Farming, Volunteers and FSL : 2016-17

Am Rahul Dayalu, an IT engineer turned farmer and writer. I have been associated with FSL to host volunteers in our project since November, 2016.

I was looking at pictures of our project just received from Miriam, a volunteer from FSL who worked with us for few months. I cannot believe it’s been more than a year we started this project in my village S.Hoskote near Mysore, Karnataka, India. Those photos spoke more than words on our initial efforts, planning and fun filled work. I wanted to share the experience with all of you and that’s when I decided to write this blog about my experience on our first year in this project.

 I was just out of my IT job with full of dreams and wishes to work for the society. Being lost in the world of corporate for more than 9 years, it was as new as it was for a baby who came out of mother’s womb. Not having contacts in any of the social fields and with few friends from college and few colleagues it was not easy to find a way to start my work.
 

First year after I quit my job was not very fruitful. It was never easy when your family does not support you as you expected. It is more difficult when mutual expectations differed. They expected me to quit this project and go back to my IT job. It would have been a disastrous for a starter like me if I would not have used the failures and setbacks as stepping stone to grow personally and socially. Every opportunity which came my way looked promising and every person who wanted my collaboration seemed to be a mentor. The world of perceptions and false projection crashed within a year. This pushed me to start a project on my own. A project which would be rural oriented, environmental friendly and jobs creator.

 I did not take more time to choose farming to work on. And spent few months on research, been in training sessions and seminars. Also started searching for a land which would suit our ideas and plans. Raising funds was never easy too to initiate the project. Everything needed to start a natural farming project fell on our plate and we started our project in a land of 10 acres in my village.

 I met Tim Hafner from FSL when he came to work in an NGO I was associated with. I shared my plans and he told me to approach FSL for volunteers to support my project. He came to our farm few times and learnt the aims, objectives and impact of our project in long run. We had just got the land on lease and was preparing to start natural farming.  I put a word FSL via email and they readily agreed to place two volunteers. I was bit surprised for their quick response and also made me nervous since we were not prepared to host volunteers. I was expecting them to join us few months after we kick off our project.

Miriam Nass and Thomas Hassler were first to join us. At first look, Thomas looked plumpy red faced cartoon under piercing sun and Miriam looked urban college girl who lost her way back home. And our land looked like a man made dirty forest full of bushes, plastic and domestic dumps. It seemed like pushing someone into a river who were afraid to see their reflection in a pool. Biggest challenge for me was to plan continuous work, closely observe their progress and act fast during their difficulties. It was never like a walk on the smooth pavement for a starter like me. My physical presence in the project was way too minimal as I had to put my head in every corner of the project. Workers in our project were illiterate and were not able to communicate in English. My concerns and fear soon disappeared when Thomas and Miriam got adjusted and worked seamlessly in our project.
 

I still remember the day when Miriam came to me and said ‘don’t underestimate me because am a girl. Am a tough girl and I can adapt to any situation. I will work hard to meet your expectation and help your project’. I confirm now she lived upto her words in every means. She did not stop work even after her hands were bleeding and we had only turmeric powder to apply on her wounds as disinfectant. She surprised not only me but all of us. She soon earned a nick name for her work in our village. People called her ‘Maryamma’ which means ‘Mother Mary’ in Kannada.  Her elegance and charm soon earned respect and love from people.
 

Thomas was someone who has capacity to suck your worries with his fun filled stories. We would sit for hours to listen to his stories every time he came back from a trip. He is a person who can make stones talk. He is like a back bencher who surprises you with his grades. When everything looked ugly during the process, he would bring cuteness with his red cartoon face. He earned a nick name ‘Walky-Talky’ from me.

Both of them worked with us when farm did not even have basic facilities like toilets and clean drinking water. But they never complained. They never made us feel uncomfortable. Pretty soon farm started taking shape. Dirty forest turned into a perfect red field. It got new fence. New drip irrigation system was placed. All types of standing trees got enough organic fertilizer. Volunteers painted limestone white on trunk of every tree in our farm. We planted different types of bananas, malbary plants, sowed turmeric, vegetables and greens. We laid drip pipes on the crops. We cleared the weed plants and covered the land with dry sugarcane hay.
  

