Navdanya Food Stall

In anticipation of our upcoming trip to Vandana Shiva’s Navdanya, Shiva’s own organic farm and research center for sustainable agriculture, we visited the Navdanya food stall in Delhi. The stall is located in a food and craft bazaar called Dilli Haat. The bazaar is a clam, clean and eclectic market. It has all the charm of the other markets we have visited, without the shady characters and pushy vendors.
We got to the market just as the sun was setting; all of us longing for a delicious dinner after a hot day of cultural immersion in Delhi. The food stall is nestled away in the back f the bazaar. We walked through the sea of hand made crafts and textiles, only focused on our growling stomachs. As we approached the stand Dr. Sharda Naik (our coordinator for the northern part of our trip, to whom we owe many thanks) greeted us. Sharda informed us that she had ordered us a very special meal. All of the food at the stall is locally grown and completely organic. The food fits with the Navdanya goal of reclaiming the traditional foods of India, using unique local fruits, grains and veggies to prepare a delicious vegetarian feast.
The meal started with two local juices. The first was a spicy mango with cumin and the other was called bheel sharbat, which is a sweet drink made from the local fruit bheel. These two drinks were unlike any I’ve had before; the mango juice was cool and refreshing with a slightly spicy, slightly salty after taste. The bheel sharbat’s gummy texture was thick as it ran down your throat and the drink left a familiar flavor in my mouth that I still can’t identify.
The food was served buffet style on large platters overflowing with an assortment of colorful indigenous foods. There were familiar foods like fried yellow dal and okra and ones that we had yet to encounter like the amaranth and potato cutlets (which get two thumbs up from the entire group). The highlight of the meal for me was the bottle gourd kofta, which consisted of balls of vegetables and paneer in a creamy spicy sauce yellow orange colored sauce. The food truly tasted fresh and each of us had seconds or thirds. Even the roti, which accompanied nearly every meal that we have eaten in India, had a new twist. It was made with nine indigenous grains straight from Navdanya, giving it a rich coco color as opposed to the usual white.
When the meal was over we walked away from the food stall with belts loosened and big smiles on our faces, eager for the chance to see where this delicious food was grown.

A River Runs Through It

Two years ago, the Charles River was officially re-declared safe for swimming. It was a major milestone in the decades long effort to clean up the polluted waterway, marked by a major populist movement within the Boston community that garnered significant support from our state's progressive government. The river used to be the bane of Boston, the "dirty water" we all loved but was truly a result of over-pollution. Yet the restoration of the major waterway, an iconic image of Massachusetts, proves that such clean-ups can indeed be done. It shows that even the most waste filled rivers can be reverted to a point where swimming does not equal hospitalization.

The Yamuna River, that flows through Delhi, is one of these rivers. For decades, sewage and industrial waste have been dumped (and continue to be dumped) into the river with unfortunate enthusiasm. Few living things can survive in the toxic water these days. The proud water used to be the city's provider. It gave fish to eat, water to drink, and a place to bathe. Now it just smells.

If it used to be a symbol of Delhi's beauty and prosperity, the Yamuna has become the symbol of Delhi's growing pollution. Larger than that, it is a symbol of what India has become. A haze lingers over the country, engulfing sunsets. The dank odors of the street soak in the hot sun and overwhelm the nostrils. Delhi contains some of the greatest architecture on the globe, from is Mughal monuments to its Hindu and Sikh temples and mosques. Yet the pollution has the ability to transcend that beauty and take over the senses.

This evening we attended a "discussion" of a book by Sarandha Jain, titled In Search of the Yamuna: Reflections of a River Lost. We sat in an air conditioned room and listened to respected Delhi intellectuals discuss what could be done to solve the problem facing the Yamuna. What struck me most was Sarandha's comment that a restored belief in the community and beauty of nature was the answer. What angered me was the stubborn resistance of these so-called intellectuals to believe it.

"To save nature we need to know it personally," she said.

There is an undeniable truth in this, and in this undeniable truth lies what I believe to be the answer: education. It seemed to me, listening to the stuffy men around the room talk in their loud pessimistic voices, that the problem at heart was not modernity but rather the loss of a once powerful connection. Sarandha used the native tribe's spiritual connection to the river as the answer to save it. Yet I'm not sure spiritualism is necessary to save the Yamuna. It's logic. A river can provide us with everything. In much of our own country, rivers have become a primary source of food, water, and power. Without the Colorado the west coast would not exist. The U.S. treated our own rivers much the same during industrialization, and many of them are still heavily polluted with industrial waste. But, with enough effort and resources, a clean up has been proven possible. Yet, in a country focused more on catching up with the first world, is this ever possible? While it happened in Boston, a perfect representation of what "first world" has come to mean, can it happen in a place without certain post-industrial luxuries?

That is why education is the key. Not just in India, but in the United States and the rest of the world too. Humans have an incredible ability to learn and a curiosity that can never be satisfied. If we stimulate an interest in the environment, in community, if we foster it from a young age, than society will change with the new generation. We need to know nature personally, we need to understand the world that we live in beyond how to use it as a tool. The only way to teach this ideal is to preach it in schools, to show the youngest how vital each component of our biosphere is. Right now this level of education exists nowhere, not even in our own country, and yet it is so simple, so possible that it gives me migraines. I have been lucky enough to grow up surrounded by nature in varying degrees. And yet, whether the jungle be a lush green or concrete, there is beauty everywhere waiting to be discovered. We just have to open our eyes, and be willing to share. Community is a wonderful thing.

Just Before Bed

The river formed, from the Himalayan north,

heads south towards Delhi; the polluted and populated fork

where tribals pull, and others bathe,

but through no pleasure will the rivers be saved.

Where rain fell, cooled and froze,

It's now neglected and pulled in loads.

Its shores have sunk and its quality reduced,

and taken to areas to be introduced.

The answer is personal and completely ours,

not for the government to flex its powers.

Natural ecology is left at bay,

while those who understand have no say.

Is waste the real issue that creates the stink?

Or is it inherent in the way we think.

For the river is alive, sleeps and breathes,

and humans can control when the river leaves.

Will the river exist when our generation passes,

or will future eyes be jaded with toxic gases.

Gases from waste that historically were not so,

instead it was used to make life grow.

From the earth of the garden,

to our plants and our mouths,

organic waste was never blamed for drought.

Thinking of solutions that are biotic in essence,

are as simple as life in its most simple presence.

