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Friday, November 1, 2013

Day 11 - 12th Oct – Return Journey

Travel from Sarang hill to Goolikkadavu - Brunch in Coimbatore, heading back to Station, boarding the train, the team was relishing the moments that we enjoyed together.
Finally came the last day, we couldn't believe how so many days went so soon. After waking up early I packed my things and did quick check of the things that I packed.
The Team was also ready by then, we had a quick group photo and packed our things onto the Jeep. The only available means of transport from our hill. We started early so that we can catch the direct bus from Goolikkadavu to Coimbatore. We reached Goolikkadavu early, there in the tea shop heard about Phalin cyclone for the first time, comng back to terms to mandane life slowly. Got the straight bus to Coimbatore. It was warmer as reached towards Coimbatore, we had our Brunch (Breakfast cum

lunch) in a Hotel in Coimbatore. I was realise that I am coming back to mundane world. Though, it may appear childish I wish I had the time machine to start the whole trip again. But then my intellect consoled me that you can always come later, also the real objective of immersion is NOT to think that good things exist only in certain places, but to take back learning from that place and replicate the best thing in own small way.  

Day 10 - 11th October - Last Day kept for review and assessment

I woke the early morning, actually it was Ninan's plan to wake up early and the capture the day break in our cameras as this would be last day we would spending atsarang. But then he slept well and did not wake up, so myself and Janaki went up to the cliff to have some nice moments with mother nature. The place was not just scenic, but also an ideal one for meditation. After taking some nice photos, I sat down & recollected whatever learning I had from this trip, thought about life, all the vagariesit was just Janaki came with good shots, came back team was just ready for few shots that was left short film took those. Watch some more documentaries, a film made by Gautham Moorikkaalam. Had Lunch and we as a team sat down and discussed each and every day on what happened. After that we went back to well site, to fetch some good amount of water. I fell down very badly like a comedian. THis was the day in which our student offered to cook for all the members. Sundal, dinner, camp fire. 

Day 9 - 10 th October - Education and Sarang. Kongad Visit.

Travel thru Mannarkad, anthakshari, reaching Kongad, beautiful house, finger licking breakfast, discussion about Development and what the current edu system provides for us, later we just roamed around, spoke with few kids @ Sarang, Gautham and his team Vishnu, his sisters performing, Good lunch, small nap, Interview with GopalaKrishnan and Vijeyalakshmi Couple, swimming in the tank, temple visit. And journey back to Sarang, dinner in Mannarkad, tyre puncture. Travel back. 

Day 8 - 09th October 2013 - 3 climatic zone in just one day.

We set on a cruiser a long body 4x4, to cover the 3 climatic zone that can seen in around Attapadi. On our way we met Forest Check post in Mukkali where we got many useful info from there we headed towards and inside Silent Valley. There we could see clear and visible change in climate, it was raining all along, our vehicle cruised inside the cloud, it was a heavenly feeling. We had breakfast near a turing, tapioca, banana and upma came handy. We proceeded back, we were able to dryness the moment we

crossed the ridge line. We had our food in Agali town in a Hotel run by a widow women, an age old hotel. And then we divided ourselves into smaller team and 2 hours of time to cover some of the important places for our immersion. We( me, Vachana & Anupa) initially went to ITDP office, Integrated Tribal Development Project, PRI Block level Panchayat office, the place where we saw, students from IRMA who were also on a similar mission of meeting official in the Govt office, then we found that NREGA implementation office was also nearby, we hopped in, spoke to a office assistant as the people inchrage was unable. But the Assistant provided good info. From there we

planned to goto Govt College, but it was already evening time, and we thought it would not be prudent to meet students when they done for the day. So we then went to Political Party office. Communist Party is the most famous party all over Kerala. We happen to meet a Block Secretary, Vachana who can speak good Malayalam interview the person, I had my question translated and got answer. I was interested with their office building and peopleinside, so I began to click more pictures. 


And finally we came back to ITDP office since we could not meet anyone intitally as it was lunch time, we met Kandaswamy was Tribal Extension officer. Meeting with him was really fruitful also the scheme with which they act was also really interesting. One stop shop all tribal needs from Govt. But the work load lack of handful renumertion makes even the committed personal to become corrupt.

