Motherland Ecology

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It takes a village: Mawlynnong is one eco-savvy town ..................................................................

How “green” can buildings go? .........................................................

Mumbai’s thriving ecosystem: Dharavi Inc. ......................................................... .....................

Spotlight on Tamil Nadu’s utopian community ...................................................................................

The Delhi Metro – urban connectivity or social disconnectedness? ....................................................

Making art in derelict buildings ...........................................................

Ecology redux: landscape recreation in Jodhpur ........................................................................................

An ecosystem of a different kind: the backpacker route ........................................

New digs, same hierarchies: India’s workplace ecology .................................................

The life aquatic: portraits by the sea ....................................

And more...

INR 100 USD $6 EUR €6 UK £5 JPY ¥1,000

3 CONTENTS 6 ECOTOPIA For most of the country, keeping streets clean is a quandary; for this Meghalaya village, it’s a communal compulsion.

18 CALM AFTER THE STORM The tsunami, the bungled aid; here’s why the Andaman and Nicobar Islands may never be the same again.

24 GREEN MILE Delhi’s healthiest edifice and other “green” buildings.

28 URBAN OUTFITTER Delhi’s urban jungle is artist Asim Waqif’s playground.

32 CHICK POWER How training illiterate women to become solar engineers can also work to be a social equaliser.

38 WELCOME TO DHARAVI INC. An alternative perspective of this Mumbai slum quarter.

46 PLEASANTVILLE Auroville: has this utopian community come a long way?

56 GOTTA HAVE FAITH New-age spiritual hubs are another face of today’s Bangalore.

60 PHOTO ESSAY: BOTTLED WATER The visual quirks of a well-trodden backpacker route.

72 ROCK GARDEN An “ecology gardener” recreates the past in Jodhpur.

76 PHOTO ESSAY: ECO LOGIC How India has traditionally had eco-innovations down pat.

84 THE WONDER TREE Why we’re partial to the naturally versatile coconut palm.

86 PHOTO ESSAY: SLEEPERS People sleeping outside temporarily shape nocturnal cityscapes.

100 MIND THE GAP The Delhi Metro as a projection of the city’s social structures.

104 NEO-FARMERS OF KYALASANAHALLI Bangalore’s urban sprawl has forced these farmers to take up new livelihoods. Twice.

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SO, WHAT’S YOUR LEVEL? How the old-school factory ecosystem has been transplanted in modern workplaces.

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DEADWOOD “Green” last rites find middle ground with Varanasi’s age-old community of cremators.

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PHOTO ESSAY: FISH OUT OF WATER The timeless way of life of Tamil Nadu’s fishing communities.

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RAJ, SAMAJ AUR PAANI Before the advent of centralised governance, Rajasthan’s people have long navigated the desert, developing grassroots technology and a rich corpus of knowledge (there are over 40 words for “cloud”) to secure water in inventive ways.

COVER: Photograph by Bharat Sikka CREATIVE DIRECTOR: V SUNIL JOINT CREATIVE DIRECTOR: BHARAT SIKKA MANAGING EDITOR: ANNETTE EKIN STAFF WRITER: ANNALISA MERELLI ASSISTANT ART DIRECTOR: ROSHAN VERMA ART: HARISH BAMBA, HITESH VERMA PRODUCTION: RAJESH BHARGAVA ADVERTISING: MARINA AZCARATE Published and printed by: Mohit Jayal, on behalf of W+K Publishing, B 10, DDA Complex, Sheikh Sarai Phase 1, New Delhi 110 017 Editorial enquiries: annette.ekin@wk.com Advertising enquiries: +91 99990 64820, marina.azcarate@wk.com Subscription enquiries: 011 4600 9549, steffi.thomas@wk.com www.motherlandmagazine.com © 2011 Motherland. All rights reserved. No part of this magazine can be reproduced in whole or in part without written permission from the publisher. While every effort has been taken to avoid error, the publisher is not responsible for the consequences of any action taken towards the publication. The views of the authors of the content published in this magazine are not necessarily the views of the publisher.

Published August 2011 Distributed by: Albatross Infomedia, C-324, Sector 10, Noida 201 301 Printed at: Ajanta Offset and Packaging Ltd., Madani Hall, 1 Bahadurshah Zafar Marg, New Delhi 110 002 Special thanks to: Mohamed Rizwan, Adam Matthews and Tenzing Dakpa Correction: Issue 4, pg 37, the caption should have identified Robert Abujam, 28. Inconvenience regretted.

Maps and images of mainland India depicted in Motherland are an artistic illustration and do not purport to represent any geographical or political boundaries or territorial jurisdictions of the union of India. As an artistic impression these images are not to scale. Motherland does not warrant any accuracy of these images and is not responsible for any errors and omissions in the magazine contents or artwork.

4 In our “Ecology Issue,” we set our sights on uncovering the different, unique ways in which people in contemporary India are engaging with ecology.

As everyday living is increasingly contextualised by the reality of finite resources, an ability to live sustainably and people’s relationships with their environments, such circumstances set the stage for an edition where we look beyond macro ecological problems – often confined to an environmental understanding – to find lesser-known creative solutions arising from these issues.

Can a wooden bridge be constructed without cutting down a tree? It sure can. (Here’s a hint: its roots are gnarled like the Whomping Willow in Harry Potter, but it’s much more placid.)

Can a centuries-old profession of performing cremations become part of a movement to save trees? It certainly looks that way. And can the native ecology of a landscape be cloned?

Maybe not to a t, but yes, it’s been done.

In this issue, we traverse the country to look at such stories and more, of how people are striking an ecological balance through unusual approaches. Some of the most atypical, ecologically sound practices appear to come about in distinctively innate, almost accidental ways.

Through a photo essay, we revisit the Indian proclivity of prolonging the lifespan of everyday objects through simple eco-innovations. In one story, we meet, tucked away in a forested part of Meghalaya in India’s Northeast, a sleepy village whose way of life – a dogged love of flowers, greenery, simplicity and cleanliness – has by default preserved the nature around.

With the fast and furious growth of commercial ventures in the country, drastically altered landscapes, augmented suburbia and changed lifestyles over the past couple of decades, other contributors for this issue turned their attention to India’s metropolises to explore different aspects of urban ecology.

5 From the architectural world of building “green,” we meet a visionary who bundles energy efficiency with idiosyncratic methods, such as using potted plants in workplaces to clean the air of its pollutants. We encounter rising art star Asim Waqif, whose work questions topical urban planning issues and how people relate to their surroundings. And we delve into the thriving megaslum of Dharavi, Mumbai, where densely packed residents and recycling industries are proponents of an interconnected way of life and economic buoyancy.

While certain subcultures are defined by their ecological links, also integral to this issue is the idea of “reconnecting” with ecology and other contributors examined certain cultural phenomena and quirky, contemporary communities through an ecological lens.

In Bangalore, as a response to rapid urbanisation and growing professional competitiveness, we look at a more social kind of ecology, seen through the rise of new-age spiritual organisations boasting bombastic structures, where young professionals seek refuge from the daily grind.

We deconstruct the ecosystem of the factory workplace of yesteryear to show the peculiar ways in which it has carried over into modern-day workplaces. In one piece, the Delhi Metro – a project in public connectivity – is decoded as an extended metaphor for the capital city’s social discrepancies.

In Dhruv Malhotra’s photo series, Sleepers, we step into the nocturnal world of the built cityscape at night which is temporarily shaped by the forms of people sleeping in a range of alcoves across public spaces.

From uncovering eco-innovativeness in its new and more traditional forms to exploring contemporary subcultures from an ecological perspective, this issue is a round up of the more intriguing expressions of ecology making tracks in the country today.

Annette Ekin

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ECOTOPIA

FOR THE MODEL VILLAGE OF MAWLYN INVOLVES A MINISCULE CARBON FOOT

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NONG, IN THE NORTHEASTERN STATE OF MEGHALAYA, EVERYDAY LIVING PRINT AND UTILISING NATURE IN INGENIOUS WAYS. TEXT PATRICK BRYSON IMAGES

Living-root bridge.

DEVRAJ CHALIHA

8 A couple of hours outside of Shillong, Meghalaya, not far from the Bangladesh border, there is a sign that proclaims, “Welcome to Mawlynnong: God’s Own Garden.”

For what the world has come to know as “the cleanest village in Asia” – via Discover India Magazine and the BBC – it’s not a frivolous declaration. And according to Bah Rishot, the local school teacher, this is a place with no crime and no registered police cases.

of them comes across any garbage left by tourists, they will pick it up.”

“Each household has the same pride,” says Bah Rishot, “and this goes back generations. Mawlynnong has always been famous for being clean and for loving flowers. It’s just that now everyone else is getting to know about it.”

Threading our way through the small cement lanes that connect the entire village by foot, it’s hard not to notice that the pathways seem alive. The bare minimum of forest has been cleared, giving the impression that the villagers have built amongst it. And the flowers in each home’s front yard make it look as if the whole village is a botanical garden, separated by small houses with thin walls – some of them made with recycled yellow vegetable oil cans, like the patchwork one that belongs to the kitchen of Ha La Tyngkong (At Our Doorstep) the restaurant and homestay that hosted us.

The people appear to behave like an extended family, with a shared identity in their love of flowers and nature.

In the gardens – each home has one – the older folk plant and the younger folk tend. It’s one in, all in. And with over half of the population being children, Mawlynnong – the self-sustainable, conservation-conscious model village – is in a large part driven by the verve of the kids, who smile easily at visitors and answer their questions in an unselfconscious manner. “You’ll see five and ten year olds sweeping their front path,” says Bah Rishot. “If any

For the most part farmers living a simple life revolving around broomstick cultivation and other cash crops like betel nut and jack fruit, the villagers of Mawlynnong – numbering around 500 – never thought of themselves as special until visitors started coming, after the road connecting them to Shillong was finished in 2003.

“Originally we were blind,” says Bah Donbok, the owner-operator of Ha La Tyngkong, “and we could not see the benefits of tourism.”

VILLAGE RULES for how to conduct oneself in the forest include refraining from “plucking” the tree roots of the bridge.

9 Now they know how to work the system: every single car that visits the village is asked to give a small donation, and this money pays for the three local women who are the full-time cleaners of the village. The villagers themselves formed a cooperative society to channelise funds and in 2010, buoyed by the international reputation that Mawlynnong has achieved, the state government handed over 70 lakhs for development. Today, they heavily promote the village through the Department of Tourism, and are encouraging other grassroots initiatives.

Working with nature and building with the smallest carbon footprint possible has a history in Mawlynnong, something that you can see in the living-root bridge that is the oldest man-made structure in the area.

Somewhere between 300 and 700 years ago – no one is quite sure how long they have been in existence – two rubber trees (Ficus elastica) were planted on different sides of the river that runs along the boundary between Mawlynnong and the neighbouring village of Riwai.

The problem, says Bah Rishot, was an old one, common to rural areas. Villagers on both sides of the river found it difficult to get across the water and trade with

“MAWLYNNONG HAS ALWAYS BEEN FAMOUS FOR BEING CLEAN AND FOR LOVING FLOWERS. IT’S JUST THAT NOW EVERYONE ELSE IS GETTING TO KNOW ABOUT IT.” their counterparts. But the local solution they came up with was inspired. The headmen of each community agreed that after planting a rubber tree on their own side of the riverbank, they would instruct their people on how to guide the roots across.

First the roots were threaded through a hollowed out betel nut log, forcing them to grow together. Then bamboo was attached to the roots and used to further steer them in the right direction. Once the bamboo started to decompose, it then fed the roots, supplying nutrients to them as it broke down. The roots were then shaped by the villagers into railings so that eventually they could be connected in the middle, before stones were laid down

A PRIMARY SCHOOL in Mawlynnong; more than half the town’s population are children who diligently keep their village clean.

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WORKING WITH NATURE AND BUILDING WITH THE SMALLEST CARBON FOOTPRINT POSSIBLE HAS A HISTORY IN MAWLYNNONG, SOMETHING THAT YOU CAN SEE IN THE LIVING-ROOT BRIDGE THAT IS THE OLDEST MAN-MADE STRUCTURE IN THE AREA.

WOMEN OF MAWLYNNONG cross the living-root bridge carrying the crop they use to make broomsticks from.

12 to make it into a walking bridge, still used as much today as when it was built hundreds of years ago. In fact, as the roots are living, the bridge actually gets stronger over time and can hold as many as 50 people.

The result is so impressive that a replica has been exported to Tamil Nadu. One visitor was so enamoured by the design that he paid for the Mawlynnong workmen to go down to Chennai and build him one.

It sounds straightforward when put in that way, but the first generation of villagers to work on the bridge displayed an innate knowledge of biology and engineering, as well as a good deal of patience.

He wasn’t the first to want to import the Mawlynnong magic to his home town. In the surrounding villages of the Khasi Hills – like in Laitmawsiang – the locals have seen the attention and the money showered on Mawlynnong and have started to try and make their own versions.

“They were looking ahead,” says Bah Rishot, “not building for themselves, but for the generations to come.”

This forward thinking is something that the inhabitants of Mawlynnong still share with their forefathers and they have used it to turn their sleepy little village into an ecotourism hotspot for the state of Meghalaya, while still keeping the character and integrity of their home intact.

They’ve done it by remaining true to who they are.

The only designated guest house that they have so far – a tree house – is constructed out of local bamboo, the floor is built from betel nut logs and the stone used for the foundations was sourced locally.

The same is true for Sky View, a viewing spot where visitors can look over the border and into Bangladesh.

“People kept asking where the best place to view Bangladesh was,” says Bah Rishot. “But there wasn’t any such place from ground level. So I climbed a tree and found a good view and decided on the location.”

Sky View is constructed along the same lines as the guest house, using local bamboo and vine to make a platform amongst the trees. It cost Rs 30 000 and because of the high rainfall, it has to be reconstructed yearly, taking 12 men some two weeks to do the job. But the result is delightful, like the dream tree house you could never build as a kid, or the polar opposite of your standard local government lime-stained cement number, like the one up at Shillong Peak.

“YOU’LL SEE FIVE AND TEN YEAR OLDS SWEEPING THEIR FRONT PATH,” SAYS BAH RISHOT. “IF ANY OF THEM COMES ACROSS ANY GARBAGE LEFT BY TOURISTS, THEY WILL PICK IT UP.”

Initially, when they found out that other villages had started to copy them, putting up conical bamboo garbage bins and trying to make a go of ecotourism, the population of Mawlynnong was resentful. “There was some jealousy that other villages were copying us,” says Bah Donbok, “But then we came to see it as a good thing. If these villages get clean too, it is good for the Earth.”

Yet in reality, when looked at from the cleanliness point of view, it’s hard to see how the other villages will be able to compete. The people of Mawlynnong did not seek out their reputation, or attempt to be something they were not. They became famous when visitors saw who they were, and decided to tell the rest of the world about it. Just taking a look at some of the posters around the village illustrates the point. On the wall of the bamboo and thatch tea shop Ha La I Trep (In the little hut) is a poster in Khasi explaining how to handle rubbish: “This is the way to manage your garbage: Reduce, Reuse and Recycle.”

Unlike the rest of Meghalaya, which on the whole is rich in terms of rainfall, but quite poor in the area of water management, the village council of Mawlynnong imposed restrictions on when its people can use the river.

With the population growing, rules have been put in place so that the waterway is kept clean; bathing in the river during the winter months, post-monsoon, has now been banned because of the lack of rain and everyone must wash their utensils thoroughly before gathering water from the river. There is a municipal supply available, but the villagers are used to the stream water – “It’s more tasty,” says Bah Rishot – so they have to take precautions if they want to avoid becoming like the capital Shillong, where every former river or stream seems to have turned into an open drain. Again, there are several signs warning visitors not to go down to the river at all. People staying in the village for any length of time need to get permission from the villagers to bathe or swim there,

13

BAMBOO waste bins like this one are located throughout the village.

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A BAMBOO BRIDGE in the forest that villagers have to cross to collect the raw material used for broomsticks. The bridge is repaired annually.

IN THE SURROUNDING VILLAGES OF THE KHASI HILLS – LIKE IN LAITMAWSIANG – THE LOCALS HAVE SEEN THE ATTENTION AND THE MONEY SHOWERED ON MAWLYNNONG AND HAVE STARTED TO TRY AND MAKE THEIR OWN VERSIONS.

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A WOMAN takes a break from work, stopping to eat “kwai”, betel nut in local Khasi language.

THIS FORWARD THINKING IS SOMETHING THAT THE INHABITANTS OF MAWLYNNONG STILL SHARE WITH THEIR FOREFATHERS AND THEY HAVE USED IT TO TURN THEIR SLEEPY LITTLE VILLAGE INTO AN ECOTOURISM HOTSPOT.

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A PLASTIC WATER BOTTLE repurposed as a light cover.

which is easy enough to do. It’s a tiny place; when we asked how to find Bah Henry, a popular local guide, we were told that he would pop in sooner or later – and he did.

Importantly, the community has proved that it’s not just what you build, but what you don’t build that

matters. Instead of installing a loud speaker for village announcements, one of the villagers simply walks from lane to lane, shouting at the top of his lungs, repeating the message at least 20 times for the residents of the one hundred dwellings that make up the village. And, when I asked about the future strategy for the expansion of

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BAH DONBOK owns and runs the homestay Ha La Tyngkong (At Our Doorstep).

Mawlynnong – which, according to Bah Henry, receives some 20 to 30 tourist vehicles a day, amounting to over 50 000 guests a year – my fear of a bamboo McDonalds popping up in the place of Ha La I Trep was proved to be unfounded. There are plans to build three more guest houses, with two rooms each, and that’s it.

“We’d actually prefer for people to stay with us in our home, rather than taking the guest house,” says Bah Donbok. “That way people can see how we live, and we can learn some of their story.”

We’d be far better off learning theirs.

18 TEXT

R A U F A L I IMAGES

ANDREAS DEFFNER

TREES UPROOTED and washed ashore by the tsunami. North Cinque Island, part of the Andaman group of islands.

CALM AFTER THE STORM IN THE ANDAMAN AND NICOBAR ISLANDS, AN ARCHIPELAGO COMPRISING SOME 572 ISLANDS, CULTURAL OVERSIGHT AND THE BLUNDERING OF POST TSUNAMI AID, HAVE SET OFF A CHAIN REACTION OF EVENTS WHICH CONTINUE TO DRAMATICALLY IMPACT LIVELIHOODS AND THE ISLANDS' FRAGILE ECOLOGY SIX YEARS AFTER THE EVENT.

