Friends at the Terrace Garedening Meet

Moonstar had booked the ticket and I came to know much later that it was in AC. Infact the first time that I got my Asthma, it was in and AC compartment so I kind of dread them. Since we had not talked of it she didn’t know my need so it was ok. I hung out near the vestibule where there was a berth for the attendant. Infact it was birth on the door with an very open view.

At the Terrace Gardening Meet in Bangalore I met some old friends. I was glad to know that Deepak Bhai was there. I have been to his farm and stayed there for a month. Have learnt a lot about farming from him. He practices Natueco Farming in MP and the farm is on the banks of Narmadaji. While I was there I used to go for a bath at Narmadaji and also do yoga on the banks. Its strange that there used to be sounds of bombs often in the river. The fishermen throw them in the river and the explosion kills all the fish in some area. The worst part is it kills all the fishes, even the one which are of no use to the fishermen. The birds would also rush to the area where there was an explosion as they would find lot of dead fish, without much effort.

I saw Purvita Kapadia also there. She is a super enthu city farmer. I have met her in Pune, she had visited FTII and saw our kitchen garden. She suggested that I put some amrit pani. I wantet it but had no way to get gobar. The next day she came with cowdung, cow urine and jaggery and made the culture for amrit pani. I was impressed with her enthu. I am glad that there are such crazy people around. Bauls also refer to each other as ‘khepa’ or the mad one. We need more of such people. She is also part of the group ‘Urban Leaves’.

There were others from the group whom I know from before. Preeti Patil also worked with Deepak Bhai and has been instrumental in setting up a rooftop garden at the Mumbai Port Trust. She has good energy too, she looks so much at peace with herself.

There I met Vinay, who is helping people set up their kitchen gardens. He also gets some money for his work. It is interesting to see people making their passion into a way of earning their living.

Got to meet Saurabh from Dehradun, who is into organic farming and explring the issues of sustainable living and bringing them into his own life. He was earlier working for Microsoft and moved out of the corporate world. He is now promoting kitchen waste composters designed by Poonam of Daily Dump in Bangalore. I have just heard of her as a person who designed these amazing, beautiful three story earthen pots where one can turn the kitchen waste into manure. Interestingly any one is free to copy their designs and it is like open source. In a way they have shared the ownership and that’s why its growing in a very decentralsied way.

There was Anil from Mumbai who is also passionate about the Daily Dump Composters and he promotes them. He mentioned that he picked up a book about thoughts of Buddha from Navdarshanam, in which he had talked about the wise man who know how to make manure out of waste. Yes, we all encounter so much ‘crap’ in our day to day lives and its up to us or we have to choice as to how we want to react to it and whether we can create some thing positive out of it or go deeper into shit. To break it down to manure which can then be a nourishing thing.

It is interesting how language gives perspective to our world view.Moonstar was pointing out how initially when she got the composter at her house in chandigarh, the left over vegetable scraps were referred to as ‘kachara’ or waste by her mother but then now she calls it ‘khad’ which means manure.

The conference was conducted in a a typical cr(l)assroom mode where on person speaks and many listen. There were lot of people who had been into city farming. I feel that there could have been a way where sharing could have been done in groups of three or four so more people could have got the chance to share their stories. More like the World Café Conversations.

There were stalls selling organic rations but the food that was served was also from any typical caterer. I gave my feedback that next time if they have such a meet they could try to serve organic food, even if it is a simple one pot meal like a khichadi.

Had a chat about all this with Preeti Patel and fortunately it has been decided that the next meet will be held around Bombay and The Cityfarmers group will be hosting it. Preeti is also excited about this meet and we have talked of serving organic food and have it on a place where there is some opportunity to do some farming or some small experiments in soil making etc…

We also went to see some rooftop gardens. I was reminded of some one from Pune who had spoken about the ‘law of entropy’ in the context of city farming in the Pune Ecological Society meeting. He thought that most of the experiments on city farming are not going to have a significant impact. He felt that if we are taking water from the dams to cities and then using more electricity to take it to the roof to grow a very small amount, then according to him we are using much more energy to get much less energy. According to the law of entropy the energy is getting dissipated. We have to create systems where the dissipation is much less and if we do the energy audit of any activity then there should be a net gain in energy. But most of the practices we have today are such that even with some of the so called energy saving ways there is a net loss. As it could be a case with the electric bicycle. Just because the exhaust is not giving any fumes it doesn’t mean that all is fine. We have to calculate the fumes that could be coming out in the power plant as they might be more than what we have got from the burning of the fuel in the bike. Or as my friend Amol Gajewar once said that we have to also calculate the amount of energy going into making solar panels and if it is less than the energy that we are going to get form their use.