By this time, we exceeded our 2 hour time limit by good 30 to 40 mins, but then we were satisfied. All the team which went to diff offices were also satisfied with their venture. Now, Gautham along with one team picked us up near ITDP office and we inturn picked up the team that went to AHADS and proceeded eastwards. To a more dry region. Areas of Kottathara and beyond, places were which was once a forest, once a hill now had become a barren desertic place. While coming back, we had tea at the local tea shop, the same place

Day 7 - 08th October 2013 - Shooting and Sundakulam Ooru

From this day we woke up early, went to the cliff for shooting, each one was given specific duty, hence with mixed feeling of not knowing what to do and with exicitement we wemt to the top of the Hill to shoot. Had the nice time, seeing how shooting would be performed, we took it really seriously, just like any shooting spot, our place was also buzzing with people and activity. After a good shoot we came back. Had food a small nap and set out for Sundakulam a hamlet on the otherside of river siruvaani. School, Tea shop, hamlet, meeting with the old man, Kamala Teacher, bath at siruvaani, climb back the hill. And dinner. 

Day 6 - 07 Oct 13 - Energy conclusion & Scripting work

Gautham had come back from Palakkad late night, in the morning we had the conclusion of Energy. He said that we meant only fossil fuel or electricity, we are considering the power of food, human or animal power. Also, he gave a different dimension about Human power - not just physical but also psychological the power of mind.
After that he showed his Bakery cum kitchen which he is making with the help of Gujarati SHG. He explained how that owen was energy efficient and the process is completely eco-friendly. He then showed us about his brick making machine, how the clay bricks are strong and energy efficient as they are shadow dried bricks.
After a good food we went to hill top to see some climatic zones visible down the valley and also to a temple used by Irula on top of the clip. It was breath taking experience at some places, nature was at its best. Ninan was unwell at this time, but he managed to come to this place, we had Good snaps, on the way a farmer who had Cow, goat, hen, dogs mixed farming. A crop which was totally new to that place, but had invested almost most of the field.
We came back had lunch the second part was Communication and development, we Gautham emphasised the importance of communication to bring about developmental changes.
He compared the ads given by GOvt agencies and the those attractive ads given by the private Companies. He says Good things need good voice, and if creative minds join together we can bring abut the good change. He convinced the team, then we as a team divided ourselves into two teams to come up with ideas to make a 1 audio and 1 video clips.
I am happy from inside since the ideas put forth by me and team was taken we started the work of making short about Farmer suicide inked to mulching. That evening many of us were tired and did not got to take bath to river for whcih we have to climb down and up the mountain. Instead I used my time to work on travel related report. Discussion was very fantastic, this is what I call brain storming, Gautham and Anu did a good job of being moderators trying to include whatever good ideas that came from us, more than that,we had roles defined.
Samarpitha being a Mass Communication student became the Director, Assisted by Krishna
Ninan became the Director of Photography - DoP assisted by Poorva and Anupa

I became productive Executive cum Actor ( Smart Intelligent Farmer who saves Janaki the farmer who was about to commit suicide)

Day 5 - 06 Oct13 Sunday - Energy

This day we had a tight schedule to meet a person ( Binu Chettan) who is a consultant for Suzlon wind energy co- More on what he told about wind energy is here. After the interview, we were supposed to meet Dr Prabhudas. But due to death of 6 yr old boy that Doctor had to goto Investigate. Meanwhile we had a good lunch in a Hotel.

Gautham had to leave for Palakkad for some important work. After lunch we split ourselves into two teams to meet a Muslim Ayurvedic Dr and another team went to PHC. I was part of team which went to PHC. We met Dr Vijaya Kumar who was from Bangalore, who was kind enough to answer our questions on health and social issues in Attapadi.

We observed the NRC (Nutrition Rehabilitation Center) to help those suffering from malnutrition. We were sure that the system is in place, it is only the attitude of the people that make a BIG difference. After that we went to a hill - Kanvindikkal to observe a Wind mill. Gautham, who was supposed to goto Palakkad dropped us to the Windmill. After wind mill station we came back to Goolikadavu and then back to Siruvaani to take bath, we reached our cottage thru Jeep. We had good team meet for the first time to discuss and take stock of what happened and had a nice time looking at our photos. Slept little late. But this day was fully fruitful and fulfilling day.

Day 4 - 05 Oct13 SAT - Soil & Sarang

This day we had a long journey to see forest area around the cottage, where he mentioned about the work done by his Father, he said about importance of soil, forest fire, he told about the important points about the grass, lantana, small trees and the vegetation how they cover the soil and conserve it naturally.  He mentioned the importance of Agave in the forest.