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As a wildlife biologist, I first came to the Andamans in 1988; in 1991, I came to the Nicobars. The islands are unexplored. The best parts are very hard to get to. In isolated ecosystems like these islands, you develop a high number of endemics, species that are unique. This applies to about 40 percent of the bat and rat population. There is a bird, Narcondam Hornbill, which is only found on one five square-kilometre island. I’ve spent the last ten years studying invasive species; bird, animal and plant species brought in by people from elsewhere.

These islands have long benefited from their isolation. But this ecosystem was permanently transformed on 26 December 2004. A tsunami rushed inland at 700 kilometres an hour levelling communities, killing freshwater lagoons, flattening trees and destroying coastal vegetation.

To understand the devastation, it’s instructive to grasp the geography. The Andaman and Nicobar Islands may be one administrative unit but a deep strait called the Ten Degree Channel separates them. The Andamans hardly suffered, the bulk of the damage was caused by the land subsidence and rising. There were almost no tsunami deaths. The dozen or so deaths in the main Andaman group was caused by falling masonry. A few houses along the coast were destroyed. Little Andaman, however, was more affected, with about 200 deaths, mainly among the settlers near the coast.

The Nicobars, on the other hand, were devastated.

Great Nicobar, closest to the earthquake epicentre of Aceh in Indonesia, is relatively unpopulated, so casualties were minimal. On other nearby islands, entire communities were wiped out. An estimated one in four people

All photographs taken in 2006.

PIER, HUT BAY, Little Andaman Island.

20 were killed in Car Nicobar, the most populous island in the Nicobar chain. Megapode Island, also in the Nicobar group, is still submerged.

accommodate the entire clan of about 80 people. The houses that were built for them are designed for nuclear families, thus breaking the centuries-old clan structure.

The ecosystem still hasn’t recovered. Rows of dead trees still dot the coastline; masses of rubble remain from coral reefs uprooted and destroyed. The seawater made the soil too salty in many places and people were forced to abandon rice cultivation for a while. Cultivation has returned in the Andamans but yields have reportedly declined. In the southern Nicobars, much of the agricultural land is still abandoned.

Since Nehru’s time, government policy on the islands has failed to account for local customs. It’s a beautiful example of everything that has gone wrong.

For instance, Car Nicobar residents used to build their homes with thatch. In the early 1960s, the government sited an air force station in a part of the island where thatch grew. Locals had to resort to concrete and asbestos for building.

In the aftermath of the chaos, the islands required disaster relief delivered in an ecology appropriate and culturally sensitive manner. Yet what they received seems a blueprint for what not to do. Much of the aid that arrived landed not in the Nicobars but in the Andamans, where it has mostly vanished in the administrative capital, Port Blair.

Victims of the event were required to provide a list of what they lost in the tsunami, no proof was necessary. A lot of people got new TV sets.

Eighteen months after the tsunami, in the Nicobars, I saw a ship packed with aid sailing into the dock. While unloading the ship, a box from one humanitarian organisation marked “urgent tsunami relief supplies” fell, spilling its entire contents – teddy bears.

The stuffed animals were emblematic of the government and NGO agencies’ futile aid response. The largest piece of aid that did arrive in the Nicobars was the construction of prefabricated houses. People didn’t welcome it, as they knew the shelters had a major flaw – tin roofs that become like ovens during the day. They came up with an idea to build their own houses with a little support from the government. According to one tuhet, a clan leader, the locals had requested sawmills and permission to use the fallen timber, so they could then construct their own houses. That didn’t happen though. The shelters were erected, and people began to sleep outside.

“Even my pigs wouldn’t stay in these,” said one village chief.

According to estimates, at least two thirds of Car Nicobar’s approximately 20 000 people now live inland in these prefabricated huts. These have also had social consequences. Nicobari families traditionally live in large community or clan huts, also known as tuhets, which can

As a result of flawed policies, the Nicobari community – that was happy with its self-sustaining economy in pre-tsunami days – is poorer and more dependent on government subsidies. After their wood and coconut canoes were destroyed by the tsunami, the government’s replacements were made of fibreglass, a material that is not available locally and therefore impossible to repair.

Since the boats handled differently, fishermen had to learn new fishing techniques.

India, unfortunately, has only a handful of marine biologists who can dive. So we have very little idea of what went on below the sea. The destruction of manHOTEL AMEER, Hut Bay, Little Andaman Island.

21 groves would have affected fisheries, since many fish species spawn in the shoreline habitats of these trees.

There is, however, no documentation of this. Fishing has actually increased after the tsunami, since aid agencies rushed in and gave boats to anybody who claimed to be a fisherman, regardless of whether his boat was damaged or not or if he even had a boat to start off with.

Other interventions have been similarly bungled.

One bureaucrat, who’d been transferred from Tamil Nadu, built toilets near every home in a village. This horrified local residents who traditionally use outhouses. “They want me to poo near the kitchen,” one older woman complained to me. “They think I am mad!”

IN THE AFTERMATH OF THE CHAOS, THE ISLANDS REQUIRED DISASTER RELIEF DELIVERED IN AN ECOLOGY APPROPRIATE AND CULTURALLY SENSITIVE MANNER. YET WHAT THEY RECEIVED SEEMS A BLUEPRINT FOR WHAT NOT TO DO.

There’s been a complete misunderstanding of the way a culture works. This is also true for agriculture. Coconut is the mainstay of the centuries-old islands’ economy.

As a fifth of the coconut plantations on Car Nicobar were destroyed, there were attempts to replace the coconut plantations with scientific techniques worked out by agricultural universities elsewhere – notwithstanding the fact that these traditional and non-scientific plantations produce more coconut. For more work, the farmers will end up getting less coconut.

PORT BLAIR, South Andaman Island, the administrative capital of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.

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CONCRETE FOUNDATIONS for tin roof houses brought in to replace homes destroyed by the tsunami, Little Andaman Island.

FISHING HAS ACTUALLY INCREASED AFTER THE TSUNAMI, SINCE AID AGENCIES RUSHED IN AND GAVE BOATS TO ANYBODY WHO CLAIMED TO BE A FISHERMAN, REGARDLESS OF WHETHER HIS BOAT WAS DAMAGED OR NOT OR IF HE EVEN HAD A BOAT TO START OFF WITH.

23 cleaned up. Because of poor water management, there is a shortage of water on islands that qualify as rainforest, with an annual rainfall of 3 000 mm.

And with an acceleration of economic migrants coming from the mainland, mostly for construction projects, social tensions have increased between the growing Tamil and Bengali populations. Except for a tiny proportion of locals, nobody here has roots in this place.

In view of the Andamans’ unregulated model of tourism, the Nicobaris are concerned about their region.

There is already a strong lobby pushing for development, which is seen as one way the islands can reduce their reliance on government subsidies. If the construction boom seeps into the Nicobars, it will certainly destroy their culture and convert their pristine beaches into tourist traps. At the moment, Restricted Area Permits, required to go to the Nicobars, prevent an influx of outsiders. If this lifts, the door to the islands will be flung open, and it will be very difficult to put that genie back into the bottle.

ROAD TO WANDOOR, South Andaman Island.

Power in the Nicobars appears to have shifted from leaders or “captains” of many ancestral tuhets, who used to make decisions for their own communities, to the middlemen who procure the main produce of the islands, copra (dried coconut meat), and ship it to the Andamans, where it is milled into coconut oil. The middlemen have become the centralised decision-making body. From an economy in-kind, where individual wealth meant nothing and cash had little place, the shift to a cash economy is rapidly now occurring.

In the Andamans’ post-disaster madness, many have capitalised on newfound wealth leading to a permanent shift in lifestyles. Port Blair is undergoing a massive construction boom. A lot of the money siphoned off after the tsunami has been used by those who had access to it, to buy land and develop tourist infrastructure.

For the construction of new roads, forests are being destroyed. The beaches are being eroded as sand is used for concrete. The construction of jetties too erodes beaches, depriving both tourists of sunning spots and sea turtles of nesting spots. There is no proper garbage disposal and the plastic garbage from the tsunami has never been

I believe there are better development models.

And they are emerging from collectives of proactive and informed youth. The Dosti Group, who I’ve helped, comprises two youngsters from each village on Car Nicobar.

After undertaking sustainable development training, they have been active for about four years now. They have not hesitated in taking on the traditional tribal hierarchy, which benefits only a few captains and their families, and they have initiated several socio-economic surveys related to health.

They have also started a project to produce and market virgin coconut oil, a product in demand by health food enthusiasts and pharmaceutical and cosmetic companies looking for organic materials. I helped develop a press that enables rapid extraction of coconut milk from grated coconuts. Several prototypes were tested before Dosti Group found a design they were comfortable using.

Since then, the oil has been marketed in Pondicherry, and samples have been sent to Europe as a lot of people seem interested in buying it. This one product alone has the potential of doubling the earnings of the people of the Nicobars, as well as having a significant impact on the Andamans.

Initiatives like this, I believe, are the way forward, and both government and residents should realise that these islands are a treasure to be preserved.

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GREEN MILE

TEXT

SHRUTI RAVI N DRAN IMAGES

TENZING D A K P A

“GREEN” BUILDINGS COME IN VARIOUS SHADES AND IN DELHI, ONE OF THE MOST ENERGY EFFICIENT STRUCTURES TAKES ITS MISSION A STEP FURTHER TO KEEP WORKERS WITHIN HAPPY AND HEALTHY. THE FAÇADE of the Paharpur Business Centre (PBC) block in Nehru Place.

If you live anywhere within the rapidly expanding bounds of the National Capital Region, you’re likely to get at least ten messages on your cellphone every day, exhorting you to buy flats in “world-class” locations, with a “club-class lifestyle,” replete with pools, golf courses, landscaping and lakes. Most of them have names sprinkled with liberal amounts of aspirational fairy dust, conjuring up leisure, luxury and quixotically distant horizons: Spa City, Provence, Malibu Town, The Nile.

They might promise alluring features – Italian marble, south Indian granites – but judging by the apocalyptic deprecations of architectural critics and the cautionary tales regularly aired in consumer grievance redressal

forums, what is about to clutter up the new exurbs is as plentiful as it is of questionable value; it’s architectural spam. Based on highly energy-intensive unsustainable designs, amid barely existing civic infrastructure, these buildings are hurriedly planned, rapidly constructed and crudely finished.

There is, however, an alternate vision to these dystopias-in-the-making, even squeezed together on the same horizon. In Nehru Place, a congested commercial quarter of Delhi, with grim office buildings clambering over one another and each tall edifice rumbling with hundreds of air-conditioners, the Paharpur Business Centre (PBC) incarnates this alternate vision. Just six

25 floors tall, it’s dwarfed by the hypertrophic 15-floor beasts that surround it. Unlike them, the approach to the building is covered not with cars, but the exuberant green fronds of areca palms, glossy money plants, and perky-leafed snake plants, neatly arranged in front of a vermicompost pit.

At the entrance, four bug killers crackle intermittently to life. At the reception, a sign above a bottle of sanitizer instructs visitors to disinfect their hands.

Around it is clustered a motley assemblage of certifications and awards: a 5-star rating from the Bureau of Energy Efficiency (BEE), a national award from the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) “for excellence in water management,” and by the elevators, two proudly-shining platinum rating certifications from the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED), awarded by the US Green Building Council. Throughout, potted plants line corridors, conference rooms and the ground floor’s Café Einstein.

Kamal Meattle, a chemical engineer by training and PBC’s CEO, is the Einstein behind this venture. As he explained in a TED talk in 2009, two decades ago his doctors told him that he’d turned “allergic” to the air of Delhi – a city which has long had the dubious honour of topping lists for the world’s worst air quality – and that his lung capacity was dangerously diminished. So he resolved to put his keen scientific mind and degree from America’s MIT to making his workplace as salubrious as possible. The results are plain to see today. Despite the building being built to blocky sarkari specifications, Meattle has managed to, and continues to, retrofit it with features that make it healthier for workers, such as a progressively more sophisticated air filtering system. He is also constantly upgrading for further energy and resource efficiency, whether it’s through replacing desktops with laptops, as they consume a fourth of the energy, setting up recycling units, investing in water-saving taps or testing out LEDs.

These may sound like minimal, almost persnickety interventions. But since about 40 percent of the world’s energy is used to power up buildings, an amount that is sure to rise with the ceaseless waves of urbanisation commandeering the planet’s finite resources, responsible energy use is a crucial concern. Purists might point out that the PBC occupies the less exuberantly viridescent part of the green architecture spectrum by being “hyperactive” in terms of the “embodied” energy that goes into building and running a commercial building, unlike the far more virtuous energy-saving “passive” buildings, the “vernacular” or “natural” habitations made from locally-available materials like mud and bamboo. But Meattle’s template of constant adaptation sets a hopeful, and hopefully replicable example in the Indian construction scene, one which would sooner reduce a skyline to rubble and build anew, than KAMAL MEATTLE stands in the greenhouse of the PBC, located in Delhi's Nehru Place.

bother with transforming buildings from within.

In addition, the PBC, as Meattle will tell you, transforms those within it. A 2008 study jointly conducted by the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) and the Chittaranjan National Cancer Institute, says Meattle, found the PBC’s indoor air quality lowered eye irritation and respiratory symptoms by 34 percent and headaches by 12 percent. They also found a 42 percent probability of increased blood oxygen, which leads to

DESPITE THE BUILDING BEING BUILT TO BLOCKY SARKARI SPECIFICATIONS, MEATTLE HAS MANAGED TO, AND CONTINUES TO, RETROFIT IT WITH FEATURES THAT MAKE IT HEALTHIER FOR WORKERS.

26 higher productivity, and thus reduces the energy requirement as less outdoor “fresh air” needs to be cycled into the building. It’s no wonder then, that the CPCB rates it one of Delhi’s healthiest buildings.

Credit for this goes to the 1 500 areca, money and snake plants around, which constantly clean and oxygenate the air and are assiduously sponged down every day.

In the building’s rooftop greenhouse, hundreds of these potted plants are grown hydroponically (to avoid bacteria) and are used to cleanse the air before it passes through the air-handling unit, which then cleans it of carbon dioxide, formaldehyde and other noxious inhabitants of Delhi air.

Meattle says he hit upon the combination of these three plants that minimise air pollutants and maximise oxygen via studies carried out by TERI and HVAC SYSTEMS distribute air, cleansed by plants and an air-handling unit, throughout the PBC.

NASA. He has subsequently trademarked the phrase: “We grow our own fresh air.” He calls the PBC a “conference spa,” because it affords “health and happiness” to those who work inside.

“That’s the value,” says Meattle, allowing himself a brief moment of self-gratified beaming.

And the value translates pretty well into rental rates.

“Today, if you rent [out] a building next door and then rent this [out], you’ll get three to four times the other rental,” says Meattle. “People are ready to pay.” And they’re likely to only pay more, with Meattle’s tireless drive to go greener and greener, even though there are no further certifications and ratings to be had.

There is, however, only so green he can go with a 25-year-old building. Which is why Meattle is looking to replicate the PBC’s success on a far larger scale, and in a building designed specifically to be sustainable.

That would be GreenSpaces, Faridabad, a LEED certified “super” platinum building designed by Chicago-based firm Perkins+Will. Construction might not have begun

just yet, but its website already declares it’s to be “the world’s most energy efficient commercial building.” With 21 floors, its regenerative elevators which produce electricity when descending, will contribute to powering up the building, while onsite biomethanation will generate biogas for cooking, heating or converting into electricity. And of course, thousands of Meattle’s three favourite plants will line its corridors and conference rooms.

For some architects though, the “green” in green architecture is more reminiscent of the colour of money than anything approaching real sustainability. This is the opinion of Bangalore-based “vernacular” architect Chitra Vishwanath, who builds, out of earth from their construction sites, houses which are then painted in lime instead of polluting emulsions. According to her website, Vishwanath’s designs “harvest rain, sun and wind, encourage recycling and reuse, and attract local plants and birds.” She’s convinced that skyscrapers can never be sustainable, regardless of all the LEED certificates they may collect, as their form is dictated by the cost of land rather than individual needs.

“Certifications are ways of fooling people,” she says. “It’s just marketing; a categorisation they came up with to sell products, like different electrical systems.”

To her mind, the choice shouldn’t be between a normal glass pane and “energy efficient” double-glazing, or giving up a wasteful air-conditioner for one that runs on a lower

TRUE SUSTAINABILITY, IT WOULD THEN SEEM, CAN ONLY COME ABOUT WHEN WE QUESTION WHAT FIVE STAR HOTELS – AND MOST COMMERCIAL ARCHITECTS – TEACH US TO ASSOCIATE WITH “COMFORT” AND COMFORTABLE HABITATION – LUXURIOUS, GLASSENCLOSED ICY ISLANDS.

27 voltage – it’s about asking if we can do away with them altogether, and build for our climate and constitutions.

For his part, Robert Verrijt, principal architect at Mumbai-based firm Architecture Brio, thinks that vernacular or natural buildings are often incapable of providing solutions to modern urban problems. While Verrijt’s firm does replace “known [construction] energy guzzlers” like cement and steel with bamboo, a natural, sustainable material, he doesn’t “believe in going back to living in huts,” saying, “we’d be using too much ground coverage, destroying the nature around us.” He elaborates, “Vernacular buildings are able to tell us a lot about how one can live with limited resources.

But with land being scarce and the population growing, we have to build in higher densities. Our polluted and noisy cities often force us to shut ourselves in, which results in all of us turning the air-conditioning on. And vernacular architecture does not always give us solutions for those problems.” He does agree, however, that many LEED certified buildings are “completely cut off from their surroundings,” which makes them “unhealthy.”

True sustainability, it would then seem, can only come about when we question what five star hotels – and most commercial architects – teach us to associate with “comfort” and comfortable habitation – luxurious, glassenclosed icy islands.

The LEED certification, while well intentioned, doesn’t do that, says architect and researcher Himanshu Burte, who is currently co-writing a book on sustainable architecture. “LEED is meant to change behaviour in terms of [architects’] design choices,” says Burte, “but the fundamental problem is that it does not question the standard demand that corporate (and most kinds of) clients place on architecture.” For instance, it lets ASHRAE (the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers) decide what comfortable is. With the result that “its reward system focuses on reducing what is already a high level of

consumption.” So, a “sustainable” skyscraper, which uses an equally vertiginous amount of embodied energy, is eligible for a LEED certification, while the beautiful, lowcost but high-quality organic buildings of sustainable architecture pioneer Laurie Baker, are not.

Neither are those of Sanjay Prakash, though his architectural firm specialises in environment-sensitive architecture, such as the $5 billion US-based company Agilent Technologies’ headquarters in Manesar, Haryana, which uses piped gas for all its energy needs, and generates the water it requires solely from its 10-acre site.

