I was at home for practically the entire month of February, partly
because my parents themselves were away for nearly half the month and
had asked me to help in the house during that time. Also, I had to
re-plan my programme for the last few months of my sabbatical and some
time was always needed for replies to be got from the people we had
written to.
I found that I had completed most of the things I had set out to do
during my sabbatical though there were a few areas like honey bees for
which definite programmes had not yet been worked out.
I busied myself during this time with writing out those special essays
of the past couple of months that I had not yet completed (though my
daily diary was up-to-date and in perfect order).
I also set up the earthworm vermicompost pit in our backyard. It was my
dad's idea that I should put into practice immediately the vermiculture
that I had learnt, since managing garbage is becoming a problem in
almost all households. His idea was that once I mastered the technique
of setting up the vermipits by trial and error at home, I could set the
same type up with little variations if needed for friends of ours and
later for anyone who wanted this useful method of garbage management.
Dad suggested that I prepare a large vermipit which would be suitable
for any family having a large compound like we have and also one or two
small vermibeds which could be used by people living in flats who do
not have lots of space of their own. We would keep all the pits going
by putting waste into all of them from time to time and this way I
could get experience on how the big and small pits both worked so that
when people asked for such information I would readily have it.
So to start with I had to construct a vermibed. I began with the tank
itself which was to be of brick. We had a labourer doing some odd jobs
at that time at our house and he said he knew a bit about how to cement
bricks together, so he and I constructed this 3' by 2' by 4' high tank
of bricks. We mixed cement and sand in some rough proportion with
water. Within a day we had the bricks placed one over the other with
the cement mixture holding it all together. This was easy stuff I
thought as I wrote out my record of how many bricks and the quantity of
cement and sand we had used to construct the bed.
Next day, I dutifully wet the construction twice as instructed in order
to have the cement set. Imagine my shock when on the third day I found
that our entire tank was shaking and ready to collapse. I rushed off
next door to my neighbour Guru who took one look at the tank and told
me that we would have to take down the whole thing and start from
scratch again. Apparently we had not used the right proportion of
cement and sand mixture, or laid the bricks right. Nor had we laid any
foundation for the structure. Masonry was not that simple, I realized.
I immediately got down to carefully removing each brick without
damaging it as the bricks were to be re-used. Guru, the expert mason,
then came over to construct the tank, and I helped. In fact, we built
two tanks that day: one large and one medium. I then prepared the
vermipits and Yesu, our maid, was instructed to henceforth put all the
household wastes (except paper and plastic) into the pits, alternating
between the different ones.
We also started vermiculture in a wooden crate. Eventually the crate
was used as a seed bed and a fine crop of jackfruit seedlings was
raised in the box. The other two vermipits (of brick) function well,
and all our household waste is processed by the earthworms.
At the end of February, I was eager and ready to set out again.
Although some contacts for the study of bee-keeping had been made by my
dad, I was personally not very much interested in the subject. Crocs,
snakes and the wild had gripped me and I was longing to get back to the
Croc Bank.
I also had another totally unrelated and unconnected programme that I
wanted to accomplish, namely to improve my eyesight by taking a course
on eye care and learning eye exercises at the Eye Clinic at the
Aurobindo Ashram in Pondicherry.
I came to know of the Eye Clinic through Farida, one of the resident
staff at Croc Bank. I have been wearing glasses since class IV when my
mum made the discovery that the reason I was not copying lessons from
the blackboard was not because I was inattentive or disobedient but
simply because I couldn't read clearly from the blackboard at all. Then
came the visit to the oculist and the mandatory spectacles.
But I fervently wished to rid myself of these glasses ever since I
heard that with eye exercises one can improve one's eyesight. In fact,
I had begun doing eye exercises with Sister Gemma, a Medical Mission
Sister who is associated with my parents' work. I had continued these
exercises when I was at the Croc Bank, where Farida seeing me at it,
had told me about the Eye Clinic at Aurobindo Ashram where I could get
proper training.
As I was also eager to return to my favourite Croc Bank and since
Pondicherry is not very far from Mamallapuram I proposed to my parents
that I be allowed to go to Pondicherry via Bangalore, complete the eye
course there and then proceed to Croc Bank where I could spend a
fortnight or so before returning to Goa. This would comfortably keep me
away during the month of March when my brothers would be studying for
their school finals and I would return in time to enjoy the April-May
vacations when our cousins from Belgaum, Lucano and Ricardo, would join
us for a whole summer season of mangoes, jackfruits and umpteen picnics
on the beach.
