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.