To Burn or Not to Burn

That is the question.

If you should drive to our property in the months of March and April, you will see the villagers harvesting sugarcane, wheat ripening, bullocks plowing fields, blackened hillsides and a hazy sky. If driving at night, you might even see a glow of grass fires, a common feature of the hot season in Maharashtra as farmers ready their fields for planting. The land is at its driest now and most easily set ablaze to clean the fields of last year’s debris and, in the villagers’ view, renewing them for the growth of new grass.

Last week the annual fires marched across our property, scorching the hills above our new housing cluster before creeping down to burn the grassy areas below. It was an impressive display, eliciting more than a few worried calls from Sangha members. The fire passed through the land in a couple of hours, leaving blackened ash in its wake but doing no long-term damage. As the fire approached, some asked if we “should do something about it.” Should we muster a crew to stop it? Were we in danger? I didn’t think so and discouraged firefighting as a waste of time and, to my mind, as too dangerous. Other than removing flammables from around the houses, I felt the best course was to simply get out of the way and let the fire take its course. In the end, I think this proved to be right, but the question remains, “Is the annual burning of the hillsides a good or bad thing?”

I’m of two minds about it. The major arguments against burning are:

1. Burning destroys the biomass that would otherwise decay to build topsoil, leaving the hillside soils devoid of organic matter and organisms.

2. Denuded hillsides are prone to erosion during the monsoon. Organic matter, grass and debris cushion the soil from the beating rain. Without organic matter, soil is less able to absorb water, resulting to heavy runoff.

3. Burning biomass is a major contributor to the “Asian Brown Cloud”, an unhealthy, atmospheric phenomenon of dirty air that hovers over the Indian subcontinent for much of the year. (The politically correct term is now "Atmospheric Brown Cloud") Many suffer from respiratory problems caused by the smoke that lingers in the air until the onset of the monsoon. Swami Kriyananda is a good example of this.

4. Fires hinder the natural reforestation of denuded slopes by killing seedlings. Once a forest is reduced to grassland by human harvesting and fire, it is difficult to regenerate a replacement forest in the presence of continual burning. Deforestation is a national problem as villagers chop trees, alive and dead, to supply their cooking fires. Deforested land holds less moisture, leads to failing springs and all the ills of reduced ground water.

If after reading the above, you wonder what could possibly be positive about burning, you might consider the following:

1. Annual fires prevent an unhealthy buildup of dead brush and debris. Because the hills are regularly burned, fires are fast and grass-fueled only, as opposed to the hotter, more intense fires that result from many years’ of unburned brush. Annual fires do not usually kill established trees whereas hot brush fires do. Where a regenerating forest has established a foothold, annual fires allow the trees to reach maturity. In fact, many of the first generation trees of the local forests protectively shed their leaves during the hot season, making them less subject to burning. Because burning is a fact of life in these parts, sooner or later all the hillsides will catch fire. Perhaps it is better to have multiple small, benign fires rather than occasionally large, destructive ones.

2. The villagers say that the ash from the fires acts as a fertilizer to promote better growth of grass after the monsoon for their cows and buffalo. This is probably so as it is known that potash has a stimulating effect upon germination in some soils. I notice the villagers will typically spread dead grass and small brush on a small portion of their rice paddy and set it afire. The resulting ash acts as a fertilizer for the rice seeds that are tightly planted on the spot of the fire. The seedlings will grow to about twelve inches by the time the entire paddy is flooded in the monsoon. They are then transplanted in small clumps about twelve inches apart throughout the field.

3. The local farmers prefer to keep the edges of their fields clean of debris to deprive snakes, rodents and critters from taking up residence and disturbing their crops. Clean borders are considered more aesthetically pleasing and eliminate wild seeds from competing with their rice, wheat and pulse crops. This translates into less time spent weeding. The problem is that burning of the paddy fields inevitably spreads to the hillsides.

My personal preference is for hastening the reforestation of the hillsides above the developed portion of our land. Now it is a mix of grass and scrub forest and, given time, I suppose second and third generation trees will eventually reestablish themselves. It will be slow going to say the least, but perhaps we can hasten the process through deliberate planting but how do we keep the trees alive during the burn season? I notice teak and other tall trees along the highways but not on our land. A tall forest with a full canopy would shade the land, build humus, cushion the monsoon rain, inhibit brush formation, promote wildlife, possibly increase spring flows and, ideally, be able to withstand grass fires. In such a managed forest, fire would move under the branches to keep the forest floor clean. The problem is that seedlings would have to be nursed and protected until they rose high enough to fend for themselves against the grass fires. This is highly labor intensive and with so many other things to do, it’s unlikely we can make more than a token effort to do this now.

I doubt we can change the pattern of annual burning, so I think it best to adapt to it. How can we do that? What might the best course be? For one thing, it means being prepared and not allowing a buildup of flammables next to buildings, orchards or anything we want to remain undamaged. It might even be in our interest to start the fires ourselves so they can be managed according to our needs, wind direction, dryness and timing. I’d much rather see the fires move down the slope than up. That way, like our neighboring villagers, we could make fire our friend rather something to be feared.

