Celebrating Holi

Had a nice Holi yesterday. We’d gone to a village called Paanghri. Two school teachers, who teach in the school here belong to Paanghri. This is the third time we decided to visit this village. People here are quite nice. Kids also like it since they have friends (4 kids study in the school here). Unlike many other villages, Paanghri has managed to retain a lot of good characteristics of an old Indian village. While in Dehradun, we’d learnt that Holi is a major festival in North India. The festivities go on for 5 days. In Paanghri, the burning of Holika happens on the same day as Holi (unlike in Mumbai, where it is burnt on the previous night) before 10 am. The whole village gathers cow dung cakes in a huge pile and then set it afire. The play with colours begins after the fire cools and the pooja has been done. Children don’t care for this ritual and begin playing since morning. Two groups – one of adult men and another of adult women go from house to house singing and dancing with a few musical instruments and playing colours with every family. They also collect festival tip from every household. If there has been a special event, the tip is higher. Over the years it so happens that the group of men who go around are drunk and the money thus collected is spent to drink more. We watched the entire drama, but did not participate in it. Later, along with the children, we played with colours for almost 2 hours. It was Fun.

Holi has also applied some brakes on the house construction. The mason was on an unannounced leave today and so were the labours. 

Sustainable Living, Sreejan, etc

Let’s have a quick update on facts first. Later I intend to write something more than that.

We’ve completed a little over 2 ft of the wall. The progress is a little slow. We were supposed to have 2 masons, but the second one is yet to be found. Also, stone construction is much slower than regular brick & cement mortar. Adversary fuels innovation. After watching the mason work, I’ve decided to take up the role of the second mason. I intend starting work in the new role tomorrow or day after, but the thought has created so much excitement!

Got the stiches removed today. The hand should be fully operational in a couple of days.

The weather is becoming hotter during the day. We need to be careful with kids in the hot sun…Shreya has already had another bout of cold & cough accompanied by fever. There have been wild swings in the temperature during the last week – had one night of very heavy rains and hailstorm.

Now the something else.

I’ve done a brief introduction of Sreejan earlier. I’d like to elaborate a little. 

Sustainable living is a very popular subject these days and there are hundreds of groups and thousands of individuals across the world, who are attempting to live in a sustainable manner. There is enough and more material available on the net on the subject. Essentially it is a lifestyle, which addresses thesomething wrong that many of us feel in the current lifestyle. Sreejan is another such attempt by a group of individuals to build a community. Since building is clearly beyond human means and capability, the objective of Sreejan states that it is to allow the emergence of such a community. Now, there are hundreds of questions, which one may ask and when a group of people start a discussion on this subject, they can go on and on. But discussions and ideas don’t move the cart an inch. I’ve realized that almost everyone intuitively understands what is wrong with the regular urban lifestyle. Its ill-effect on health, values, environment, culture, economy, natural resources, education etc are intuitively known to most people. (Since rural populace essentially tries to ape their urban counterpart, there too, that something is wrong in rural areas as well.) So, in my opinion, discussions, discourses, courses, sermons, debates or conferences on this subject done in order to increase awareness are meaningless. Action and only action can lead to a change.

Lets come back to Sreejan. Rajesh Gupta and Rajinder Raina, who have initiated action at Barkheda believe that an individual (read family) can live, learn and earn livelihood (3 Ls) at a single place. Prof. Shripad Dabholkar, an eminent personality on the subject has developed a method to do this on 10 gunthas (approx. 10,000 sq ft, or 1/4^th of an acre) of land. There are a few more people, who back the effort of Rajesh and Rajinder by contributing land, money and ideas. However, most of them are unable to be physical present here. Rajesh, his wife Monika and Rajinder regularly visit. Monika has been spearheading the school effort since 9 months. However, the three of them are unable to stay here for various reasons. Now, the question is who will execute the model of 3Ls? To do that, they have roped in 3 people (late 20s and early 30s), who belong to nearby villages, to put the theory to practice. While, they are to be entrepreneurs in future, currently, they are being paid a reasonable salary, given place to stay and food to eat. They are required to stay here and farm on one acre without the use of chemicals and follow the processes of natural farming. If they do so, as per estimates, they will be able to earn over 1 lac per year by selling the produce. The three gentlemen do not understand the something wrong. Generating 1 lac from 1 acre is what interests them (they’re called Sreejan Kartas). In order to facilitate them, capital investment has been done in a tractor, farming tools, pipes & sprinklers, solar panels for light, a huge lake around the land and a bore-well.

