Its Sunday! How does it matter?

Quite a decent Sunday, although nowadays its quite irrelevant which day of the week it is. The work of making water available at our farm moved ahead. The last step pending, which should be completed tomorrow. No progress on the house yet, but it seems to worry less and that is good. 

What was good about the day was that the three Sreejan Kartas made a beginning to their earning (Sree Ganesh). This requires a bit of an explanation. The founders of Sreejan believe that in a community every member should be able to integrate 3 Ls viz Living, Learning and Livelihood. While the Kartas are living here and therefore learning also, but unless they earn their livelihood from here, they will be unable stay here. However, the livelihood should be earned in a non-exploitative or fair manner. Since what they primarily do is farming, an effort is being made to enable them to earn their livelihood through farming. The Kartas have been growing a few vegetables in their farms for some time. We have been purchasing vegetables from their farms since the time we started staying. Today was the day when we made the payment for our purchases till date. Today another revenue stream was also created. Guests often visit this place. Since they end up spending a day, they have lunch here. A system was started today, where the guest pays whatever he deems fit for the lunch. (Idea, courtesy Rekha) God willing, this should be the beginning to their financial independence. Rekha made some yummy suji ka halva to celebrate the milestone.

It was nice talking to one of the guest, Mr. C B Malpani, who is also the neighbour of Rajesh Gupta. Mr Malpani belongs to a family, which owns in excess of 200 acres of farm in Rajasthan and does chemical farming, despite the fact that he understands the flipside well. I was able to make a reference of Mr Baheti from Bajwada, who, under the guidance of Deepak Suchde has begun the process of moving away from chemical farming on a sizable farm (125 acres).

Today, we also had bath in the open in stream water (which we also use for drinking). The water, which comes in the bathroom here is quite muddy. This bath was quite refreshing.