What do you think? I've turned the "Comments" option on for this post if you care to chip in with your thoughts.

Mud Trucks

Driving to Watunde Village each morning, it’s not unusual to see large trucks headed the other way into town, loaded with soil destined for landscaping projects at the many construction sites throughout Pune. Day by day, without pause, topsoil is strip-mined from the countryside to feed the growth ofIndia's cities, leaving behind a moonscape of gouged pits and subsoil fields. No one particularly likes these “mud trucks” but seemingly few care enough to do something about the environmental tragedy they represent. “After all,” the thinking goes, “India’s land has been raped for so many centuries, why bother about this small thing when a good profit is at hand?”

If you stand at a point on our land offering a good view, you will notice areas of excavation, particularly in Borde Village to the west. There, backhoes (called “JCB’s” in India) fill daily convoys of trucks, each capable of hauling three to four brass (1 brass = 100 cu. ft.) of soil. In Watunde, our village, you will find fewer large pits but many small excavations, usually the result of a farmer selling his soil for Rs.500/truckload. That’s about $10.00 US. The trucks come, usually in pairs, with a crew of eight to ten workers to fill them by hand in a half day when a JCB is unavailable. The soil is then transported to Pune in the afternoon where it is sold for Rs.5000/truck. Each worker makes about Rs.150 for his day’s labor while the truck owner or contractor keeps the rest after paying a royalty to the government (or the government agent who pockets the money). It’s a profitable business, especially if you can avoid paying the landowner or government, a practice not uncommon.

Our neighboring village of Borde is unusual in that the entire village is owned by one person, a descendent of a nobleman who was gifted the village in British days. I’ve heard that he is an NRI (non-resident Indian) living overseas who has never lived in Borde. In the intervening years of his absence, farmers have taken possession of the land, and in the face of multiple lawsuits, have claimed it as their own. Consequently, no one has clear title to property in Borde, making it fertile ground for poaching by the mud trucks. They begin by taking soil in a lightly inhabited zone and showly expand their operation. Should anyone complain, they give a small payment to keep that person quiet. It’s said that some villagers make a good living this way by extorting “tips” from the mud trucks to not raise a fuss. Also, because the Borde villagers do not have clear title to their land, some see it as in their interests to extract monetary benefits while they can.

A couple of weeks ago, Biraj asked me what was up with the new excavation on our neighbor’s property. I had no idea what he was talking about so I decided to investigate. To my surprise, someone had started harvesting our neighbor’s topsoil from a beautiful meadow of trees and grass and then driving it out across our property to reach the roadway. I could hardly believe it. Obviously, they had come and gone early because otherwise, I would have noticed them. Did Prakash, our neighbor, know about this or were the trucks stealing his soil?

Two days later, we arrived at our land earlier than usual to find two trucks backed onto Prakash’s property harvesting soil less than fifty feet from our property line. I was incensed and stormed over to confront the drivers and crew. “GET YOUR TRUCKS OFF THIS LAND AND DON’T COME BACK,” I yelled at the truck drivers. (It doesn’t work to be subtle or soft spoken in village India if you want to get someone’s attention.) The drivers were befuddled by the sight and sound of a strange gora (white guy) shouting at them. The workers paused while I delivered my tirade in multiple variations until there was little doubt they got my point. They were crossing our property with their trucks and I wouldn’t allow it. How many times had I heard in the past year these exact same complaints directed at me from one of a dozen neighbors on whose land I had inadvertently crossed onto? In such situations, the first thing a neighbor does is start yelling. The second is to block your access, so by this time, I knew the drill. Since the trucks were almost full, I told them to finish their loading and leave and then stomped off, looking for Prakash.

It didn’t take long for Prakash to find me. He was mad. “What’s your problem?” he asked indignantly. He was trying to make a little money and saw nothing wrong with selling property he rightfully owned. I had no right to interfere. “Maybe so,” I countered, “but you are crossing our land and I won’t let you do it. If you continue, I’ll block your access and will never again hire you or your wife to work for us. You’ll become a stranger to me.”

This went back and forth for a few minutes and all the while a crowd of villagers gathered to watch the show, including the sarpanch. This was great entertainment, all of which had to be translated from Marathi to English and back, with a sprinkling of Hindi thrown in. In India, a crowd gathers for just about anything. I soon became aware that I had the crowd on my side and sensing that, I began to lay it on thick to Prakash, gesticulating and loudly invoking ecological havoc, stealing from future generations, money grubbing, greed, and the general destruction of Watunde Village. I even invoked the devas, saying they surely thought what he was doing to be evil. The crowd nodded and the sarpanch smiled, jumping in himself to lecture Prakash about sending his soil to Pune. As I came to hear later, the sarpanch and others had already been after Prakash for his dealings with the mud trucks and, because of some other shady dealings, he is presently in disrepute in the village. You could visibly see him shrink under the onslaught.

