Annapurna Base Camp Trek - Part V

So what did you expect? That I will be diligent and post the entire trip in consecutive days? I took 4 years to finish a 2 years M.A. Program on education from TISS (www.tiss.edu). This rate of blog output is far better than the assignment submissions that I did for the course. In any case, here goes the part V...

May 5^th Tadapani (2630m) to Sinuwa (2360m)

Summary – Crazy ups and downs. Killer steps. German bakery in Chomrong. Fresh apple pies. Death after Chomrong. Body brought to Sinuwa.

For those readers who don't want to hear one long monotonous groan you may skip this day altogether.

Skies were clear again this morning and we had good views of Annapurna South and Hiyun Chuli from Tadapani. The trail starts to descend almost immediately from Tadapani. It passes through a forest and quickly reaches a slope and descends steeply on switch backs and steps. We drop to Chuile (2309m) and walk down further to cross the stream Kimron Khola at probably 2000m. So we lose more than 630m and all in one steep downhill. My left knee was hurting badly and I was struggling to maintain any pace at all. I was really thankful that I had carried a Leki walking stick. I tried to shift all my weight to the stick when I was using my left leg but it didn't really help. I had to figure out how to use the stick correctly to keep pressure of my knees, but that I did only the next day. So it was an agonizing day for me.

When we climbed down we lost the view of the mountains and instead it was valley views. This part is not really wild and most of the hill sides are prepared for cultivation. There was barley, corn and vegetables and potatoes being grown here.

After crossing Kimron Khola we had to climb again. We passed Ghurnung (2060m) and the walk was easier, almost flat along the hillside towards Taulung. But I found it very difficult to walk even on flat ground, my knees was giving me lot of trouble. My knee protection and pain relief gel was all in my backpack which Narayan had carried far ahead. I was walking very slowly and gingerly. We reached Chomrong (2170) by 11:30 and stopped at the first restaurant for lunch. It took us a very long time to get our food, but I was happy to get my knees attended to. I rubbed Volini gel on it and put my knee caps on. We also saw some Himalayn Griffons soaring up the valley riding the thermals. It was around 1 when we finished our lunch and thunder clouds had already taken over the sky. When we started to walk and it started to pour. We took shelter in a water purifying station in Chomrong. Beyond Chomrong ACAP does not allow plastic water bottles to be sold. After a heavy downpour the rain abated and we started to walk quickly. We reached Chomrong downtown which is an happening place. We found snooker clubs and bakeries in Chomrong. The smell of freshly baked apple pies wafted through the clean mountain air. But we were full and it was threatening to rain, so we had to move on. From Chomrong there is again a steep descent to Chomrong Khola. It was painful walking down the steps, may be 1000 or more. After crossing the stream we had to climb up to Sinuwa. We were now walking along Modi Khola which would take us all the way up to Machapuchare Base Camp. The exhaustion due to the steep climbs, up and down, and the constant threat of rain forced us to stop at lower Sinuwa. I had a hot shower and felt much better. We had got tired of eating inane food from the menu designed to appeal to the taste of western tourists. We decided to make kichadi and aalu fry for dinner. 2 German girls were the only other trekkers who had stopped in lower Sinuwa, the rest had plodded up to Sinuwa. The Germans were lucky to have a share of our kichadi, or so we thought. They politely said it tasted very good. They offered some rum in return which I gladly accepted. In that cold, rainy evening a thimble of rum in hot water made me feel good. I ignored Jayesh's frowns. He is completely against any alchohol on a trek and for good reason. I think for most Indians drinking alchohol is linked directly with getting drunk and that is a good generalization. Getting drunk on a trek is a nuisance and in high altitude it could be dangerous. It is difficult to distinguish the symptoms between Acute Mountain Sickness and a hangover. But I have never been drunk in my life, but Jayesh does not know that. In any case the rum did wonders to my aching bones and muscles and I slept well.

Annapurna Base Camp Trek - Part IV

Apologies

I have to first apologize for the delay in continuing the blog. I had jammed a finger of my right hand in the car door and it was badly injured. I was also away from Bangalore for 3 days. I was in Timbaktu (www.timbaktu.org) conducting training. Timbaktu has organized thrift cooperatives for women in the 3 blocks that it operates in Anantapur district of AP. These cooperatives have a turnover of more than a crore of rupees. A good part of this turnover goes as loans for borrowers who are attempting to run small businesses like milk production and trading, sheep rearing, poultry, small grocery and vegetable shops etc. Timbaktu thought it would be a good idea for the “loan officers” of these cooperatives to have a better idea of what it takes to run a viable business so that they can counsel their borrowers. This would have two benefits at least. The thrift cooperatives would have better repayments and the business persons would have a better livelihood. These “loan officers” are mostly women with very basic education and some of them are not even literate. We (www.tree-society.org) are trying to teach them “Business Viability Analysis” over a course of 10 days spread over 3 months. It has been an interesting experience. But let us get back to more important stuff of the ABC trek....

