South India – Day 14
Tuesday, February 18, 2025
Hot water and water dosa
Roy, Wajid, and I bunked up at the Chinthana Foundation, Channappa’s organization. In the morning, I saw Wajid holding a massive electric coil and a bucket of water. I thought he was about to embark on a risky science experience, but it turns out he was kindly heating water for me to wash. We took breakfast at Channappa’s place, a refreshing plate of fresh fruit and water dosa, a kind of thin crepe. Just before entering his house, I glanced over at his neighbor, who was purifying his small shop by means of waving it full of incense.
The Chinthana Foundation
After breakfast, we met with the staff of Chinthana and another organization they work closely with called Pragathi Charitable Trust. Both are involved in children’s education and promoting organic farming. Channappa founded the Chinthana Foundation in 1995 and he looks to be a kind of mentor to Pragathi, which was founded in 2016.
Chinthana started a program last year to add eggs to the school lunches to improve the students’ nutrition. It is now operating across four districts. They have also introduced tree planting as way to bring more attention to the environment into the curriculum. In general, government schools are considered to give poor quality education and almost everyone who can afford it sends their children elsewhere. The thing is, there are millions who can’t afford it, so these two organizations do what they can to improve the situation. Pragathi has set a target of connecting with 150 schools to assist them with various basic needs like study materials, chairs, sports uniforms, whatever will help.
In the realm of organic farming, I kind of got mixed up about who was doing what, but overall, they are at the stage of introducing and attracting interest. Health is their main motivation. Cancer rates are increasing everywhere and they see this coming from heavy chemical use in farming, with the farmers themselves being at the highest risk, due to spraying their crops wearing no protection. Manesh, the director of Pragathi noted that there used to be only one pharmacy in this town. Now there are forty!
Going organic
Their immediate goal is to get 50 farmers to go organic. They share their ideas in a village, and for those who show interest, they help them convert a small portion of their land, something like one acre on a four-acre farm. Channappa, with his long experience of organic both at ARI and after, plays a big role here, teaching about things like composting, green manure, biochar, liquid manure, and more. If farmers are successful on a small plot, they slowly expand to the rest of their land, all the while continuing to improve their skills.
One such farmer had joined us that morning. His name was Shiva Murthy. Pleased with the results on his one acre, he has now converted all of his land. He had observed that in times when the rain was not sufficient, the organic part of the farm was holding water and the crops were doing well. Whereas the parts of the farm where he used chemical fertilizers dried up. His neighbors noticed this too, and when they asked him what he was doing, Shiva Murthy was happy to share his secrets. Now twenty farmers are following in his footsteps, growing lots of beans organically! They like beans.
Time management
When the conversation moved to ARI, Channappa and Roy David both immediately spoke up, sharing about their experiences with the group in stereo. Roy David talked about servant leadership and Channappa emphasized the importance of time management. The Japanese are time-oriented people and make efforts to maximize its use. This shows itself at ARI by the detailed organizing of our schedule and activities. Now Channappa is trying hard to bring these attitudes to India, where time is said to be “polychromatic” to use an overly academic word. Simply put, it means the same as Indian Standard Time.
The farmer bard
When it was my turn to say a few words, I realized that introductions were yet to be made. We had been greeted in their beautiful custom of being adorned with long necklaces of flowers, but then went straight into meeting mode. Among the six staff present from Chinthana was a musician who had written ten songs about organic farming. This was the very same Shiva Murthy, the organic farmer. An image suddenly came to my mind of him singing and dancing in the village, and farmers all around throwing away their bags of chemicals and rushing to join him, full on Bollywood style. Of course that didn’t happen, but I’m still going to check YouTube.
There was also a woman from the Lambani tribal group. Though they are tribals, in Karnataka they are called a scheduled caste, basically a Dalit, and face all the hardships and discrimination that come with that designation. She is working for their land rights, social welfare, and community organizing. I wrote her name down as Ravi, but I hope I am not mixing names. Sometimes it is hard to catch these unfamiliar names. I should have employed the lesson learned in Malawi when, at a village meeting, one ARI graduate took the time to carefully repeat each name until he was sure he had it right. What a tremendous show of respect. From Pragathi, four of their twelve staff were present, including Manesh, the director. Roy David noted that many of these people had worked at CORD at one time or another, including Channappa, whom he introduced to ARI.