Feeling I now had momentum, I marched back to the mud trucks and began taking photos of the men at work from multiple angles, with special emphasis on the trucks and their license numbers. I took photos of the drivers and of Prakash. I could tell this made everyone very nervous. “What are you doing?” they asked. “Just keeping a record,” I said before inquiring, “Tell me. Did you get permission from the government? Are you paying royalties? Did you pay the talsidar? Do you have papers?” “Oh yes,” they replied quickly, but I had my doubts. “Maybe you should show me your papers and I can call my attorneys so they can talk to the talsidar about this?” This sent the drivers and Prakash into an extended discussion out of earshot, so I walked away. Ten minutes later they came over and suggested a solution. The trucks would leave. In return, I’d simply let the whole thing slide. We made a deal and the trucks have not come back. Yet.

I have to admit my motives for opposing Prakash’s soil harvesting were not entirely for noble, ecological reasons. I do believe that selling his soil is short sighted and destructive, but I’m not indifferent to the plight of farmers in need of cash or of their right to sell their land but in Prakash’s case, I know he is not a poor man. He has multiple pieces of property and is generally considered well off in the village. One of his sons is even attending college in Mumbai. But I also know that we have been trying to talk Prakash into selling to us the land from which he was taking soil. He knows we want that land as we have offered many times to buy it. My suspicion is that his harvesting plan, while paying him some ready cash, was also one more way of putting pressure on us to offer a higher price. A degraded piece of land in a prominent place next to ours would have been a terrible eyesore but I wasn’t about to succumb to that tactic. Too many times already we have paid money to buy ourselves out of a difficulty and have had it come back to bite and cause us problems. Also, by acting strongly in such a situation I had gained “face”. While unimportant to me, it's meaningful to the villagers.

I think the selling of topsoil says something about changes taking place in India. Most of the harvested soil comes from marginal farmland, not from fields easily irrigated. The valuable land in the floodplain is capable of two or three crops each year because of available water, whereas the upper lands produce one meager crop after the monsoon. These drier lands are no longer economical but by selling the topsoil a farmer can get at least a little income now from his holdings while the future will simply have to take care of itself.

Is it any wonder that the younger generation is no longer interested in farming? What future does the land hold for them other than back-breaking labor and limited opportunities? With education expanding, energetic kids want something more and head to the cities to find it, letting the marginal fields lie fallow and the better fields to be tilled by their elders. I look to see who is working in the fields and see few young people. A good giveaway is to see how the men dress. The older generation wears the traditional white Nehru cap, white kurta and white trousers. Pravin, a young man from the village who sometimes paints for us when he doesn’t have better things to do, wears a baseball cap. You rarely see the Nehru cap on someone younger than forty unless he is a politician.

Education in the villages is changing India. The country’s challenge is to keep up with the pace at which young workers are migrating away from the villages by providing decent jobs and economic opportunities in the countryside as well as the city. In Watunde, most young men leave, coming back only to visit or help the family from time to time. For now, I think most girls stay behind but that too is changing. Each Saturday I pay our village laborers. As I give them their weekly wages, I ask them to sign their name in our labor book to show that they have been paid. Nine out of ten men can sign their names. Nine out of ten ladies cannot. The exception is the girls who almost always sign. That’s progress.

Stopping a couple of mud trucks on our neighbor’s land won’t stop the strip mining of soil. I’ve already noticed the same two trucks taking “mud” from another piece of land close by. It seems that the country has neither the will nor resources to bring such practices under control. There are too many vested interests in the status quo, allowing deforestation, water pollution, erosion, and habitat destruction to become rampant. As it stands, officials who monitor these often put assessments into their own pockets and do nothing constructive, making everyone cynical about the government’s motives for charging royalties. Few believe that it is really concerned about the environment. “The babus simply want more money.” It will probably take a large environmental NGO to get behind farmland preservation to exert enough influence to affect change. Degradation is rampant in India and the country seems powerless to do anything meaningful about it. At least, that’s how it appears to me but I know I'm an outsider and maybe should resist making hasty judgments. I remind myself that India is, after all, an overwhelmed and over populated country with limited resources. We have to give it time. My feeling is that education is the long-term answer. When I see the swarms of uniformed kids walking to school each morning, waving to us as we pass, I see India’s future and feel hopeful. Like I said, it will just take a bit of time.

Keeping it legal

It seems that every Ananda community, whether in Assisi, California, Seattle or India, must deal with the problems of government regulations, bureaucratic oversight, difficult neighbors and legal hurdles. Things are no different in Pune although I find the form these take here to be more entertaining (or exasperating) than I’ve been accustomed to expect.

For the last year we’ve been working to receive permission to build a community with multiple uses on land that is reserved solely for agriculture. Since the concept of “community” as we use it is not familiar to local planners, we sometimes employ the term “institute,” even though all the locals simply say we are building an ashram, a term everyone knows and accepts. We’ve had to first establish an Ananda Sangha Trust in the state of Maharashtra (no small task), transfer our property ownership into this entity, consolidate our land holdings into one unit, define the official boundaries and then apply to the appropriate commissions for zone changes. It all seems so cut and dry on the surface but it’s only now, after one year of work, that we are taking our official submissions. In the meantime, our development has been constrained by local, village requirements, meaning that we can construct no more than 4000 sq. ft. of building space. Anything more must be designed in such a way as to be considered “temporary”.

