A beautiful text

“Why does the tree grow upward?

What makes the flower blossom in beauty?

When the sun sets and all becomes silent, sit down for a moment and put yourself in communion with Nature: you will feel rising from the earth, from below the roots of the trees and mounting upward and coursing through their fibres up to the highest branches, the aspiration of an intense love and longing- a longing for something that brings light and gives happiness, for the light that is gone and they wish to have back again. There is a yearning so pure and intense that if you can feel the movement in the trees, your own being too will go up in an ardent prayer for the peace and light and love that are unmanifested here.”

- The Mother

Walking alone on red foot tracks through forest is an absorbing experience for me. Thoughts are controlled  as they traverse across mind's corridors giving me a poise from where to choose which to entertain and which to let pass. I became contemplative this morning, as I was walking through the maze of barks under the canopy of the Auroville dry evergreen.

In and about the world

  Well, as you can see we have not written in a while.
  Palani, Raja and Mani are taking of the land in my absence :)
  You can follow us abroad: http://martandabroad.blogspot.com

Cashew season 2010 over today

Another cashew and i will go nuts.
  This just reminds me, dont ask me why, but do you know the expression - not religious nuts but spiritual fruits :)

  We've reached the day where the scavengers (villagers who have the right to pick everything we miss) politely have asked when we/the trees would slow down; which is today.  Which concludes our harvest :)
  17th of April, the season really began.  At first you will have the odd tree given fruits before others at small numbers.  Progressively, it would increase first in quantity and then the trees itself would increase the yield.

  What astounds me is the quantity of fruits the tree gives, all to reproduce itself.   why so many?   

  Bending down picking the fruits is a task.  Walking with the bucket in your hand and walking bent down; filling up slowly getting heavier - makes your back work :)

  We start early morning, around 6am, before it gets too hot. The way the land is laid out and the way the cashew trees are spread out on the land, we eventually made parts of the land and collected those parts every other day.  Everyday we would collect easily 4-5 wheelbarrows! by 10h30ish we would have our pile of cashews under some tree in the shade to seperate the fruit from nut.
  Sitting on a brick or directly on the ground crossed legged, seperating the fruits goes on and on and on..and on! shifting position, stretching and sighing in between :) There are these little gnats (flies) that fly around the fruits, quiet friendly bees come too, small bugs in the thousands are all over, they creep on our hands and try to climb as far as possible or lost on our bodies; ticklish it can be if not irritating :)
  The scavengers, just passed by the house this evening.  I dont like it when they come close to the our house. 

  Yelled at them, nicely and friendlily, to go around.  Once they are on the spree finding any nut that they can under the leaves/still hanging on the tree/green as it is - that marks for sure the end.  No stopping!
   Thank you cashew trees for this years harvest!
 

green summer

  Yay, rains atlast.  Were they going to come?  so delayed!

  yes it did.  A green summer we have. thank you thank you.

  An ebony has grown 2 feet in no time! phew, an average of 1 foot/year for most of the trees.  And that too this is know to be slow growing.

  TDdeF grows slower then other trees.

  Fresh it has become.  Collecting the cashew though after the rains was wet and funny; picking them from the ground and passing by the branches made the water fall from the leaves and wet you again :)

  a good shake the winds brought the cashews falling the night during the rains!

Forest Facts around the world

  bumped into am article that Paul Blanchflower wrote on the Auroville afforestation and its history.  Browsing the site i bumped in this facts of forest around the world/ ooh la la

Forest Facts (click)

  what to do?

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.