- Mr. Johnson

The Market: take two

            Another day in India. Again it was our first day in a new place this time Delhi. Our group had a free afternoon, so two students and I went out into the city. Our first stop was the post office. I am an avid postcard writer and had a few to mail. Finding the post office was an adventure in itself. We asked where it was before we left. We were told it was easy to get there from the hotel: just a left out of the hotel down the street and then around a traffic circle. We started walking and asked two men just to make sure we are going in the right direction and they pointed straight ahead building our confidence. Then a man in an auto pulled up, asking us where we wanted to go. Auto is the local word for a small open air taxi that seats about four people beside the driver. He was trying to get us into his auto. One student told him we were going to the post office. “The post office? You’re going the wrong way!” He then pointed in the opposite direction from where we were going and said, “The post office is that way!” Skeptically I tried to get our group to leave. The young man picked up on my attitude and changed his tune a bit, saying that there were in fact two post offices, but that I could only send mail out at one. Not taking the man’s advice we walked away towards the post office we originally set of to. The post office was on the other side of a traffic circle form where we were standing and on our trip around it the little yellow auto of our new friend came puttering up in back of us. The man called out, “The post office is that way” and pointed to the one we had been trying to go to the whole time. He drove off past us leaving just the fumes from his diesel engine.

            We reached the back end of the post office, which was not even a post office but another public building attached to it. We followed little wooden signs around the building to the real entrance; like a scavenger hunt. At the front of the building there was a big orange sign saying post office and a big entrance next to it that was completely closed off. We kept walking past it and there was a little wooden sign that said, “Post office this way,” with an arrow pointing into a gate where there was a stair way and a single door. The whole thing reminded me of a back ally way and I was not excited to go in, but the boys went first and I followed along behind; and there was indeed a post office. I went to the first counter I saw to get stamps. The woman did not really understand me. Finally I put my postcards on the counter and said, “I need to get these to America, how do I do that?” She got me some stamps, 15 rp each. They were the kind you had to lick, which I had not seen since I was a child so I got excited by them. I touched my tongue to the back recognizing the indescribably strange feel and taste of a stamp. That is something that does not change from country to country. After I was done I asked the woman what to do. She replied that I had to bring them to counter four. Which was the counter right next door to where I was. But no one was there. While standing at counter four I looked at the woman with a confused look. She walked all the way over, pulled out a stamp pad and stamped each of my post cards with a purple stamp. I asked her if it was all set and she said yes. She was completely stoic the entire time.

            From the post office we followed the arrows on the big street signs to Connaught Place where there is a market. The signs were sparse and we passed many traffic circles. I was worried about going in the right direction. I saw two young women on the sidewalk and asked them if we were going in the right direction. They responded that we were and said they were going in the same direction and would walk with us. We asked them a lot of questions: they were both Delhi natives, going to college and 21 just like me.  They stopped at a street with a market near Connaught Place. They told us it was a people’s market and that everything was very inexpensive there. Then they pointed further down the road and said the other market was there but explained it was more western. They waved good-bye to us and left us there.

            We looked over and realized that we were in front of a music shop. In the front window were guitars and sitars; it was a nice East meets West feel. The whole store was starch white. There was a black piano in the middle of the room up on a red velvet pedestal. We gravitated to the sitar section where a beautiful sales girl told us about the instrument and offered to play for us. Naturally we accepted. She sat on a piano bench and two men came up with chairs for us. We watched her play. I was personally mesmerized by it. The instrument, the way it was played and the sounds it made were so foreign to me and so interesting. To me the sitars looked so out of place next to the Western instruments; so interesting so unique. Yet it was still commoditized just the same as the other instruments there.

            After the music shop we entered the market. This was the market experience I had been looking for. It was nothing like the market in Kerala; it was crowded, it was noisy, and it even smelled. I know that these are typically the attributes that would turn one off from a market but I wanted it all; I wanted the experience. I dove right in, stopping everywhere to the dismay of the two guys with me. There was a whole variety of clothing. Plain men’s whit short-sleeve dress shirts, which are common in India. Men’s drawstring shorts and pants made with plaid cloth. A booth selling loose fitting drawstring skirts and salwar kameez tops. Others were selling loose fitting dresses with bright patters and v-necks, something not very Indian. There were also booths devoted to sunglasses, jewelry, and brasswork. I stopped to look at everything and put the bright interesting clothing up to my body then turned and asked them what they thought. Surprisingly they answered!

            I let the people at the shops tempt me in. They would always start at something crazy like 1,000 rp for every item and I would use my shocked face and the words, “No way! That’s too much,” would exit my lips. They would get quiet and say, “Okay, make a price make a price.” To which I would respond, “100 rp!” To which the reply was always shock and a, “No no no!” The game was always the same, I was always in control, I always got the price I wanted. Most items could be brought down to between 150 and 500 depending on the actually worth. I knew that I could get the prices lower but felt better giving them more money for their items. When you look at the conversion that is $3.50 to  $11 which makes everything bought a good deal.

            Not all the people had their own stalls, some walked around, following people. One man caught us as we entered; we called him the elephant man. He targeted one of the guys, I still have no clue why. Maybe he looked more like a tourist than the rest of us. But this man was right; the one he targeted is a sucker for statues, which is what the man was selling. He had wooden statues with black varnish on them. Two were Indian; one was the god Ganesh, the son of Shiva. Ganesh was the son of Shiva, birthed in secret by his partner Parvati. When Shiva discovered him he cut off his head. Ganesh was given the head of an elephant in replacement. Another statue was of the Buddha, Siddhartha Govinda.  The other two were Chinese. One was of a Chinese fishing boat and the second a Chinese version of Buddha, where he is depicted as a very fat jolly man. I asked the man why he had Chinese figurines as well and was given no answer. I assumed they had actually been made in China.

            The man followed us as we made our way through till finally our friend got one; a Ganesh. The man did not stop there, he decided I was going to get one next. Eventually this man attracted more men trying to sell us things. One man with wallets another with pipes and a third with postcards. Now this is the trick of markets, just say no and walk away. By the time we had walked the length of the market and back all of the 900 rp prices had fallen to 100 rp  and we were fine with buying them. But the elephant man was persistent. Most of the men following us fell away as we reached the ends of the market; but not him. This man followed us around the corner till one of the guys turned around and told him to stop bugging us.