It’s amazing what is considered temporary. It's such a loose term that just about anything could potentially qualify. It seems that the primary consideration is whether a building has a standard, permanent foundation dug into the ground with a solid roof over it. This is why the monks have built on concrete posts and pillars. Rammed earth buildings are “temporary” because they can be pushed over if necessary. I imagine a wood frame building on piers like those found in America, whatever its size, would be considered temporary because everyone knows those things won’t last beyond a lifetime. It could be argued that everything is ultimately temporary, so why worry about it? That argument might work on the village level, but because we are doing something broader, we have to proceed in a way that also satifies the higher scrutiny of officials in Pune. That’s a lot tougher.

You may have heard of Tip O’Neill’s quote, “All politics is local.” Doing a construction project in a small village in the countryside of India has reminded me of the truth of that statement. You may aim to change the world, but first you need to fix the neighborhood path. The other day I got a call telling me that someone had decided to dig, in protest, a trench across our road so as to block traffic. Road blocking is a familiar, local tactic. If you are upset, you block someone’s road and make angry threats in a very loud voice. He was sending a message that “he wasn’t going to take it anymore!” Unfortunately, I had no idea what our neighbor was so mad about, but after a little digging, it turned out that he and his wife were angry with the fellows who had originally built the road five years ago. They had failed to pay them for a small corner of their property crossed by the road. The villager had now decided that it was our job to resolve this for him. Did he ask us for help? Did he come and talk to us first? Of course not! He simply dug up the road. That’s how things work here.

Since the wife worked as a laborer on Swami’s house, I asked to speak with her. I reasoned, I complained, I appealed, I waved my arms and threatened dire consequences. No luck. She and her husband simply said they would continue to dig up the road unless they received satisfaction ($$$). Eventually, a nephew appeared to argue on their behalf. He looked like a Bollywood thug. A crowd gathered to enjoy the scene, multiple phone calls were placed until finally Amol (an Ananda Sangha Trustee in Pune) counter-threatened to stop the entire project and lay everyone off for a month if the road damage continued. This got everyone’s attention and brought an end to the argument. Stopping work was serious and the couple could ill afford to be the cause of their neighbors’ loss of wages. We soon came to an agreement. We would intercede with the previous owners on the couple’s behalf in an attempt to resolve their problem. They, on their part, would cease being a nuisance and repair the road. We had to go through this entire drama to reach an agreement that could have easily been achieved if they had simply come and talked to us first. But, the villagers aren’t used to dealing with common problems in any other way.

It wasn’t ten minutes after the road issue was resolved that I noticed a bunch of cleanly dressed, mustachioed men with sunglasses talking to our backhoe driver. You can easily spot the Indian politician and government official. This fellow and his henchmen had come from the talathi’s office to shut down our construction work because we hadn’t received the proper permissions from his office, or so he claimed. (The “talathi” is like the tax collector and registrar of government records. In India, it’s a prized post because of the many fees that pass through his office, making wealthy whoever holds the position.) To every assertion by the talathi, Biraj calmly explained in his broken Hindi that we were perfectly within our rights and no such permissions were necessary. "Toddle along, old chap and let us be." The fellow became increasingly frustrated by our lack of submissiveness to his position until he finally puffed himself up and asserted in English, “I AM GOVERNMENT!!”

After fifteen minutes of back and forth dickering (He making demands and we playing non-comprehending simpletons.), we called our attorneys. They quickly pointed out to this fellow that he was totally mistaken and that he should ask his supervisor to show him all the papers we had already submitted. The attorneys knew that no bureaucratic subordinate in his right mind in India would ever ask his boss for such a thing because it was highly likely the supervisor didn’t know the legalities or had ever read whatever documents had been submitted. He didn't do such things and that such a request would only cause embarrassment. This was something a subordinate could never do. To save the inspector from having to approach his supervisor, our attorneys volunteered to provide him with photocopies of everything in ten days. In this way, no one would lose face and the inspector would then be in the clear. He was now happy.

All the while this was going on, I could see one of the henchmen making surreptitious gestures toward me. He wanted to convey something, so afterward, when the above negotiations ended, he let me know through our labor foreman that the talathi had visited us at this particular time because was hoping for a “gift”, this being the season of Diwali when the giving of gifts is customary. I sent back an inquiry about what type of “gift” the talathi had in mind. “American googles (sunglasses), a baseball cap and some cash would do nicely.” After all, it was the day before Diwali.