“Active” green buildings, such as Meattle’s GreenSpaces, which combines responsible energy use and reuse with a high embodied energy structure, would be “like diet cola,” observes Prakash, EVERY DAY, employees sponge down plants used to clean the air in the PBC.

“less bad for you, [but] not like plain good old water or juice: good for you.”

“Certain gurus might like us to undergo the hardship of making a building that gently pushes us to be more tolerant of the environment, but that’s a major debate,” says Prakash. “Many people, myself included, would instead argue for diet coke, saying that basic space conditioning is a necessary part of improved architecture, because without that, residents might swing to extreme air-conditioning in a bad year, doing much more harm.”

Meattle too, is quite pleased with his diet cola. “If we get into embodied energy it’s a long-drawn affair,” he says.

“It’s better to stick to what we can do – like recycle, reduce energy use – without sacrificing quality of life or comfort.

Better to reach for the low hanging fruit than to puzzle oneself over how complex it all is and do nothing.”

Perhaps the sellability of Meattle’s diet cola will be the surest way to ward off future skylines entirely composed of architectural spam.

28 URBAN OUTFITTER

WITH A PENCHANT FOR CREATING ART IN ABANDONED SPACES, MEET THE ARTIST BRINGING URBAN ECOLOGICAL ISSUES TO LIGHT.

TEXT

ANNALISA MERELLI IMAGES

NISHANT S H U K L A

“A LOT OF MY CREATIVE PROJECTS HAVE STEMMED FROM PLACES THAT HAVE BEEN DESTROYED OR ARE DECAYING.”

ASIM WAQIF

29 Asim Waqif, 32, is a Delhi-based conceptual artist whose work explores ecological issues related to urban planning, sustainable practices and waste. Waqif uses a wide range of media from video to installations of bamboo. In the Indian art world, Waqif has carved out a niche for his ability to tackle issues grounded in mainstream environmental discourse with both exactitude and fine arts aesthetics. Exploring Delhi’s gritty urban spaces is key to his practice, even by way of furtive incursions, and this renegade approach means Waqif’s on-site installations are as readily found in abandoned, derelict buildings as they are in a gallery. An architect by training, Waqif first started practising art in 2005, making it a full-time career in 2009. A well-regarded emerging artist, his work has been shown at art fairs abroad as well as at this year’s India Art Summit. He tells us why trespassing onto decrepit building sites is important to his work, and how he’s questioning the different ways in which people relate to the spaces around them.

“I never really thought I would ever become an artist.

Even today, I am sort of a reluctant artist in some ways.

I have taken on this role that now I am an artist, for the past two or three years, because the art community wants to see me as a serious artist, but actually, I am continuing to do many other practices like environmental and design work.

Because I’ve studied architecture, issues with built forms have always interested me; not only singular buildings but how a settlement develops and comes together.

You can look at the city as an organism which has a strange way of growing, especially in India, where there are many pockets of planned settlements, but also a lot of unplanned areas which have developed by themselves.

I’m very curious about why certain things develop in a certain way.

I think from a human understanding, ecology is the relationship between the environment and people. You could look at ecology in a technical, scientific way, but I feel it is not as important.

A lot of my creative projects have stemmed from places that have been destroyed or are decaying. There’s this need [in art], which is leaving a mark; making something that will last. Conversely, a lot of my work either gets destroyed after some time or it just decays.

I think especially with public projects it’s very important that whatever work you do is there for only the relevant amount of time, if it just hangs on it becomes baggage more than anything, and if you are taking possession of a public space you have to be willing to give possession for future projects. That’s very important, I think, that temporariness, because it allows for dynamic change.

The project I did in [the half-demolished building on] MG Road (the Mehrauli Gurgaon Road in Delhi) is very political, because I think that situation was completely created by the institutions of India. The court said that this land is supposed to be agricultural so you cannot have a commercial complex there, so that’s why they came and partly broke down the structure so it’s become unusable. Yet the same court insists that all structures in Delhi have to be earthquake resistant, but [this] is like a disaster waiting to happen: next big earthquake that building will fall. Also, the people who broke it down are the Municipal Corporation of Delhi, but the people who allowed that building to come up are also the Municipal Corporation of Delhi, so the same group allowed it to happen and broke it down.

Initially, when I used to go there, there were lots of drawings in chalk by children and even lots of glass panels lying [around] so people would sketch things in the dust.

It’s a very interesting space and of course I was sort of attracted by the texture of decay, the process and cobwebs and even the way things were lying around, so I went and ‘reorganised’ some things.

It’s a matter of a chance encounter […] [but] my work is still there. It’s been there for the past two and a half years, but nobody from the art community has ever gone.

Still, lots of people have seen it, they don’t know what it is but I’m sure they are intrigued by it, but my name I think, has nothing to do with it.

Different buildings have different [interesting aspects]. For instance, there is a building in North Delhi which is the Jaipuria Mills building, a textile mill.

I think it was built in 1895 and it’s got some of the most immaculate brickwork I’ve seen in Delhi. It shut down in the 1950s and [it’s been sold] [...] to some builders who want to demolish it and make a huge mall. Now of course you need new things, and I am open to old things being modified, or some being demolished, but at the

30 same time there should be some sort of evaluation about which old things should be demolished and which should not be. So I wanted to [do a project there].

[The building has] this massive chimney. It’s probably one of the tallest chimneys in Delhi – it must be what?

150 feet or even more – so me and a friend, we do a little bit of rock climbing, we trespassed and went inside with some [rock climbing] equipment. We tried to climb up.

I wanted to put this massive thing of ribbons [up] like colourful smoke coming out of a chimney that hasn’t been used since the 1950s. But then we got caught and thrown out of there.

If you look at urban design in Delhi today, unfortunately, we have been following mostly European and American models of how a city should be developed, although it’s not the current model that either [country is] practicing, but it’s a model from 20 or 30 years back. But we forget that we ourselves have a really rich heritage of town planning in India. The older towns of India are beautifully planned in terms of resources, climate and topography, but somehow we have a cultural amnesia about our own heritage.

[In that sense], I find the relationship between the city (Delhi) and the [Yamuna] River very strange. In most

places in the world, even in India, the waterfront is a very interesting space for rejuvenation, not only for the environment but also for people. But in Delhi, the way the city has been planned is like the river is a backyard, there are no [unfenced] roads along the [Yamuna] River.

The only roads that cross it have fences and you are not allowed to stop on the bridges, so the city has become very de-linked from the river.

My project there (a floating installation of the word ‘HELP’ made from bottles, metal and LED lights) is ongoing and it’s about bringing back some relationship between the people and the river. I’m not trying to go into the technical aspects of what should be done [to clean it], [...] but what I find more important is the social situation, the human relationship with the environment.

I think art is very interesting because of what happens […] if you try to talk to someone and convince him of a certain view of things, is that he wants to take a standpoint; it becomes one person’s point of view versus another’s. But art can be a space where the person starts questioning his own assumptions and his own thinking, and when that self-analysis happens there is much more possibility of dynamic change.

“YOU CAN LOOK AT THE CITY AS AN ORGANISM WHICH HAS A STRANGE WAY OF GROWING, ESPECIALLY IN INDIA.”

THE FAÇADE of a half-demolished building on the Mehrauli Gurgaon Road (MG Road) in Delhi, which houses a work of Waqif's.

31 [Art is also about] how you present things. Some material which you see every day on the road becomes so mundane that you stop looking at it. In some ways, [my art is] trying to look at that same material from a completely different perspective. When you make it into an art object inside a gallery or a public space, you change the way people look at the material, then people subconsciously start questioning their own perception of that material.

For example, I’ve been working a lot with bamboo and I think today people think of bamboo almost as dirt, they give no importance to the material, but traditionally, there was a lot of work that was happening around bamboo.

So one of my aims, not only in my art work but also in my other projects, is to somehow unearth these traditional practices.

Somehow, artists are very afraid of the word ‘didactic’ but that process of being didactic can be used interestingly. For example, this project [about water] I’m trying to do right now in Badrinath (a pilgrimage destination in Uttarakhand) is quite didactic, and very instructional. I’m not looking at it purely as an art project but more as an advertising campaign, propaganda

almost. The project is on drinking water. What started it off is [that] all these mineral water companies advertise themselves as ‘from the source,’ ‘the cleanest water from the Himalayas’ or ‘from springs,’ but when people actually go to the Himalayas and arrive next to a spring [in Badrinath], they are still buying the bottled water, instead of drinking spring water. There are a lot of springs on the way to Badrinath and then within Badrinath itself there are many piyau (drinking water points). So with information, legends and mythology, we (architect and artist Vaibhav Dimri and I) are trying to promote the local use of water; encouraging [people] to carry a plastic bottle and keep refilling it because the water is clean.

[In India], we are very heavily influenced by the idea that we need to be developed, and this idea of development is really playing havoc because the thought that you are going to be developed stems from the assumption that you are underdeveloped. Psychologically, that’s very bad for Indian society. There are many things in modern technology and modern life which are advantageous and we should adopt them, but not as an alternative to traditional practices; they need to be merged together.”

As told to Annalisa Merelli

“MY WORK IS STILL THERE. IT'S BEEN THERE FOR THE PAST TWO AND A HALF YEARS, BUT NOBODY FROM THE ART COMMUNITY HAS EVER GONE.”

INSIDE THE SAME BUILDING on MG Road, Waqif has created an installation from rubble found inside and paint which he brought in.

32

CHICK POWER TEXT

NILANJANA BHOWMICK

THE BAREFOOT COLLEGE HAS BEEN TRAINING A WEB OF ILLITERATE AND SEMI-LITERATE RURAL-BASED WOMEN AS SOLAR ENGINEERS, BUT THE BIGGEST CHALLENGE IN GETTING WOMEN TO THE COLLEGE IN THE FIRST PLACE, STARTS AT HOME.

Image courtesy of Bata Bhurji.

AT BAREFOOT COLLEGE, women are trained in a range of skills. Here, women assemble a solar cooker, used for producing heat.

33 It was a sweltering day in the middle of May this year, and about 50 people had gathered around a mud hut in Banahi village in Bodh Gaya, Bihar. All of a sudden a light in the hut came on, and the crowd erupted into a cheer. A woman in her late 30s descended from the roof of the hut, beaming. Everyone wanted to talk to her and congratulate her, awed that a housewife from their midst had brought light into their lives for the first time; until now, they thought it was only engineers from the city who could do that. The villagers looked as awestruck at the solar lantern and the panel on top of the hut as they did at the woman, Geeta Rani.

And many kilometres away in Rajasthan, Santosh Devi, a perky 19-year-old, deftly climbed down from the roof of her neighbour’s house while keeping her hair neatly covered, not a strand out of place. She was repairing the solar panel that she had herself installed a few months back. Both Geeta and Santosh are heralding a revolution.

They embody an empowerment that goes much beyond paper degrees.

Santosh and Geeta are among the first crop of women Dalit solar engineers of India. They trained at the Barefoot College in Tilonia, in Rajasthan’s Ajmer District, for six months in 2010 and are now as adept at installing solar panels in villages as they are at rolling chapatis. It takes them up to half an hour to fix the installations depending on the complexity of the problem. Installing the panels takes more time, around an hour, sometimes longer.

At Barefoot College, founded in 1972 by social activist Sanjit “Bunker” Roy, thousands of illiterate and semi-literate men and women living in rural India have been taught the skills to become different kinds of selfsufficient “barefoot professionals,” ranging from lawyers to midwives to carpenters.

As Roy says, he chose the name “barefoot” as the training is about hands-on skills and traditional practices, rather than paper degrees. “This whole country is running because of people who have skills for which they can show no paper degree. They are repairing hand pumps, they are repairing bicycles, everything. Do they have a certificate? No! How do they pick it up? By doing it with their hands. The Barefoot College has been showing what people have been doing for hundreds of years in India.”

The College, says Roy, doesn’t believe in the government’s top-down approach. “There cannot be urban solutions to rural problems,” he says.

According to the College website, the organisation follows a keystone of Mahatma Gandhi’s teachings; that existing “knowledge, skills and wisdom found in villages should be used for development before getting skills from outside” and so that poor communities are not exploited and can live independently, sophisticated technology should be used but only in the hands of such communities.

The college campus too demonstrates this amply.

It was built and designed by Barefoot architects using traditional practices such as applying a paste of jaggery, fenugreek powder and jute fibres in lime to waterproof the roofs, and it runs on solar energy. Students come and live on the campus, and are housed and fed free of charge.

Each person staying on the campus is required to serve himself and clean up afterwards and the rooms are basic, furnished with just a bed, chair and fan. There are communal bathrooms outdoors. The sprawling green campus, in stark contrast to the dry and sandy landscape of Rajasthan, is a living lesson in how modernity can be inclusive of simple and sustainable living.

While the College has been bringing solar technology to India’s non-electrified rural villages since 1989, by teaching illiterate and semi-literate men and women to fashion, install and maintain the lights by themselves, as of last year, Roy says their “target group” in the country is now Dalit women.

The solar project aims to train women not only to promote sustainable living through renewable solar energy, but also to empower them with the help of simple technology.

Scouting out isolated, poorly connected villages that don’t have electricity is how the process of solar electrification begins. Barefoot representatives or their associate NGOs visit these villages to share the benefits of solar

THEY TRAINED AT THE BAREFOOT COLLEGE IN TILONIA, IN RAJASTHAN’S AJMER DISTRICT, FOR SIX MONTHS IN 2010 AND ARE NOW AS ADEPT AT INSTALLING SOLAR PANELS IN VILLAGES AS THEY ARE AT ROLLING CHAPATIS.

34 light. When she saw the demonstration of how energy from the sun can be stored to light up their homes later, Santosh says she was amazed.

After the demonstration, if the villagers show interest then senior community members form a committee.

Before anything goes ahead, the committee needs to sign off on an agreement that ensures that families wishing to have solar lights will select one or more of their women to attend the training and live for six months at the Tilonia campus, pay a nominal, monthly amount which will go towards the trained solar engineer’s salary as well as any necessary equipment, and also find a workshop space somewhere in the village.

“Backward communities like the Dalits especially in the inaccessible parts of the country is where the challenge is the most and that is also where they feel neglected the most,” says Roy. But once they understand the benefits, he says a sense of feeling “honoured” that their village has been selected means “they feel they have to make it work.”

However, the biggest challenge from the outset, is convincing family members to allow their women to travel WOMEN at Barefoot College learn how to assemble solar lights.

“THIS WHOLE COUNTRY IS RUNNING BECAUSE OF PEOPLE WHO HAVE SKILLS FOR WHICH THEY CAN SHOW NO PAPER DEGREE.”

and live away from home for such a length of time.

For Shilpa Sinha, director at Shechen Clinic, India, the non-profit who partnered with Barefoot College to go to Geeta’s village, it was not an easy task to persuade the villagers to select and send Geeta and three other Dalit women to far-away Rajasthan. When they first proposed the idea at a village meeting, the men boycotted the notion, walking out of the room and leaving Sinha and her village coordinators red faced with embarrassment.

“They didn’t even want to hear of it,” says Sinha. “It was unthinkable for them to send their women out of the village alone on a residential course for six months.”

It took weeks for Sinha and her colleagues to convince them. They went to each family individually, telling them about the benefits of the training. However, it was only after a female barefoot solar engineer from a nearby village told them about her experience, that they finally relented.

35 While the traditional prejudices against Dalit men and women are often the same, the women face further gender discrimination and oppression within their own community. Moreover, there is a low level of literacy amongst Dalit women, only 10.93 percent of these girls receive an education and many are married off early, which puts an end to their schooling. Santosh, who was married off when she was nine-years-old, studied till class seven. After that, she was sent to live with her in-laws in Balaji-ki-Dhani. “When I was in class seven my parents told me I was old enough to go and live with my husband and look after his home,” she says. “I wanted to study more but it was not possible.” To quench her thirst for knowledge, Santosh started teaching at the village school that was being run by the Barefoot College.

Her quick wit and confidence meant she was chosen to go to the course from her village.

And it makes sense to focus on women becoming solar engineers. “They are more in tune with their environment and more loyal to their roots. They have more patience and are better learners. They stay in the villages and work for the betterment of the village,” explains Roy.

THE SOLAR PROJECT AIMS TO TRAIN WOMEN NOT ONLY TO PROMOTE SUSTAINABLE LIVING THROUGH RENEWABLE SOLAR ENERGY, BUT ALSO TO EMPOWER THEM WITH THE HELP OF SIMPLE TECHNOLOGY.

“With men, as soon as they get a certificate, they run away to the city to look for better opportunities.”

Once the women finish their training, they go back to their villages waiting for the college to send the solar panels. For far out villages like Geeta’s, sometimes the wait is long but not fruitless. When the solar panels finally arrived in Geeta’s village in May, quite a few months after the completion of her training, Geeta was apprehensive.

“I thought I would have forgotten everything that I had learned and I was very nervous. But when I joined the wires and the light came on, I was very relieved.”

Today, Santosh’s village workshop is part of her twobedroom house. It is a small room that she had first built as her kitchen – still obvious from the mud oven in the corner. Santosh’s worktable stands against one wall and is

Image courtesy of Bata Bhurji.

WOMEN pose with solar cookers at the Tilonia campus, which are used for heating and cooking.

36

SANJIT “BUNKER” ROY, founder of Barefoot College.

THESE LIGHTS HAVE CHANGED THE LIVES OF THESE VILLAGES. THE WOMEN DON’T HAVE TO RUSH THROUGH THE DAY TRYING TO FINISH WORK THAT REQUIRES LIGHT.

lined tidily with solar lanterns needing repair. “I spend at least three to four hours here every day,” Santosh says, trying to soothe her 17-month-old baby boy with one hand while prying open a lantern to fix it with the other.

For the women, the training empowers them in different ways. Geeta, who before this had never left her village alone says, “Now in the village when I explain to the people about the benefits of solar lights I feel empowered. Despite being illiterate I can repair and install solar lights. I am financially independent and live with a lot of respect,” she says. These lights have changed the lives of these villages. The women don’t have to rush through the day trying to finish work that requires light. “Now I can cook in the night. I can also sew in the night,” says Santosh. Solar light in these remote villages have made it

easier for people to guide back herds from the fields and for children to study.

At present, Geeta has solar electrified 22 other houses in her village. She is also solar electrifying two other nearby villages. Santosh has solar electrified all the 20 odd houses in her village. The woman who until last year laboured on the fields, lived in a mud hut and tried to save every last penny now earns around Rs 3 000 a month, lives in a concrete house and plans to buy a motorcycle for her husband soon. “This is almost like a dream. I am earning money, buying things for my family. I have never felt so important before,” Santosh says shyly.

