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Honey bee publish details |
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Shodhyatra |
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| Title |
A pursuit of authenticity. |
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| Abstract |
Learning from four teachersHonouring creative people at their doorstep, the yatris (explorers) try to learn from four teachers, a teacher within, a teacher among the peers, a teacher in nature and a teacher among the common people.The validity of any social movement depends upon the authenticity of the instruments and efforts. One of the ways in which the Honey Bee Network practises its values is by sharing what it has learnt, and learning what it has missed by going to the door of knowledge holders. Thus, every summer, we walk through the villages where it’s hot. In winter, we walk through areas which are cold. Apparently, it is a case of voluntary suffering but actually, there is no suffering. Reducing the distance between the lifestyle of the people we want to learn from and our own is necessary to make the process authentic |
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A pursuit of authenticity The purpose is to learn from four teachers, one within, one around, one in nature and one among the people. This journey is called the shodhyatra which is coined from the Hindi words shodh which means search and yatra which means journey or exploration. It does not necessarily imply a journey in the special sense but also the journey within us. As the body becomes resilient by traversing the different geographies in very tough climatic conditions, our soul evolves from traversing the minds of so many creative individuals and communities. In the beginning shodhyatras were for ten days and later have involved into a week of walking. We share the practices and innovations from other regions which may be relevant for the locality. We also learn from the local knowledge experts. Biodiversity, recipe and idea competitions are organised among the women, children, and everybody else. The knowledge of centenarian women and men is documented to understand the scope and scale of long-term climatic and coping strategies. We take the blessings from the centenarians at their place. The biodiversity competition among the children ensures that more knowledge is transferred from elders to children in one day than it may have been the case over decades. Hence, once in every six months, SRISTI organises a shodhyatra, which involves trekking across the countryside in selected locations to visit a cluster of villages, the choice of location is determined in advance and communicated well in advance through SRISTI’s official channels and websites. So far thirty four shodhyatras have been completed, starting in 1998 and covering locations from Anantnag (J&K) in the north to Humbly (Idukki, Kerala) in the south, covering more than 5500 km in the last 16 years. We carry a cell phone based projector and other devices to show the innovations from other regions to trigger local curiosity. Whenever we come across outstanding teachers or other agents of change, we felicitate them. Local community institutions leading to sustainable conservation of resources are also recognised. The cultural and institutional knowledge traditions are learnt from and celebrated. The shodhyatra helps in reaching out to remote and neglected parts of the country with a firm belief that natural and social hardships and challenges are the prime triggers for creativity and innovation. Traditional knowledge and grassroots innovations are scouted and disseminated that have not only simplified the lives of men, women and farm labourers but have also significantly contributed towards the conservation of biodiversity and other natural resources and environmental quality. Though our journeys have not always been smooth but the lessons we have learnt, the love of strangers, the enthusiasm of the children, have given us the courage to face all odds ,climatic, social or political. We are aware that when outsiders recognise somebody in our country, then local communities also begin to look at the achiever differently. There are many activities we organise during these shodhyatras such as biodiversity and idea competitions, recipe competition among women, paying respect to 100 year old villagers, appreciate collective endogenous institutions for conservation of nature, share our database on sustainable technologies and learn about local innovations and challenges. In the shodhyatra, each one of us, tries to learn from these four teachers, but who learns what from whom, do we really know? Not always. We believe that there has to be some synchronisation between the inner and outer being. Without that, can we really seek authenticity? Authenticity is a necessary condition, even if not sufficient for making a breakthrough. Wisdom of the common people is often inaccessible to us, because we don’t listen enough. We don’t listen to our own inner voice either. Is there a connection between the two? Because we don’t listen to our inner voice, therefore we are unable to listen to authentic voices outside, at grassroots or even at other levels. But what will these voices tell us?The Shodhyatra helps in reaching out to remote and neglected parts of the country with a firm belief that natural and social hardships and challenges are