 

Then came summer. Miriam and Thomas were traveling. FSL placed short term volunteers for summer. When we were still in hangover of Miriam and when we were reluctant to get a girl volunteer who would work as hard as Miriam, Anja Bitter came like a dynamite and proved us wrong. You assign a work to her and you expect her to complete in 2 days. She would astonish you with her skills and complete the work within half a day. She was electrifying country girl perfect for the farm. Even though her stay with us was short, her influence on us is something to be remembered for long. Anja ‘Bitter’ soon turned very sweet with everyone. She never complained and spent reading books in her free time.

 Phillis Sunny Day was like a grand ma. She worked to match her name. She was bright, caring and concerned at the same time. Lea Corinth was like spiritual guru. Her eyes and expressions talked more than her words.
 

All of them shared everything which came our way. They were part of our problems, they were in our celebrations. They shared the darkness in the night and faced the brightness on the day. They enjoyed food and hospitality of our family. They brought their families to us. They played with my daughter and had fun with our workers. They painted on our walls and left their imprints on our heart. They learnt from us and taught many things back to us. They inspired us. They challenged us. They pushed boundaries for us. They extended their generous hands to help us.
 

It seemed always less and not enough if I try to put in my words. So, i take this opportunity to thank FSL and all the volunteers who worked with us in the year 2016-2017. The changes you brought in our project are appreciated and commendable. I wish the tree of volunteers you planted would grow into a EYWA (of Avatar movie) and keeps the ecosystem of our farm in perfect equilibrium. I hope to meet you all very soon. Good luck and stay in touch.

Best wishes,

Rahul Dayalu
Krushi-Kutumba,
S.Hoskote,
Mysore,
Karnataka, India

www.krushikutumba.org

hdrahul@gmail.com

Chasing Mosquitoes..

Chasing Mosquitoes..

Summer.. Summer.. Summer.. Summer heat is killing us these days. Temperature is crossing 37 degree Celsius in Mysore during midday. Water purifiers at home are tired. Gallons of water is evaporating from our bodies. Standing in the shadow of trees, i look up at the sky hoping to see few clouds. But all i see is a daring Sun glaring at us with its tons of rays. After we brought our baby Smaya to home last week, my sole concern was to prepare Smaya for her first summer. Against Doctor's advice we started giving boiled water, mosambi juice, ragi soup to keep her hydrated. Fans have started working 24 X 7 fighting to take heat waves out of our house. 

It was a fine summer morning. Pooja woke up and went to kitchen to help mom. Me and Smaya were fighting with our lazy sleep holding each others hand, curious to see who would getup first. Me or Smaya. She defeated me flatly. How could i resit from watching little angel's innocent face in the morning. She looked more pink than usual. I thought it was because of the heat. When i moved closer to kiss her puffy cheeks, i was shocked to realize the reason for pink color. There were many mosquito bites on left side of her face. When all our priority was to fight the heat, there were a platoon of miniature soldiers infiltrated our privacy without our notice and had attacked our daughter on her left cheek, forehead, left ear. Windows and doors of our house were closed after every evening. Fans were operating. Baby was fully covered with blanket except her face. Still they were managed to breakthrough. I was

furious and humiliated to accept the fact that we were forcibly drawn into a WAR. They had attacked our most precious stone in our family. But we were technologically far behind compared to mosquitoes. We were short of modern weapons. We were lagging in defense mechanism. In midst of severe recession in our family, all we were afford to defend was using shabby fans and age old inefficient toxic liquid mosquito repellents. They were provoking us from all ways. There was a chaos. There was a fear. There were worries looking at baby's face. 