Two weeks ago, Arjuna Lucki arrived from Italy to offer his help with our construction projects. Arjuna is one of the leaders of our Assisi center with extensive construction experience, he being the driving force behind the creation of our beautiful Temple of Light in Assisi and the temple/dining room/kitchen at the Expanding Light. He came to Pune with the thought of helping us finish Swami Kriyananda’s house but quickly realized there is little for him do to directly speed that project along. For now, it’s mostly in the hands of our contractor. Knowing of Arjuna’s fondness for temples, I suggested he help us erect a simple, temporary mandir (temple) we had been hoping to build before the end of the year. We need something to last us for a few years until we can afford to build a more substantial building and had been thinking of a pandal (tent). It was just the right project to get Arjuna excited and, as suspected, it wasn’t long before thoughts of a simple pandal had expanded into a pavilion with a blue mosaic-covered, ferro-cement roof shaped similarly to that of the temple in Assisi. To keep it within our budget, the sides would be open or closed with canvas. (See photo.)

As Arjuna and I were talking over the design with our local architect, a thought kept going through my mind, “How in the world are we going to justify this as a ‘temporary’ building?” We arranged a meeting with our attorneys and presented them with the dilemma. “Tell me again. What is this building for?” they asked. “It’s a place for satsang, puja, meditation and that sort of thing.” Hmmm. Thinking. Big smile. “No problem. It’s a mandir (temple)! Here’s what you do. Make a picture of what the mandir will look like when finished and put it on a big banner. In big letters, have a name for the mandir on the banner, something that clearly identifies it as a religious place. Dhyanmandir, or something like that. Place this at the site, and at the bottom, put our mobile numbers so that if anyone shows up asking questions, they can call us. Don’t say anything if officials come. Just have them call us. Oh, and one more thing. Make sure to start the project with a big puja to which all the local people are invited and hand out lots of sweets after. You won’t have a problem.”

We haven’t tried this yet, but maybe this is what we’ll do. We’re still thinking about it. In India, if you want to build a temple, it’s hard for anyone to object. You see temples everywhere and in the most unlikely of places. If someone gets inspired, they erect a temple without bothering with government regulations. That’s just how it is.

Arjuna has now returned to Italy for a couple of weeks to take care of personal business before returning in time to start this project in November. I’m hoping he’ll have a chance to show the design to Swamiji for his feedback. If everything goes well and we can squeeze enough money out of our limited budget, we hope to finish our “temporary” temple within a couple of months.

As you can tell, we have a lot on our plate. When it will be completed is anyone’s guess but we’re hoping to have Swami’s house habitable by the end of the year. “Habitable” doesn’t mean completely finished but we should have the inside working. We won’t have the staffs’ quarters done and landscaping will still need lots of work, but no doubt we’ll be far enough along to begin thinking of what comes next. Retreat? Flats? There will always be something.

Much joy to everyone,

Jaya

(PS: If you would like to help us manifest our new mandir, you can contact me at my normal email address or at jayahelin@yahoo.com for information about how you can contribute.)

Monsoon

Along the western coast of India, passing through the states of Kerala, Karnataka, Goa and Maharashtra into Gujarat, is a range of low mountains called the Western Ghats. Compared to the Sierras they are rather tame, going up to only 5000 feet further south of here and reaching only half that around Pune. The Ghats block the westerly winds off the Arabian Sea to create a rain shadow on their eastern side. Along the coast and in Mumbai, the monsoon rains are very heavy, but by the time the clouds cross the mountains, the monsoon slackens considerably, giving Pune only about 30 inches of rain per year. That’s a moderate amount. In the mountains, however, the totals can be considerably more, sometimes three, four of five times as much, depending upon location. Watunde Village, where we are building our Kriya Yoga Community, is in the Ghats, nestled in the river valley of the Mutha River below the Tenghar Dam. There, during the monsoon season, it rains a lot.

The annual Southwest Monsoon is India’s most important meteorological feature. The national economy and well being of the country depends upon the arrival of the annual rains delivered by the monsoon blowing up from the southern Indian Ocean. When for two consecutive years the rains failed in the 1870’s, millions perished in the resulting famine. All the farmers in our area rely upon the rains for their annual rice crop and Pune City would be completely without water should the rains not replenish its storage lakes in the Ghats. Because the monsoon arrived late this year, we had a taste of what this means when the city began to ration water, drill emergency wells and delivering water to sections of town by tanker truck when the reservoirs went dry in June.

Typically, the monsoon is said to arrive in Pune on June 10^th but of course it can actually arrive anytime between the end of May and early July. This year, it was particularly late. Thunderstorms and clouds rolled into Pune in early June but little rain fell on our side of the Ghats. In Watunde, June brought a steady drizzle but the dry earth soaked up whatever came down. Villagers grumbled because many had sowed their rice crop early, hoping to get a jump on the growing season, but without adequate rain in early June, they were forced to replant. Daily articles appeared in the newspapers about the lack of rain and its consequences until finally, early last week and a month late, heavy rain came for three consecutive days, flooding the paddy fields and turning them into small ponds.

What a difference the rain makes to the landscape! From a dusty, parched brown, the hillsides were magically transformed to a lush garden green. Waterfalls cascaded down hillsides and you can almost hear the trees growing. Villagers happily flocked to their fields to transplant their starter crop of rice into the wet paddy mud. Only when the fields are flooded can this be done, so everyone has been anxiously awaiting the rain’s arrival. Villagers who had before been working on our building project now no longer show up in the morning as they have more important business to attend to in their fields.