However, Rajni Tilak, convenor of the Dalit Women’s Movement feels real and long lasting change can come only when, “these women are able to connect it to the larger society by becoming role models for their community,” and sharing their knowledge with their female counterparts. “You can empower a few women by giving them technology but what is most important is that how that influences the rest of the community. Technology can be a tool to change people’s mindset.”

india + design + fashion + loom + vintage + music reay house. best marg. colaba. mumbai www.bombayelectric.in +91 22 2287 6276

38

DHARAVI It’s monsoon time. An oily slick of mud runs down the length of the alleyway, here in the industrial area, home to hundreds, thousands even, of small-scale industries.

Passageways at most are a few feet wide, through which dozens of workers march, nimbly navigating the narrow lanes, darting in and out of the small rooms on either side.

Rain drips from a corrugated tin awning – but it won’t be for long, as the sun is back out. Muslim prayers blare from a tinny radio, while a bhel puri wallah with a heavy tub of ingredients balanced on his belly waddles through, calling out to advertise his wares. A dog looks up at us plaintively; he is covered in black paint splatters, thanks to one of the neighbourhood’s many busy industries, paint can recycling. Used drums are cleaned, banged back into shape, and sold back to the companies.

In another room, wiry men from Bihar are crouched around a low table, painstakingly appliqueing silver beads onto pink silk, while around the corner, white garments are being dipped in vast vats, the workers with forearms stained fuchsia from the dye. Dupattas and saris are hung

out to dry on rooftops, above which drifts smoke from pottery kilns.

Welcome to Dharavi: a megaslum yes, but much, much more. The neighbourhood in central Mumbai is known as a place of mafia and slumdogs, of choleric dhobi ghats and shanties. But the reality is different.

Sure, it’s filthy and cramped, with roughly one million people crammed into 1.75 square kilometres. But it’s also a place of great commerce and industry, of soaring land values and roughly Rs 30 billion in annual turnover.

And with that many people and that much industry, it has an ecosystem and economy all of its own. Much of what is made here is sold or consumed within the same neighbourhood, or passed on to a nearby factory for the next stage of the manufacturing process.

In fact, it might be apt to describe Dharavi as “postslum”: a place where people might have to sleep curled up under the kitchen bench, but have water and electricity, good jobs, more than enough to eat and strong community ties. There are worse slums in Mumbai, although

39 AS INDIAN CITIES SWELL IN DENSITY, MUMBAI'S MEGASLUM DHARAVI, AN EVER-EVOLVING, THRIVING ECOSYSTEM OF MICROECONOMIES INTERCONNECTED WITH RESIDENTIAL SPACES, COULD ALSO PROVE TO BE AN UNCONVENTIONAL ALBEIT IMPORTANT MODEL FOR URBAN PLANNERS.

INC. INSIDE THE GODOWN OF IRFAN MEMON, a plastic scrap merchant.

TEXT

AARTI BETIGERI IMAGES

SHEETAL MALLAR

40 URBZ GREW OUT OF A JOINT REALISATION THAT, WITH INDIA’S RAPIDLY GROWING CITIES, DHARAVI WOULD BE A GOOD MODEL FROM WHICH TO LEARN LESSONS ABOUT HOW AN ALTERNATE FORM OF URBANISATION MIGHT WORK. IT MIGHT NOT BE ONE THAT COMPLIES WITH ALL THE ACCEPTED RULES AND NOTIONS ABOUT WHAT CONSTITUTES GOOD URBAN LIVING, BUT ONE THAT IS MORE GROUNDED IN THE REALITY OF HOW PEOPLE IN DENSELY-POPULATED AREAS LIVE – OR MIGHT SOON BE LIVING. A PAINT-SPLATTERED DOG in the paint can recycling area of Dharavi.

these rarely attract anywhere near the same level of scrutiny as Dharavi.

“There is a very strong sense of organisation here, that’s why it is functional,” says Matias Echanove of Dharavi-based urban development collective Urbz.

“Neighbourhoods have developed along the same lines as a village, with homes being built around a market, which sprung up because a temple was there. We’ve counted 90 of these.”

Echanove, a Spanish-Swiss urban planner, moved to Mumbai after studying in Japan and was struck by the similarities between informal neighbourhoods that had developed in different parts of the world that he was familiar with, such as Shimokitazawa in Tokyo, and parts of Perugia, in Italy. He soon came across Rahul Srivastava who was doing similar work. Urbz grew out of a joint realisation that, with India’s rapidly growing cities, Dharavi would be a good model from which to learn lessons about how an alternate form of urbanisation might work. It might

not be one that complies with all the accepted rules and notions about what constitutes good urban living, but one that is more grounded in the reality of how people in densely-populated areas live – or might soon be living.

“One of the organisational principles that has shaped its fabric is how the use of space is maximised,” says Srivastava. “All people need are proper facilities and infrastructure.”

Dharavi is most famous for its leather industry. All stages of the process happen here: leather is bought and sold, then carted to a factory where it is fashioned into bags, belts, wallets, and jackets. These are then either taken around the city, around India, even around the world, to be sold, although many items also end up in one of the dozens of leather shops lining the Sion-Mahim Road bordering the neighbourhood.

My first stop is at the office of a leather wholesaler.

Sikander Vhatkar buys leather pieces by the container load, mostly overstock and offcuts from luxury car manu-

41 thinking about buying a place here, but it’s too expensive, I can’t afford it.” Pujari now lives with his wife and children in Thane, an outlying suburb of Mumbai.

“More than half of Bombay’s population live in slums,” he says. “All sorts of people live in Dharavi. MNC workers, BPO workers, 60 percent of our police force,” he says.

Inspired by a favela tour Pujari’s business partner took while in Brazil, Reality began its Dharavi tours to provide an insight into the true nature of the neighbourhood, and now up to 20 people each day sign up. Most are tourists but they also get a substantial number of people living in surrounding suburbs who are curious to know how the other half lives.

“Dharavi has 10 000 small-scale industries,” he says.

“Infrastructure here is poor. There is a lack of awareness about health and hygiene. But if these small-scale businesses are not allowed, there’s a strong chance that people might get involved in illegal activities.”

A WORKER sits in a storehouse where plastic is sorted before it is ground.

facturers, such as BMW. The leather is then sold on to local Dharavi-based manufacturers for Rs 150 per square foot. This yields a profit of roughly Rs 15 000 per container, adding up to a monthly salary of up to Rs 100 000 per month. Even by Mumbai standards, this makes Sikander a wealthy man – particularly when combined with the value of his Dharavi real estate. He bought his 720 square foot warehouse 15 years ago for Rs 160 000. It is now valued at around one crore.

“Dharavi land is gold,” says his son Siddhant, 22.

“It’s because it is in a huge industrial area, it’s one of the largest in Asia.” Dharavi is also situated in a strategically central location: smack-bang between two railway lines and within easy commutable distance to both the southern business district and the emerging new financial centre, the Bandra-Kurla complex, in the city’s north.

It is this location that makes developers drool.

“It’s true,” says Krishna Pujari of Reality Tours, which has run slum tours through Dharavi since 2006. “I was

With his office located on one of the roads bordering Dharavi, Pujari is now intimately acquainted with the place and its residents, and insists that its murky reputation hails from long ago, when the slum was wholly illegal.

Residents who can prove living and working there before the year 2000 are legally recognised under the terms of the redevelopment plan. These days, there are less social problems, partially due to wealth, partially because of the strong community ties, partially due to the cheek-by-jowl living. “If something happens here, everyone knows about it,” says Pujari.

Back in the leather wholesaler’s office, Sikander is cagey about having his photograph taken. He is going to be sitting for local elections soon. But eventually he capitulates, his pride in his achievements overriding his concerns about possibly being seen in a magazine.

He proudly tells me, in a mixture of English, Hindi and Marathi, that his father was a mill worker, he came from nothing yet managed to build a business and give his children the education he never had. All this, thanks to Dharavi.

“Here there is location, people, and prem bhau, brotherly affection,” he says. “There is a good community and we all live here, all castes and religions, together and peacefully.”

“We have chhota Maharashtra, chhota Rajasthan, chhota Dilli, chhota Tamil Nadu.”

42 Adds Siddhant: “Dharavi: dil maange more. Everything is here.”

I’d hoped to see a leather factory but Sikander gently resists my requests, saying that they are all closed due to the monsoon. However, it is more likely that the factories are resistant to visitors: there are whispers that some high-end luxury handbag brands take advantage of Dharavi’s low labour costs, so as to maximise the margin on bags priced at well over Rs 45 000, so understandably, there is some sensitivity about this being exposed.

The factories are tightly controlled, and even workers who turn up without their ID badges are not allowed in.

A short walk away is the hub of another of Dharavi’s major industries: plastic recycling. Plastic refuse is collected and deposited in huge sacks left lining the small alleys, stacked high in buildings and stored on the roof.

It is everything from water bottles to toys, televisions to washing machine tubs. All these are crushed between the rollers of heavy machines into shavings, then carted elsewhere in the slum to be washed in large vats. From here, the shards are taken to yet another factory where they are melted down and turned into pellets, which are spread on sheets on the roof to dry under the sun.

They are then sent to locations around the world to get another lease of plastic life. All these are interconnected: just metres from where the crushing machine is doing its noisy and toxic job, in another room another crushing machine is being assembled.

1

Irfan Memon is a second-generation Dharavi-based plastic scrap merchant and recycler. His business, run out of a tiny office next to a relatively large – and empty – warehouse has been going strong for 40 years. “We buy plastic scrap from Goa, Hyderabad, Mumbai, Pune, Chennai and Gujarat, from the big dealers there.

They get it from small shops, which buy from ragpickers.”

When I ask Memon about the value of his business and real estate, his English language skills seem to ebb away, but when talk turns to the Dharavi Redevelopment Project, he becomes animated again. “After development we will like Dharavi, we will get hospitals, gardens, universities,” he says.

The Dharavi Redevelopment Project, which has been in the works for more than a decade, will see the slum razed and redeveloped. Work has already started in one residential district. In addition to apartment complexes for the middle and upper-middle classes, there will be a

2

43

3

THESE DAYS, THERE ARE LESS SOCIAL PROBLEMS, PARTIALLY DUE TO WEALTH, PARTIALLY BECAUSE OF THE STRONG COMMUNITY TIES, PARTIALLY DUE TO THE CHEEKBY-JOWL LIVING. “IF SOMETHING HAPPENS HERE, EVERYONE KNOWS ABOUT IT,” SAYS PUJARI.

1 A WORKER sorts through plastic for recycling.

2 THE INSIDE OF A SMALL FACTORY which makes the machines used for grinding plastic.

4

3 A WORKER holds freshly-crushed plastic shards; there is a plastic grinding machine behind him.

4 GROUND plastic chips being washed.

44 HOWEVER, IT IS MORE LIKELY THAT THE FACTORIES ARE RESISTANT TO VISITORS: THERE ARE WHISPERS THAT SOME HIGH-END LUXURY HANDBAG BRANDS TAKE ADVANTAGE OF DHARAVI’S LOW LABOUR COSTS, SO AS TO MAXIMISE THE MARGIN ON BAGS PRICED AT WELL OVER Rs 45 000.

INSIDE A GODOWN where oil tins are cleaned, flattened and resold.

separate industrial zone, and current long-term residents will receive living space. It is this, however, that is causing a wide deal of consternation: residents are agitating for more square footage than they have been allocated – some sources put the sanctioned figure at 225, others cite 300. Additionally, many are disgruntled they will lose rental money from illegally constructed second floors on their shacks. Memon instructs me to scrub out the figure I’ve written in my notebook, grabbing my pen, while insisting it is not yet decided. Dharavians, it appears, have issues with numbers.

There is another reason that many residents are not happy with plans to be rehoused. Many live and work in the same quarters, so being moved to a residentially zoned area could effectively rob them of their livelihood.

“Here, the house is a tool of production,” says Echanove.

“This needs to be understood, because it goes against what urban planners say is good practice.”

Urbz argues that redevelopment will kill the unique essence of Dharavi, and render it soulless and devoid of character. Pointing out the building noise coming from all around the office, they say that people are constantly improving and updating their dwellings, and this will continue. Elsewhere in the world, former slums have organically developed and gentrified; this too could happen in Dharavi, if given the chance.

The pair also point out that Dharavi was literally built from nothing: before it had any human settlement it was nothing more than marshland. “It’s a real example of people creating value out of nothing,” says Srivastava.

“It is a place that manages to flourish from very little, from a literal ground zero.”

46 PLEASANTVILLE

Over four decades after the alternative community of Auroville was formed in Tamil Nadu, it has become a leader in sustainable living practices, but as an experiment in human unity, how does it measure up in reality?

TEXT

J E N SWANSON IMAGES

VINOBHA NATHAN

THIS INUKSUK, a stone marker used by Canadian Inuits, was placed here in 2009 by Aurovilians from Canada.

47 In 1974, Bill Sullivan, a 33-year-old filmmaker and teacher from California was after a more meaningful life.

A self-professed “child of the sixties,” he had grown disillusioned with the state of his country. The Vietnam War weighed heavily on American society and he was tired of traditional institutions like the church. One day, he learned about a nascent utopian community called Auroville, where people from all over the world were coming together to live as part of an experiment in human unity. It was an idea that resonated with Sullivan. So with just $US 1 000 to his name, he left his country, intending to make a documentary about Auroville, “The City of Dawn,” in the south Indian state of Tamil Nadu.

When he arrived in Auroville, it was a fledgling, rural settlement in a red sand wasteland, the legacy of 18th

century French colonialists, who’d taken all the trees to build Pondicherry. But the people of Auroville were inspired. The first “Aurovilians” were busy reforesting the area, chasing away cows that came to nibble on newly planted saplings. The construction of the first permanent homes had just begun. And the 300-strong international commune was bound by an idea of oneness.

For them, Auroville meant a break away from conventional social and political structures, and a fresh start.

And for Sullivan, the place held promise. Today he is still in Auroville. “An inspiration to live to a higher calling is enough to sustain people living here,” says Sullivan, who’s now 70 years old.

The idea of establishing an “international township” emanated from a French woman, Mirra Alfassa, who was better known as “The Mother.” In 1914, Alfassa met

ON EARTH DAY 2010, a car “biting the dust” was placed at this road junction; anyone who wishes can paint on it.

48 the influential guru Sri Aurobindo in Pondicherry, and recognised him as a man she’d seen in her dreams.

Throughout 30 years of spiritual collaboration, the duo envisioned a place of constant learning and irreligious spiritual growth where people would work together and housing and resources were available for all. The idea was put before the Government of India, and also before the General Assembly of UNESCO which in 1966 recognised Auroville “as a project of importance to the future of humanity.” Both have endorsed Auroville.

On February 28, 1968, Alfassa along with a crowd of 5 000 assembled under a lone banyan tree eight kilometres from the city of Pondicherry to celebrate the beginning of Auroville. A handful of soil from 124 countries and 23 Indian states was deposited in an urn to affirm the township’s communal spirit. Alfassa’s goal

was to have a population of 50 000. She died in 1973, leaving behind set tenets that largely stressed “unity in diversity.” Today’s population of Auroville sits at about 2 200 members, a far cry from Alfassa’s conception.

The older generation is in the majority and they have a large influence on decision-making. Many resist new arrivals, preferring limited interaction with the outside world. As Auroville has evolved, so too have the challenges. In its current state, day-to-day life in Auroville is caught between unfulfilled ideals and its increasing exposure to the outside world.

Spread across 2 500 acres of land, Auroville looks like a spiralled galaxy. Today, the township is a lush, green oasis surrounded by a terracotta-red desert.

AN IMAGE OF Sri Aurobindo and The Mother in a ceramic studio in Auroville.

The duo envisioned a place of constant learning and irreligious spiritual growth where people would work together and housing and resources were available for all.

49 Walking along Auroville’s dirt roads, the infrastructure feels rustic and camp-like. Signs of an alternative way of life are in evidence, from the vegetable patches in people’s gardens, to the crudely-made artworks sporadically adorning the town to the solar-powered street lamps. At the centre of Auroville lies a massive, futuristic-looking sphere of gold called the Matrimandir that functions as a meditation chamber and forms what Aurovilians call, “the soul of the city.” The town has four zones – international, cultural, industrial and residential – which are all enclosed by a green belt of forest and organic farmland. Though Auroville is open to tourists during the day, it does not feel overly welcoming to outsiders, and after visiting hours, it can be eerily quiet, with the odd person getting around on a bicycle as cars are discouraged.

On a dusty, old electric scooter or a bicycle, Sullivan gets around town with an interest in meeting and learning about different people who pass through Auroville. An aspiring raw vegan who sometimes walks around barefoot, Sullivan is committed to living as simply as possible.

Sullivan has no regrets about leaving his native country. From the time of his arrival in Auroville, he contributed where help was needed. His savings didn’t last long, but the community supported his basic needs in return for work. He helped first in the plant nursery, then worked on construction projects before he started to dabble in renewable energy and bio-waste treatments.

As a veteran of the community, Sullivan has played a key role in getting certain community-benefiting projects up and running. In 1984, he helped found the Centre for

RESIDENTS of nearby villages are employed at Auroville Bakery.

Spread across 2 500 acres of land, Auroville looks like a spiralled galaxy. Today, the township is a lush, green oasis, surrounded by a terracotta-red desert.

50 Scientific Research (CSR) which promotes the renewable energy systems of wind, solar and biogas, and carries out other projects in sustainable living. The CSR built a huge solar concentrator that enables the Solar Kitchen, Auroville’s communal cafeteria, enough steam to cook for 1 000 people every day. At present, Sullivan is involved in a zero waste drive, a community-wide call to reduce the township’s landfill, both by creating bricks and tiles from waste and finding clever uses for other unrecyclable items, for example, filling old petrol hoses with cement to create banister railings and building supports.

“Auroville has always embodied sustainability as a theme,” explains Sullivan. By first reforesting the land, the early settlers soon paved the way for a place now known for its ecologically sustainable projects in renewable energy, organic farming and earth architecture.

The major difference he sees today, as compared to the pioneer days, is increased bureaucracy within the community – the downside of social governance – which makes for sluggish progress. Everything happens according to a certain process, Sullivan says, which can be frustratingly slow and lead to a lot of discontent.