the prime triggers for creativity and innovation. The Inner Shodhyatra: Towards an authentic self As I often say at the beginning of every Shodhyatra, we actually embark upon two yatras - journeys. One inner and one outer. In the outer journey, we know where and when it will end. But the inner one, we don’t know. Let me illustrate some of the moments of the inner Shodhyatra. Once I was invited to give a talk on the birth day of Mahatma Gandhi in Rashtriya Shala, founded by Gandhiji in Rajkot, 1921. Sitting in my office, I was faced with a dilemma. Many luminaries had delivered talks in this series in the past. I was not even a patch on the credentials of such speakers. How would I do justice to this responsibility? I had called my research associates to generate some ideas. Then I observed that one of them was wearing diamond earrings but the metal holding those diamonds seemed whitish instead of yellow gold. On asking why this was the case, she said that the diamond jewellery often mixed some impurities with gold for strength. I got the theme of my talk. Next day, when I faced the audience, there were many ladies having similar jewellery. I told them that if Gandhian thought was like a diamond, then I am entitled to a higher share of impurity in my life to be able to hold it. Many years back, I had missed my train to Delhi from where I would have gone to Hisar, the place where I studied. An elderly porter saw me in a state of despair and asked me what the issue was. I explained that I missed the train. He soothed my nerves saying that, “Don’t worry; I will get you a seat in the next trainâ€. I said that, thank you kaka, but I don’t want to travel without a ticketâ€. He said, I will get you a ticket. I was very much relieved now and it seemed that my worries were over. It occurred to me that I should ask his address so that when I reach home, I could send the money back. On my request for the same, he refused. When I persisted with my request a few more times, he got angry and said, “If you ask one more time, I am neither going to buy you a ticket nor get you a seatâ€. I was bewildered. I didn’t realise the mistake I was making. I touched his feet and said, All right, don’t give me your address, but at least tell me what’s wrong in asking your address. He replied, “look, if I give you my address and you forget to send the money back, I will be unhappy. I might hesitate in helping someone else in future. If I don’t give you my address, you can’t disappoint me. I don’t want to bargain anxiety in return of helping you. You will not get my address.†That debt has multiplied now many times over. No matter what I do, there is no way I can ever pay it back to him. I am not even sure that I can pay it forward enough. I have been asking myself whether such social debts are the real assets in our respective lives. Inner Shodhyatra has far more paradoxical moments, though I am not implying that paradoxes are less frequently encountered in the external walks. -Ed. The External Shodhyatra Learning from peers is a game of choosing one’s own pond. One can be a prince frog in a small pond or an ordinary frog in a big pond. To make the journey tougher, one can choose peers globally and vice versa. There is no one amongst us who has not faced this challenge. But, sometimes ordinary communities create an extraordinary standard for younger generation to assail. Once we were walking in Purulia and Bankura, West Bengal as a part of 20th Shodhyatra. In one of the villages, we came across beautiful teracotta horses kept under a tree on a small platform. Apparently, these horses were offered as a part of some worship. We asked the local community of potters as to why had they kept such beautiful horses in the open under a tree. Somebody could take them or break them. The community members corrected us. They said, “We have not kept just the beautiful ones. We have kept the best ones.†Intrigued by this response, we asked but why. And the response came, “We have kept the best ones so that when our children walk by this path, they can see the current standard of the best. They have to do better†(see image on page no. 2). Creating open source standards of excellence to spur younger generation to excel is not an ordinary lesson found in a management book. And yet, here is a community which has achieved this. Why do people create such standards to not only set the bar high for themselves but also for others? In the same shodhyatra, we met Rebati Mahato sitting on a small parapet outside her hut in a village. When we saw the wall beautifully engraved with a kind of embossed design, we just couldn’t walk further. It was an amazing work of art by a lady to perhaps challenge the onlookers about their own mediocrity. Why would she spend so much labour in creating an artistic standard? It is a silly question actually. Why did early human settlers made cave paintings 20-40000 years ago? Even before the oral language was perhaps discovered, human beings knew the language of art. Obviously, the urge for creative expression preceded any other human desire to share one’s ideas. This is one of the most primordial instincts in humankind. The question, therefore, should be, “How do majority of the people succeed in suppressing this primordial instinct which Rebati Mahato could not?