Taking a Vacation!!!

By June, we’d spent over 4 months in the new life at Barkheda. The house construction was largely done except the doors and windows. We felt that rainy days will pose challenges and we weren’t fully prepared. So we decided to take a vacation! Vacation from a vacation like life!!!

The plan was to meet people rather than visit places. For the last 2 weeks or so, while we’re into the vacation, I’ve been meeting people, understanding them from a new context, learning to view from their perspective. I found that it makes sense to keep aside all the sense of good and bad, right and wrong, moral and amoral. That way, the learning is enhanced and judgements are avoided. I’m finding it quite difficult, but hopefully should get it right with practice.

There is also an unanswered question about ‘work’. Is it ok to live just to satisfy the basic requirements of the family, assuming that our savings can satisfy the limited monetary requirements we have? I hope to find a few answers in this regard during this vacation. If I don’t want to work for money, should I work at all? If yes, what work and what for?

Milestone # 1

4 months completed today into the new life and today we managed to get the chulha going in our newest home. This means that we now have walls of the house, the roof, the flooring done and the chulha installed. We cooked a little sweet and shared it with people present. The entire construction so far has been done using none of the commonly known ecologically harmful material like cement, furnace burnt bricks, iron rods, etc. We now have walls made of stone, joining is done with mud, inner walls have been done with sun-burnt bricks and roof is done using locally available wood (luckily for us it happens to be teak) and roof tiles. Wood is also used in the door & window frames. The doors and windows are yet to be made. We’ll use the same wood for them as well. We intend to spend the day in the new house starting tomorrow and if plans fructify, we’ll also sleep there itself. 

Reflections of my Past Life

We can divide the population as Urban Elite, Urban Commoners, Rural Elites and Rural Commoners. Broadly, let’s say urban elite comprises of urban residents, who earn 10 lac & above p.a. or occupy position of power in bureaucracy, defence services, academia and the like. This is where I belong and am on my way out. Rural residents with income with Rs. 4 lac and above or similar position are Rural Elite. The remaining population is termed commoners. Broadly speaking, the urban elite is an aspirational class for the rest classes.

It is interesting to study and analyse this class and characteristics. Though there is a significant heterogeneity, I’ll try to enumerate characteristics which are prevalent in majority cases. On each parameter, I’ll present my view in contrast to the commonly held view. It may make enjoyable reading if the reader chooses not to take it personally (also it is not meant to be targeted to any specific person).

Education

Commonly Held View: Education is one of the important distinction of urban elite. Education makes them self reliant, capable of decision making for self and on behalf of other classes, capable of facing uncertainty and adversary, innovative, civic and broadly better human beings.

My View: This class gives very high importance to ‘certification of IQ’. Academic and Professional Degrees, diplomas, doctorates, passing out from an institute of repute are yardsticks of the certification. By and large, ‘certification’ is more important than enhancement in actual IQ. This certification of IQ is considered synonymous with ‘education’. Physical quotient (strength, stamina, immunity, ruggedness, etc), Emotional quotient (softer elements like courage, compassion, perseverance, mental strength, etc) and spiritual quotient are subordinated to IQ to such an extent that almost no effort is made to develop these. What is termed as education is the very reason this class is neither self reliant, nor capable of balanced decision making, nor capable of facing uncertainty, nor innovative, nor civic and can hardly be termed as ‘better’ human beings.

Society

Commonly Held View: Specialized expertise is developed, thereby ensuring that the most optimum solutions are made available to all. People with varied skill sets stay together, which results in harmonious living. Given the diversity and interdependence, there is mutual respect and fair trade.

My View: The flip side of specialized expertise is non-expertise in most other (including essential) skills. This has resulted in greed in the field of expertise and fear in other areas. Greed and fear result in distrust and lack of concern for fellow beings, which in turn result in a host of ills of the modern society. Inability to perform most of the essential functions has made majority in urban elite class utterly dependent on the commoners (farmers, maids, drivers, baby sitters, mechanics and a host of other functions). A society as defined by most urban elites will keep other classes out under some pretex or another. Thus, being benefitted at the cost of other classes is considered quite ok, though one wouldn’t like to view it that way. 

Fair Trade

Commonly Held View: The invention of money and the price determination basis demand and supply have been the biggest landmarks of the civilization. It makes possible the determination of the value of every service, thus ensuring a fair trade.

