentry, origami, tye-and-dye, mehendi, camera-making, sketching, design / art, model-making, cooking, embroidery, and welding.

On the surface it might have been just another cultural event. But the students themselves and what they shared with the audience made all the difference. All of them were candid, simple and unassuming about what they had to say. They all shared the difficulties they had faced during the course of their project, new learning that they acquired, ideas that struck them etc. The student who made the camera said that there is some problem because of which it does not take the photo now but he hasn’t yet solved it. Another who said he wanted to study literature in his mother-tongue (telugu) but gave up because it was too difficult, and instead made models of a bike and a monster both of which run on motor. The potential entrepreneur who displayed a lamp shade that he had made, and spoke about how he did not just learn carpentry from his teacher but also how this can be made in to a profitable business and developing his entrepreneurial skills and abilities. The novice chef admitted that she does not enjoy cooking much, and so decided that she had to learn it and get acquainted with it. She brought some dishes for sampling, which were pronounced delicious. There were others who not content with just learning the skill or art, did some background study about it and presented this information too. Like, who started the practice of wearing Mehendi, when and the evolution of the art. Each one of them had their unique style of presenting their stuff, and each had something new and different to offer.

Above all, the knowledge that this team had to share with us was of learning itself and work– that ways of learning and education is not simply within the textbooks or inside the classrooms. Education is for all times and spaces – one only has to look for it and be aware of it. And in this learning and awareness, there is only the healthy drive to excel in whatever one is doing and enhance each other’s development. This cooperation, harmonised effort and an aware learning is what is needed to transform education to success and achievement.