Impressions of Delhi

I’m feeling a bit glossed over by the combination of yoga and unbroken heat so bear with me as I explain my perceptions of Delhi, the largest city our group of thirteen has visited on our journey through Southern and Northern India. For each one of us there are over one million inhabitants of Delhi; an estimated from 18 to 22 million people reside in the city and the number of informal and migrant inhabitants makes exact counts impossible. Not only does Delhi have a high density population but it has an annual growth rate of 4.60%. By 2025 New Delhi is projected to have 29.49 million inhabitants. The city’s population size is astounding and really, just incomprehensible. Only by exploring the parts that make up the whole of Delhi by train, bicycle rickshaw, tour bus, van, and auto have I been able to piece together the blurred images that make up a metropolis of such proportion.

Delhi is ranked fourth in terms of population size out of the twenty six megacities of the world. A “megacity”, defined as having a population of over ten million people, sounds like something a ten year old boy might build out of Lego blocks over a whole rainy day’s time. He adds and expands without stepping back to examine the sprawling web of buildings and roads he’s laid across the family room floor, his mind transforming the black and white patterned carpeting into a global hub of commercial activity with no regard for the consequences of unchecked growth. I was able to look down upon the expanse of orange lights that mark the city from my airplane window as we descended at night from the south. They seemed to stretch on forever in all directions with no real organization or structure, just a twinkling mass. It was only once I was within the megacity that I found Delhi is indeed a singular, living, pulsing thing, and it’s also a decaying, sweltering beastly thing.

My perception of Delhi formed through comparison to what I’ve known before this trip- North America, Europe, East Africa and a hint of the Middle East. India is a second world country, but having only visited first and third world nations, I wondered upon arrival what that meant; what physical, social and economic components coexist to make India “developing” as opposed to “underdeveloped” or “developed”.

Sitting in the back of a red bicycle rickshaw propelled by a spindly-legged young man in Old Delhi, darting amongst taxis, buses and the occasional cow, passing under a grey twisted jungle of electrical wires strung over the chipping corners of grey buildings, I puzzle why this quarter of the city has been left out of development efforts. Refurbishment and preservation of urban dwellings that have stood through centuries of change is not part of the Indian government’s national development plan. Historical preservation is a privilege of the global wealthy nations. Delhi is not a first world city.

From the air conditioned compartment of our tour bus, our group cranes our necks to get a look at the bronze men dressed for battle reflecting the hot strong afternoon sun in a road rotary memorial. Bronze is not for the poor nations of the world. Speed walking to the Khan market I have to step off the sidewalk and into the street as two glossy-coated Cocker Spaniels strain to sniff at my bare legs, their owner oblivious to her dogs’ doings as she talks into her cell phone. Pet dogs are a sign of prosperity, of having more than enough to feed one’s family, of high class. Delhi is not a third world city.

Delhi is a second world city. It has paved roads and freshly painted crosswalks, but the mangy stray dogs and barefoot beggars who cross over them have no care for the electronic timers. They enter the road with hungry eyes on you, not on the countdown. Delhi is home to a perpetual game of cricket, a once pretentious sport brought by the British that is always being played on some patch of grass or in some hidden alleyway. Anywhere wide enough to swing a bat is utilized by dusty-haired youth while green private parks stand empty, their walls bar the common man from a rare commodity in this megacity: space. Delhi is a metropolis of contrasts where hardened poor rub shoulders with shiny rich, rickety establishments lean into newly laid concrete blocks, Rolls Royce’s are nearly nicked by dented rickshaws and the smooth white domes of Hindu temples mark oasis’s of calm amongst the horn-honking, neon sari blur. Delhi is always transforming, never immobile, for it is a city of the second world, neither underdeveloped nor developed, but as I now understand it, developing.

The Rickshaw Race

         Today was an adventure. We woke up at 5 am and ate nutrigrain bars in a lackadaisical haze, unsure of what to expect.  Then we boarded a series of rickshaws and started off toward the Periyar Tiger Reserve. In 1895, the Periyar Lake was created when a dam called the Mullaperiyar Dam was built in Thekkady across the Periyar River, which put 10 square miles underwater, thus creating what is now the Periyar Lake.  In 1935, 232 square miles around the lake where classified as a wildlife sanctuary. Since then the reserve land has increased in size to make up a grand total of 300 square miles and it was dubbed a “tiger reserve” in 1978.  The sanctuary is supposedly a prime example of how humans playing with nature don’t always ruin it, but can sometimes better the ecosystem. In this instance the lake, which formed has proved vital to the animals in the neighboring area.  However, there are also growing concerns about the impact of tourism on the preserve. Approximately 34 square miles out of the entire preserve area have been opened to the public with limited access.  There have been allegations that staff members of the preserve have illegally fished in the protected area. When the area is so frequented by tourists do the environmental benefits of having this preserve still outweigh the negative impact of human visitors?  

        Our group went to check out the reserve for ourselves and personally experienced the mad rush of a ritual that precedes a morning boat tour on the Periyar Lake. We were informed that we would need to race from the park entrance to the docks where we would try to secure boating tickets. I run cross-country for St. Lawrence so I was looking forward to a chance to race the masses.  Apparently the morning boat tour was so popular that securing a ticket ended up being a test of survival of the fittest. It turned out that I was in one of the two diesel-fueled rickshaws that were faster and therefore were selected to be the racecars.             Mine was readjusted, after many deliberations to include Anil (our translator/scholar), Professor Jayman, Paige, and me.  After a period of waiting, the drivers turned on their cars, buses, and rickshaw engines, and the race began.  Our rickshaw took over a bus right off the bat and then continued to cut off other vehicles.  The driver warned us that he would use the speed bumps to go faster instead of to slow down. I got smashed into the side of the rickshaw several times.  No one was obeying the rules of the road, especially the signs, which encouraged visitors not to honk for the sake of the tigers. It was every man for himself and it seemed like we were about to crash a number of times as we cut off other vehicles. As a smaller blonde female, I was at a disadvantage immediately. Finally we completed the 15 km racecourse and the 200 m sprint began.

            The vehicles were stopped in every which way all over the parking lot, avoiding the outlined spots all together and blocking out previously parked vehicles. There was, a little ways up, a fork in the road. The boys who were in the other lead rickshaw had turned left, but a rickshaw driver called out to me a warning that the correct direction was actually down the road on the right side. So I screamed out to the boys, without having time to verify that they had actually heard me, while continuing on to the left.  As we rounded the top of the hill and jetted past what looked to be a main office building, I saw a bunch of people, who had been ahead of Paige and me, slow down. We were able to overtake them and came upon a set of steep stairs leading down to a ticket booth. 