Head of our family (Dad) immediately called for an emergency defense meeting. Defense minister (Mom) was already into action and had leased an advanced weapon (Electric Mosquito Bat) from our neighbor. Thanks to her presence of mind. Army Major Roshan (Brother) had single handedly declared WAR on our enemy. The sound and glaring sparks of killing mosquitoes from electric bat looked more horror than killing them using machine guns. Looked like our enemy were unprepared for his surprise attack. They were falling easily into prey of his moves. Enemies were hiding below

stairs, in almirahs, below furniture, in bathrooms. Roshan was searching every corner carefully. When we were busy fighting our enemy, our black cat women soldier (my wife Pooja) quickly acted and gave a strong protection cover to Smaya which cannot be breached by any possible ways. But she cannot hold them for long time. They had the clear advantage of their numbers. They had vast army. More and more infantries were infiltrating our poor defense. Our leased weapon had to be returned to its owner in few hours. We had to act fast. As a finance minister of the state, i had to decide on financial challenges and act quickly on the procurement of defense and offence materials. After an hour of discussion and research, i placed an order for old but efficient defense material, a classic double bed mosquito net. But order won't be reaching us in few days. So we had to hold our enemy from taking over our territory till then. Dad bought brand new Electric Mosquito Bat with advanced features like torch and protection layer for kids. As a team, we decided to work in shifts fighting and killing mosquitoes. 

But till am writing this last part of my blog, we were not able to defeat them completely. International pressure is mounting on our state to setup a meeting with head of our enemy state  and negotiate to call for a ceasefire. Our negotiators suggests, on certain formidable agreement, we actually can live in peace and harmony together. We will do our best to maintain peace in the region.

With Love,

RaDa

No Worries Sleep!

No Worries Sleep!

During my travels, whenever i saw homeless people and beggars sleeping on pavements of

busiest roads, i used to wonder how they get sleep with all the noice and heat around. No questions to animals. They can sleep wherever and whenever they want to. For me, animals are real monks of our world who have attained and maintaining highest level of spirituality. I got to experience my first 'No Worries Sleep' when i visited Bangalore last week.

After late night work on front page design of my first novel, we had to get up early on lazy Sunday to get the draft design ready before visiting senior artist Dr. Subash Kambara for final changes. My friend and talented artist Suresh Arkasali was busy scheduling his day long work. Unfortunately no one from his contacts were picking his calls. From 9:00 AM to 11:30 AM, we were just wandering around Vijanagar water tank, Bangalore waiting for Dr. Subash Kambara who was supposed to meet us at 10:00. But he was no where in the scene. We decided to catch him at his home and get our work done. We took an auto and reached his place. He was about to have his breakfast. He was surprised to see us coming without notice. Later we all sat in his ground floor art room and finalized the design. To our irritation, calls started pouring during our work from those people who were not picking our calls in the morning. That was our turn to take revenge, we didn't pick there calls and made them wait. 

After completion of front page design, Suresh took off to meet editor of daily news paper Vishwavani, leaving us behind to wait for his return at Kamakya theater junction @ Kathriguppe, Bangalore. Me and Suresh's student Ravi challenged the summer heat by having 3 glasses of cold badam milk. We found a shadow place and settled on the pavement of closed Raymonds cloths showroom. Ravi was busy looking pictures of mine in Facebook. I was busy looking at hasty people in the rush hour traffic with non stop honking noice. So called educated community was in hurry to break traffic rules. I was wondering what can be most emergency work they should attend to by risking their lives at Bangalore hideous traffic. I was reminded with my life in Bangalore. To the contrary, i was using bi-cycle and used to cover near destinations by walk. 

It was lunch time. I was hungry and was feeling sleepy. I advised Ravi to come with me and

have lunch. Ravi was adamant not to have lunch without his teacher. I was lazy to go alone and skipped lunch too. Watching pale people was not so exciting and i lost the fight with my sleep. I used my bag as pillow and dozed off on the pavement of showroom right at the Kamakya junction. I was able to enjoy my first ever "No Worries Sleep". I was not worried about what by-passers might think about me. I didn't have any identity, didn't bother about my status, no worries on pending office work, no worries on my constantly declining bank balance, was not worried about past, present and future. I didn't fear about onroad robbers. Long running 'Tolerance Vs Intolerance' hungama didn't face any threat to my sleep. As per onlooker Ravi, i had first class roaring snoring sleep for more than an hour. When i got up, the world looked more beautiful and more peaceful. I took an auto to satellite bus stand and got into a bus and traveled back to Mysore hoping that i continue to get 'No Worries Sleep' all my life.