In the afternoon we had good sleep and we were almost done for the day. It was on this day Ajay, Ninan's brother came to see him. Not much of an eventful day, evening we went for bath, meanwhile some of my team members, who went to meet Kovai chettan, took photographs with him and also covered just born goat calf. 

Day 3 - 04 Oct 13, Friday

This was the day we were split up into teams to meet the family, and the family I met was of Raman Chetta, though he was a 5 std dropout, he graduated from Sarang's Alternative School. We were into his house, saw his farm land, met Indrajit his first son, his wife Kamala (a tribe), we explored his house, and then his farmland. We had a small  breakfast, and we back to see his forest farm where we saw wild bores did damage his banana crops, we got to know the reasons why people dont send girls/children to School as it was far away from Hill, even though if they send, the classes were so crowded that there is no pofint in sending at all. 

Lady A Irula tribe spoke with Vachana on  how she couped with marrying a caste hindu - initially she had trouble with the food habits, which was hers was corn & Raggi, she took habits of her family. She and heMNREGA for her 180/days. In the 100 dys, she has to work for 12 days and 12 days off thats how they do work for 100 days. most of the jobs includes Thadam velichal for coconut tree. DBT is in process, they get in one week lack, she had supervisor who allots jobs.

They like packed food like lays, they had annual income of Rs 30,000 and they are not complaining about.  In case of any, emergency time they carry people in chair, generally people dont have any health issues, 18 dec 2012 is the date on which Raman chetta got electricity in his house and it was only 3 months since they got TV. 

Day 2 - 03 Oct 2013 Thursday – Palliyara Milk Society and Development

Though this might look as though the second, actually speaking this was actually the day on which we ventured out and into the field. Our Topic or theme for the day was development. Mr & Mrs Gautham wanted us to trace the signs of development. The task was to reach Co-Op milk society, speak with people & try to learn their life by ourselves, now we are all our own. Disconnected with our world, now the Attapadi people's world is ours. We climbed down from the top of the Sarang hill and reached Palliyara Co-Op Milk society, which was patronised by Milma - Kerala's Milk Co Op Society http://kcmmf.in/index.php. All the people from our hill and from other hamlets in the nearby villages came to the Society building with their fresh Milk from cow. We were about to Interview  the Society staff, but they were busy collecting milk, documenting the quantity and quality. So we took a little break and had our taste buds immersed in local chaaya(Tea) and coffee. That was the place where we as a team, learnt many things, locals travel a long distance to reach this place, each family who supply milk, suppy it twice a day. Each family has 2 or more animals, in this place, migrant Tamils and Malayalees and Irula indigenous tribal people live in harmony.

    After interviewing and documenting loads of information from the secretary of the Milk society. We came back, had the de briefing, it was about the concept of development. We as a team sat down noted down what constitutes development. We wrote on the blackboard, and finally Gautham explained that most of the things that we claim as development was not at all asked by the people. Whatever we mentioned, was our notion of development. It is always one size fits all concepts that were propagated by people who wanted to sell things. Starting from, water to education to what not. In the concept of development there is no mention about how to live a peaceful and content life. Life is not just making and spending money. These thoughts were nothing new, but, when you when start to see people who live a very happy and content life, their words have power and you start believing them. Amongst
Post lunch we had a short but good nap, we started to river to have bath, that was first time we had bath in siruvaani, Samarpitha had a bad time climbing down the hill, after a good time
in the river we came back to our cottage thru a jeep as climbing back is a BIG issue for her. Day ended with nice dinner and it was from this day we boys started to

sleep in a seperate cottage little far away from our main stay. 

Day 1 - 02 Oct13, Wednesday The Travel

   Yes, this is the day we started from Bangalore, last night was hectic packing, meeting the seniors, Convocation, last minute checks…I was excited & also a bit nervous about being on time. We had the plan and were prepared for this. One of our team members offered to provide a free ride to Railways station her Father’s cab & also we ordered for our food to be packed. We got the cab at the right time & the breakfast packed up neatly. We went to station early. Well began is half done, inside the train compartment we planned for the budget for the coming week. We sat comfortably and things were all set. For…? All set to fall asleep.


