Mani from Annai Nagar

  Manimaran is his real name.  But call him Mani.  He popped up one morning asking for work..and we agreed he can work :)
 He already lived on the land for 6 years as a growing boy with Perumal (he started the land), he knows the land.
  He is 22 years.  He is intelligent, innovative and knowlegdeable about local ways..
  Good to have him around.
  After the rains, excpetionally, delayed by a month atleast.  We expected the cashew season to be waning; but to our surprise it is kicking in well.
  It seems that because we have not sprayed the trees unlike our neighbors, the flowers are still there to produce fruit!
  Tuesday and Thursday we have children come over to play in the young forest.  On these daysm we cannot help Mani harvest the cashew.  So the last 2 days with his friends they collected in no time 1/2 the land which we alternate.
  Is he our worker?  is he a villager? as of now, i treat him like a little brother and work on myself if any lowering attitudes intrude a beautiful situation we have on the land with his appearance.  We support him fully.  We trust him fully.  We just advanced him some money to buy a bike so he can show up on time.
 

Chipmonkies

Mir, my son, wanted me to see the single mango on the only Mango tree in Vikas so he led me and I tagged along. But we saw that there was no mango anymore. Someone must have plucked it prematurely.  Instead of the fruit very low on the branch was a nest of chipmunks. I knew them well from 'faith farm' where I used to go on Saturdays. Chipmunks made nests everywhere in    the room I was given there.

              

A chipmunks nest is a jumble of soft trash: human hair, strands, hay, ribbons, paper and other 'building' material they find and put together, all tender and jumbled soft. Nothing impressive like a baya's  tunnels and chambers, etc. but comfy, I am sure, for the tiny creatures to rest and breed, is a chipmunk's nest. The one I saw on that branch was so low that I reached for it, for it looked abandoned indeed. I did not expect there a squirrel, let alone a baby.

I pulled it down to study it's structure etc. hoping to understand a bit that aspect of nature's intelligence. Perhaps while taking it apart the babies, which I did not expect there, fell on the ground. Mir saw them, one at first and then another. By their look, they were not quite three days old. They were tiny, their skin  almost membrane-like,  revealing the internal organs. And they were shiny and pink and cute and helpless. I knew at once that we HAD TO TAKE them home and hope for them to adapt, grow big just day by day enough to establish in their tiny, vulnerable frames the force of life. 

I clasped one close to my chest and Mir the other and brought them in and a part of their nest.

Four days have passed. One may open his eyes tomorrow!

But alas! The other will not. He was feebler of the two. He shut his eyes forever yesterday.

'I's : Pink I,Chenn 'I'

I did not have to Wiki it to spell  E N D O S U L F A N. Just wrote it badly and someone kinder took the trouble to look it up for me. Well, thank you!  Someone else explained what it is & does. Thank you again! That has made me that much more erudite but not immune to the effects of that DDT-spray. (DichloroDiphenylTrichloroethane.  I knew that one since 1977 0r so because Mr. Goa-pinathan, my Chemistry teacher in People's High, had taught it to us)  The spray, one hopes, does not carry too far because it kills. 

Another nagging summer infliction is conjunctivitis. I do not have to spell it badly because, like DichloroDiphenylTrichloroethane, I know to spell it. Besides with one eye and a half stuck together with a gooey crusting, WHOCARESABOUTSPELLINGANDSHIT! The most nagging thing about this infliction is not the irritation but the compounded name of the disease. Disease! BIG DEAL! Just makes you uneasy for a few days is all. Heard it around the time I became aware of the different functions of erection.  I was a small boy then. 

In school people called it Soreyeosis (I think, for it sounded that way) or sore eyes. We were asked not to look in other people's eyes and to wear dark glasses. 

In Konkani they simply call it "eyes".

Question: why are you wearing goggles in the dark?

Answer: Because I have eyes!

Then I heard some people call it conjunctivitis.  That sounded proper and important, like something used by the convent educated prudes proud of their good habits.

Later I heard that it was also called "Madras eye". Madras now is known as Chennai, yet the name of this infection has not changed! We must request Mr. Stalin to get a bill passed in the TN assembly.