With Love,

RaDa

Dogs and Indian Parliament

Who doesn't love dogs?

I have been travelling a lot since i quit my job. I was supposed to travel to Bangalore last Monday. I got up early and was waiting for my friend in front of a park. Sipping tea with a pack of Parle-G biscuits has always been my favorite to start my day. I was thoroughly enjoying my tea with biscuits at 6:30 in the morning in a road side tea shop. A dog chasing the smell of biscuits, came towards me. He was waging its tail and the communication was clear to me. He was asking a share in biscuits. I wanted to test what he will do if i just ignore him and continue eating biscuits. I think Dogs are much better at reading human body language than we are. May be he understood that am just acting. He neither showed any anger nor turned his back. He was as polite as possible. I bought one more biscuit pack but didn't show any sign of sharing second time either. I finished second pack within no time. It was watching all the way but he didn't show single sign of disappoint. I was impressed with his attitude. 

Chaiwala was watching our act and told me "Sir, you make him wait how much ever you want, but he won't be disappointed. When he initially came to my shop, he was a puppy. I wanted to get rid of him as he was disturbing my customers. I tried everything, but he was always coming back in the morning. One day, i left shop with no one inside to bring water from near by bore well. While coming back i saw him barking at cows who were trying to enter my shop. I never gave anything to him, but still he was showing his part of loyalty towards me. I felt ashamed at myself. Later he became part of our family. Our customers love him a lot. He has grown a lot since then.". 

I bought one more biscuit pack and fed the dog by throwing one biscuit at a time. He too enjoyed his early morning breakfast. I left the place and took a bus to Bangalore. Someone next to my seat was holding almost all available news paper in the town. He must be a paper seller or a politician. I borrowed one Kannada news paper and started glancing each page. There was an article on opposition party agitating against central minister's dog remarks towards Dalits during ongoing winter session in our parliament.This is interesting. What dogs have anything to do in our parliment? No, they haven't. But our parliamentarians have deliberately brought the topic on dogs and wasted precious parliament session hours for several days.

"If somebody throws a stone at a dog, then you say the government is responsible. It is not like that," said Mr. Singh, in a statement which had led to the Opposition demanding his resignation. Anyone who know English basics can clearly understand his statements. What he meant was to never associate local incidents with the Central government. Our so called intellectual media took the matter into their hands and started twisting the facts for TRP. Anyways, thats not my point. If the minister has really compared Dalits to dogs, then the dogs should protest against the remarks not humans. At this point, in my view, no animal on our earth would like to be compared to humans. We have reached down to such low level of morality. If i would be in parliament, i would blame the remarks and give support to dogs. 

Dogs have set an finest example to us on how to live and let live. They are not corrupt. They are not greed. They are loyal. If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous he will not bite you. This is the principal difference between a dog and man. Dogs are our link to paradise. They don't know evil or jealousy or discontent. To sit with a dog on a hillside on a glorious afternoon is to be back in Home, where doing nothing was not boring--it was peace. A biscuit to the dog is not charity. Charity is the biscuit shared with the dog, when you are just as hungry as the dog. A person can learn a lot from a dog. Dogs taught me about living each day with unbridled exuberance and joy, about seizing the moment and following your heart. He taught me to appreciate the simple things-a walk in the woods, a fresh rain, a nap in a shaft of winter sunlight. And as he grew old and achy, he taught me about optimism in the face of adversity. Mostly, he taught me about friendship and selflessness and, above all else, unwavering loyalty.

So if someone compare me to a dog, then that would be happiest momemt of my life. 