The person who was critiquing city farming also said that by promoting city farming and we are trying to say that cities can be made sustainable. According to him the idea of city itself is not sustainable so how can we think that by doing some farming to make them sustainable. Its like delaying the ultimate catastrophe. When he expressed his opinions I was a bit skeptical of his ideas. But then I did see some truth in what he was saying. He said instead of bringing water from far off do farming where the water falls. I would also say if some one is not using electricity to pump water and also using grey and black water then it’s a positive step. But his ideas did put the see in me that ultimately we have to make the cities smaller and shrink them.

But then i think that things are not that black and white as there is the story of Cuba how they survived the oil and fertiliser 'crisis'. When Russia could no loger send them fertilisers they moved to organic farming and began to use every available piece of land to grow organic food and now 80 percent of veeggies of Havana come from the city itself. There is a film on How Cuba Survived Peak Oil Crisis. Moonstar also mentioned the idea of Transition Towns in England where people are experimenting with the idea of redesigning existing townships and transiting to more sustainable towns.

In the conference it was good to see so many positive stories and to realise that so much is also happening which is going to bring sanity to the world.

of travelling and healing…..

When I left pune this September, I was having my asthma. I knew that it was coming before hand as I was in a stressful situation because of what had happened around the FTII mess where I was volunteering for about two years. Had to heal myself soon as had already made plans to go for the organic terrace farming meet with Moonstar and she had come to Pune for it. She also wanted to see what kind of work was happening in sustainable practices in Pune and at the FTII mess.

Had met her when I had last been to Delhi for my niece, chinki’s, wedding. We had talked about the power of community and about her city farming project in Chandigarh. When we were in Navadanya Store the woman managing it seemed a bit flustered as she had too much to do. Moonstar offered to help her with her work. We talked of Non Violent Communication(NVC). Had been to Sanjay’s place and along with Parul, four of us had done lot of cooking. It was a day of community living at its best where things just fell in the right place. Every body was doing some thing or the other. We made breads using ragi which we had bought the same day from the Navdanya store. Parul was always washing the dishes. We even made some bel sharbat and peanut stew. We had chatted and laughed.

My asthma was severe, I couldn’t even talk or climb the stairs. I knew the only way to heal soon was the water fast. Five days of water fasts has worked more than four times for me. I realised that there were still about six more days to take the train to Bangalore. So if I went on a water fast I would still have a day or two to heal before we took the train to Bangalore.

Decided to move out of the institute to a quieter place. Also at the moment I felt that staying at FTII would keep me more under stress. Some how landed to Vanaja and Shirish’s place as Moonstar had to visit them. She had been in touch with Vanaja and wanted to see their rooftop garden and they wanter to meet each other. We went there, while I had begun my fast. That was the first day and I was on lemon shots. My bag was full of lemons and had been taken them all thru the day. Might have taken about 15 that day. I decided to stay on while Moonstar moved on to meet other people whose interest resonated with hers in Pune.

I am fortunate that I have friends who take care of me. It must have been hard for them. My mouth was smelling bad and I couldn’t do much about it. I don’t know why it happened so much this time of my fast. The Asthma and the fast slowed me down, first physically and mentally. But every morning that I got up thoughts came to me about the mess. About the hurt that I felt. However much I thought that I will not think about it, or I tried to convince the triviality of the isse, it didn’t matter. There could be hundred things that are going nice in one’e life but strangely the one thing that doesn’t go right takes so much of our mindspace. Yes, there is always so much good happening. For example I had Vanaja and Shirish to take care of me. I had Guru and Sunaiana who were concerned about me. Moonstar had chosen to come to Pune to travel with me to Bangalore. Urmila was there to support me. Faisal and other people from FTII wanted me to be there for the Iftaar cooking and the party. Nirali had been there to help me work on the zine and design for me, Anmol was also calling me and was concerned. Zalina had written a letter in support of what I was doing andf given it to registrar. Ganesh had also written to me and asked me to share it with others. There were so many people who believed in the worth of what I was doing. So many people who wrote to me after they found out that I was not volunteering at the mess and how things had happened. But still the negative thoughts would win some times. I would think of ‘sthit pragnaya’, not to be too happy when some thing good happens and not to feel bad when some things don’t work out. The lessons I had learnt at Vipasana were not helping me. I was thinking of words like ‘samata’ and ‘anitya’. May be the problem lies in the way we put labels of good and bad. In a way there is no duality of good or bad and one has to accept everything mindfully. One needs to practice that. Or as everything is divine. So many times when things that happen feel good later on we realsie that the same ‘bad’ stuff give such a meaningful direction to one’s life. For example if I hadn’t had my asthma I wouldn’t have embarked on my journey with food and healing. I know that there was a larger purpose in whatever is happening in my life.