May 4^th – Ghorepani (2860m) to Tadapani (2630m)

Summary – Climb Poon Hill (3150m), sunrise views of Dhaulagiri and Annapurna Range, back to Ghorepani. Climb from Ghorepani to Deurali pass at 3090m, have the same views of Dhaulagiri and Annapurna, walk through thick rhododendron forests to Ban Thanti (3180m). Climb down to meet Bhurungdi Khola again and then a steep climb to Tadapani.

We got up at 4. I was hoping that it would be cloudy and I can snuggle back into my sleeping bag, but it turned out to be a clear sky. Damn. From our guest house we could already see the fresh snow on Dhaulagiri, Annapurna South and Hiun Chuli (6434m). The climb to Poon Hill seemed like a pilgrimage. The entire tourist population of Ghorepani, around 200 of them, was up and early and religiously climbing Poon Hill to catch the sunrise. The only thing missing was bhajans and cymbals. May be it was the morning hour or my laziness the climb seemed infernally long. When we reached what appeared to be the top, there was a reassuring sign “Only 15 more minutes and you would reach the top”. I was thinking may be it would be easier if I sat for 15 minutes and waited for the top to reach me. The climb went on for another 45 agonizing minutes. There were some enterprising locals who had carried huge flasks of hot water to the top and the 200 pilgrims who had gathered had an option of coffee or tea, black or with milk (powder) at 80 rupees a cup. I gladly bought a cup and waited for the sun to rise.

The sunrise was not as spectacular as it was touted to be. It was a bit hazy and the sun rises behind the Annapurna range. It was nice to see the rays of light interrupted by the peaks but otherwise the view from Poon Hill is better seen at sunset when the fading light illuminates the mountain peaks. That would also mean a relaxed cup of tea in the evening and not getting up at an unearthly hour. Unfortunately at this time of the year it is impossible to have clear evening skies. But if you are in the Poon Hill area in October-November season I would recommend a sunset climb.

We climbed back to Ghorepani and had our breakfast and we were ready to leave. We had to climb again and the morning walk was up on a open ridge which had spectacular views of Dhaulagiri and Annapurna range. There was no reason for us to have tortured ourselves for the sunrise. If I had known that the views from Deurali would be equally good I would have skipped the sunrise tamasha altogether. After we passed the pass the trail descends into a beautiful rhododendron forest. The forest was filled with bird calls but I could manage to see only the red billed blue magpies. The gnarled trunks of the old trees made it feel as if we were walking through Ent land.

We reached Ban Thanti (3180m) for lunch. The owner of Hungry Eye (again) restaurant had lived in Mumbai for a few years and she was happy to talk to us about her experience. It looks like these small villages are safe enough for women to live alone. She lives there in her house even during winter when practically the whole place closes down. It seems ACAP keeps one guest house open in each village during winter for the occasional tourist. The community decides which guest house would be open. It is crazy to think how they manage during winter time in this rickety wood structures which are more or less open to nature. These villages have small vegetable patches where they grow cabbage, potatoes and other greens. As a responsible tourist it might be better to order food that is locally grown rather than packaged food like noodles and stuff. Both in terms of transportation and garbage disposal. In our group, Zubin was the most responsible in that sense since he ate Dal-Bath (rice with some vegetables) almost every lunch. I should remember this on my next trip.

After Ban Thanti the walk continued through forests and we had to climb down to cross the Bhurungdi Khola again. As soon as we crossed we had to make a steep long climb to Tadapani. It was a tiring day since we started early in the morning for Poon Hill and a climb up and down. We had to climb again to the pass and then descend and climb again to Tadapani. By the time we reached Tadapani it was cold and rainy. It was around 3 in the afternoon and I decided that I would snooze for a while, but we had some noisy Spanish travelers who were speaking loudly and I couldn't doze off. Our room in Tadapani was tiny but had great views.

Annapurna Base Camp Trek - Part III

May 3^rd 2011 – Tikhedhunga to Ghorepani

Summary – Altitude gain 1340m (tough day). A steep flight of steps from Tikhedhunga to Ulleri. Gradual climb from Ulleri to Ban Thanti. Steep climb on rocks and steps from Ban Thanti to Ghorepani.

We had a lazy morning and a 3^rd look at the ACAP menu made us decide that we should cook our own breakfast. We asked for permission to enter the kitchen and made egg burji. By the time we finished cooking and eating breakfast, it was around 8. The skies had cleared and there was bright sunshine. All through the trip, I was tired and went to bed by 8 at night. Thanks to the new Kindle that I had bought, I always had some reading material before I dozed off. Since I slept early I got up early too by 4:30 or so and was ready to hear the bird calls. But that never made me get out of bed, I would snuggle in the sleeping bag till 6 and then get up and get ready.

In any case, we left Tikhedhunga and we immediately crossed Bhurungdi Khola and started climbing, climbing and climbing. It seemed like a stairway to heaven or rather hell. It was all steps, endless and relentless. The climb was to a village named Ulleri (2020m) and it was the first serious climb in our trip and my legs and lungs were not used to such an assault. It was just 500 meters of climbing and we did it in 1.5 hours or so. The only relief was the first glimpse of Annapurna South (7219m) from the final approach to Ulleri.