†I have often asked whether the hierarchy of needs illustrated by Maslow have not done a great damage to the human spirit. Not only Kabir and Rahim but also Rebati Mahato (see image on page no. 40) and Ram Tiwari Devi (see image on page no. 42) have created outstanding nuggets of wisdom, art, culture despite being extremely economically poor. The need ladder is invalid. Maslow has made many useful contributions but the concept of hierarchy of needs is not one of them. Every person regardless of one’s economic or social status can aspire to produce most outstanding creative work or an innovative solution to the local problems. This realisation is at the heart of the Honey Bee Network. During the shodhyatra while walking through the villages of Jalandhar district, we came across a large number of houses, which had distinctive design of overhead tank. Somebody had the tank in the shape of an aeroplane; others had eagle, tractor, flower and so on. Not in many places, had we seen such diversity in the design of overhead tanks. The aesthetic expression through different forms and shapes is an essential part of any culture. In many parts of south India, people make beautiful ornamental designs after cleaning the public road or ground in front of their houses by using rice powder. Popularly called ‘kolams’, these are a manifestation of private responsibility for cleaning public passage. The streets get cleaned very well, particularly in the villages because every household does it opposite their house. Such examples illustrate how our society manages civic sense. Communities evolve unusual norms for dealing with paradoxical situations. In the Panchmahals district and also in Jhabua, we came across an interesting practice. In one of the villages, we observed a beautiful painting on the wall showing different forms and figures with colourful patterns narrating a kind of story. When we asked as to why these were made, we were told that whenever somebody fell sick, people took a vow and prayed to the local goddess promising to get a wall painting made if the sick person got well soon. What a way of celebrating recovery from sickness. While the local artist gets employment and income, the people who pray feel satisfied. Other onlookers also partake the joy of such prayers. After getting down from Ratanmahal sanctuary, the shodhyatris asked for some water from a hut nearby. There was no well nearby nor any other source of water. Some local tribal brought water for us. After drinking the water, the shodhyatris asked for the water source so that they could fetch it for the family. The poor tribal householder felt shocked at the suggestion. He said that indeed he was poor but he was not so poor that he couldn’t offer even water to the guests. We were embarrassed yet fully aware that the ladies of the house would have to go a few kilometres to fetch the water. I am not so sure if the same tribals came to our city, they would get such a courtesy extended by our brethren. Giving or sharing is not a function of what you have but what you think others need. This feeling of being responsible towards those who need something that we have more than us at that moment comes from several facets of our nature. The more interconnected we see our life as, the more responsible we become for people and things. Giving Creativity its due: Unseen unheard innovative women Norms of hospitality vary from place to place. During the shodhyatra in Alwar, Rajasthan, on one breezy evening, we set up a projector to show the innovations to the local community members. Most of those present were men and children. There was hardly any woman present. It was around 7.30 pm. It was dark enough to use the LCD projector. In the village, sunset is the time when people used to move to their homes and women start cooking the supper. We started the projection and slowly people started to trickle in to see the innovations they had never seen before. Soon we had a good crowd. After a few minutes of display, we stopped the show. People were unable to understand as to why we had done that. People wanted us to continue with the projection. We said unless women also join the audience, we would not start. People started giving excuses as to why they would not come. They were busy with the cooking. We were not convinced. When people insisted that we should continue and women would join later, we decided to persist with our position. Once they knew that we would not start projection unless women joined, after a while women started trickling in. Once the women joined, projection continued and there was good discussion about what would work there and what wouldn’t. After the projection, we had dinner and then a session of reflection. We asked ourselves in a self-critical tone, why did it take so long for us to insist on women’s presence? After all, we had been making presentations even in their absence. Despite our gender sensitivity, we had not converted our expectation as a source of motivation for larger participation of women. It is difficult to ignore a lesson that a lady farmer taught me way back in 1985. A young friend, Nurul Alam and I were walking together amidst the farms in Tangail region of Bangladesh. After walking through a few fields, we noticed a lady sitting with a pool of sweet potato vine cuttings and a small a wood base mounted knife removing some roots from various nodes of vine. I asked Nurul what was she doing and why. He also did not know and of course I didn’t know either. So we sat down beside her to talk. I don’t