            On the right hand side was a metal structure resembling a squeeze chute for cattle. The fencing was claustrophobic; it was just tall enough to make it next to impossible for anyone to climb out and it would be difficult for wider set people to turn around backwards or even sideways. I had to make a split second decision to either descend the stairs on the left of the structure to see what lay beyond or to take my chances and enter the cattle gates. The cattle gates appeared to be more promising and we were soon proved correct. They served as a means of organizing people and ensuring order in the otherwise chaos of a situation. Paige and I snagged what appeared to be the 7^th and 10^th positions in line.  We were informed that only 250 people- in 50 person groups could make the first boat which runs from 7:30am-9: 30am each day.  Tickets ended up being 150 rupees apiece and each person was allotted two tickets.  We arranged the party of names, for our group, in alphabetical order and decided who would be responsible for which names. Luckily, it turned out that we had enough people in the top part of the line to secure positions for all of the other people in our 16-person group.

             Afterward, I walked toward the water and was accosted by a flock of about 30 local people wanting to take pictures with me because of my skin and hair colors. Our entire group, especially the women, has been targeted for photo shoots. We are treated like celebrities and the local people thank us graciously after we pose for pictures with them. It seemed like we were almost a bigger attraction than the actual animals living in the animal reserve. After this hoopla, we paid a small fee for carrying cameras and boarded the boat. 

            We had assigned seats and I was frustrated to be in an inner seat since I was one of the first people in line to buy tickets, but there appeared to be a system and an order to the seating. Another student was right behind me and we tried to trade seats with our neighbors so that we could sit together.  We awkwardly mimed and spoke slowly, explaining that we were friends and wanted to sit next to each other.  This charade went on unsuccessfully for quite sometime. Finally, getting frustrated with the language barrier, the other student grabbed my hand and said that we were together, miming intimacy.  At this point, the guy holding the coveted seat said something along the lines of “ I understand English. I just don’t want to give up my seat”. So, in the end, the joke was on us. 

            Ironically, right after this conversation ended, another group of people with debatably the best seats on the entire ship asked to trade with us.  The reasoning was that one of their group members was handicapped and couldn’t make it up the steep stairs to the upper deck, so this revelation was bittersweet. Two teenaged boys snagged the seats that were supposed to be for two more people from our group and refused to acknowledge that we were saving the seats. However, they ended up being a valuable source of information later on in the trip so it was all for the best. 

            We secured our massive orange life vests and buckled down for the ride, which was beautiful, but anticlimactic after our intense experience to get to the boat. We got to tour around the harbor and to see a pack of elephants as well as a variety of birds.  At the very end I ended up talking to one of the boys named Jaisper.  He grew up in Kerala, but has been to Mumbai and was shocked at how bad the garbage was when he visited there.  He said that, in Kerala, citizens must use trashcans because the police uphold a law for this, which includes a hefty fine. He said that the high literacy rate in Kerala helps it to be a cleaner/ more environmentally friendly place.  I asked if littering came about more due to a lack of education or because people quite simply didn’t care and he affirmed the latter.  Ironically, just as he was explaining that Kerala is so much better than Mumbai we passed some trash on the banks of water, that we were boating in, which is part of the wildlife preserve.

       Overall, our venture was highly successful; we traveled by rickshaw, foot, and boat to see wild elephants, cormorants, snakefish, and kingfishers. However, this came at a cost. The boat’s noise scares animals away and the presence of tourists causes added trash concerns.  Additionally there was an accident two years ago when the people on board got excited by animals and all moved to one side of the boat to get their pictures. The boat tipped and over forty people drowned.  The humans present were an issue for this reason and in a sense almost acted as the wildlife themselves, in their overzealous rush to see the true animals. Likewise I acted as an animal, as a source of entertainment for them.

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Check out the preserve here: http://www.periyartigerreserve.org/

Sources: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Periyar_National_Park and

Eyewitness Travel Book: India London: Dorling Kindersley, 2008.

The Story of Santhwanam

Santhwanam is a home for homeless and abused women and children located just outside of Kottayam, Kerala. The women and children seek refuge from the perils of life on the streets or from abusive households. The orphanage/women’s center is run out of a beautiful two story white house, surrounded by jackfruit, mango and coconut trees. It is almost hard to believe that this building is an orphanage.

When asked, the head of Santhwanam told us that the house was a gift from God. Annie Babu is a Christian woman whose faith led her to open the center. The stories she told us about the woman and children were heartbreaking, but the story of how the shelter came to be was inspiring.

The story begins when Annie opened her home to a young girl that she found crying on a train. The girl had been abandoned; she was the youngest of three kids and was left on the train by her mother and siblings. Annie and her husband loved the girl like their own child; they even signed their names as parents of the girl so that she could go to school.

This first experience led the couple to expand their efforts to take in more children and even women whose husbands were abusive or had left them. Annie explained that as they began to expand they grew too large for their space. The government was going to be forced to shut them down if they could not find a suitable home.

Annie turned to the Bible for help. Opening to a random page she came across Psalms: 121:

I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help. My help cometh from the LORD, which made heaven and earth. He will not suffer thy foot to be moved: he that keepeth thee will not slumber . Behold, he that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep . The LORD is thy keeper : the LORD is thy shade upon thy right hand. The sun shall not smite thee by day, nor the moon by night. The LORD shall preserve thee from all evil: he shall preserve thy soul. The LORD shall preserve thy going out and thy coming in from this time forth, and even for evermore.

To Annie this was a sign from God; she encouraged all the kids to pray for God’s help. Annie believes that God answered their prayers with a story that ran in the local newspaper about the center as well as advertisements and a new website that helped Santhwanam to raise the money to buy a new home. In a matter of two days, over 50,000 Rupees were raised and Annie stumbled across a large and affordable house. It was the perfect size with the exact number of rooms and bathrooms required to keep Santhwanam running.

Today the house is home to over 50 residents, some as young as two months and others as old as 75 years. Santhwanam provides a temporary home, counseling for alcoholic husbands, legal help for the woman, even employment opportunities to get the women back on their feet. The kids there were so playful and full of energy, thier initial shyness was overcome when they saw the lollipops and began getting superman rides. One particularly mischievous girl would have everyone take pictures of her. She had a beautiful smile, but as soon as the picture was about to be taken she would make the most gruesome face she could muster. The home is run completely on donations. Annie refuses to take government funding. To receive government funding the mothers would have to be separated from their children. Annie explained that to do that would be against the mission of the organization. For more information about Santhwanam or to make a donation you can visit their website at: www.santhwanamkottayam.com

KERALA – what have I learned from her?