For those of us from the Pune ashram who attend to projects and oversee construction on our land, the rain is welcome compared to the intense heat of April and May, but it also presents its own challenges. Once solid roads have become impassable mud tracks; supply trucks no longer reach our construction site; water tankers upon which we once depended now refuse to come; everyone and everything is wet and muddy; and our building project sometimes slows to a crawl. It’s just about impossible to work when the heavy rain comes, although we try.

I think it was in March, after the Bhoomi Pujan, when I last wrote about our progress in Watunde. I had thought then that we would have a breather after the intense push to host the puja but it was only days later that we began planning for two houses and a handful of small “kutirs” (cabins) for Swami and his immediate staff. Our hope was to begin construction in May and complete all foundation work before the onset of the wet weather. Should the rains catch us before we were “out of the ground” we could be in serious trouble. To realize our goal, we had to determine the location of the buildings, have them architecturally designed, hire a contractor, provide serviceable all-weather access, electricity, water and other infrastructure, and stockpile enough material on site to avoid the inevitable access problems that the monsoon would bring. Oh, and one more thing, we needed to actually buy the property where we had chosen to site the buildings.

Our intent has been to complete a home for Swami for when he returns to India later this year. When we’ll finish the houses remains unanswered but so far we are on track to have a house ready for him and another for Nirmala and Dharmadas by the end of the year. If all goes well, we could finish sooner. Our contractor’s intention is to finish his part of the job by October but once he leaves, we will still be faced with all the finishing details, landscaping and the provision of utilities.

On the afternoon of the Bhoomi Pujan in March, before Swamiji departed, we showed him an area where we thought we could build a home for him and received his approval. It is uphill from our intended retreat/temple area in a grove of trees with a beautiful view. A large mango shades the site. This spot was chosen not only for its beautiful setting but also because it is close to the area where we have already developed a few simple facilities, making possible a quick start. These services could be extended to serve Swami’s site as well.

Dharmadas and Nirmala took on the task of coordinating the architectural design of the buildings and working with our architect, Amardeep Singh, in Delhi. He designed two beautiful one-storied homes with four or five nearby staff cabins. Biraj concentrated his efforts toward buying the land under and adjacent to the buildings, making sure everything conformed with our on-going legal process, organizing contractors and developing a bidding process through which we found someone to do the actual construction. He then drew up a contract and got the work started. I was tasked with getting everything ready on site in preparation for construction, supplying all the services that would eventually be needed and supervising our contractor, Bhalchandra Deo. In this effort, I have had the help of Avinash Dias, Hari Sharma and Tim Clark (before he left for the USA for the summer). Together, we have made sure that Deo has had everything he needs to keep the job moving forward.

Along the way, we’ve learned a few lessons. Don’t start building until you OWN THE PROPERTY! If you know my history of past mistakes at Ananda, you’d think I’d have learned this by now, but because we were in such a hurry (again!) to beat the monsoon, we jumped the gun on the property issue. I’m happy to say that we actually own the property under Swami’s house but all around we were in the midst of negotiations that began to go south once construction began. The neighbors aren’t dumb and they can see an opportunity when it stares them in the face, so prices started to go up. Small parcels we thought to be locked up began to be withheld. This happened again and again. The footings of Swami’s foundation actually crossed over the property line onto one lady’s land who we thought had agreed to sell to us. She changed her mind and forced us to halt construction until we met her daily escalating demands. Another fellow, Prakash, who owns land further below Swami’s site, half jokingly told us, “I’m not selling. Instead, I’m thinking of setting up a hotel and teashop to serve all the workers that will be coming to your place.” Not a bad idea, actually, from his point of view.

In America, most homes are built of wood. In India, almost everything is composed of concrete, brick and mortar, all of which requires an abundant supply of water. Additionally, construction in India is highly labor intensive, so we’ve established a temporary labor camp for the workers. Providing a daily supply of clean water for them and for construction has been one of our primary occupations. We began by having tanker trucks deliver 10,000 liters every other day. This necessitated the provision of an all-weather road for the tankers and the many supply trucks that came daily with cement, steel, bricks and sand. That wasn’t too hard when the land was dry but as soon as the rains came, things quickly began to fall apart.

In the USA, making a country road isn’t such a difficult job. I’ve done it many times. You hire the proper machinery and call in the gravel trucks. In India, it’s different. Here, backhoes (called JCB’s in India) are the only excavation machinery easily available and I used these to make the roadbed. Typically, once a roadbed is ready, Indians will bring in quarried stone and have a crew of gents and ladies break the big rocks into smaller rocks with hammers and then neatly place the rocks, by hand, in a tight 6” layer. A binding material (muram) of clay and decomposed rock is carried by the ladies, using a pan (gamela) on their heads and then spread evenly over the rock. The muram works itself into the spaces and then another layer of smaller rock is spread by hand on top. Another layer of muram is put down if needed. If you want to go even further, you can get barrels of tar, heat them over a fire and pour the liquid on top, but I skipped this step. When cooled, this really makes a tight road.