I wanted to go out of Pune for some time. My heart is still there in FTII and I wanted to start an intentional café at the Tapri. But I wanted to take a break from Pune. To go and see what all interesting works are happening in the area of food and bring the ideas back to the Tapri. So even though Asthma was not fully healed I decided to move on, spoke to Vinita, who I think has great perspectives on healthy and healing and also runs an alternative bookstore in Calcutta. She has been my guide all along my experiments with healing. I felt that she understood that I really wanted to go and said yes. She said, anyways you would be going by train and not traveling AC….

It was not that easy for me to walk with wheezing. Had the inhaler with me. This time when I fasted for the first two days I was also taking the inhaler as it was getting difficult to sleep. I was worried about taking the puff while fasting. But then I thought that I had taken the puff for more than an year in Bombay and have then got rid of it. I could be gentle to myself as taking the puff meant that I could sleep. I also believe that lot of healing happens when we are asleep. I was remembering Nandita who said a few days ago that children need more sleep because their bodies grow when they are sleeping. During my fast, like always on the third day, I began to throw up. Soon after that more phlegm would come out and my health began to improve. When I was in Bombay a few years ago and suffering from Asthama, no amount of ‘Kadas’ and Sitopladi Churan’s had helped me. But fasting had always worked as a miracle. Had fasted for the first time when I had got an attack of chicken gunia, when I was in Udaipur and I had then too wanted to go to ‘Kabad se Jugad’ meet in Chandigarh and I wanted to be alright for it. I had counted the number of days before the meet and realised that I have five days for the water fast and one day to eat before I took the train to Chandigarh. I was going there to cook for the kabad se jugad meet. Manoj, with whom I have done lot of 'Conscious Kitchen’ work used to come to Manish’s home to make the menu while I was in the bed. It was so bad that I couldn’t even walk to receive my father’s phone call. On the second day I felt better. It was my first water fast. It was guided on phone by Vinita who was in Calcutta while I was in Udaipur. At manish and Vidhi’s house. Once in a while some one offered me food but Manish asked them to not do that and let me be. One thing good about Manish is that he can support the most difficult looking idea. Some times when I describe Shikshantar I say that it’s a place where if I go and say I want to walk upto Europe I am sure I will find some companions.

Coming back to Pune, as I began to walk with Moonstar, out of Sunaiana and Guru’s place to take the train, I took a puff of Asthalin which made me go on. I knew that I had to be off it in a few days.

Had read a book by Susan Weed on Healing. Enjoyed reading it. She talks of three approaches to healing. One is the linear one which is done by the modern medical system. Second is the one where there is lot of abstinence and resistance, which she calls the heroic method and refers to it as a circular one(the fasting kind that I have been doing in the past). The third one is the Wise Woman approach which is like a spiral in which there is more acceptance. It does not believe in torturing the body. One thing that inspired me in her approach was about accepting and living with illness and not to be always fighting it. According to her when illness happens we feel that we are incomplete unless we get rid of the illness totally. She thinks that at times one has to accept to live with illness, just as a blind person lives with their blindness. They find ways to do it, learn Braille, learn to walk in the street, etc. I have carried this idea with me and since then when my asthma attack happens I think if leading my life with it rather than thinking that I will be active only when my body is healed fully. This idea has helped me and I have been able to travel with my asthma.

She or some one else I had read a few days ago also talks about how our body is becoming new all the time. I don’t remember the exact number of days but it said that our blood becomes new every thirty days or so, all the cells of our kidney become new in a few months. Then in that case isn’t it easy to get rid of the illness. For example if our stomach is going to change in a few days then if there is an ulcer wouldn’t it not exist ultimately.

So with that understanding I began my train journey to Bangalore with Moonstar....