Kerala is a lesson to all of us, should be the lesson! First to Keralites who escape Kerala and come back with a foreign capital to build tourists resorts, and all of those who cannot stand relative equality; to Kerala’s plantation owners who have cash-crops and only cash-crops on their plantations, who do not feed their local community, who use the relics of casts and feudal and/or colonial system to exploit their workers just as some owners of resorts. The lesson to Keralites who would like to see religious tensions, because they think that their Hindu, Muslim, Christian, or Another rite is the proper one; to those who disagree with gender equality – Kerala is a ‘homework’; to some who want to have there the second Babri Mosque (demolished by Hindu in the 1992, after 700 years of its history), yet I hope that Kerala will win over radicalism and discrimination.

Secondly, Kerala is the lesson to the Indian government in New Delhi – as explains Dr. Usha Ramanathan, an independent law researcher and activist, in her talks, which I had chance to attend in India; as well as Arundhati Roy describes in her book Field notes on Democracy – India is being rotten by nationalism, religious intolerance, women discrimination, thoughtless privatization of the public goods and commons, structural adjustment programs that in many ways decrease social development, ‘wild’ capitalism, or even “state terrorism” – all of these not well-represented in Kerala can be healed by applications of Kerala Model to the Indian ‘Model’. Yet politicians and the new generation of people who became enriched on neoliberal ideology do not want to see Kerala in their ‘backyard’. It is easier to them to not see working policies of empowerment of the workers and the poorest; they do not know that change brought by current modes of development affects only small number of people immensely, and gives the leftovers to the rest.

Lastly, Kerala should be the lesson to all of us. It teaches, as Bhutan (that refused to measure the Gross Domestic Product - instead measures Gross National Happiness), that real achievements can come not always from the economical growth. The civil society, awareness, and ability to take own fate into own hands are what we need the most – those after all are the symptoms of alive democracy. If we believe that by giving our future and our lives in someone else’s hands either if those are hands of insurance companies, politicians, or economists… we are mistaken. After studying in the United States where so much is private and so little is public – I learned that the biggest freedom is in public education and in public health care, just as it is in Kerala, or in some European countries. We are told by neoliberal capitalism and social adjustment programs that those are ‘unnecessary’ spending in the national budget, that they ‘limit’ our choices and freedom – Kerala shows that freedom means that health care and schooling are public goods, not the privileges. That the biggest freedom is not living in a beautiful villa with a swimming pool, and a limousine in a garage – but in living with ability to comprehend lack of freedom that those give to us. Lukasz W. Niparko

The Tea Plantation

After exploring the rubber plantation and learning about the harvesting, production, and selling of rubber, we drove several hours into the tall, palm filled mountains of Eastern Kerala.  Our bus luckily made it through the windy roads that hung over the edge of cliffs, and the mountains began to turn into big hills.  The landscape was beginning to look more like farmland again and the bushes that covered the hills were lined up in perfect rows.  This was the beginning of the tea harvesting area of Southern India.  We pulled into the plantation and ate our lunch before sitting out to tour and learn about tea production.

We were taken into a small room where we were given a presentation about the harvesting of tea leaves and how they are processed into the tea we drink.  At this factory they use a process called “CTC” (crushing, tearing, curling).  Here they only produce powdered tea (the most popular kind in India).  The top three leaves of the plant are picked and once the leaves get to a certain age they no longer can make tea out of them.  The tea trees are kept at a certain height that makes it easier to cut the leaves, so they all appear to be bushes.  A lot of labor is needed to harvest the tea and it is primarily women who do this.  Many of the women who work at the plantation are from other states of India.  This is because there are shortages of labor in some areas in Kerala because of the high education level.  Because of this many people feel over qualified for these kinds of jobs.  The women use a tool similar to a dustpan with a blade attached to it to cut the leaves off.  I never would have guessed that that was the way tea was cut.

After learning about the process, we went on a tour of the factory.  The leaves travel through a series of machines and are separated into grades based on size, the smallest being the strongest tea.  We were guided to the side of the factory where we were given a tasting of a mixed grade tea.  We drank it the Indian way, with a lot of milk and sugar.  It was burning hot and almost melted the little plastic cups it was served in.  The tea was strong and sweet, slightly mirroring the smell coming out of the factory.  We were given a tin of tea as a gift and were soon on our way to our hotel, driving back through the tea and spice fields. 

So far in Kerala we have had many opportunities to drink a lot of tea, and we are beginning to see a lot of varieties in it.  It was nice to learn how much work is put into the process and learn more about tea in general. 

Rubber Estate Tour

This past Wednesday the Wizard maneuvered our group’s bus, the Castlerock, into the Chittady estate rubber plantation in Mundakayam in Kottayam district of the state of Kerala. All seventeen of us departed and were immediately led on a tour of the plantation by the kind faced, bowl-bellied manager, Jagdish. He walked us down a gravel drive past sunny fields of pineapples and let us take a few with us. The pineapples crops are grown by other farmers who lease the land from the rubber estate owners. The estate owner explained that they often use cover crops in between the rubber trees so as to absorb nitrogen and enrich the soil. The acidic level of the soil is a critical factor controlled in the rubber industry, as the trees require a level of between 5 and 5.5 pH in order to thrive. Rubber trees grow quickly, I learned as I peered up the trunk of a twenty five foot tree that was only three years old. The estate has thousands of such trees, all ranging between one and thirty two years old. It is a prosperous sector in Kerala’s economy and produces everything from car tires to condoms, band-aids and tar.
The co-owner walked us into the shade of a latex tree forest, telling us as he stopped besides a trunk that each tree is tapped for twenty five years and each cut mark sealed with adhesive, patching up old wounds, marks one year’s use. After the trees have passed their prime latex giving age, they are used in the plywood industry. The whole operation sounds a lot more sustainable than I’d expected. No stories of human laborer exploitation, overuse of land, or overharvesting of trees here. Men and women are hired in equal numbers and while wages are lower than those of most agricultural workers, they are much higher than in many other parts of the world and in differing Indian states. I was pleased to hear that women make the same wages as men do.
Thomas, the thinner, spectacled estate owner told us that people are starting to appear from other parts of the sub continent in search of tapping jobs in Kerala. Tappers are done with their work by 11:00 or 12:00 in the afternoon and can then go work other agricultural jobs. Laborers are additionally aided by the state as small holders, who make up 95% of all involved in the sector, are initially subsidized. Each tapper’s job includes using machetes to cut slits in the tree trunks of the four hundred latex trees in their plot, collecting the white slippery liquid in pails, and later the thin stretchy extra drippings which are bundled and sold to tire manufacturers. Their wages are determined every three years by a tripartite group including the state, the worker’s union, and the owners. Each tapper has to sell a minimum of eight kilos of latex and currently priced at two hundred and twenty rupees for each kilo, that puts workers in a fair place.
Prices didn’t always used to be as high as they are now. Just five years ago one kilo collected only thirty five to forty rupees. The new price can closely be connected to the spiking global prices of oil. Additionally rubber prices are raising in accordance with global demand increases. China is the largest consumer of natural rubber and as the Chinese economy grows and produces much of the world’s goods, churns more cars out and puts more tires on tar roads, latex is increasingly involved. Thomas sees no need to worry about global competition undercutting Kerala’s rubber industry. Kerala produces 95% of rubber in India, 755,000 tonnes whereas India as a whole produces 825,000 tonnes. Thomas’ company is thriving, drawing 7,000 kilos per day; the cheaper producers of Indonesia are of no threat to Kerala’s rubber estates. This was my favorite component of our trip this far, as I felt like we were in the field communicating with local agriculturalist and getting an in-depth look at one of India’s leading industries.