Because our road location may change in a year or two, and because I really didn’t want to hire a crew of ladies to break rocks, I decided to skip some steps and do something simpler and cheaper. I bought broken gravel from a crushing plant not too far away and had the backhoe spread this, along with muram I found on our own land. I then had my crew of ladies dress the road by hand, filling and spreading as needed. The result looked pretty good in May and June but turned into a mess in July as the rain and heavy trucks took their toll. Avinash, Hari, and I, along with our crew of ladies, have ended up doing daily repairs to keep it serviceable. Two weeks ago, the water trucks refused to come until the monsoon is over and the road is dry. Now what?

If too much water was the problem, maybe it could be the solution too. On our property was a small dam that had been breached in a previous monsoon and we figured we could fix it and collect water good enough for mixing concrete. Thinking this, we repaired the dam and hand dug a well in one corner of it into which we put a submersible pump. From there we ran a pipe up to a tank to supply the concrete mixer. All we needed now was enough rain to fill the pond but as I said earlier, the monsoon arrived late this year and all we got was day after day of drizzle, just enough to soften the roads into muck but not enough to cause runoff. We spent days hauling water in the back of our pickup truck from a neighboring village and eventually hired a farm tractor with a small tanker/trolley to bring us water.

Finally last week, the heavy rains came and filled our pond within two days. So much water came down that the land couldn’t hold it and waterfalls appeared everywhere. After three days of deluge, to our pleasant surprise, we discovered an added bonus. Abundant springs had surfaced directly above the 12 ft. deep pit we had excavated to extract muram for the road. It soon filled to provide us with an abundant supply of clean, clear drinking water for all our needs until the end of the monsoon season. We quickly moved our submersible pump to this new location and think we now have the water problem solved for a few months.

The two homes have now reached “plinth level”, meaning that we have finished the foundations and are pouring the concrete floors. Pillars are in place to support the future roofs. Unfortunately, because one of our neighbors decided not to sell his parcel as agreed, we have had to relocate the location of our planned kutirs and construction of these won’t begin until August. Maybe Lakshman will end up in a tent? By September the two houses should have roofs and be enclosed and we’ll then be in the home stretch.

Typically, the monsoon season ends in September, followed by two of the loveliest months of the year in India. To take advantage of the good weather we are planning to host volunteers from India, America and Europe who would like to come help us finish Swami’s and the other houses. I will be going to America for much of August and when I return, I’ll be organizing projects for the volunteers. Biraj and the monks will be concentrating their energy on building temporary housing for those who will want to move permanently onto our land once Swami occupies his house. Already the monks have built a temple and bunkhouse for their own use in the area set aside for their monastery. (See photo of their temple.) They have also been busy planting fruit and shade trees.

Our plan for the fall season is to use our one pre-existing building as a “community center” around which we will set up camp for our volunteers. We’ll create a kitchen and dining area, build a meditation pavilion where our future temple will be located, set up tent/camping sites and do what we can to make our land habitable. For those of you old enough to have experienced Ananda in the early years, this will be like the Meditation Retreat in 1971. Basic. If this interests you, let me know and/or write to Nirmala for details.

I can’t begin to tell all that has happened here in a few short months. It’s been so busy, I’ve had little time to write. In addition to the land projects, we have also continued to build our congregation in Pune. Although the numbers are not large, I’ve been very pleased to see a regular turnout at our weekly, Sunday satsangs in Pune, at our 3 hour, Sunday morning meditations at our apartment complex, and at Saturday satsangs hosted by Sadhana Devi in Koregaon Park on the other side of Pune. Sadhana Devi also travels one weekend each month to Bangalore to help the group there with their new center and I take the bus from time to time to Mumbai to teach.

Sadhana Devi and I hope to see many of you in August. Our plan is to be in America for one month while visiting Portland, Ananda Village, Maine and Rhode Island before returning to India.

Much joy to everyone.

Jaya

Bhoomi Puja

My first assignment upon arrival in Pune last November was “to do the needful” regarding our land project and prepare the site by 1 March for our inauguration ceremony, a “Bhoomi Puja.” That date had been set months before and plans were in motion for a hundred guests to arrive for a major weekend retreat. To get everything ready in time, we needed to get busy.

Biraj (Wayne Palmer), Tim Clark and I began to make the one hour drive most mornings to our land in Watunde Village to begin projects, using local village labor where needed. Accompanying us was Hari Sharma, a carpenter friend who moved with us from Gurgaon and who has become our labor supervisor. We cleared brush, smoothed roads and building sites, developed a preliminary water system, built a shade pavillion, fixed up the house already on the property and built a toilet/shower facility to serve visitors.

Most days found us in the town of Pirangut buying supplies and learning hard lessons in the art of business in India. Thank God for Hari. Without him, we stood little chance of negotiating fair prices and avoiding creative swindles. Doing business here is an education and I learned, “When going to school, you must pay tuition.” Counterfeit labels, phony products, bait and switch tactics, rigged scales, inflated prices, theft and broken promises are all par for the course. The school of hard knocks has taught me the ropes and things now go smoother, but those first months were hard.