        Slowly one by one people started to fall asleep. I made people near me not to fall sleep. It became warmer and warmer when the train reached Tamil Nadu; I bought a t shirt when I reached near Tirupur – a city famous for knitted garments then finally we arrived in Coimbatore. It was then we realised that we are a bit too heavy on our luggage. We somehow managed to have our lunch & got ourselves dropped at Gandhipuram bus stand where moffusil  through two share autos.  From there we boarded the bus to Anaikatty.  Anaikatty is the border place between Kerala and Tamilnadu. One side of the bridge in Anaikatty is in TN other side is Kerala. If you cross a small bridge you reach Keralam. Ente Keralam. Here I am come




(photo Bridge)  




     We got the Aana (Elephant) bus Kerala State Bus which is old and red coloured to Goolikkadavu. We filled more than half the bus with our luggage and reached Goolikkadavu. We had a nice Kerala style coffee,Vada and Pazhumpuzhi – fried Banana fruit. And about half an hour later Gautham came, we had our initial and brief introduction, and boarded two Mahindra Jeeps to reach Sarang Hills. The Roads at some places were really scary, the tree branches were hitting our Jeep. We finally reached our cute little cottage, which we have to share with a young couple for the next 10 days. (photo Anai Bus)
By the way, did I tell you about the ‘P’ things? Our girls, ofcourse boys also were worried about the restroom facility at the place. Girls happen to hear from Anuradha Sarang w/o Gautham Sarang, that for nature’s call we will do like the locals do. And when we saw just a deep pit surrounded by 4 walls made by Bamboo sticks & leaves for both pee and poop things we got really scared. I expected a big revolt and cancellation of field immersion for the P thing. 


Thankfully, people were really tired and it was dark already to have any so called productive discussion. We just already started to explore places and observe the things in & around the Cottage. A small room built by mud brick surrounded with small room like place made with leave thatched roofing.  (Photo of Cottage)


We had our briefing about how our plan is going to be for next 10 days..... 

Flash Back

Though, I was excited to be chosen a Group Co-ordinator I was equally feeling responsible for it. For me it meant several important jobs, while I was slowly analysing the group dynamics, the very next Monday I happen to hear that one of the Team member who was initially part of the team had withdrawn himself and had joined another team to go a different place. Natural tendency is to assume many things especially if that person, was eager to be Coordinator. I spoke to that person personally and got to hear that he was interested to travel long distance and to a place far away from his home state which was Kerala.  He even added that it was just this and nothing like leadership or ego something like that. Oh…!!! (Now my assumptions are narrowed down on something and I could not do anything if the person is not interested)... it is ok, so long as nobody carries any hard feelings. And more over you cannot force anything on anyone.


      I started my stride as Group Co-ordinator. It was a good journey in which I discovered many fascinating things about team dynamics.  As part of my responsibility as Group Co-ordinator I had to call Gautham and touch base with Sarang Organisation I still remember the first call and the first email, from there on our ( NGO and my teams')travel together jump started. Also was my responsibility to conduct team meetings, like in any teammeetings, many would not turn up. More annoying would be when they wouldn't even intimate. There had been times when, even after sending emails and SMSs, there was just one or two turning up (including me). I could not figure out what was the reason? I vividly remember in one of the meetings I had even said, I was ok to step down if they had any issues with me, still no positive or negative response. A negative response is far better than NO response. So now I think you can better understand how I would have felt. 

       Eventually things started to fall in place, there came time we had to book tickets, Me & Janaki Raman worked in tandem to book the tickets so that we get seats atleast in the same boogie.
Meanwhile, there were good exchange of emails between me and Gautham Sarang and one day I came with an idea of conference call with my team and Organisation before the travel, so that all are in the same page. It was wonderful success; I felt the team getting into the groove from this moment. Just when I thought things were all fine, one of the team member discontinued the Programme from the University. There were ups and downs in the journey. Just like they it as Roller Coaster ride. Are you ready go further…Come on let travel. 

Before Travel

Hello,
 With this personal journal endeavour, I would like to take you to the journey which I cherish. Are you ready to travel with me? Yes…?! Welcome Aboard!!!
   With this travel please remember you are part of me, you see whatever I see, hear what I hear and feel how I felt. My travel had already begun even before we physically started from Bangalore. From the moment I had known that the place of field immersion was Kerala, several things started and performed their stage show in the auditorium called my mind. 
There were several important scenes in that shows, one being, in one of the team meetings I was chosen to be Group Co-Ordinator, speaking with Gautham for the first time, arranging team meetings, my initial impressions about the team, struggle to bring all people under one roof and minimise absenteeism, tickets booking, conference call with Organisation (Sarang) and last but not the least one of the Team member dropping out of University Course.
Even though, some things might look vital and others trivial, to me, each one of those helped me to prepare myself.
 I would just give you a quick flash back so that you get a good picture on what was in my mind.