Pallikoodam

Pallikoodam, the academic brainchild of Mary Roy, mother of famous writer Arundhati Roy, is a progressive, interdisciplinary, and highly educational elementary-high school. Nestled on a little hill in the town of Kotayyam in the backwaters of Kerala, Pallikoodam blends dedicated students and equally committed teachers, providing each student an education in Malayalam, English, and Hindi. On top of engaging in what one student called a “difficult course load,” with “the toughest marks in India,” the students spend half of their day practicing yoga, drama, and swimming, coupled with other untraditional school-time activities. As one might expect from activist Mary Roy, the students are taught the ever too untaught gift of community action, with significant emphasis on environmental and social activism.  Mary Roy's long, rich history of women's activism, peaked with her 1986 supreme court victory, is deserving of tremendous recognition, and in many ways, Pallikoodam bolsters her legacy of activism.

Upon our arrival, the students impressed us with a play about dowry marriages and the suppression of women. The play dealt with intellectual discourse far beyond the standard of most 10th and 12th graders. According to the students, some time ago they created an even more moving play about an Endosulfane plant in Kottayam. They performed the play outside the plant in protest of pollution and worker rights, which brought observers to tears and ultimately led to the closure of the plant.
The students at this school received what seemed to be some of the best, most diverse education in the world. Two teachers in every class, beautiful, carefully architected buildings, and a swimming pool were just a few of the benefits. But high quality education with luxuries doesn’t come without a cost; the students of Pallikoodam are of the elite social and economic tear of Kerala. In fact, only 1-2 scholarships are offered per class, and administrators stated that this was for the ‘students to interact with all types of people.’ Though activism was embodied in the curriculum, it was not carried into distributive justice through scholarship.  Mary Roy explained that she attempted to bring in students from a nearby orphanage, but that even their Malayalam was not satisfactory enough to keep up with the standards of Pallikoodam, which sheds light on a complicated slew issues of India's education and income gaps, even in Kerala.

According to Anil Verghase, the scholar, as well as June, a school administrator, there are basically two types of public school and three tiers of private as well as charter . The two types of public are state funded schools taught in English, and state funded schools taught in Malayalam, the latter being much more common. The private system, largely taught exclusively in English, has tiers divided by cost and quality. Pallikoodam is on the top of this hierarchy, as one of the most expensive and high profile schools in Kerala.

Overall, the school offers a high quality, alternative-style education. Yet, in order to truly embody the social justice mission of the school, changes must be made in the type of students who have access to such education. It is clear that certain financial obstacles stand in the way of empowering the poor through high-quality, attention to detail schools such as Pallikoodam. But if Mary Roy is to bolster social justice, mere teaching isn’t enough. Social justice is the tool of the poor for the benefit of the poor. Without educating the poor, the mission of social justice will never be achieved.

Luke Kaplan

Kerala Backwaters

    As we approached the pier to begin our day, the comfort of cloudy skies diluted the sharp bright rays that are typically absorbed during the hours before high noon. The cool breeze blew briskly across the dark green fresh water of Lake Vembranrd, rippling in the slow churn of the diesel powered engine that propelled our houseboat for the day. We eagerly awaited a chance to step aboard the iconic vessel that dots the horizon of these dark waters from dusk to dawn. Here in the land of the coconuts, these boats are the face of ecotourism that has brought so many to the backwaters of Kerala. Now it was our chance to set sail on the water system that since the 1st century had been Kerala’s primary mode of transportation and exchange.

    Within minutes of boarding the one hundred and three foot vessel we were greeted by M.R. Krishna Varier’s, our guide and informant on the rich history of Lake Vembranrd, with ripe coconuts that were chopped and prepared as refreshments to combat the thirst spurred by the damp and relentless heat. Mr. Varier, we would find was one of the first to bring ecotourism to this part of Kerala, and has been operating tours for over 35 years.  It came at no surprise in the land of the coconuts that the canopy in which provided the cooling shade aboard our houseboat was hand built from native bamboo, and was tightly fixed with rope construed from coconut shells. As the crew pushed off and we escaped the thick marshy wetlands that dominate the lakes inlets, we gathered ourselves and prepared for a day on the water.

    Before the introduction of automobiles in Kerala, these house boats were the dominant form of transportation and were previously seen in greater numbers along the elongated man made canals that connected the southern tip of India. Today, the boats are abundant, yet the thought of busier waters became increasingly clearer as we advanced towards the narrow canals in which Keralites had settled more than a thousand years past in pursuit of rice patty cultivation.

    The distinction between the waters we traversed and the low lying patty fields became apparent as we entered the canals surrounded by the thick green vegetation.  The thin and manmade strips of land that divided the waterways were populated by local farmers, whose unique and earthy homes melted into the passing landscape.  It is astonishing to see life flourish as it does in Kerala, and never before had I observed a group of people live so simply in accordance with their surroundings.  As we passed we observed local men and women bathing in the cooling waters, barely acknowledging our foreign presence.  For these people life in the backwaters was ordinary and to our unfamiliar eyes the sight of life in these sparse strip of land construed pure inspiration and hope.  In our daily lives we are so utterly removed from the source of our resources, yet here in these canals, the source of their survival is all within sight. From the seemingly worthless shell of a coconut to the pain of hauling ones water for the day, nothing can be taken for granted and as it appears, nothing is.    