My View: The invention of money and the price determination basis demand and supply are the biggest frauds of the civilization. Since majority of the population is that of commoners, price determination basis demand and supply ensured that all services offered by commoners are priced at a fraction of those offered by elites, irrespective of the value of the goods or services. Monetising goods and services facilitated hoarding (fueling greed) of goods and services in the form of money. Once hoarded, fractions of the money can be thrown at the commoners for their services, the price of which is already set low since the supply is large. Calling this fair trade can only be termed as audacious. 

Testing Experiences

We’ve completed 2 months in the new life at Barkheda. The euphoria, the tempo, the enthusiasm continues and has strengthened. I realized that I’ve most experiences I’ve recounted here are pleasant. Today I’ll share a few experiences, which are as important (if not more) as the nice ones.

Before we’d completed even 10 days, we were returning to Barkheda from our first outing and on the way, we’d decided to halt at a new acquaintance in Uljhawan (a village 6 km away). We spent a good time there and by the time we started, it was past sun-set. The road is a tar road for 3 km and then a 3 kmkachha road. When we were 1km away from Barkheda, I suddenly saw huge stones on the road. It was pitch dark and I was on a single lane kachha road. The head lights of my car could only throw light on the straight road and there was no way I could see what is on either sides of the road. Kids started getting a little tense. As luck would have it, power in both the phones was drained. I couldn’t even call anyone for help. Where do we go to spend the night? I scanned through my options. One, drive 40 km to Bhopal and stay back at Rajesh Gupta’s. Two, look out for a decent hotel…nearest city was Sehore, but it was unlikely it would have a decent hotel. Three, go back to the new acquaintance in Uljhawan and spend the night there. Almost always, I tend to choose the least expensive option, unless there is a real problem in the option. There wasn’t much problem in this case. Now, I needed to get the car turn in the opposite direction. I drove into the field nearby, thankfully did not get into any pit or on a stone or thorns, reversed and headed back to Uljhawan. A flurry of thoughts suddenly emerged…what if I’m stuck like this with a puncture or some other car problem! What if there is nowhere else to go! I must have my phone on. We reached Uljahawan and felt relieved.

We later realized that it was not the end of our eventful day. Current wasn’t there and it was pitch dark there too. Uljhawan is a very dirty village and the way to their house has lots of clayey mud with lots of water, making it quite difficult to avoid stepping into a puddle and getting into 6 inch deep wet clayey mud. I lifted Shreya and crossed after parking the car. We reached the Mohanlal’s (the new acquaintance) house only to find him gone out. His wife and daughters welcomed us back. We were sitting in the dark and the old man (Mohanlal’s father) started asking many questions and quite a few times wondering aloud if we were in our senses to take a decision to shift to village life from a city. After some time the host arrived…back after his daily drink, sloshed. He behaved as sober as he could and was very kind. I was the only one yet to have dinner and had it with him, wondering whether we should really stay back there. Very courteously, we asked for a place where we could sleep – all 4 of us together. The hosts were very nice and kind to us (despite the alchohol). We went into the room and locked ourselves inside. Then we waited for the night to pass. It was enough adventure for a day.

Cooking on a chulha is a very good experience. But cooking on chulha everyday, all meals is a very different experience. Even if you have to make tea heat a little water, you need to light the chulha – makes you think if the tea is really required. Two months, cooking all meals on the chulha is really a praise-worthy effort, primarily by Rekha.

One day last month, there was quite heavy rainfall accompanied by hailstorm. It started to rain around 6 pm.  Strong breeze, nearly a storm had arrived. All the Sreejan Kartas are supposed to live on their farms, than stay in the common rooms. They were not shifting since the last 4-5 months, despite repeated reminders. Finally with some close monitoring, we managed to push them out of the common area, into their farms. That stormy night, we were the only people in commons. To make matters worse, it started raining heavily. We have tin roof here. The hailstorms and rain drops were making such a loud noise that a person standing next could barely hear. We had to cook for the night, despite the storm and while we were struggling with the chulha, lights went off. It was a perfect scene for a horror movie. We kept ourselves together till Bhura came and repaired the light. It’s worthwhile imagining the scene.

These experiences apart, Shreya has had a bout of viral fever twice. Once the temperature had risen to 103^OF and there were no doctors in the vicinity.

Village life is not purely romantic. It has many uncertainties. We’ve had our share, but far from dampening our resolve to continue, it has strengthened us. We need to keep our nerves at all times.  Panic, almost always, weakens individuals as well as their determination to go on.

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…