Community decisions need to be approved by many of the decision-making bodies: the Working Committee, Residents’ Assembly and the different working groups. Each zone and subzone is represented by a group. With more interest groups than ever before, it can take a while to reach consensus. Once this is done, the decision is published in the weekly community bulletin. Anyone can voice an opinion at this stage, which means an initiative might be scrapped or sent back to the drawing board. If a

MARCO VENZI, 35, a Norwegian engineer, was volunteering at Solitude Farm, engaging in community living, permaculture and natural farming.

Auroville continues to share its knowledge and skills.

Any person willing to gain work experience can engage in projects ranging from organic farming to architecture to yoga.

51 decision goes against any group, inter-community tensions can escalate.

“In the old days, it was possible to do practically anything you could get the resources for with only the consent of a couple people,” says Sullivan.

Over the decades too, as the town has become more structured with more services, it has not been easy to integrate new aspects of the community. Sullivan says the school system stabilised in the 1990s. Though raised in an open and unconventional society, many Aurovilian youth have shown a preference for more structure.

“It actually happened in one school that the kids insisted and prevailed to have individual desks in rows and the teacher in the front, because that structure meant for them a real school like they saw in movies or experienced elsewhere in the world,” says Sullivan.

He feels that a cultural shift is underway as the younger generation now come to Auroville more to work on the different sustainable design projects and less for Alfassa’s ideals. Viewing Auroville as a career move or a “hobby,” or not having spiritual focus, Sullivan believes, makes people more vulnerable to frustrations that lead to departures. New members, he says, tend to have higher expectations and can become more easily disappointed.

“Auroville is very much a work in progress,” he says.

“You really need something deeper [a spiritual understanding] to put up with Auroville.”

But Auroville continues to share its knowledge and skills. Any person willing to gain work experience

CHARLIE, 58, is originally from the US and has lived in Auroville for 39 years.

52 can engage in projects ranging from organic farming to architecture to yoga. That is how Lesley Branagan, an Australian social anthropologist in her late thirties, first visited Auroville, coming for a five-week yoga course in 2001.

“There’s a lot [of projects] going on here and you have to stick around to check it all out,” says Branagan.

For the past decade, Branagan has been returning to Auroville to visit close friends and work on different social projects. She continues an association with the Auroville Village Action Group, which focuses on building strong inter-community relations between Auroville and the surrounding villages. The group has helped set up schools. In 2003 she made a documentary about the organisation’s village women’s empowerment programme

and has worked with the town’s monthly newspaper, Auroville Today, which goes out to international subscribers. Branagan’s ten years of experience has taught her Auroville is a place of complexities. She feels that despite issues like poor decision-making, Auroville is supposed to be a “divine anarchy,” where Alfassa and Sri Aurobindo’s teachings can be freely interpreted, and that is why people want to come.

A hugely diverse town of people from disparate backgrounds, the population of Auroville represents 45 nationalities. Almost half of the residents are Indian.

Students, teachers and volunteers offering their skills to work on community projects, who come from India and abroad, comprise a fluctuating number of short and long-term dwellers.

A CULTIVATOR holds an organic jackfruit.

Since its inception, Auroville has been open to industry.

Alfassa designated one of Auroville’s four planned zones to industry, and today, recycled paper products, baked and dairy goods and other products are produced here and then sold in Auroville and Pondicherry.

53 But for some volunteers, the place can be disheartening. Tesia Walsky, 32, an American architecture student worked as an unpaid volunteer for a year until May 2011.

She worked with The Auroville Earth Institute, which is recognised internationally for its programs in sustainable building practices, and lived in a bamboo house near the institute. She was part of a team building housing for newcomers to Auroville. She found her professional experience fulfilling and says it provided a stepping-stone to her current employment in Dubai.

But after a year of living there, she also came away feeling “built-up resentment” towards the “closed community.” As someone offering time and skills for the community’s development, Walsky feels that she and other volunteers deserved easier access to various outlets in Auroville and at times were “made to feel like outsiders.”

“I do feel like I didn’t get to experience a lot. It wasn’t just because of access but it was also that feeling that you could never quite integrate yourself,” she says.

As a “guest,” she says certain classes were off-limits.

And yoga and cooking sessions, priced between Rs 150 to Rs 200 per class, but often free for Aurovilians, became unaffordable for her as she wasn’t earning an income.

In one instance, Walsky was denied entry to the Solar Kitchen, and had to wait for 45 minutes until after Aurovilians had eaten. Aurovilians eat at noon, and “guests” at 12.45 pm, a rule that was enforced after she was there for a few months.

Such accounts appear to go against Alfassa’s egalitarian charter, which says, “Auroville belongs to nobody in particular, but to humanity as a whole.”

A ZERO WASTE DORMITORY is being constructed using recycled materials such as Tetra Paks for roofing and papier-mâché for floors.

54 An American tenured professor at Harvard Business School, Rosabeth Moss Kanter, argues in her 1972 book that any intentional community that survives for 25 years is a success story. In two decades, a new generation is born which takes the community forward. Auroville has lasted for over 40 years. Kanter suggests that the most significant feature of a successful community is the idea of voluntary commitment to a community’s ideals. It also seems that the ones that lasted the longest were also best able to transition from an agrarian or communist model into a self-supporting township sustained by various forms of industry.

planned zones to industry, and today, recycled paper products, baked and dairy goods and other products are produced here and then sold in Auroville and Pondicherry. In the process, jobs for more than 4 000 people from neighbouring villages have been created. Still, the group’s economic arm is far from self-supporting. A large proportion of food and supplies are brought in from outside as they are cheaper. Most of Auroville’s income comes from “contributions” – a tax paid back into the community by commercial enterprises, services like guesthouses and residents – and external grants and donations. Auroville is also granted a special tax-exemption status by the Indian government.

Since its inception, Auroville has been open to industry. Alfassa designated one of Auroville’s four

But Indian sociologist Krishan Kumar, author of Utopianism: Concepts in the Social Sciences (1991), has

BILL SULLIVAN, is better known as “B,” amongst his fellow Aurovilians.

“People try to put it in the utopian category, or try to shape it to their own vision,” says Sullivan. “But it’s not until you come here that you realise it’s many things.”

55 argued that the success of utopian communities depends upon how well they achieve their social ideals. In view of Kumar’s analysis, the success of Auroville as a community founded on equality but accused of being exclusive, discriminatory towards non-Aurovilians and colonial in nature, seems to be under threat.

Auroville may not be immune to the rest of the world’s problems, but many Aurovilians perceive Alfassa’s experiment as an evolving concept. For veterans like Sullivan, Auroville stands unique, incomparable. “People try to put it in the utopian category, or try to shape it to their own vision,” says Sullivan. “But it’s not until you come here that you realise it’s many things, it’s not this or that.

There’s no place like it to compare it to.”

SNAKE GOURD growing in the organic vegetable garden of an Aurovilian couple.

56 GOTTA HAVE FAITH The ecosystems of new-age spiritual hubs on Bangalore’s outskirts are changing the city’s complexion in more ways than one.

TEXT

SAMHITA A R N I IMAGES

MAHESH SHANTARAM

PYRAMID VALLEY located on Kanakapura Road on the edge of Bangalore.

In the past few decades, the city of Bangalore has undergone drastic changes. The once laid-back haven for pensioners and lotus-eaters has almost entirely disappeared.

In its place, an Indian silicon valley has emerged – an over-crowded city of round-the-clock construction, migrants and busy roads perpetually in need of widening.

Earlier this year, census figures reported Bangalore as the city with the highest growth rate amongst the metros: a whopping 46.68 percent. As existing infrastructure struggles to accommodate a growing population, the Bangalore

of today – noisy polluted and aggressive – is a far cry from that of yesteryear.

As the city grows so do the pressures for the increasingly affluent professionals of the new Bangalore leading busy lives. To manage the daily grind, a certain group follow, in the 21st century, the example set by the gods and wise men of the myths and epics: they go to the forest.

Only it’s a contemporary version of this forest paradigm, where instead of simple ashrams and hermitages

57 tucked away in sylvan wilderness, they find calm in peculiarly designed constructions enclosed by manicured gardens, all conveniently located in the outlying areas of Bangalore. So, when looking to clear their minds, the young professionals of Bangalore drive to the city outskirts to places that look nothing like one would typically imagine as places of meditation: a monumental, wedding cake-like edifice awash with lotus designs, a huge grey pyramid with geometric shapes carved onto its exterior, or another pyramid, upside down, golden and looking like it could be a relic of an alien civilisation.

These bizarre-looking structures are the crowd-pulling headquarters of new-age spiritual organisations that are in dialectic with the incessant pace of the city.

mythical Mount Meru, the universe’s centre and abode of Brahma. The mantap is surrounded by beautifully tended gardens and softly illuminated fountains arc gracefully over statues of white swans.

Though the references are Indian, there’s something neoclassical in the all-white aesthetic. And there’s a touch of Indian chic, a blend of modern sensibilities with traditional overtones and excesses – just like the cosmopolitan, well-heeled crowd that rushes through the doors for an evening session.

A face in the crowd is Ujval Shankar, 33, a human resources professional who has been an AoL devotee for the last eight years.

“Most of the people who come for AoL courses are from corporates and [are] highly stressed,” says Shankar. Smart, savvy, well spoken, Shankar is, like many AoL followers, a young professional who considers himself liberal and secular in his outlook.

Perhaps the most famous amongst these, the Art of Living (AoL), was started by the guru Sri Sri Ravi Shankar in 1981 and has its international headquarters on Kanakapura Road, an hour and a half And it’s the secularity from the city centre. AoL of AoL as a spiritual orgacame to prominence a nisation that appeals to decade back, offering newthem, with its main selling fangled stress management point a set of breathing practices. The drive out techniques conveniently THE ART OF LIVING FOUNDATION’S holds many surprises. packaged into three-day international headquarters, Kanakapura Road.

The road is wide, wellcourses held over the paved, and in excellent condition, providing a smooth weekend, so course-goers only miss one day of work. connection to the ashram. Just a decade ago, only farms These courses help deal with stress, exactly the sort of and villages bordered this road but are now gradually thing that many who attend, overworked professionals giving way to sprawling, verdant campuses of managelike Shankar climbing up the corporate ladder, need. ment institutes, “international” schools and retirement Courses have helped Shankar become more productive villages. On-site billboards announce the construction of and better equipped to handle stress. AoL phrases like “luxurious” multi-storied housing complexes. Signs of “international headquarters” or “stress-elimination affluence are everywhere, and it appears that this locality, programs” even have a corporate feel to them. once considered too far out to be part of Bangalore, is transmogrifying into a yuppie suburb.

And the yuppies are already here, at the AoL ashram, gathered for the evening session in the now lit up Vishalakshi Mantap, an assembly hall that rises like a seven-tiered wedding cake embellished with swan and lotus themes, a throwback to the iconography of the

To manage the daily grind, a certain group follow, in the 21st century, the example set by the gods and wise men of the myths and epics: they go to the forest.

58 The organisation’s website mentions that the pyramid has been selected as “one of the seven wonders of Bangalore!” It’s not just a place for meditation, but it’s also being pitched as a tourist destination.

“I didn’t believe in gurus before AoL,” says Shankar.

“Sri Sri Ravi Shankar has never asked people to come to the ashram and become sanyasis or ashramites. He’s so practical,” the professional enthuses, adding, “He says his devotees go ‘from the puja room to the board room’.”

“Spirituality is presented [by AoL] as not confliciting with, but even facilitating of worldly success,” explains Sazana Jayadeva, a social anthropologist who has researched AoL. In the case of AoL, Jayadeva found, “Spiritual practices were seen to increase employee productivity.”

of the temporal demands of the city, one could meditate in peace. The barkcloth garbed inhabitants of ashrams of scripture disdained sex, materialism and lived an ascetic life of meditation.

The AoL centre is something of a prototype of a new ashram combining on one hand, the necessity of getting in touch with nature by leaving the city, albeit temporarily, and on the other, the modern lifestyle that can hardly be conciliated with the sacrifices required by traditional ashrams.

Just a few kilometres up the road from AoL, another organisation has chosen the same wilderness substitute to build their headquarters, modifying the landscape here to convert it into a different kind of spiritual hotspot: Pyramid Valley.

A more recent establishment than AoL, Pyramid Valley set up base in Bangalore in 2005 with the construction of a big pyramid, which boasts motifs on each of the four sides that refer to the elements of nature. It’s a gigantic ferrocement, concrete and brick structure that can accommodate up to 5 000 people.

For the devotees at AoL, aspiring to success and propelled by ambition, spirituality does not seem to be at odds with material life, or even consumerism. WalkPyramid Valley’s objecTHE SHIVA STATUE on Old Airport Road, Bangalore. ing from the parking lot to tives bear similarities to the mantap, for example, one passes a food court and a row the AoL philosophy. “In today’s fast paced global world of glass front shops selling AoL merchandise. The imposing that is connected 24x7, it has become difficult to draw structure of the mantap itself was built at the purported cost boundaries between personal, social and work lives,” the of seven crores, an amount raised through international website notes, saying meditative practices are a way to donations. The very layout of AoL shows an emphasis deal with this reality and improve performance. not on asceticism but something far more material.

Unlike AoL, there’s not much that’s remotely This is a significant departure from the way spirituality has been perceived in Hindu paradigms. Spirituality has traditionally implied the renunciation of ambition, wealth and obligations of social life. It’s distinct from religion and temples where the focal points of religious practice have been located in the centre of towns, in the midst of commerce and markets.

Ashrams, however, were places to pursue a spiritual life. In the epics, they were located in the forest, so, free

“Indian” in the Pyramid Valley aesthetic. Instead, the design is meant to recall ancient Egypt, wherein the pyramid shape is believed to amplify energy; a belief upheld by “pyramid meditation” practitioners. A valley is believed to attract and store energy, and so a pyramid situated in the midst of a valley is considered even more potent.

Many practitioners at Pyramid Valley identify as being “spiritual scientists,” and seek to explain spirituality in scientific terms. One elderly practitioner I met, was a

59 case in point. He explained the benefits of pyramid meditation through a curious blend of pseudo-scientific words: “Cosmic rays are more strongly attracted to an empty mind and these rays will ionize and revitalise you.” A booklet published by the organisation claims that meditation enables out-of-body travel to astral realms, activates ESP and implies that it facilitates encounters with extraterrestrial entities.

The movement was started in Andhra Pradesh which is where the founder, Brahmarshi Patriji, a tall, sprightly man with a majestic white beard, hails from. According to Bharati Prem, one of the Pyramid architects, the location on Bangalore’s outskirts was chosen for its accessibility to international travellers.

“The idea is to attract visitors from foreign places,” says Prem. Pyramid Valley already hosts the Annual Global Congress of Spiritual Scientists and also hopes to organise more international conferences on “spiritual science”.

In the heart of Bangalore, a Shiva temple built in 1995 boasts a giant 65-foot Shiva statue. People gravitate here 365 days a year and it’s open 24 hours a day.

The Light Age Masters, another spiritual organisation that advocates pyramid meditation, though a quieter establishment than AoL or Pyramid Valley, has built an inverted pyramid in the small village of Taponagara, on the other side of town, also on Bangalore’s outskirts.

Originating in 1934, its “Cosmic Tower,” the inverted pyramid supported on the point of another one, is supposed to amplify meditative effects even more than a regular pyramid and, covered in yellowy-gold tiles, it looks like it could hide all kinds of sci-fi wonders.

But on a three-day fesRegardless of the spitival held here in May this ritual mandates of these year to celebrate Buddha organisations, the edifices Purnima, it’s largely a rural housing new-age faiths following from Andhra have crafted the landPradesh that is in attendscapes where they’re sited, ance; the demographic is THE “COSMIC TOWER” in Taponagara, Bangalore's outer limits. in unusual, surreal ways. poles apart from the urban, sophisticated crowd at AoL. “It’s mainly the common But it’s not just these spiritual ashrams on the city man that Patriji is targeting,” Prem explains. “Not the very fringes that hold the court when it comes to bizarre well educated. He wants to make a lot of people aware, constructions. In the heart of Bangalore, a Shiva temso he’s targeting the masses.” Only one foreign spiritual ple built in 1995 boasts a giant 65-foot Shiva statue.

People gravitate here 365 days a year and it’s open scientist is in evidence, an American who lives in Mysore.

24 hours a day.

Inside, the pyramid is stifling and hot. People are asleep, sprawled across the pyramid floor, and across the grounds. Outside, clothes are spread to dry across rocks and bushes, tents have been pitched; it’s a Woodstock for spiritualists. Families picnic on the lawns, and behind them, looms the pyramid, majestic in size and scale.

The organisation’s website mentions that the pyramid has been selected as “one of the seven wonders of Bangalore!” It’s not just a place for meditation, but it’s also being pitched as a tourist destination.

By first purchasing a ticket, one is admitted through a narrow passage in order to tour miniature recreations of important lingams from twelve far-f lung, famous pilgrimage spots such as Somnath in Gujarat and Kedarnath in Uttarakhand. And a tour highlight, a Shiva effigy with a robotic arm raising and lowering his hand in benediction, is something that is perhaps more fitting with a theme park than with anything religious, or spiritual.

COMMUNAL TIPI, Hampi, New Year's Day, 2011.

THE WAY to Baba School of Music. Meer Ghat, Varanasi, 2010.

BOTTLED WATER by KAPIL DAS These photographs were taken in Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh in the fall of 2010 and in Hampi, Karnataka during ten days over the 2011 New Year period. Hampi and Varanasi are key fixtures on a well-trodden backpacker route which spans from the peaks of Ladakh in the north and Manali in Himachal Pradesh, right down to the beaches of Gokarna in Karnataka. I visited these two places with a curiosity about the different young people who come to India and the visual ways in which their presence has impacted such places.

The travellers immerse themselves in a simple, frugal lifestyle, and a culture unto its own. In these travel destinations, pre-selected outlets of Indian culture, they seem to blend into the landscape as much as they do with one another. They don a similar look: lungis, harem pants and baggy, seersucker

VINCE, 22, a mechanic from France, was travelling through India for six months. He spent two months in Hampi and would spend a few days at a time collecting semi-precious stones from the river to polish and sell later on in his travels in places like Japan, where he anticipated a decent sale. Hampi, 2011.

DISCARDED PLASTIC WATER BOTTLES piled up behind the favourite travellers’ haunt, Arba Mistika, Hampi.

As there is no proper garbage disposal, the empty bottles are a permanent, growing fixture behind the hotel.

cotton clothing. One traveller I met had his hair dreadlocked in Thailand, thinking he’d preempt the spirit of what it was to be in India.