   After nearly five hundred clicks of my camera we arrived back at the pier of our departure with bellies full of local pearl spot fish, coconut water, Masala tea, and above all, as Bill McKibben emphasizes, a glimpse of what it means to live lightly on the earth.

    

Early Morning Thoughts

         It was a pleasant change waking up to sounds of nature. The bustling city of Trivandrum woke me up with the rude double-honks of cars communicating and navigating the reckless streets and the stuttering purr of the small, noisy Rick-Shaw engines starting up for early fares. But out here in Kumarakom, it was the quaint sounds of nature: nasally caws, high-pitched tweets, seesawing whistles, lulling palm leaves and rippling waters.

        I slid the door out onto the balcony of our hotel room and heavy air immediately sagged my shirt as I gazed out at another musky morning. I begged for a cooling breeze as I scanned the early-morning horizon, the sun still hidden behind a humid haze. “This is the India I came to see,” I thought as I stared out over the lake. A slender, shirtless man propelled a small skid through the water with a long bamboo pole, his white, wispy beard trailing in the wind. I thought of Hemmingway’s Old Man At Sea as the scrawny man propelled the boat with ease, lifting and switching the bamboo to hold a straightened course.

        Suddenly, a motorboat plowed into view, a whitewash wake forking behind it as it swerved carelessly to the screaming enjoyment of its passengers. Something seemingly trivial, but it struck a chord with me. Perhaps it was a sign of something much greater, a transition in Kerala, or maybe the more operative word would be an 'invasion.' An invasion of Western ideals, of capitalism, of neo-liberalism taking hold in this distant east land: the growth of a wealthier class slowly emerging from the masses.
        As the sun broke through the hazed horizon, new sounds began to take hold. The vrooming purr of motorboats and houseboats faded out nature’s morning calls as the paddy field tours began. Their passengers weren’t Westerners, but Indians, from Punjab and other richer Northern states. They had travelled down to visit what was remaining of India’s natural beauty and untainted wilderness. To witness communities still living with nature, still washing their clothes by beating them on stones by the river, still building their homes from felled trees nearby, still growing food and livelihoods from the soil of the small plots allotted to them. But these new sounds, the purring engines, they were sounds of change: the sounds of a world of less, slowly, but surely, transforming into a world of excess.

From Poznań to Kochi

Now, it is time for Kochi…

         Kochi is one of the most beautiful Indian cities I have seen. Especially when oversized and overpopulated places like Delhi are not your favorites. The region of Kerala and Kochi itself can be a great alternative to the North of India. The coast gives humidity, and temperatures here are lower than in Delhi.

To Kerala sailed and here died Vasco da Gama, and along with him Poznańer – Gaspar da Gama, who next to such Poznańers as Paweł Edmund Strzelecki and Kazimierz Nowak, has extraordinary biography of a discoverer. Some people believe that he also died in Kerala. In Kochi, in the church of St. Francis, nota bene, the oldest in India, was the tomb of Vasco da Gama – was, because his body was moved to Portugal few years after his death. Kochi is also famous for the oldest in India synagogue - it used to be a vivid center of Indian Judaism. The Chinese fishnets are very interesting piece of landscape here - the net is attached to a high pole and operated with the force of four or five men. This method survived untouched for hundreds of years, and until now feeds people of Kerala as well as coming to her tourists.

Lukasz W. Niparko

National Park(ing)

     Today, I could discover that tourism can lead to the evolution of the National Park into a tourist trap. An artificial lake, metal oil run boats, hundreds of tourists clumped together – all of these under the name of Periyar National Park – also known as Thekkady (which is the name of a closest city to this place, famous of its marital art - Kalarippayattu). This place rich in beautiful nature, elephants, birds, hills, and forests –is also filled with wastes from the oil-boats, trash, noises coming from dozens of vehicles trying to as fast as possible deliver tourists to the park. Multiple rickshaws and cars make the entrance to this National Park, a real National Park(ing)! Some also could say that anyway this is better than nothing, easily it could be there a housing estate or an incinerator instead of this beautiful natural world it is just so difficult to satisfy us human and at the same time protect the nature (this is so true for all of us, in Poland, in the US, everywhere).

* In the heart of the Park there is a reserve dedicated to the restitution of tigers’ population. This reserve is not accessible for tourists.

Lukasz W. Niparko

Plantations

Kerala has seacoast and lowlands on her Western border, but going further we meet highlands and hills that for me who comes from Poznań in the middle of flat Wielkopolska – those hills are real mountains. On this hills/mountains originates tea – the product that we can find in (I am almost sure) every Polish home. Before we discovered that we can drink it, tea was growing much higher than today, now it is ‘adjusted’ to the height of people picking its leaves. It is hard to believe when you stand in the middle of such plantation that one day ‘all of these’ will end up in a teapot.

Big plantations, and ‘big’ planters, honestly to me, do not fit in the socialistic picture of Kerala, even when they make only one percent of the population of this region; they have thousands of hectares what puts the system of that place called “Socialism” in a weird “limbo.” It seems that the Socialists of Kerala skipped the chapter on ‘de-kulakization’ in constructing their Socialism, keeping plantations as the exception that brings large profits. Plantations are not all about tea, but also give natural rubber, pine apples, pepper, and other products – sold to other parts of the world for much higher prize. (On the picture you can see below is a man cleaning the melioration ditches and women coming back from picking up tea leaves).

Lukasz W. Niparko

They Demand RESPECT

While visiting Kerala, Southwestern part of India, no one should miss  Kerala’s spectacular Backwaters that in the past were used as rice plantations, but today became a tourist attraction showing, both natural beauty and the sustainable way human can utilize the natural environment with respect to the nature. The Backwaters are also witnesses to the multiple transformations through which Kerala has gone in the past decades – from colonialism through socialism, to… tourism which plays an important role in the local economy today. And, tremendously affects the Backwaters and their inhabitants.

In such places like The Backwaters that became a point of interest to the tourists from all over the world and the place of establishment of vast resorts; the model of relative equality that has been created since 1957, (the first elections in the world won by the Socialists), is under the thread. Tourism made here a new model, much more similar to the feudal/colonial past, than desired by the Socialists and workers equality – the model of exploitations that silently takes place behind the high walls of resorts. Here tourism affects almost every sphere of people’s life.