I noticed they had a projector, so in lieu of long explanations, I asked if they wanted to see ARI’s documentary. They did, so we watched, and then came the questions. They were excited about all they saw – living in community, growing our own food together, caring for the soil – so the questions were numerous and lively.
Visit to Arabala Gollara Hadi
After lunch we drove to the village, or hadi, of Arabala Gollara. Numerous plantations of coconuts, Araca nuts, as well as fields of sorghum, flashed by my window as we sped along the road. The government has begun a plan to widen the road and the first step is to cut the trees growing alongside it. They are mostly tamarind trees, massive and beautiful, and it was the opinion of those in the car with me that the trees were far more important than the road. It was truly sad to see them stripped of their branches, especially those that were standing next to trees that had not yet been cut and still stood in their towering magnificence.
We stopped briefly at a school where they had done tree planting about four years ago. The trees were still small, but already producing lots of gooseberries, guavas, and lemons, that the kids are happy to pick. There were tamarind trees here as well. These produce long, brown beans, the contents of which are sweetly sour and make good chutney. It was holiday time, so there were no children about.
A group of hadis (villages) is called a panchayet. It is usually five villages, because “pan” means five. A group of panchayets is a taluk. A group of taluks is a district and a group of districts is a state. This is another piece of random car talk, but perhaps useful since I am using these terms throughout.
Cool farmers
At the village we were met by a group of farmers, most of them young men. Immediately they started chucking coconut husks into a metal drum, which they lit on fire with the aid of some straw. It was then covered by a specially made lid with a smoke stack and, voila, in a couple of hours you will have biochar, an important component to build the soil organically. Biochar absorbs water and holds it in place, which is why Shiva Murthy’s crops were not drying up.
We then sat together for a discussion on a large mat spread for that purpose. I was pleasantly surprised to see so many young farmers, in their fashionable clothes and cool haircuts. From time to time, I would catch them studying me, and then quickly look away. I’m quite used to this and never affronted. It’s how we get to learn about each other. During these travels I love looking at the people in all their different unique qualities. Let them look at me as well! Roy and Channappa spoke to the farmers for some time and then turned to me. Taking my cue, I told them briefly about ARI and why we do organic farming, replacing terms like “sustainability” with things like, “living soil” and “feed the soil and the soil will feed the crops and the crops will feed us.” As Roy David translated, I saw quite a few head nods, (actually head bobs). They were really listening. These farmers were at the stage of experimenting on a small plot, fertilizing their ground nuts with fermented liquid manure rather than commercial fertilizers. Channappa keeps an eye on them, advising them here and there and providing them with seeds. He even gave them the drum for the biochar.
Changing traditions
Somehow the discussion took an abrupt turn toward local traditions and how hard it is to change them. The concept of changing traditions is a Pandora’s box, but in this case, most were in agreement that a change was needed. Here, women who are menstruating must spend those days outside of the village. They stay in a shed or small house, and it is inconvenient to say the least. Channappa called a meeting to tackle this custom directly, explaining that it is a natural process. My guess is they talked a long while to address many underlying beliefs, but in the end the village decided to abandon it. The only holdouts were the old folks. The gathering ended with group photos and we headed back the way we came. This time the Areca nut groves were bathed in the red of a glowing sunset.
Eating a lot
We took our evening meal at Channappa’s place once again. Chithra had prepared a goat meat curry with rice balls that you dip and eat. Then she topped it off with a sweet dessert. She took great pleasure in watching us eat the food she had cooked, explaining that South Indians are happy if you eat a lot. It was not difficult for me to maximize her happiness. In fact, so successful was I in this respect, that when I got home and weighed myself, and the scales reached a number I had never seen before.