Experience over the last year has shown that there are multiple gaps in execution, as a result of which, the sale of produce has been miniscule. Reasons are not difficult to imagine. Firstly, the 3 Kartas did not come in with the conviction in sustainable lifestyle. So, they find it difficult to comprehend why they are working harder, whereas their friends and relatives work on much larger areas of land with lesser effort. Secondly, they have a secure income and so many assets at their disposal with virtually no supervision. Thirdly, almost nothing is at stake apart from the precious prime time of their career. But the opportunity cost isn’t much. Given the above, there isn’t a sense of ownership amongst them. As it is, when a poor, young villager works with educated, rich, experienced city dwellers who can articulate their ideas with a lot of conviction and who are paying salary, the relationship that develops is that of a master & slave. Reality is such a big threat to good intentions becoming a reality.

What the founders of Sreejan are working on is truly ambitious and extremely challenging. Ambitions can lead to anxiety, cause fear of failure and when the ambition is that of a social good, it requires what is termed as ‘collective consciousness’. The newest members of Sreejan (we) are conscious (regarding the need for a sustainable lifestyle), but not interested in influencing anyone else. That’s another reality posing a threat to the ambition. Every month, the founders assemble here to review the status. In the initial 2 months, my feedback to them was that at least one of the founders must stay here and demonstrate the integration of the 3 Ls. 5, 50 or 500 people together cannot create a community by staying outside it.

I have also volunteered to manage the finances of the society for the next year. I’m now working on preparing the budget for the next year. I’m quite sure that my way of questioning costs will dampen the enthusiasm for social good, but it is to be so, so be it.

I think, this background will help put in context the experiences I intend sharing on this blog. 

The House Building Phase 1

This has been an even longer absence from the blog than the last one. Ironically, it comes after deciding against an absence more than 3 days. Lots of improvement in lot many areas still desired!

It’s tough to decide where to start from. Let me begin by reporting some facts:

Bhairu Singh (the mason, who had agreed to build our house) did not turn up on the decided day and did not respond to calls as well. Though he made a good first impression, ultimately did not live up to it. After some effort, I did find another stone mason. Another old man, Hari Narayan, by his own admission the only stone mason in nearby villages. He came to check the site on March 1, 2013, agreed to commence work on March 6, 2013, took an advance of Rs. 1000 and did turn up on the agreed date. He made us perform a pooja for commencement of work and has been religiously following his work routine since then. I agreed to pay him an extra daily wage and serve lunch and tea. He comes on a cycle everyday from a village 5 km away and on a pathetic road. We’ve completed laying the foundation and after a 2 day break to let the lime mortar dry, ready to commence with the walls tomorrow. It’s been some hectic work during the last week or so. Got 3 trollies of stones from a village 4 km away, 2 trollies of black mud to join the stones with, some more stones for making the lofts and kitchen shelves from Sehore (nearest city), hurt myself on the wrist while procuring stones, thus retired hurt as far as physical labour is concerned. So far, decent progress with the house construction. All going as planned, the house should be complete by end of the month.

The incident of getting hurt was quite interesting. I slipped while picking up a stone and a sharp edge made a cut in my wrist. The stone vendor immediately plucked a few leaves of a particular tree and rubbed them on the wound. It instantly arrested the bleeding as well as the pain. I got back to work. But when I showed the wound to Rekha, both of us realized that this will need to be stitched. It seemed most apt to go to Bhopal and we started off. I drove quite comfortably. The pain started only after the effect of the anesthesia wore off, primarily due to the way the doctor cleaned the wound. When I went to pick up another trolley of stones a day later, the vendor was all praise for the leaf he’d rubbed against my wound and casually added that people go to doctors because they have lots of money. It hurt more than on the wrist! Lots that I learned from the incident.

Every month, the promoters of Sreejan are scheduled to have a monthly meeting. The meeting on March 2 and 3 was my 3^rd meeting and this was another interesting event. I’ll write a separate post on this subject.

It is quite late in the night and I will have to continue tomorrow…