And the locals of Varanasi and Hampi, as well as those of other towns along this trail, have over time, shaped pockets of their locales to play up to travellers’ needs. A visual thread connects these places. The cleverer proprietors of guesthouses and restaurants dress their establishments up in the same, distinctive, bohemian new-age aesthetic the travellers chose for their outfits.

Locals also take to the streets to send out signals with hand-painted signage. Take for example, the painted sign in Varanasi for a German Bakery, an ubiquitous offering along the backpacker route. Signs for eateries, guesthouses and other traveller-centric services are cluttered on walls amongst

VADIM, 22, is from France. He was unemployed and was travelling through India for six months. He made leather handicrafts which he hoped would fund and prolong his travels, but the leather dragons and trance hats that he made, exacted few customers. Hampi, 2011.

GRAFFITI ON A BOULDER in Hampi. Amaar, dressed in a lungi, is standing behind the huge bush. Amaar is a jack of all trades: writer, poet, equestrian, singer, photographer, traveller and Sufi aficionado. He hails from New Delhi and has seen most of the country.

other miscellaneous signage related to political or religious groups, but in a sense, stand out only to travellers who are accustomed to looking out for them.

Travellers spend months on end in Hampi. During the day, the rock landscape heats up, making it hard to stay outdoors; I spent a lot of time hanging out in a communal tipi. Backpackers stick to their own kind here, having little contact with locals.

The images in this series are a glimpse into this backpacker trail and the visual dynamic between travellers and the places they visit.

The travellers may wash infrequently and wear threadbare clothing, but they’ve always got the luxuries of bottled water and hand sanitizer. And one can’t help but wonder if what is approached as an adventure isn’t, in reality, little more than a guided tour in disguise.

YOVAV, 21, a former Israeli soldier, was travelling across India for six months. Hampi, 2011.

ASSI GHAT, Varanasi, 2010.

RISHAB, 22, playing chess in Arba Mistika in Hampi, the guesthouse that he co-owns with a local partner. From a wealthy south Bombay family, Rishab spends half the year running the establishment and the other half travelling the world.

THE ENTRANCE to Arba Mistika guesthouse and tipi, Hampi, 2011.

STEPHAN, from Sweden, was travelling in India for three months before heading to Nepal and then South Asia.

He was photographed just before crossing the river. Hampi, 2011.

REMAINS of a boat, Varanasi, 2010.

72

ROCK GARDEN

IN JODHPUR, HERITAGE PRESERVATION TAKES ON A NEW FORM THROUGH AN AMBITIOUS PROJECT TO RECREATE THE NATIVE DESERT ECOLOGY. BY ANNETTE EKIN

It’s about seven in the mornlike grass; to the untrained ing in the Rajasthani city eye it looks dead. But it’s alive of Jodhpur. There’s a flurry and after the monsoon the of activity at the foot of the “golden” hue, true of much of road that winds up to the the plant life here, will turn city’s jumbo hilltop consgreen. A bird catches his eye. truction, the 15th century It’s a baya weaver, a species Mehrangarh Fort. People that turns yellow during its have been gravitating here mating season. He’s quietly since four in the morning, delighted. He’s not seen one hours before the scorching, SEEDS OF AN INDIGENOUS desert plant species. here before but it’s a good midday June sun will push sign. It means the biodiverthem indoors. Young boys play cricket, elderly men sitting sity is expanding. Krishen then stops next to a small green aside low walls chat or are immersed in yoga, and packs of shrub with thin, tiny leaves rounded at the tips, ranged dogs hanging around race off to their dens, disappearing on a stem like barbs on a feather. Compared to the other into the vast surrounds of the fort. plants it’s an unnatural-looking waxy green.

Pradip Krishen, 61, an “ecology gardener,” dressed in jeans, a white, block-printed scarf and a khaki-coloured Tilley hat, agilely climbs over a low rock wall, entering the immense rugged landscape between the fort and the city wall.

Several women are watering the trees and shrubs here, balancing large blue vats on their heads. Krishen picks his way along the path he knows well, stopping to inspect a tree here and a shrub there. He sidesteps a patch of straw-

It’s mesquite. A plant native to Mexico, but an “invasive” species almost everywhere else – in the jargon of botanists, these are species that colonise. This innocuouslooking plant has been the biggest hurdle in a project to recreate the native ecology around Mehrangarh Fort to as close as what it was centuries ago, before either haphazard planting or people swept through.

“Our big enemy to start with was the mesquite,” says Krishen.

73 In the 1930s, Jodhpur’s then Maharaja Umaid Singh decided to green his arid region of Jodhpur, also known as Marwar. A British advisor had told him about a miracle plant called mesquite that could thrive in harsh desert climates. He enthused it could bind the earth to prevent soil erosion, be fodder for animals, provide people with a highly calorific cooking fuel, and transform this land into an oasis of green. As the local tale goes, the Maharaja went up in an airplane dropping seeds over the region, particularly over the barren western expanse.

The mesquite did green Jodhpur, a truism relayed in local folksongs. But it had an unexpected impact on the local ecology.

It greedily sought out water, invaded and took over. Where it could, it plunged its roots deeply, becoming tall trees. And where its roots were constricted, it spread itself widely becoming bushy shrubs. It excreted a biochemical from its roots which hindered other plants from growing near it. In local Marwar language it’s infamously called baavlia – the mad one.

In 1972, he established Mehrangarh Museum Trust to look after his ancestral properties. Since then, the Trust has been constantly updating the fort and adding new events to its cultural calendar. “We like to think Jodhpur is the cultural capital [of Rajasthan],” says the Maharaja.

In 2005, the Trust finished restoring the 400-year-old city wall around the fort, which meant the land within could for the first time, be protected from encroachment.

After renovating the wall, in the same year, the Maharaja decided he wanted to showcase the land within the city wall. He directed the then CEO of the Trust to find the right expert. Krishen was approached and asked if he could turn the land into a forest. “[It was] very rocky, very eroded, very difficult-looking land made up of, I didn’t know at the time, rhyolite, which is a volcanic rock,” says Krishen.

A forest would require millions of tons of soil. But Krishen had a different idea. He suggested restoring this rugged terrain to what it might have been like, as far back as 600 years earlier when it was wild and relatively intact.

In 2006 the current Maharaja Gaj “There’s no data from that period Singh II initiated a project that has in so it’s just a notional thing really,” says part sought to undo the destruction of Krishen.

IN RESTORING native ecology the mesquite sown by his grandfather. and creating Rao Jodha Desert Rock Park, They agreed. In 2006 began a Across 70 hectares of the deserted, over 230 species of indigenous plants restoration project, headed by Krishen, uninhabited rocky terrain at the foot were grown from seeds collected from the wild. to create Rao Jodha Desert Rock Park. of Mehrangarh Fort, Krishen and his team have been restoring the native ecology – removing the mesquite and reintroducing native plants.

Firstly, they had to tackle the mesquite that dominated the landscape, embedded in the rock. It needed to be Down south, in the rainforests of the Western Ghats cleared out in a way that at least 18 inches of the root mountain range, there are a few groups working along was pulled out, or it’d just re-sprout. “[It’s] very antisosimilar lines of “ecological restoration.” cial,” Krishen scolds. “But it’s one of the secrets to its All these projects have different aims – ranging from success and that’s why it’s gregarious wherever it grows.” beautification, creating awareness about native flora, to species conservation. As people and industry increasingly erode landscapes, this little-known practice is giving otherwise degraded ecosystems a new lease of life.

AS THE LOCAL TALE GOES, THE MAHARAJA WENT UP IN AN AIRPLANE DROPPING SEEDS OVER THE REGION, PARTICULARLY OVER Dressed in a white kurta and pyjamas, with a golden THE BARREN WESTERN EXPANSE. THE MESQUITE DID GREEN spittoon on hand, the Maharaja espouses the idea of redeJODHPUR, A TRUISM RELAYED IN LOCAL FOLKSONGS. BUT IT HAD fining the cultural heritage his forefathers established.

AN UNEXPECTED IMPACT ON THE LOCAL ECOLOGY.

74 A host of methods were tried. Machinery. Then micro-charges of dynamite; but this shattered the rock which was part of the landscape’s heritage. Then somebody suggested working with the khandwaliyas, Jodhpur’s traditional miners who work in the sandstone quarries.

They had a unique technique. They’d use heavy hammers to “ring” the rock, and the sound made could tell them how the rock was interbedded and from what direction they could go with chisels and hammers to dig out the roots. Though slow, the team of 15 did the job.

“They have a wonderful understanding of the way the rock worked,” says Krishen. Two khandwaliyas still go around full time hunting down the mesquite.

While the slow removal of mesquite continued, they were also busy collecting native seeds, travelling to different parts of Rajasthan to find relatively untouched areas whose flora they could replicate. They discovered a key clonal site just six kilometres away, at the stable grounds where the Maharaja’s Marwari horses are kept. Overlooking the stables was a hill full of indigenous plants.

THEY'D USE HEAVY HAMMERS TO “RING” THE ROCK, AND THE SOUND COULD TELL THEM HOW THE ROCK WAS INTERBEDDED AND FROM WHAT DIRECTION THEY COULD GO WITH CHISELS AND HAMMERS TO DIG OUT THE ROOTS.

Now in its sixth year, the project has been a success.

The park is something of a clone of the region’s indigenous ecosystems. Each section of the park is watered roughly every eight days, and many plants that are now adapted survive on their own. In future, the watering should cease altogether.

“We help things along and let them be,” Krishen says.

Krishen, who lives in Delhi, has had a long history with the trees and plants native to India. Around 1994, the former filmmaker started to teach himself about indigenous flora. Tall, slender and bearded, Krishen speaks eloquently and animatedly about different flora, picking out their idiosyncrasies almost as though they were people in real life.

The seeds were grown in “[It] started really as a an on-site nursery manned by hobby to try and identify Vinod Puri Goswami, 31, who stuff and get to know the estimates that he’s grown as VINOD PURI GOSWAMI standing at a “clonal” forest,” says Krishen. He was site where native seeds were collected. many as 20 000 plants since soon hooked.

2006. They created a repository of about 230 species of trees, shrubs, climbers, herbs, In 2000, while writing Trees of Delhi: A Field Guide grasses and lithophytes, which grow in rock. The plants (2006), some friends asked him to help plant up a plot they grew were then introduced onto the project site. of land in Uttarakhand. He suggested growing indigenous species for reasons both aesthetic and practical.

Ironically, the mesquite also proved to be a boon; He explained to them that as native plants they’d be wherever it was taken out (they made up to 12 000 pits) pre-adapted to the existing soil and climate conditions, they planted a sapling. Krishen decided that the mesquite with the biggest benefit being conservation of water as had “done all the exploring” to find niches of water, they’re “used to receiving water only when it rains.” showing them where it was possible for a plant to grow.

After the first rains, they did a head count; close monitoring was important to this project. The survival rate was terrific, says Krishen, with plants mainly dying because of errant boars crashing through or hungry hares.

His friends liked the idea, but there was a problem.

“There’s nothing native to buy,” they told him, having scouted out the nurseries. He said they’d have to collect seeds “literally off the forest floor.” Helping out, he

75 trained two gardeners to identify native seeds in the forest.

Then they created a nursery from where the saplings were transferred onto the plot. The results after a year were spectacular, but then his gardeners were replaced by an ornamental gardener, bringing about an abrupt end to his hard work with the introduction of exotic plants.

“You can destroy a year’s or more gardening in a week and it happened,” Krishen recalls.

Over the years similar projects followed and he kept developing this self-taught methodology of “ecology gardening” which he’d put to test in Uttarakhand; collecting native plant seeds from relatively untouched areas that he wanted to recreate, establishing a nursery and then moving saplings onto the project site.

The benefits of ecological restoration are being realised by other projects happening in the country. From their base in Valparai, a hill station in Tamil Nadu, situated in the Anamalai Hills in the Western Ghats, 39-yearold scientist, T R Shankar Raman, and his wife Divya Mudappa, 40, of the Nature Conservation Foundation have been working on their program since 2001.

Their work aims to conserve the many plant species unique to rainforests, by kick-starting the recovery of these fragments; provided these areas remain protected, it will still take decades for their full recovery. It’s about “bringing the right species to the right places,” says Raman of their scientific approach. They work with the region’s indigenous Kadar people, who know the native species and are involved in establishing pits, removing weeds, researching, planting and monitoring. “What we’re trying to restore is not just the ecosystem, but also the way people relate to that ecosystem,” says Raman. “Reconnecting nature and people in each of these sites is a very crucial component of restoration.”

Although serious ecological restoration has a recent history of a few decades, Raman says, “The number of people or groups working on ecological restoration remains quite small considering the size of India as well as the scope for restoration across the country.” This is because it’s time costly, requiring sustained engagement in a landscape. And it’s hard to garner long-term funding.

But in Jodhpur, the restoration project has had sufficient backing. After six years of hard work, Krishen is excited about having created something for regular people, who are not necessarily ecologists or botanists and may not have been interested in native plants before. The park, arguably the first of its kind in India, is poised to open to visitors in September.

PRADIP KRISHEN, 61, an “ecology gardener” heads the ecological restoration project in Jodhpur.

Here, in the Anamalai Hills, industrial-scale coffee and tea plantations have enveloped large areas of tropical rainforest. The duo have set up private partnerships with plantation companies to restore degraded rainforest fragments lying within the plantations themselves.

“WHAT WE’RE TRYING TO RESTORE IS NOT JUST THE ECOSYSTEM, BUT ALSO THE WAY PEOPLE RELATE TO THAT ECOSYSTEM,” SAYS RAMAN. “RECONNECTING NATURE AND PEOPLE IN EACH OF THESE SITES IS A VERY CRUCIAL COMPONENT OF RESTORATION.”

Now, if Krishen has to take the idea of planting indigenous species forward, he has to manoeuvre through the mainstream, namely the country’s landscape architects who largely propagate exotic plants that “don’t strike a chord with people who know our native ecology.”

For him, ecology gardening is at a stage of “just raising its head above the water.”

76 Eco Logic For cool hunters the world over, green has long been on the radar. Recycled and repurposed objects have become increasingly more common and stylish, and practices aimed at saving resources are regarded as expressions of contemporary, intelligent living. But in India – a country that has only relatively recently discovered the wasteful and disposable quality of consumeris m – reusing, recycling and repurposing have historically been a fundamental part of the culture.

In this photo series, Bharat Sikka draws attention to some key examples of how Indian culture is still, as a result of traditionally having to make do with scarce resources and therefore adopting a thrifty mindset, largely inclined towards simple but inventive ways of reusing objects that end up prolonging their life, or practices that minimise waste.

Such methods are apparent in a society that, for the most part, still tries to stay away from wasteful habits and uphold an attitude of eco-innovativeness, one that’s intrinsically cool because, well, it’s smart, and efficient.

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NEWS FEED. Daily headlines at 7 am, takeaway food wrapping by midday.

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QUID PRO QUO. Guilt free shopping by swapping used clothing for steel utensils by way of roaming kabadi walas.

79

TOTE BAG. Nylon cement sacks are turned into sloganed, reusable utility bags.

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UNLIMITED EDITION ZIPPO. Candy-coloured disposable lighters last longer when refilled with butane from a syringe.

81

ECO FRIENDLY. India has long had this ecologically savvy practice down pat; using caked, dried cow dung as an alternative to fuels like wood and kerosene.

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MAISON COLLECTION. Beautiful old saris are enjoyed twice when sewn into a quilted duvet.

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DOUBLE COLLAR SHIRT. A look inspired for its function – handkerchiefs worn over shirt collars keep them crisper for longer.

Infographic by Reshi Dev

SLEEPERS BY DHRUV MALHOTRA SLEEPERS GREW OUT OF AN EARLIER BODY OF WORK, NOIDA SOLILOQUY, WHICH I BEGAN IN 2007. I WAS PHOTOGRAPHING SILENT SPACES IN THE CITY I LIVED IN, AND WANDERING AT NIGHT, I WOULD COME UPON PEOPLE SLEEPING OUT IN THE OPEN. I BEGAN TO PHOTOGRAPH THEM. IN GOOD WEATHER, PEOPLE SLEEP ON ROOFTOPS, PAVEMENTS AND ON TRAFFIC ISLANDS OF MAJOR ROADS. SOME SLEEP WITHIN THE GREENERY OF PARKS, FIELDS AND UNDER TREES. OTHERS CHOOSE A SEMBLANCE OF A BED, SLEEPING ON PARK BENCHES AND CHAIRS. AND OTHERS SLEEP IN TENTS, WAREHOUSES, GUARDHOUSES, ON BUILDING SITES AND BENEATH LOOMING METRO CONSTRUCTIONS. I’M INTERESTED IN THE SLEEPING HUMAN FORM IN THE CONTEXT OF THE BUILT URBAN ENVIRONMENT. I SEE IT AS A METAPHOR OF THE DORMANT POTENTIAL, AS INHERENT IN THE IDEA OF THE SLEEPER IS THE GENESIS OF AN AWAKENING. THE DARKNESS TOO HAS ALWAYS HELD FASCINATION FOR ME. THE SILENCE, THE HEIGHTENED SENSE OF THE PASSAGE OF TIME, THE ABSENCE OF PEOPLE EXCEPT A FEW TRANSITORY ONES, AND A SENSE OF DESOLATION DESPITE THE BUILT AND WELL-LIT URBAN ENVIRONMENT, HOLD AN OTHERWORLDLY QUALITY. I ENJOY THE PROCESS OF WORKING AT NIGHT, SLOWLY AND METICULOUSLY, WITH A TRIPOD, LONG EXPOSURES AND WITH LITTLE OR NO DISTURBANCE. THE LONGER YOU LOOK INTO THE DARKNESS, THE MORE YOUR EYES ADJUST, THE MORE YOU CAN SEE. I LIKE THE IDEA OF UNVEILING WHAT IS CONCEALED IN THE DARKNESS. I HAVE MADE MY PHOTOGRAPHS IN THE HEART OF AND ALONG THE BORDERLANDS OF CITIES I’VE VISITED OR LIVED IN: DELHI, MUMBAI, KOLKATA AND JAIPUR.

(SLEEPERS IS AN ON-GOING SERIES BEGUN IN 2008) PHOTOGRAPHS COURTESY DHRUV MALHOTRA /PHOTOINK

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MIND THE GAP

AN ENGINEERING FEAT IN URBAN MOBILITY AND CONNECTIVITY, THE DELHI METRO IS AN INVOCATION OF DELHI'S SOCIAL LAYERS AND A LENS INTO THE ASPIRATIONS OF A GLOBAL CITY. BY ADITI SAXTON

I owe a debt of gratitude to the Delhi Metro. When I moved back to Delhi from New York City, it gave a cherished continuity to the changed rhythms of my life.