While us guys were working on the land, Sadhana Devi, Lahari (Elizabeth Palmer) and Lisa Clark were coordinating logistics and organizing those parts of the Puja Weekend that were to take place within Pune. Most of the retreat activities would be held within the city and only a few hours of the weekend were scheduled to be on the land itself. For some mysterious reason, everything we planned seemed to go wrong at one time or another and we ended up scrambling until the last minute to plug the gaps.

Four times we changed venues for our Friday and Saturday events, the last time just one week before the retreat. Our helpmates at the Gurgaon ashram were pulling their hair in frustration because we changed plans so often. We had reserved a major hall for Swami’s presentation months prior to the retreat but were bumped hardly a week before our event. Because that day’s activities were Sadhana Devi’s responsibility, I’m pretty sure she was contemplating grave bodily harm to the venue’s manager. Madly she scrambled to find an alternate venue, finally getting the original hall to allow us to use their space for a few hours in the evening instead of all day as planned. That "secured", we then rented a pandal (big tent) and had it set up on the courtyard lawn of our apartment complex, booked a caterer and completely rearranged our schedule. The monks rented buses to ferry retreat guests between hotels to our ever-changing venues and in the end, it all turned out beautifully. I suspect the guests thought it was all planned that way.

Over one hundred and fifty came to the dedication of our land on Sunday, 1 March. Most were ferried from Pune by bus, arriving early to tour the property and join in kirtan while they awaited Swamiji’s arrival. Fortunately, the day was not too hot. The astrologers had set the time of the ceremony for 12:45pm and everything was scheduled accordingly. An altar was set up under a large mango tree in the vicinity of where our future temple is to be located. There we had leveled the ground, erected a shade tarp and created a spot for the fire ceremony.

Swami Kriyananda arrived at 12:30 and after a prayer and invocation of God and Gurus, he led the crowd in recitation of the Gayatri Mantra while offering ghee and rice into the fire before him. Many of the locals, on their own initiative, then began to chant the traditional mantras associated with a bhoomi puja. I found it very touching. Dharmadas used a “powda” (A small, local shovel. See photo) to turn a bit of earth after which Swami, he and I mortared into place a brick to symbolize the creation of our new community and the temple we hope to one day build. Swamiji followed with a short discourse to the local villagers, translated by Amol into Marathi, explaining our hopes for the community and ended with a final prayer and blessings of Aum to all. As usual, he was mobbed for darshan and kindly gave his blessings to those who came to him.

When it was all over, I was really, really exhausted and glad the day was done simply because so much effort had gone into preparing for the weekend. Underneath the physical tiredness, I felt greatly blessed to have been a part of something special. On the surface, this was but one of many dedications in which I have participated but somehow I felt this one as being extra special. It wasn’t just about starting a community in the little village of Watunde near Pune. I think something more was involved. Whether this particular venture succeeds or fails seemed to me to be immaterial. Rather, larger currents of energy were at play in the dedication, a putting into motion Master’s vision for communities in India and in a world that transcends Ananda and Pune. We are planting of seeds that will spring forth and bear fruit far into the future. I hope so, and pray that others be drawn to carry forward this vision.

With the Bhoomi Puja over, I'm asked, “Can we now get on with building something?” Maybe, but we’ve still a ways to go. We continue to buy, at ever escalating prices, small, itsy-bitsy parcels of land that comprise our community. We move forward with the appropriate legal steps to consolidate all these parcels into a whole and to receive proper permits. This is a process of many months. We forever try to raise money to make all this possible. We’ve begun to have programs on the land and last weekend the monks hosted our first “Youth Retreat” (“Youth” being defined as anyone willing to sleep in a tent. See photo.) for a dozen or so hardy souls. Our permaculture crew (Tim, Steve and Ramani) have started a test garden and are beginning to build swales and terraces on the hillsides for capturing monsoon runoff. We’re fixing up the existing house, the wind turbine is producing electricity and we are developing a site plan for housing Swami and his staff.

Swami Kriyananda leaves for Europe and America in mid-May. Starting now and while he is gone, we hope to build a simple house on our new land where he can reside when he returns. Under the best of circumstances, to finish this quickly will be a major challenge, but we’ll try. A complicating factor is that we also need to provide shelter for his staff because it’s not possible for Swamiji to live on the land by himself and much of this will have to be done during the monsoon, a not so minor obstacle. As you can imagine, I’m not saying anything when people ask the inevitable, “When will the houses be done?” It’s daunting, but we also have a saying here, “In India, everything is difficult but anything is possible.”

Tomorrow Biraj and I meet with our architect and then our lawyers to see what is possible. If all goes well, we hope to have a design for Swami’s house within a week and begin a foundation within a month. We've already cut the building pads (see photo at left). How this will all be done and how much it will cost is still up in the air. Maybe we’ll hire a contractor to do much of the work. Maybe not. Maybe we’ll buy a pre-fabricated house. Maybe not. That’s seems to be how life is here, one day at a time. I’ll let you know how it all turns out in my next letter.