My parents approved of my programme and on the 26th of February, I set
out for Pondicherry. By now I was quite familiar with the routes and
did not need anyone to pick me up from the bus stops on arrival.
However, I had phoned Bernard at Auroville earlier and made
arrangements to stay with him at Auroville for the duration of the
course.
I travelled by an overnight bus from Goa to Bangalore, rested briefly
during the day at Hartman's place and caught the night bus again at
Bangalore bus station arriving at Pondicherry at 4 a.m. There a cycle
rickshaw fellow managed to cheat me of Rs.40 by promising to take me to
Auroville but instead depositing me at Aurobindo Ashram which was more
or less next door to the bus stop.
I had to get into another local bus to get to Auroville which was more
than 10 kms away and after walking a short distance was greeted by
Bernard, whom I knew, as I had met him some months earlier on my first
visit to Auroville. I stayed free of cost at Auroville in a room in
Bernard's quarters, sharing with him the meals he prepared.
I cycled twice a day from Bernard's house to the Ashram. At the Ashram,
I used to do my eye exercises and then return home. I did a total of 45
kms of cycling per day i.e. 360 kms of cycling for the nine days that I
was there.
The Ashram itself was an old building. Before you entered you had to
leave your slippers outside and place a plastic tag, with a number, on
them; another tag, with the same number, you carried in your pocket as
you walked barefoot up the stairs of the ashram. The place reminded me
of a retreat centre with people in meditative moods and soft Indian
classical music playing continuously.
The first exercise was the most terrible one. I would have just reached
the Centre after cycling in the sun when honey drops would be put in my
eyes. I then had to stand sweating in the sun with my eyes burning
because of the honey. (Honey is sweet on the tongue but burns in the
eyes.)
The next exercise would be struggling to read fine print in the dark
with only a candle light burning. Next, one had to carry out the same
exercise in normal sunlight, outside. There was an exercise involving
eye movement through the use of a small rubber ball, then the reading
of a chart with letters and words of diminishing size in varying
degrees, bathing the eyes with steam, much in the same way as
inhalation is done, and then cooling the eyes with cold cotton packs.
Finally, there was the colour treatment, where one stares at bright
colours reflected over a lamp in a darkened room.
Each exercise had to be performed a specific number of times with small
details like opening, shutting and blinking of the eyes controlled to
the finest degree. After I finished I would return to rock music on a
walkman, on my way to Auroville.
There was no charge for the 10 day course at the Ashram but at the end
of it I paid Rs.77 for the material needed to enable me continue with
the exercises-namely, 4 bottles of eyedrops, 2 small jars of honey, one
rubber ball, two charts and two booklets with fine print.
I benefitted a lot from the course and within a month or so, after
regularly doing the exercises, I was able to read without spectacles. I
still do the exercises, though not so regularly, and the best part is
that after having been a regular wearer of glasses I now have to use my
glasses only occasionally, like when watching TV or movies-which I do
very rarely anyway since we do not have a TV set at home.
After the course was over I was eager to get another look at the Croc
Bank and as per the prior arrangements made on telephone I set out for
Mamallapuram, once again, on the 7th of March.
A funny, but expensive incident happened to me on the way.
I got to the interstate bus station early that morning and waited till
8 or 9 a.m. for the bus going to Mamallapuram to arrive. I started
asking around and eventually I was directed by a bus driver to the
Mamallapuram bus.
Before I could reached the bus a man dressed in a conductors' uniform
walked towards me. "Where are you going?" he asked. "To Mamallapuram",
I replied. "Come, come with me", said the man. We both got into the
bus, I took a seat and he put my luggage on the overhead rack.
"Ticket", he demanded. "How much?" I asked. "25 rupees", he replied. I
handed over the amount to him.
Shortly after the bus had started on its way, and to my astonishment,
another conductor appeared and started issuing tickets to the
passengers. I explained that I had already paid Rs.25 to the other
conductor only to find that there was no "other conductor", only a
clever cheat who had taken me for a ride while the bus was still
stationary. I had to shell out another 18 rupees for my journey to the
Croc Bank! What I found hard to accept was that the man was able to
cheat me in front of all those passengers sitting in the bus. No one
thought to tell me that he was not the real conductor.
This time I stayed at the Croc Bank only for a week as Rom, Harry and
everyone else on the farm were leaving for Kerala to continue with the
National Geographic film programme and there was little else I could do
at the Croc Bank with everyone away.