With Love,

RaDa

Passion can never be part-time

In the midst of growing intolerance of leftist towards rightist, rightist towards leftist, east towards west and west towards east, i have encountered a small glimpse of intolerance in my friends and well-wishers towards me and my plans. To my wonder, am not right or left, not east or west. Am standing right in the middle of our society, struggling to understand the meaning and purpose of my life. In the process, i realized i have some capability in me to follow my dreams and make it a reality.  But the path is not easy one. You will need to accept and work many ups and downs in the graph. You will need to bare many kinds of emotions. You will need to answer questions from people. People have become impatient. They expect you to show results in very short period of time. If you are not able to show results early, then you will be tagged as misfired. You should gain courage to accept the defeat if there is one and rebounce with revisited tactics and statistics. Biggest challenge of all this is to face and clarify false and misinterpreted stories floated on you.You can either ignore and continue your travel. Or you pay heed to these stories and get annoyed and agitated, which will eventually put a break to your pace of achieving your dreams. You go back to your old life and continue to be unhappy.

I have had numerous discussions on my decision to quit my job and follow my long pending passion towards writing. The very first question that i would be entitled to answer is "Why can't you stay in your regular job which is the source for your bread and butter and continue writing in your free time?". I understand concerns of people who dared to pose this question to me. They are worried and truly concerned. I don't blame them for their fear for failure. We have to blame ourselves for creating one such society filled with enormous amount of negativity. If you read news papers, watch TV news channels or just sit and listen to your friends, you will understand what am trying to tell you. All you get to see and listen is cynical waves towards every sob story under the sun, which will manipulate you to stay pessimistic. There are millions of vehicles who commute and reach destinations safely, but we get to read about very minimal number of vehicles who met with brutal accidents. Fear fills in you when you drive. Millions of girls who are living a happy and safe life, but we get to see few unfortunate and condemnable rape stories. More fear fills in you when you let your girls out. Billions of people from different caste, religion, color and gender, who are living life with perfect harmony and respect towards each other, but we get to read few stray incidents which are projected as dangerous intolerance between communities. More worries fills in you towards future of your kids. There are millions of couples who are living happy and prosperous life together, but we take to highlight few incidents of breakups and divorces. More fear fills in you towards relationships and commitments. There are millions of people who made valiant effort and succeeded to achieve in their passion, but we get to take those examples of people who tried and failed to do so. More discourage thrown on you. 

Coming back to my story, i am one among such guys who can sit and enjoy with minimum needs like roti, kapada aur makhan. Am one who can switch off my mobile  and 

stay out of social media for months but still stay connected with my dear ones without any hiccups. I don't want to keep working and earn to accumulate excess wealth which am never gonna be able to enjoy. I don't have any plans of passing on the properties we possess to our kids. And i have earned enough to cover basic needs of my family such as food, shelter, health and education. Then what should stop me from leaving my current job and focus on what i want to achieve. Passion can never be a part-time task. But hobbies are part-time. Most of the times people fail to understand this. Majority of the failures will fall into below categories.

1) We fail when we misunderstand our hobbies as our passion and risk everything to gain success in it. Over the period of time, we will start understanding the truth and accept the failure and get back to what we were doing. 

2) Sometimes we categerise our passion as just an hobby and won't be putting honest efforts to acheive what we want to. Lack of planning is also a reason.

If you are capable to clearly distinguish between your hobbies and passion and have strong belief in your passion and if you are ready to take everything with you to work towards making your dreams a reality, then i don't see any issues in doing so. I wish all of you who follow your passion to gain success in whatever you want to achieve and I wish you will set an example for generations to come. 

Good Luck.

With Love,

RaDa

A Crazy Stupid Dream

When i was in deep sleep after late Friday night party, i saw this dream which was unnatural, imaginary, fictional and of-course a stupid dream at around 5:10 AM in the morning which scared shit out of me. 