Daily commuters everywhere know that while taking a train may be quicker, it also forces you to slow down.

The passivity of public transit yields an opportunity for observation and the Delhi Metro gave up glimpses of a city in arbitration with itself.

The physical structures of the Metro – spacious stations, spotless platforms, shiny coaches – are all garbed in a global uniform. But the prevailing precedent for train travel in Delhi is the grand old Indian Railways where, like Fight Club, the first rule is there are no rules.

So on one hand, signage on the Metro platform exhorts, “If you see something, say something” – that catholic catch-phrase of our terror-struck times. On the other, the on-board recording periodically has to ask passengers not to sit on the floor, or play loud music on their cell phones; requests that are unlikely to be echoed in metropolises outside India. And, straddling security concerns and behavioural behests like a colossus,

is the entirely original, “Please do not befriend any unknown person.”

It is a diktat cheerfully ignored by the majority of riders who are happy to chat about their commute.

A cross section of conversation cuts to the tangible transit benefits that the Metro has distributed across disparate Delhi. An art director tells me that from MG Road in Gurgaon it takes precisely 50 minutes to traverse the distance to her Connaught Place office. The same journey by car could easily add an hour, and there’s the deep monthly discount of almost Rs 4 000 in tolls, fuel and parking. To a young female student from Rajender Nagar, the Metro means mobility. It has made higher education at the distant Delhi University campus possible by providing a safe, cheap, reliable and rapid mass transit alternative to the crowded and capricious Delhi Transport Corporation (DTC) buses.

As much as the Metro is a commercial project, it is also a projection of the city’s complex, collective aspira-

101 tion. It holds out hope that civic values can be instated, political will can be mobilised for greater good, that consumerism need not be driven by cars.

It has ratcheted a substantial number of The physical achievements to prop structures of the Metro – this positioning. The spacious stations, spotless Delhi Metro Rail Corplatforms, shiny coaches – are poration (DMRC) is all garbed in a global uniform.

But the prevailing precedent the first rail venture for train travel in Delhi is the in the world to earn grand old Indian Railways carbon credits under where, like Fight Club, the United Nation’s the first rule is there Framework Convenare no rules. tion on Climate Change. The very cool regenerative braking technology recycles heat from braking friction as electrical energy that is then used by other trains on the same line. Phase I segments of the red, blue and yellow lines were actually operational almost three years ahead of schedule. A collaboration with Google Transit was announced last year and will soon bring updates on arrivals, departures, delays and routing information to smart phones. Aesthetically designed stations feature neighbourhood-sensitive art installations and galleries that promote indigenous craft or showcase local talent. If anyone asks, this metro is “world class.”

These boosters fuel the Metro’s publicity engine which has made tracks in media mileage to rival the nearly 190 kilometres of broad and standard gauge laid down thus far. “World class” is a phrase that is endorsed and propagated in all the literature and press the Metro generates.

Yet even as it strives to speak in a glib, global patter, the Metro falters instead into a typically Delhi patois.

There’s a disturbingly apposite example at Lajpat Nagar station. Two large informational placards, of the same shape and size, with the standard blue backdrop and white script are placed adjacent to each other, one in Hindi and the other in English. If you check out the English bulletin board, you’ll learn how fares are structured and also discover tourism promotions such as discounted one-day and three-day unlimited passes. If you only read Hindi, you’ll find instead an admonitory list of Dos and Don’ts: don’t use the lift intended for handicapped people,

don’t jump the flag gates. That’s followed by a handy chart of Metro-specific crimes and their corresponding fines. The boards are replicated throughout the station though not again in such jarring proximity. Nowhere is the information provided in Hindi translated to English or vice versa.

Such double-speak is firmly rooted in Delhi’s social structure. When I was detained by security for taking notes at a station I was frankly impressed by the degree of vigilance. After 20 minutes of questioning and a confiscated notebook, I lost patience and fluency and switched to English. In a matter of moments, I was on my way, notebook in hand.

In instances, the Metro is a paragon of inclusivity.

For an often ignored and marginalised handicapped population (who the Metro quite correctly refers to as “differently abled”) there are labels in Braille, grip rails, wider access gates, and of course, those elevators not meant for use by Hindi speakers.

This sometime schizophrenia is endemic and entrenched in Delhi. It’s also made its mark on the Metro.

In a usual rotation of “modern, state-of-the-art, trendsetter” the Metro media machine idiosyncratically adds, “pride, prestige and perfection,” which reach further than most branding jargon does. They may jut, but they are key spokes in the wheel. At their hub is E Sreedharan, the managing director of the DMRC. His super-hero moniker is Metro Man and he has helmed the Metro for 14 years with three extensions COMPLETION COST OF PHASE ONE IS RS 10 571 CRORE. THE FULL COST WILL BE RECOVERED BY THE CITY OF DELHI BY DECEMBER 2011 DUE TO: SAVING IN TRANSIT TIME REDUCTION IN CAPITAL /OPERATING COST OF VEHICLES LESS MAINTENANCE COST OF INFRASTRUCTURE FUEL COST SHARING OF METRO PASSENGERS NUMBER OF VEHICLES OFF THE ROAD REDUCTION IN EMISSION OF GREENHOUSE GASES REDUCTION IN ENVIRONMENTAL DAMAGE NUMBER OF ACCIDENTS AVOIDED ECONOMIC RATE OF RETURN (ERR): 19.98 PERCENT IMPROVEMENT IN ROAD JOURNEYS

102 for his term in office. He’s credited for securing funding, shearing red-tape and basically inverting the paradox of a “successful and transparent Indian infrastructure project.” The Indian Institute of Management, Lucknow, uses him as a case study for overcoming managerial challenges.

A deeply spiritual man, Sreedharan has introduced yoga to the employee training program, the Bhagavad Gita as a guiding ideology, and Hindu prayers for safety at construction sites; an extension of a personal faith into corporate dogma. At the Metro Museum at Patel Chowk, a monument to the “making of Delhi’s new pride,” he is enshrined in an unlikely press cutting: “Delhi Metro Rail MD offers to resign.” The offer, which needless to say was rejected, came on the heels of a July 2009 construction accident that killed six workers, the second such in 12 months.

As a leader who embraces moral responsibility, he is the Gandhian ideal. One of his many quotable quotes goes, “DMRC is not an organisation, but a culture.”

It’s his version of the vision for a metro as the vehicle for social and cultural change that emerges from the media blitz.

A world class Metro begins to show cracks when placed in a city which only aspires to that label. Many of the Metro’s meteoric claims cannot withstand close scrutiny. Prominently placed publicity hoardings contend that capital expenditures will be recovered by the city of Delhi in 2011 while the Metro Museum postpones that same prognosis to 2013. Based as it is on soft assessments of “Reduction in emission of greenhouse gases” and “Improvements in road journeys” the contention is largely unquantifiable. Even less defensible is the broadcast statement, “The Metro has already taken the share of 40 000 vehicles, saved 60 000 tonnes of fuel and saved 500 lives.” Minus six (at least).

It is a fact universally acknowledged that there is more to be reckoned than simple profit and loss. To be a global capital, Delhi needs to attract global capital. The Metro is an expensive piece in Delhi’s trousseau, assembled to woo would-be international suitors. Though it has been functional since 2002, most of South Delhi got decked out in construction barriers, drills and derricks, in the run-up to last year’s Commonwealth Games.

Luckily, the love of flashy finery extends across Delhi Metro’s ridership. It is a mascot, a symbol, a point of pride for practically every Delhiite. On a panel on “The Transformations of Delhi” on the city’s centenary as a capital, historian and writer Mukul Kesavan conjectured that with the coming of the Metro, Delhi will be a larger place for his children to play in. Every long-term Delhi resident lodges a recurring complaint about how “small” in fact, Delhi is; Kesavan implied an expanded future horizon.

As a regular commuter, I can testify to the present truth of that prediction. On board the Metro, time travels faster than the average speed of 40 kilometres per hour.

When a train slows or stops, there is a chorus of coaxing and cajoling. A ready wit trills out a ditty, which resolves into giggles or scattered applause as the Metro moves again. It’s a far cry from the stoicism of tight-lipped London tube riders or the annoyed mutterings of New York City subway commuters.

Such esprit de corps is perhaps attributable to the novelty of a luxury service so readily available. Even in the clammy crush of summer rush hour, the age-old Indian adage of “adjust” applies. The relative merits of a dozen perched precariously on a bench versus eight seated comfortably are never argued. More access for more people is all for the better.

OPERATIONAL HIGHLIGHTS ON A WORKING DAY (MONDAY TO FRIDAY) OVER 2 700 TRAIN TRIPS RUN WITH MORE THAN 190 TRAIN SETS AVERAGE RIDERSHIP IS OVER 1.5 MILLION COMMUTERS ON A WORKING DAY TWENTY PERCENT NON-OPERATIONAL INCOME, FROM PROPERTY DEVELOPMENT, ADVERTISING, ETC. MEANS THE SYSTEM HAS MADE AN OPERATIONAL PROFIT SINCE DAY ONE PUNCTUALITY MEASURED WITH A LEAST COUNT OF 60 SECONDS FARES FROM RS 8 TO RS 30 (17 TO 64 CENTS) TRAINS OPERATE FROM 6 AM TO 11 PM FREQUENCY DURING PEAK HOURS IS LESS THAN THREE MINUTES THE SYSTEM IS FULLY BARRIER FREE FOR THE PHYSICALLY CHALLENGED

103 This judicious portioning of seats, however, is irrelevant to those who can’t hop on board. The absence of concessional fares for poorer populations deters the very ridership the Metro hopes to reach in its slated expansion. Even after the recent fare hike, a DTC bus ride compared to a parallel route on the Metro can cost up to Rs 15 less per trip and is significantly cheaper with monthly passes. That’s a decisive difference for the disenfranchised.

Feeder buses are essential to extending access to the Metro. Initially subcontracted, the services weren’t up to scratch and necessitated a DMRC takeover. Now the new buses are suitably slick, but air-conditioning and efficient staff need money to maintain and this cost is passed on to the consumer. Delhi’s new pride comes at a price.

The thrice-revised fares intended to keep the Metro sustainable have rendered it unaffordable to many.

In fact, the Metro has not hit its own benchmarks for projected ridership. Initial estimates of 22 lakh riders per day by 2005 had to be revised downwards. Even now, it only achieves its new target of 15 lakh riders on working week days.

What the lofty ambitions of the DMRC are keeping pace with are its costs, an approximate Rs 26 000 crore as of March 2010. The oft-repeated postulation that the Delhi Metro has been running at an operational profit from day one is at odds with its reported accounts, which show in the red after deferred tax liabilities are incorporated. (see operational highlights) Part of the problem is that many Metro monitors are internal. Sreedharan’s own rigorous paper “Climate Change – An Opportunity for Sustainable Development: The DMRC Experience” is source material for many of the academic studies that are supposed to objectively assess the Delhi Metro.

This insularity keeps receiving cyclical reinforcement. The Metro can claim to have saved lives potentially

lost in car accidents without accounting for those lost in its construction. In a study partially sponsored by the DMRC, the Institute of Economic Growth computes increased real estate values from Metro developments without tallying damages to displaced Delhi slumdwellers. The DMRC has now been contracted to consult for other metro projects in Jaipur and Kochi since it is a profit-making enterprise, which, well, it isn’t yet, but the consulting fees should help boost coffers.

You can take the Metro out of Delhi but you can’t take Delhi out of the Metro.

International buzzwords still propel the Metro’s lingo and the jingoism is now rife. In an open letter addressed to shareholders last year, DMRC Chairman Navin Kumar explicitly states: “Now, Delhi Metro has changed the travel pattern and style of commuters bringing not only the comfort and safety but also dignity in the lives of millions by providing them a world class mass transit system... The Metro culture is spreading very fast in the country...

With implementation of all these projects, our country will fast catch up other developed nations.”

The smooth span from the local to the global is a marvel of verbal engineering as remarkable as the expensive extradosed bridge at Pragati Maidan. The bridge elides five operational and busy Indian Railway lines without disrupting service beneath. The Metro too sometimes soars past tangled ground realities. If only it could bridge the distance between Delhi and “world class” with equal ease.

It would be blinkered to detract from all the Metro has accomplished. But when the mega-development project connects with a meta-city narrative, the Metro’s lines don’t quite align.

When a train slows or stops, there is a chorus of coaxing and cajoling. A ready wit trills out a ditty, which resolves into giggles or scattered applause as the Metro moves again. It’s a far cry from the stoicism of tight-lipped London tube riders or the annoyed mutterings of New York City subway commuters.

Information boxes on cost recovery and operational highlights are replications of facts from prominently-placed displays at metro stations with heavy footfall.

As much as the Metro is a commercial project, it is also a projection of the city’s complex, collective aspiration. It holds out hope that civic values can be instated, political will can be mobilised for greater good, that consumerism need not be driven by cars.

104

THE NEO-FARMERS OF KYALASANAHALLI TEXT + IMAGES

V I V E K MUTHURAMALINGAM

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In 2007, soon after I quit medicine to take up photography, I embarked on a photo project which would take me to the outskirts of Bangalore. During the hour-long, early morning commute from my home to out of town, I’d drive through Kyalasanahalli, a suburb on the city fringes where I’d pass a recurring, dramatic scene in the distance – smoke billowing from a filthy, bog-like landfill, the stench from which travelled out to the main road. And dotting the landscape were tiny figures with masked faces working with what appeared to be pick axes.

I decided to visit and see what was going on.

the last decade and a half. The farmers had lost most of their land to a mushrooming Bangalore; those with title deeds had sold their farmland to builders in exchange for money, while the many who worked there informally, ended up having their farmland taken over. Whatever farmland remained was converted into a dumping ground by lorry contractors, who figured they could save on fuel by dumping rubbish closer to the city instead of travelling the extra distance to their designated landfills. So they started offloading garbage illegally, close-by to where these farmers lived.

The story of the community working in Kyalasanahalli was different to what I had expected; the ragpickers were neither migrants nor homeless like the many who collect garbage. They were a small community of about 40 people, some eight families who used to farm ragi (the crop, finger millet) and had become ragpickers over

The women of Kyalasanahalli first started scavenging in the landfill because they saw an opportunity.

They’d set fire to the garbage to burn away the organic waste and expose scrap metal and other saleable material that survived the fire. I learned that the “pick axes” were actually wooden rods with round magnets at one

108

end, which they’d fashioned so that they could plough through the garbage and pick out metal. They worked for about six hours every day, earning between Rs 150 to Rs 200. Their children, many of whom attended school, lent help whenever they could. The men came here sporadically, when they had a break from their manual labour jobs.

Soon after they started working in the landfill, the community experienced a certain exclusion from the rest of the society that lived around them. They could no longer find employment as housemaids as people considered them to be unclean. Others would stare at them when they entered temples. So on weekends, they started going to a small, nearby chapel for prayers and music. The chapel is more welcoming, they’ve said, and allows them to enjoy spiritual bliss, even if it isn’t their native religion.

I worked with this community between 2007 and 2008 for a period of ten months, visiting them at least twice a week. I realised over time that despite the nature of their work and the hazardous conditions – many of them fell prey to lung diseases and fire related accidents – they were cheerful people. I became good

friends with Anjanamma, 30, who warmly welcomed my visits, often inviting me to have tea and biscuits with her family, and readily shared her life experiences with me. Anjanamma had married at 12 and her husband had absconded a few years before, so she had moved in with her mother, her sister and her sister’s children. A strong character, Anjanamma told me she didn’t regret not living with her husband and was proud of supporting her family. For Anjanamma and her co-workers at the landfill, work breaks often involved chewing paan, sharing jokes and gossiping about relatives.

In June this year I visited Anjanamma for the first time in two years. She says things have changed. Rumour has it that the landfill site has been sold to a politician.

The dumping ground is now used less, as there are more residents living in Kyalasanahalli, who want the landfill to be moved elsewhere. With less scrap, there is less money to be made and the scrap metal buyers have also dropped off. But Kyalasanahalli’s women neo-farmers are now starting to find other means of making a living as labourers, workers in garment factories and as housemaids in homes on the other side of the expanding city.

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SO, WHAT'S YOUR LEVEL? A close look into the old-school Indian factory ecosystem shows how class divisions have been inculcated into modern-day workplaces.

Six years ago, in a previous avatar as a management consultant, I briefly worked at a factory in Hosur, a booming manufacturing town 40 kilometres from Bangalore.

In a sense, Hosur does everything that Bangalore no longer finds sexy.

Hosur makes automotive parts. Bangalore writes code.

Hosur makes machine tools. Bangalore designs networks.

Hosur is full of noisy factories, oily engines and safety hazards. Bangalore is full of computers, access cards and exit strategies.

At first sight it is impossible to think of two more contradictory workplace ecosystems. Both ecosystems seem to depend on competencies, values and metrics that seem generations apart.

Or are they?

Around a week into my consulting assignment at the factory, I was asked by my manager to quickly study the factory’s human resource situation. The factory had been recently acquired by a bunch of private equity

buccaneers and they wanted us to do a diagnostic of how things ran.

Just a day later, I realised something astonishing.

Between the lowest full-time position in the company – some sort of apprentice on the shop floor – and the CEO, there were 32 distinct levels of employment. Records indicated that the average employee spent an average of around two years at each level before being promoted.

In other words, if you were to ever join the company as a shop floor apprentice, there was zero probability of working your way to the top. (Let alone if you decided to take a break in between to go to college or business school and come back with some “degrees”.)

There was little chance of even making it halfway to the top. Assuming you joined at 18 and performed exceptionally, by the time you were 58 you could hope to get promoted 20 levels in 40 years. Which would make you a department head of some kind. But with yet another 12 levels between you and the guy on top.

TEXT

SIDIN VADUKUT ILLUSTRATION

SARAH FOTHERINGHAM

And so why would any bright, hardworking young engineer ever join this factory? Middle management mediocrity is the best they can ever hope to achieve even after a lifetime of exceptional performance.

So while the factory may connect these subcultures, by creating a web of professional dependencies between them, it also keeps them at an arm’s length from each other in their private worlds.

But in fact that data is a proxy for one of the central realities of the Indian factory ecosystem. It is this reality, and the value systems that this reality generates, that bind together the seemingly disparate workplace ecosystems of Bangalore and Hosur.

What is more interesting is how this factory ecosystem has also managed to creep or implant itself into most modern Indian workplaces that don’t manufacture at all, but sell goods or services. Even if you move from the factory to an IT company or bank, your position in the office food chain begins to not only determine your professional life, but also your private life and your priorities.