It is called pink eye also. Pink! It really evokes the yuck. Red eye is out 'cause it would indicate anger. ( Shiva's eyes were pink with rage! Just joking.) Blue or any other colour is not right. Pink is apt but yucky!

But just as a rose by any other name would smell the same, conjunctivitis by any other name would...be the same bloody painfully embarrassing infection which forces you to wear dark glasses in the night.

Jonny

The world was tiring on its own destined cyclic rounds of birth, life and death. She went to Shiva to ask  for a boon. Shiva was in deep meditation. The world waited and waited. Shiva meditated and meditated. The world got tired of waiting, so she picked up a stone and hit Shiva on His third eye. Shiva was disturbed. He opened his unhurt pair of eyes. They were blazing with wrath. The world hid behind a mound of clay. Shiva said, "Who the **** hit me? What the ** did I do to deserve this. Come out of hiding at once!" 

The world trembled. Naturally! Shiva's wrath was not unknown. She remained hid but said to Shiva, "Lord, it is me."

" Me? Who the **** is me?" Siva demanded. The world replied, "Me, Lord, The World." 

"How dare", said Shiva, "you refer to your petty self with a capital letter? You are 'me' not 'M'e! I am 'M'e!" The world said, " sorry sir". Shiva, who was a compassionate God said, "Oh, alright, you come out now." The world came out. She stood before Shiva's  red eyes.

" Why the **** did you hit Me?" Shiva.

"Youweremeditating toomuch" - The world.

"So? It is summer, no catastrophe intended. I can meditate while the sun shines bright." 

" Oh Sir, pardon me, for you are ignorant about the hell created in summer when the sun shines. You have no idea!" 

"What the**** are you talking about?"

"Endozulphane, Lord!"

"Endozulphane?"

"Yea, I don't know how it is spelled, but it sounds like ENDOZULPHANE"

" What the**** is that?" asked Shiva. 

"I don't know. But you can ask Jonny." 

"Jonny? Who the **** is Jonny?"

"You don't know Jonny? Everyone knows him Lord. He lives in the green belt."

"Green belt?"

"Yeah Lord. He is from Australia."

"I have no time to go to Australia."

" Nooooooooooooooo, Lord, he lives in Auroville."

"Auroville! That little club started by Roger?" 

"Who is Roger?"

" YOU DON"T KNOW ROGER?!!!!!!"

"No sir, I don't. Honestly!"

"I am not surprised. Anyway, he died. He created a club of a few French bourgeois freaks who had nothing better to do but choose the best concept in the 'one world' theme."

"!"

"!"

"Anyhow,Johnny lives in Auroville"

" and you want me to ask him whatever it is that caused hell in summer time on earth?"

"Yes."

"Ok", Shiva replied and closed his eyes again and went in deep meditation.

Chaaru..uuuh

  So much to say and so little to say.

  Charu, we have worked together in theatre (oh those were fun moments) and can't stop admiring your work as a caricaturist!!

  and now of course , that you contribute to our blog :)

  Charu, Aurovilian by nature, his entry process was a joke..lives with Mirm his son and wife Paula.

  He is an artist, foolish, smart, conncected and cocky!

  Unbeatable you are, my friend, keep up your great job and training your son to become a fine.. :)

Evolution

Darwin or not, evolution is the reason why the earth has survived catastrophes. There may have been more to it, it may have started even before the gasses began...

In certain spiritual traditions they speak about the self existent, unmanifest zero who decided to create himself, manifest himself, so he created Maya-illusion.      
Evolution seems to have stuck at stage man. 

But what seems is not what is. look at the picture below, It is an ape evolving into human.

There must be some human already existing in some forest. 
Who knows, may be he is transforming into superman.

In Auroville's Vikas

The tiny well (about 2 ft deep and 2 ft dia.) in front of our home invites a wonderful mix of birds. Neighbor's cats and nobody dogs too come there to drink, and I am sure that there are nocturnal life forms who bathe there and drink from that well, but that must be in the quiet of night. Mongoose is not a night creature; it is shy.  I have seen bands of them around the pool at any time of the day.