remember her name but the lesson I learnt I still remember. She told that for extremely poor people on highlands, sweet potato was almost like a lifesaving crop. They grew it on the homestead as a nursery and if they get land on lease, they will transplant it. This year, she had got a small field for which she was readying the cuttings before planting. When asked as to why was she removing roots or rootlets on various nodes leaving only one or two. She replied if I let all the roots become tuber, these will be thin and long. When I allow only a few to remain, tuber becomes round. The consumers in the market prefer round tubers. On further probing, she added that many times when she goes to the market with a bag of tubers, if long tubers don’t get a good price, she still has to sell them because the skin of such tubers is thin and therefore shelf life is short. Round tubers also have thicker skins and last longer. She can bring them back to explore better prices next day. She can negotiate better with the customer. The self-effacing nature of women comes out in several interactions during our shodhyatras. When asked some specific questions about farming, some of them will invariably defer to their husbands claiming that they only know everything. The role of women in grassroots innovations has remained rather obscure. The number of innovations by women has been rather small in the Honey Bee database compared to their contribution. There could be many reasons including lack of women volunteers and field workers. But, no reason can justify this inadequacy. While walking in Champaran in the 22nd Shodhyatra, we came across grain bins of clay made by people outside their huts to store grains. Most of the bins were plain and a few had ordinary designs but the one by Ram Tiwari Devi was an extraordinary work of art. Beautiful design mimicking ancient paintings were made on the bin. And we asked her as to why had she done that. She said, “What else could I have done?†Despite a few economic assets, the creative and imaginative potential was bountiful. And yet, she will be called an artisan, someone with better connections and so called credentials doing the same may be called an artist. The transition from an artisan to artist is not always embedded in the skill or its manifestations in an original creative work. Sometimes it is also a function of articulation. The knowledge of women is no less important in terms of its potential impact. But, it is often articulated very feebly. Hearing such voices requires extra sensitivity. I remember when I met Valsamma Thomas many years ago during the shodhyatra in Kerala. I had met her before when she had shown me a new hair oil formulation, which seemed very good for controlling dandruff. Hair growth was stimulated by its application very soon. The Honey Bee Network scouted her and through NIF gave her a micro venture innovation fund investment. She paid back in time and got several tranches of funding. After a few years, she again met me and this time she was the proud owner of a car. I couldn’t contain my feelings at her entrepreneurial success, largely an outcome of her grit and determination. Today, she exports her hair oil to many middle-east and other countries. She is an exception. Remya Jose, who got an award as a student for developing a pedal driven washing machine didn’t take her idea further. The film made by Discovery channel on her innovation became a great hit [https://www.youtube.com /watch? v=MGK 5TpTLNZY]. But, the market traction didn’t follow. Not all innovations succeed in the market place despite their apparent utility and functional advantage. During the Shodhyatra in Champaran, Bihar, we met Janki Devi. She had come to show her herbal pesticide. Knowing the toxic properties of local fruit of Kanail, she mixed its extracts with another herb to control white fly infestation in her vegetable crop. In 2008, she became perhaps the first farmer lady to have a patent in her name [1699/KOL/2008] with the help of NIF. Her experimental ethic can be imagined by the observation that older leaves of one of the herbs yielded better effect of the pesticide than the younger one. Many of us may hesitate in admitting her scientific attitude and innovative contribution. Thankfully, the scientific community cannot ignore her contribution backed up by scientific evidence developed in SRISTI lab. Parshottam Patel, working with SRISTI, while walking through the villages of Panchamahal district, discovered Kapuriben who had found a very interesting practice for controlling the pests of chilli (Spodoptera litura). She would spread the twigs and the leaves of Picrorhiza kurrvoa in between the rows of chilli seedlings. Apparently, the bitter extract from the leaves and the stem prevent the pests from attacking the crop. These twigs and leaves also act as mulch and help in conserving soil moisture. Numerous examples of women innovators indicate that the basic heuristics through which women solve the problems may not always be very different from the way men solve. It is just the difference in exposure and opportunity which may perhaps explain lesser articulation by women of their creativity or lesser recognition when they indeed articulate. |
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| Volume No. |
Honey Bee 25(4) & 26(1) 128-134, 2014-2015 (25 years celebration) |
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