And the central reality is this: employees are fungible commodities.

More than anything else this “fungibility” determines the Indian factory ecosystem and the subcultures within.

The more easily replaceable you are, the less you are paid, the less perks you get, the greater the insecurity you live with and the more you assume dependence on your employer. The levels of implicit and incidental hierarchy this creates impacts everything.

The contract workers, paid on a daily or weekly basis, literally live from meal to meal. The shop floor staff may get subsidised housing and meals, which gives them a little more money to spend on alcohol and films. One step above them come the middlemanagement types who are in a little bit of a quandary.

Often, they don’t make much more than the shop floor staff. But have to maintain a lifestyle that is clearly a cut above. And this pattern repeats itself again and again.

In 2004 Jim Skinner became CEO of fast-food giant McDonalds. Since then, references to Skinner in Indian media rarely forget to mention that he joined McDonalds as a trainee restaurant manager in 1971 when he was 27 years old.

From flipping burgers, manning a till and resisting the urge to throw furniture at small children, Skinner went to heading a company with some half a million employees and $US 24 billion in revenue. A perfect example, if you will, of the American Dream.

While such a story is by no means the norm in the US, it is largely unheard of in India. Even in companies that like to boast of a meritocratic system of hiring and developing employees, such as some of the larger IT companies, succession planning – or deciding who will be the next CEO or Vice President – is still proving to

112 What is more interesting is how this factory ecosystem has also managed to creep or implant itself into most modern Indian workplaces that don’t manufacture at all, but sell goods or services. be a problem. This is despite the fact that some of them hire tens of thousands of bright, smart young people.

And have been doing so for decades.

What maintains this unhealthy status quo, however, is the virtual impossibility of movement across the two groups.

Fungibility is the enemy. Fungibility eventually divides an organisation into so many layers that mobility between them becomes harder and harder.

There are the educational barriers of course. Access to the technical colleges or business education that is necessary to break into the management levels is limited by either supply or expense.

Fungibility manifests in the factory ecosystem in a number of ways.

But these subcultural differences also have a certain social and intellectual impact. How can you revile the middle management, while simultaneously wanting to be a part of them?

First of all, it splits the employees into the blue and white collared fellows: the guys who make things, and the guys who talk about making things.

Usually they have different uniforms, different offices, vastly different pay scales and when two groups work together in such physical proximity at such mental distances, there’s an entrenched feeling of distrust for each other.

The guys who make things suspect the others of not knowing anything, being paid too much for hardly any physical effort, and yet somehow having the authority to boss them around. What do those guys know of hydraulic presses or aluminium foundries?

The “management guys” suspect the blue collars of being lazy, wasteful and ignorant of management and strategic issues. What do those guys know about marketing and sales and the immense pressures of Quarterly Regional Leadership, Markets and Cash Flow Presentation Video Conference Gala Extravaganzas?

But in the end the blue collars bow to the white collars because they know that they are slightly more fungible. You might be the best TIG welder of undulating thick steel plates in Hosur. But there are 30 starving young men outside the factory gate right now who’d happily weld with their bare teeth for a fourth of the pay.

Ten years ago I worked in a factory in Chennai that made automotive parts. We had dozens of extremely bright staff and supervisors on the shop floor who somehow could never motivate themselves to give the exams or do the evening courses that could bump them up into the office.

Some part of this lack of motivation, I think, was this mental ambiguity: I don’t like them, so why should I become them?

The burger flipper never moves to the corporate office. While the only machinery the trainee MBA enjoys is his iPad. The next element of this ecosystem is a lack of meritocracy.

Like everything else in life, even in the factory, rarely do good things happen to good people. Because the cost of replacing people is perceived to be so low, what enhances your value is never a skill or an ability to do something better than anybody else.

Nothing that can be taught or learnt or injected is special.

What is special is the ability to work relationships,

113 sidle up to the people in charge, or give the impression that you are meritorious.

coders remains untrusting of the “management” in their air-conditioned rooms.

Pick up any Hindi or Malayalam factory movie from the 1970s or 1980s and you immediately get a sense, albeit exaggerated, of how the Indian factory operated.

(Feel free to check other languages as well. I just haven’t seen any of them.)

They suspect that success is not based on merit or effort. They too realise their ultimate fungibility.

Most of the blue-collar workers work hard but with little hope. They usually look up to a poor benevolent foreman of some kind. While the foreman is admired by everyone and is usually a hard worker himself, the reward for his decent ways are a meagre, stagnant income and a CEO constantly seeking to destroy him.

Which is what usually happens in the first 15 minutes into a film like this: 15 years later when Amitabh Bachchan has grow up into an angry, young man, we realise that his father, the foreman, was betrayed by another evil blue collar co-worker. Who is now the general manager himself.

“How!” Bachchan, now a worker too, asks him angrily, “How did you become a general manager when you were just a grinding machine operator!”

Biff. Pow. Kerplunk.

Bachhan, the general manager and the audience know that there is no such thing as meritocracy. They know that it is impossible for an honest man to move that high up.

This can only mean one thing. Treachery.

Biff. Pow. Resolution. Title Song Reprisal. The End. Those films were simplistic portrayals of the dynamics of the factory ecosystem. In the rare movie where the CEO is benevolent, the workers think nothing of living in huts while their beloved leader lives in mansions.

As long as he employs them, and treats them fairly, he is a good, rich man.

Though more often than not this fairness does not extend to sharing any wealth.

It’s remarkable how much of this ecosystem has somehow metastasised itself into modern Indian banks, insurance companies and software firms.

Employees in these places may not wear overalls or grease bearings. But somehow those values and judgements persist. The front line staff of tellers, sellers and

The MBAs, managers and CEOs operate with the same white-collar distance and scepticism.

This is a pity. Because the great promise of the modern computerised, Internet-enabled enterprise was democracy and meritocracy.

In 1999 a professor told me how I should be thankful for the IT companies. “If those fellows didn’t come in with their HR policies and salaries and bonuses, you’d all still be working lousy jobs for practically no pay.”

Infosys and Wipro and Tata Consultancy Services, he said, were a rising tide that lifted all boats. At the time, during these early boom years, legends abounded of how an IT company would set up a stall outside a car or cement factory. And within a week all the new engineers would have quit, packed their bags and moved, abandoning safety shoes in Hosur for Visual Basic in Bangalore.

Today, the salaries may have increased. Workplaces may have gotten better. Uniforms become smarter.

But this ecosystem in all its modern garb won’t change without a fight.

First of all, fungibility splits the employees into the blue and white collared fellows: the guys who make things, and the guys who talk about making things.

114 DEADWOOD

AN UNUSUAL ENVIRONMENTAL INITIATIVE OF “GREEN” CREMATIONS IS BRIDGING THE CENTURIES-OLD PROFESSION OF THE DOM COMMUNITY, WHO MANAGE VARANASI’S BURNING GHATS, WITH 21ST CENTURY SUSTAINABILITY CONCERNS.

But while furniture and even construction can introduce surrogates or eco-friendly alternatives to wood, one practice that can’t survive without wood, for its employment is prescribed by centuries-old Hindu traditions, is cremation.

For the past few decades, the NGO Mokshda, whose name means, “the one who brings moksha (salvation),” has been promoting a different kind of system of cremation. This alternative, which uses only 25 to 50 percent of the usual amount of wood, could bring relief to families who can’t afford the cost of a traditional cremation, and also have a significant environmental impact. Mokshda’s system has the potential to spare millions of trees, and significantly decrease the amount of Co2 emissions caused by cremations, currently about eight million tons annually, which is about 0.5 percent of India’s total carbon footprint.

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A L E T TA A N D R É

Wood being brought to the burning ghats in Varanasi. Photograph by Aletta André.

Wood is scarce. India’s native forests have declined at a rate of at least 0.8 percent per year. This is nearly 250 000 hectares in the last 20 years, felled both legally and illegally. Up to 2 000 km2 per year is cut down for the purpose of cremations. That’s 60 million trees. No wonder the price of wood has increased by more than ten percent annually since the 1980s, compared to seven to eight percent for wheat and rice.

115 Though Mokshda has been promoting this innovative method for decades, it’s only recently that they’ve gotten Varanasi to agree to a future of green cremations. Cremation rituals are particularly important in the holy city of Varanasi, where Hindus from all over India take their loved ones for last rites; up to 300 cremations take place here on a daily basis.

But after more than six months of talks, the first step in implementing this system has been taken; the local municipality have signed an agreement with Mokshda and a design has been prepared.

Moreover, the local Dom community that manages the cremation grounds, traditionally the most important community when it comes to performing the task, has given the project the nod, 18 years after Mokshda first approached its leader, the Dom Raja of Varanasi. The Dom have upheld their profession for generations, basically earning their livelihood by selling the necessary fire from a flame they believe to be eternal and to have been lit by Lord Shiva himself.

Matru Chaudry, a short, bald Dom man with teeth reddened from chewing paan explains, “No fire from any source can be used to light the pyre. We pass on our holy fire to the families of the deceased with a small straw.”

The Dom’s other activities involve preparing the pyre after the wood is delivered, covering the body with cloths, helping with the burning of the body and clearing the site for the next pyre. “It’s a good, holy job,” says Chaudry, who also ekes out a living by hanging around the ghats, trying to take tourists to silk shops in exchange for commission.

On average, a family earns Rs 201 per cremation, says Yamuna Devi, a beautiful old woman who speaks on behalf of the largely isolated untouchable Dom community of approximately 2 500. Sitting on a bed in a dark

MOKSHDA’S SYSTEM HAS THE POTENTIAL TO SPARE MILLIONS OF TREES, AND SIGNIFICANTLY DECREASE THE AMOUNT OF CO2 EMISSIONS CAUSED BY CREMATIONS.

green one-room house just behind Varanasi’s second burning ghat, Harishchandra, she speaks freely about the Dom’s problems.

“Surely we would be interested in doing a different kind of job, but no one will hire us. We have touched dead bodies. Selling fire is our only way of survival and it has been for centuries,” says Devi. This is why the Dom have so far resisted all new cremation methods. Yamuna Devi’s eyes spark fire when she talks about the electric crematoriums that were set up by the government at Harishchandra Ghat in the 1990s, about which the community were not consulted. Though they may be cheaper, cleaner and more efficient than the traditional way, Devi says they would never be acceptable.

Luckily for Devi and her family, the electronic crematoria stand largely unused. They have never been popular amongst the more conservative Hindus that come to Varanasi for cremations, because of the absence of wood, as well as space for various last rites, such as kapälakriyä – the cracking of the skull towards the end of the burning, which releases the soul from the body.

This earlier initiative that would’ve radically affected the Dom’s livelihood made it harder for Mokshda to convince the community, says Anshul Garg, the NGO’s director.

“They had to know that this new way of cremating is not intended to replace them, and that they will still be required to do their work as they have always done.

They can continue to sell fire and manage the cremation grounds,” says Garg.

Further, the Mokshda system, he says, accounts for Hindu traditions, leaving enough time and space for all the important last rites. He adds, “Nowhere in the Hindu scriptures is it written how much wood should be used.

And that’s the only difference in our system: the amount of wood, and the duration of the cremation.”

Four hundred kilograms to 500 kilograms of wood is traditionally used for a cremation pyre and wood traders, who can be found next to cremation grounds or burning ghats, charge at least Rs 2 000, depending on the type of wood. This is the most significant cost a family has to face when organising last rites.

In total, a cremation can cost around Rs 4 500, says Jitender Singh Shunty, of the Delhi-based NGO Shaheed

116 This is an exorbitant amount for many, and often poor families who need to organise cremations have to resort to asking neighbours to contribute money to buy the wood, or in less fortunate scenarios, people have been known to steal wood from burning pyres, use old tyres or other material as fuel, or even dispose of bodies in the river before the cremation is completed.

The Mokshda system is based on basic scientific knowledge, says Garg, “We did not invent anything new.”

With a metal grill, roof and chimney, it provides for better air circulation and higher efficiency than a traditional wood pyre. Only 150 kilograms of wood is needed and the duration of one cremation lasts two hours, compared to the usual six.

The Ministry of Environment and Forests is convinced, and promises a 70 percent subsidy to every

municipality interested in implementing the system.

There are currently four up and running; one in Vikasnagar in Uttarakhand and three in Mumbai. Construction of 30 new units across India is planned over the next three years, with funding from a corporate social responsibility scheme under the Oil and Natural Gas Corporation.

But not everyone is equally supportive of Mokshda’s new method. Wood traders, for instance, in a place like Varanasi, obviously do good business. Boats full of timber keep coming in and at the burning ghats, the wood is displayed metres high. “I do receive threats,” says Garg, referring specifically to a “wood mafia” that have resisted

YAMUNA DEVI’S EYES SPARK FIRE WHEN SHE TALKS ABOUT THE ELECTRIC CREMATORIUMS THAT WERE SET UP BY THE GOVERNMENT AT HARISHCHANDRA GHAT IN THE 1990s, ABOUT WHICH THE DOM WERE NOT CONSULTED.

Piles of wood near the main burning ghat, Manikarnika, in Varanasi. Photograph Motherland.

Bhagat Singh Sewa Dal (Martyr Bhagat Singh Service Team), which provides free cremations for the poor and for unclaimed bodies. Aside from the wood, he says the pandit and other facilitators at the grounds charge up to Rs 1 500 and another Rs 1 000 goes toward items such as fragrances and ghee.

117 Mokshda, “almost everywhere we want to introduce the system.” But more often than not, he says the wood traders will either subtly try to influence the family members of the deceased to purchase more wood, or coerce the people who manage the cremation grounds to sell more, the profit from which is sometimes shared.

“In Mumbai, we introduced the system using 300 kilograms of wood, even though it can be done with only 150 kilograms,” says Garg. “But we have to start out gradually in order to convince the people to use it. Otherwise, they would be more inclined to believe the ‘wood mafia’. They try to make the people believe that it’s not true, that it’s not possible with so little wood.”

Similarly, Mokshda’s method will be introduced in Delhi. The first two units, under the ONGC programme, are currently being installed at Lodhi Road and are due to be operational by October. “Some resistance is there,” says Garg. But he remains optimistic saying, “It’s nothing we can’t handle.”

For now, the biggest challenge for Mokshda remains Varanasi. Despite an agreement with the municipality and the nod of approval from the Dom, it might take several more months before the first system will be in place. Here, the installation of Mokshda’s system will go hand in hand with a redevelopment of the city’s two burning ghats, which will see the grounds relocated to above flood level and space allocated for at least 17 Mokshda systems. Students of Banaras Hindu University are currently preparing the technical design for this. It’s a project pegged to cost seven crores. And with 300 odd daily cremations moving to the new system, it will significantly reduce emissions and tangibly change the face of the city. Until its implementation, however, it remains to be seen what the system will mean for the Dom community.

Although the Dom hold on tight to their traditional livelihood, perhaps their acceptance of Mokshda has brought them a bit closer to 21st century India, dealing as part of a globalised world, with climate change. While Yamuna Devi does not really understand what’s “green” about the Mokshda system, or why yet again a new way of cremating should be necessary, she is adamant about one thing, “Hindus want our holy fire for their last rites.

They will continue to come to us for this fire. Also, when this machine is here.”

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FISH OUT OF IMAGES

CANDACE F E I T TEXT

ANNALISA MERELLI

WATER A PIGEON COOP lined with discarded fishing net.

For generations, the lives of traditional fishermen who inhabit the tiny, coastal hamlets around Pondicherry, Tamil Nadu, have revolved around the sea – its changing tides and seasonal produce.

And for these villages, fishing is not simply an activity; it defines the way of life of entire communities.

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A VENDOR selling candy floss.

The sea is not just a resource but also the central element around which an entire social ecosystem is built.

Fishing imposes its rhythms on those who practice it from youth, and somehow steals them away from the central life of the community: most of the men from these villages are fishermen, who leave their villages to go fishing at night,

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PEOPLE refold a fishing net.

often for a few nights in a row. When they return, they sleep throughout the day or go drinking as a way of restoring themselves from such a physically demanding activity.

In a way, those who are responsible for supporting the communal economy become an invisible force that is absent during the daytime, and the fishing villages are a reality

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A CLOCK SHOP in Pondicherry.

animated mostly by women, children and older people.

For these communities, the activity of traditional fishing and the environment are strongly interlinked, having a kind of timeless quality: from the natural surroundings from which they source wood and other materials they use to build their kattumarams (traditional canoe-like vessels)

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UNUSED NETS are stored by being hung in a shelter on the beach.

and fishing implements, to all the detritus and refuse associated with fishing scattered around. Stacked nets and lined up boats are everywhere. Yet in a sense, despite living by the ocean for generations, the fishermen’s relationship with it is somehow purely functional: it’s the source of both their food and primary commodity. Their contact with the sea is limited

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A YOUNG BOY swims in the ocean.

to that practice. And while the fishermen are generally adroit swimmers, they will rarely swim for leisure.

And fishing rules the lives even of those who are not going into the ocean: older men and sometimes women sell and process the fish, or help to make and mend the nets by hand.

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A WOMAN SITS on part of a discarded fishing boat.

But things are changing. To promote the mechanisation of the fishing sector, the Indian government invested in it, introducing fishing trawlers in the 1960s and 1970s. Unfortunately, the investments were not followed by proper regulation when it came to the quantity of the catch and trawlers; both have grown exponentially having now reached a level of satu-

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A SCHOOL GIRL stands in front of a temple on the outskirts of a fishing village.

ration. Rampant over-fishing by trawlers selling in the export market has resulted in less catch for traditional fishermen.

Today, traditional fishery remains a somewhat sustainable livelihood. With welfare measures in place and at the local marketplace level, the increasing cost of fish – reflective of both demand and depleting numbers of fish – are helping

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A FISHERMAN uses his feet to steady a net as he repairs it on a beach.

keep traditional fishery afloat, albeit tenuously so. For now, even a smaller catch is bringing in a sufficient income.

Increasingly, many young men of the fishermen’s caste are less willing to choose fishing as a job and a way of life, and are now looking for other kinds of occupations, in most cases outside of their villages, which means the socio-economic

A MAN stands for a portrait in front of his house on a fishing beach.

dynamic of the fishing villages around Pondicherry seems destined to change. In these communities, men may no longer just be virtually invisible, but absent altogether, gone elsewhere to look for a more sustainable, and perhaps more satisfying job.

These fishing hamlets, where the fishermen are hardly to be seen around, are perhaps telling of things to come.

All photographs taken in August and September 2010, in and around fishing villages close to Pondicherry, Tamil Nadu as well as in Pondicherry itself.

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