I saw a pair of bulbuls bathing in there. They nervously hopped on the edge before mustering courage to dash on the water, barely dipping their wings and that fraction of a second contact with water seeming more a rustle of wings than anything else remotely connected with diving. Unlike us they do not soap up nor shampoo.

Vikas has hollow roofs. Ceilings are vaulted, so there are gaps between a ceiling and the top floors. Here parrots live. None of my neighbor has complained of noise during quiet hours. Parrots, when they enter their nesting fall quiet. It is only in the morning before collectively flying for their 'jobs' , they create a rumpus. It happens again in the evenings when they return to rest for the night. But only when they are about to leave or enter their holes in the pipe homes do they shriek.

Bandicoots and civet cats are there and I have spotted banded tailed raccoon-like animals. Rabbits and hares, chameleons, birds of captivating hues and plumage have caught my eye. 

I had found a tortoise crossing the street which I have released in the bigger pond nearby. He surfaces in the rains when flooding of pond heightens his chances of escape. 

Going by the various calls I get to hear from dawn to dawn, I can say that Vikas is home to a million species. They seem happy, and that makes me happy.  

snake hunter

Saedi's become a stalker. She prowls the Land like a cat in search of mice. Except instead of delicately hunting rodents, she's after much larger prey... She's after snakes.

She hasn't attacked any yet--thank God--but she's found almost every possible place they can hide. She wakes us up at night barking at the rat snake in the garden. It was she who found the snakes making love. And today she found the big one.

I followed her cries to see her inching towards a coiled up beast. Who knows how long he was, but his body was a good two inches diameter. And he had spots. I watched in awe as both Saedi and I could inch closer and closer without it moving... Was he dead? Sleeping?

Then it hit me: Does it matter?

This isn't a harmless rat snake. I don't know much about snakes, but this I knew. Cobra? He wasn't hissing and there was no obvious hood. So as I ushered the dogs away, I described the snake to Martanda--and later looked online--only to discover it was a "mature" Russell Viper, a poisonous and seductive snake. Eek.


Nice reminder that we are not the kings of this castle...

Biased Divine

Beats me how some things get fussed over and others snubbed. Perhaps it is a tendency in human nature to associate only with the ones in limelight and ignore everything else. Being proxy to the famous you get  sprinkled upon with some star dust. 
Yet,happiness is elsewhere somehow.

Aren't all sentient beings  equal in God's eyes? If one banyan tree by an accident of chance happens to grow roots in a patch of land which, according to some,  is 'holy land' ( God, one more!), that banyan tree is disproportionately hallowed.  What about others, says I? What about other banyans, for instance, which have grown within the same 'holy' compound of the great 'holy' land? Can they be cut and hacked randomly,  cement benches be built upon their roots. Why?

One obvious answer is this:- the Mother has not mentioned them anywhere in any of her many writings, nor any reference to them is sited  in her recorded conversations.

So what?

It is common sense that all trees are trees and they are significant, perhaps the most significant element that makes earth the living planet.

Tukarama, the 16 th c. saint from Maharashtra wrote such passionate poetry. One of them is," Vikshavalli amha soyari vanachari..." ( Forests (all vegetation) are our relatives...)

But then it is not uncommon among men that some relatives are dearer than others. One aunt gets more of our love and attention than others, because that aunt was mother's favorite? Does that mean that the Divine is not all that impartial after all? S/He has preferences?

Natural farmer - Krishna Mckenzie

  Back in 1997, i believe Muniandi, Kartik and i started this place called today Solitude.
  We did not last very long, we were young but lacked funds to follow up the work on the land which is very suitable for framing.
  Krishna came in the picture very gracefully! seriously.  He inspired and passionate of natural farming has created an amazing place in Auroville, South India.
  They eat of the land (99% grown on the land).  He plays the guitar and sings.
  Check him and his band at :)

http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.emergence.in%2Fnewsletter.html&h=efd95e6c251f0d08a45ffbcffeb66a39

  He is an inspiration to me.  Hard working, passionate for the land and is proving to us all the abundance, beauty Earth provides us!