Dream: 

It was evening in my village. Me and my brother Sagar was walking towards our rice mill to meet my other brother Roshan. I suddenly saw a moving shadow image of a herd with more than 50 elephants  walking in a line on a hill few miles outside our village. It was getting dark in the evening. It was not so clear where they were heading. But it looked like they were heading towards our village. Then i saw images of rhinos, tigers attacking wild buffaloes. There were zebras and giraffes too. I was stunned and my blood went cold. I stood there like a sculpture watching them getting down the hill and walking towards our village. Sagar was walking ahead of me and I was behind. He was talking something, thinking that i am following him and listening. But i was not and he didn't notice me trailing back. I called him and showed him the nerve-racking scene. He was like "What the F**K?". We had only few minutes to react. We got into a nearby 2 storey house which was empty. I rushed to the roof top and told Sagar who was following my steps to close the main door of the house. As soon as i reached the roof top, i called up my brother Roshan and told him get into a safe place preferably into our rice which has solid walls and iron doors. He said he is in our farm and it will take few minutes to reach our rice mill. I told him to forget all the work and rush to rice mill along with our workers and lock the doors from inside. I didn't want to take chances. You never know what monkeys can do. I have seen in movies. Monkeys can open the locks. So i insisted him not to lock the doors of our ricemill from outside. Then i called up my pregnant wife Pooja who was at our house in our village along with my dad, mom and grandma. I told her this freaking story. I told her to lock all the doors in our house, take our people and get into our room on the roof top. By the time i finished calling our people, animals had attacked our village. Me and Sagar were frightened to see animals killing people. It was a blood-curdling episode. After few moments, i heard a roaring echo of cheatahs from inside the house we were taking shelter. I rechecked with Sagar if he has locked the main door in the ground floor. His face told me that he didn't. I immediately reacted and was getting down to lock atleast doors of first floor so that i can stop them coming up to the roof top. But i was late. They had already reached the floor and they climbing steps which would bring them to the roof top. In few seconds they were standing in front of us. One was black jaguar which was staring at Sagar. Other was brown cheetah with black spots on it, standing behind the black cat and was interested in me. I thought of jumping out from the roof to the ground taking Sagar along with me. But there were tigers, lions and elephants killing whoever they see. I thought ours was much better state. There were only two cats. But i was wrong. Before we react, black one attacked Sagar and in one shot it grabbed his neck. That was the maximum you can take in a dream. Watching one wild cat killing your own brother. That is the horrifying moment which will wake you up from the dream. I woke up from the dream sweating. My tee was wet around my neck. I had few glasses of water and thanked god it was just a dream. It was around 5:30 in the morning. I tried to get back to sleep, but i could not. Got freshen up and went for a walk.

Hell of a dream, right? Yes, it was. But it was stupid too. Because, there are no hills around which we could see from our village. Grandma i saw in my dream is no more with us. She passed away two years back. Pooja is no more pregnant. She gave birth to a girl two weeks back. And there are no multi storey buildings on the way to our rice mill in our village.

This is not the first time am experiencing this. Few months before, i saw a dream where i was hiding in a shed while four tigers attacking my aunt in my grandpa farm and i was scared and calling her loudly to get back to the shed but she didn't. I got up sweating on my bed, when a tiger grabbed her neck. As soon as i got up, i woke up my wife and told her the story. She acted like she can feel what i saw for few minutes and went back to sleep. I keep seeing these kind of dreams very often and the worst part is i can remember my dreams in the morning. I can recollect and tell what i saw in my dream to people. Many laugh and forget. Few sit back and discuss on that. I might need to visit a psychiatrist again (on a lighter note). I told this to my mom. She was worried. She thought for a moment and told me that may be am getting these dreams as am a nature lover and green activist. I love animals and i am worried about forests encroachment. 

Probably its a sign to me. May be nature is telling me its time to act on it. May be i should join green activists who are already fighting to save forests and wild life and work with them closely.

With Love,

RaDa

I never had a clue 😊

You stepped into my Life,

As my loving wife.

I never had a clue, 

that we would stick together like a glue

There were ups and downs since two years,

the love we showed to each other was very clear

Many times i was more rough on you,

i just wanted the best to happen for you

I wanted you to take more responsibilities,

i know its just matter of time you will gain all abilities

Am lucky to have you as my better half,

Am ready to swallow all sorrows on your behalf

I promise our future would be marvelous,

Looking at us even people in heaven should feel jealous

You have no idea how much i love you,

I can catch a grenade for you :) (This line copied from a song)

With Love,

RaDa