Resorts, founded by the foreign capital or the capital of those who emigrated from Kerala to the Middle East (1/6 of Keralites has done so), are being ruled as Greek polis – they are countries within themselves, except that there is no place for democracy there, and that the strata of ‘quasi-slaves’ is very developed there, existing next to the strata of their masters, and unaware of anything tourists. Once the worker of a resort crosses the gates, has to obey any demand of his ‘master’ who often does not obey any workers’ conduct, including restricted time of work. It is very sad that those places with plasma TVs, fitness centers, and swimming pools—five star quality—have a common trait: the exploitation of workers that on the scale reaches ‘negative’ five stars margin.

This new order is very difficult to accept especially to inhabitants of Kerala, who since 1957 have embraced the workers unions and strive for the respect for everyone. This achievement is being dismantled nowadays, by the management of resorts, who prefer not to see the unions on their background. Those who do not accept the new order of things or humiliation – have to leave, some begin to resist…

I had a chance to witness such resistance by driving on the streets close to resorts. Honestly, for the first time when I passed the strikers I thought they are a bunch of men wanting to make money by selling socialist flags with its easily distinguishable hammer and sickle. However, when I stopped to talk to them it turned out that they are workers on the strike, who insist on staying on that place few meters from the gate of the resort where they used to work. There were about 10 to 15 men there, trying to voice grievances and argue for their rights in heat hovering around of 30 degrees Celsius or about 86 degrees Fahrenheit. They have been there since May 2^nd. They said that if this would not help, there will be other unionists coming from the regional office; if this will not help… there will be more serious protests; I am afraid that this might involve violence—these men are desperate. Their postulates are not sophisticated in regards to what someone who watches them may think – they do not want higher wages! They only demand respect; respect that was refused to them and their colleagues behind the resort’s gates.

The resort in which they used to work has five stars standard - not in every aspect as we see in regards to the treatment of the workers. The resort is funded by capital that is in India located in Bangalore, but in fact comes from the Middle East the workers say. This company has also its branches in the United Kingdom. Moreover, the chapter in Kumarakom was named among the best in India.

      

   As I thought about this situation, it occurred to be the “double movement” of resistance towards the free market system described by Karl Polanyi in his Great Transformation (1954), and was shown in action on the streets in Kumarakom. Unfortunately, without recognition of the local media or the resort’s management that was the subject of the protest, the former workers were isolated and their rights ignored, or so it seems. The only acknowledgment was made by the local police that appeared after approximately 10 minutes of our talk with the former workers, going back and forth on the street, where they have their camp. However, based on other talks with the locals there is a lot of sympathy towards the protesters there, but not everyone one protests; there are some workers who chose to remain in bad working conditions to not lose their income. Yet those we met trusted that our presence and our awareness can bring some change.

Such resorts are a real ‘ticking bomb’ for Kerala’s environment – they are ready to build their hotels and spas even in the most precious ecologically vulnerable places such as the Lake Vembanad that in the past years has became a victim of tourists who cruise on so called ‘housing boats’. A criticism of this atrocity against nature is countered with points of view about employment – what would all the people of Kumarakom do if the resorts will not be there? It is further emphasized that given the reality that Kerala does not let much foreign direct investment to come in, most likely the only fate for them would be to immigrate to some Middle Eastern or Western country and send money back to their families in Kerala. We observed this pattern well while staying in Kerala where the new houses being built by Kerala workers who are not in the region. We can only guess the actual numbers of workers from Kerala and their conditions in other lands…, but what we know for sure is that working conditions of Kumarakom’s resorts have to change. After all this is a tourists’ choice to not support the place that does not support human rights.

Lukasz W. Niparko

Kerala's Backwaters and their Citizens

  Those days we spent on the Backwaters of Kerala that used to be in the past enormous plantations of rice, and a birthplace of the workers struggle for the change that culminated in 1957, with the first elections won in the world by the Socialists. Today, the Backwaters are mostly a tourist attraction, yet many problems that were present a hundred years ago are still here. We could hear about some of them in the local orphanage that is inhabited by girls, boys, and in some cases also mothers with their children, and abused women.

We met there– Gale, about a 40 years old woman, who belongs to the British-Indian family, speaking fluently in English, and who dresses like us in ‘supermarket clothes’, not traditional Indian clothes that wear other women in that place. Our talk with Gale has opened our eyes for the hardships women go through in Kerala, what includes abuse, alcoholism of their partners, discrimination, and a total lack of rights in the society that they face on daily basis.

Some of the Keralites say that this all because of the colonialism and the British – they replaced Kerala’s pre-colonial matriarchy with the domination of males. Some also praise the rule of Socialists as the reason of women well-being in Kerala. As a matter of fact, the infanticide of girls is much lower here, and the gender structure in Kerala is much more ‘natural’ than in the rest of India where girls are aborted; however still the problems of dowry, of discrimination, of marginalizing women, are present also in this ‘Socialists’ paradise’.

Gale is taking care of Dixon, a four years old boy, who is very energetic and extremely joyous. Unfortunately, once he turns five she will have to ‘give’ him to another institution; here orphanages separate girls and boys. Other woman, Sharon, in the third month of pregnancy, was crying all the time while we stood there– she knew that her baby can be affected by high fever she had, probably caused by malaria. For women like Sharon and Gale there are no perspectives in India; of course many women today become CEOs and are very successful, but in the countryside and small states like Kerala not so much of it. And on the other hand, it is not the point that every women and men should be a CEO in order to be happy, the point is that their status should be equal, and life should be normal, and this for sure is not the case in India. The same with the kids in this orphanage – they will inherit poverty and misfortune, and pass it to the next generations. However, we can also ask is it only here? Or, is our world like that? Is the fate of marginalized people in the USA or Poland much better? For example, the Poles who live in the former state-owned Agricultural Farms [PGR – Państwowe Gospodarstwo Rolne] have also no chance for improvement of their life conditions, their problems are unheard, and poverty is being inherited by the future generations. […]

         

We also visited the private school lead by Mary Roy, a mother of Arundhati Roy, a well-known Indian activist and writer (famous for her book “The God of Small Things”). Her mother in the past neglected Indian patriarchy and made a lawsuit in front of the Supreme Court challenging the law of inheritance that discriminated women. Being without resources and with two daughters she started her own school to give her daughters equal chances, her home-schooling evolved into one of the best schools in Kerala, and her daughters to women who are not silent for discrimination and marginalization of others.


Lukasz W. Niparko