Ulleri is a nice village on a ridge with good views and nice tea shops. We had nimbu pani to refresh ourselves and I also bought two bracelets from the shop on the top. I don't think there are very many Indian trekkers on this route and so most of the shop keepers were quite interested in knowing where we were from. Mumbai is always associated with Bollywood (or should I say The Hindi Film Industry?) and my companions were asked if they had met Kajol or Salman Khan. Bengaluru somehow seems to convey to them a very developed city where everyone is a scientist. I did not try too hard to persuade them otherwise. Ulleri also has a primary school and it did not help my self-esteem to see so many tiny tots scrambling up the steps for their morning classes. The high school is in Tikhedhunga and the older kids were waltzing down the steps. Some enthu, I say. I was curious to go inside the school but better sense prevailed and I let go of the thought.

After 30 minutes of “Shavasana” in Ulleri we set off for our next lunch stop at Ban Thanti (2210). The climb was easier and gradual and we had a leisurely walk. We walked mainly throughly step cultivated fields and small settlements. We had a long lunch in Ban Thanti. The tea houses start preparing lunch after you order them, so it takes a while. This worked well for me as it gave me time to laze around and recoup from the morning activity. Most of these villages were clean and cute. The ACAP has done an amazing job in keeping them tourist friendly. It must have been around 1 pm when we started from Ban Thanti. Now the climb was getting steep again through a rhododendron forest. There were either steps or rocks. The sky closed in again and there was thunder. I was reminded of our previous evening hail and Zubin and I hastened to reach our final destination Ghorepani. We had to climb another 600m for the day and it seemed a lot. I had taken out my jacket and covered myself and the day pack with a poncho. This made the heat inside unbearable and I was sweating profusely. But the thought of another thunder storm made me climb very fast and continuously. We stopped for a quick breather in Nangga Thanti and continued up, up and up. The forests were thick and there were lot of streams and tiny waterfalls, but the idea of dipping was not appealing since the water was coooold. By the time we reached the suburbs of Ghorepani big droplets of rain was falling. We had to climb another infernal flight of steps to reach downtown Ghorepani and we checked-in into the Hungry Eye Guest House and Restaurant. The threat of rain had made me climb faster even than Narayan and it was worthwhile since we narrowly missed a heavy downpour. I was pooped and I suspected that I had pulled something in my left knee. But we were warm next to a fire, indoors and I postponed my worries for the next day. The only other guest in the guest house was a German girl who had just finished her medical college and was in Kathmandu for a few months. Her guide and porter was a good friend of Mahesh and so they happily chatted away. The guest house had fantastic views of the mountains which we could see when the clouds occasionally cleared up. There was fresh snow piled up on the high peaks and the lower slopes were glittering with hail. We were glad that we were indoors.

Ghorepani is actually a diversion from the main ABC trail. We had climbed up here to go to Poon Hill from where we could also get a view of Dhaulagiri. The idea was to see the first sun rays on Dhaulagiri and Annapurna range. People who know me well would understand how much I detest sunrises. I hate getting up early in the morning, but the enthusiasm around me was infectious and in any case I was getting up around 4:30 so I decided I would join them on the climb to Poon Hill for the sunrise views. I had a light dinner of noodle soup and went to bed after a hot shower.

Annapurna Base Camp Trek - Part II

May 2nd 2011 – Pokhara to Tikhedunga

Summary – Altitude gain 500m. A short downhill from Naya Pul to Birethanti. A gradual uphill climb from Birethanti to Tikhedunga.

We had an early breakfast in Lake View Resort and packed our bags and headed out for our trek. We had a 1.5 hours car journey to Naya Pul. It was a Maruti 800 and it handled 6 of us admirably with our bags too in the hilly slopes near Pokhara. We reached Naya Pul not without incidents. Narayan noticed that his bag was missing. It seemed like his bag had dropped off during the car journey somewhere on the road unnoticed. Poor guy not only did he loose all his clothes but also his harmonica and his certificates. We were told by Mahesh that Narayan plays the harmonica very well and we would be missing his performances during the trek. Each of us donated some of our clothes to him so that he was adequately clothed. He took all this in his stride. Though he was definitely feeling bad about his bag, he continued to maintain his cheery countenance.

At Naya Pul, Narayan tied both Zubin's and my sacks together and carried them in typical Sherpa style using his forehead. This seems to be the preferred mode of carrying weights. They must have enormous strength in the their neck muscles. The sacks together must have weighed around 30 kilos and I couldn't help feeling sorry for him.

The path from Naya Pul (1070m) follows the Modi Khola (river). Modi Khola was going to be our companion for most of the trek be we left it after 30 minutes of walk after crossing over a bridge in Birethanti (1025m). We took a left towards Ghorepani from Birethanti. The path was a broad road and we could see construction equipment (heavy earth movers) for widening the road. The climb was gradual at this point and we walked comfortably. The road follows the Bhurungdi Khola river which joins Modi Khola at Birethanti. I was getting used to walking with my day pack. It is an old North Face pack, actually Madhavi's which I have used since Sahyadri days. It is the most comfortable of the small packs I have and hence I chose it for this long trip. I had 2 litres of water, some emergency medicines, flash light, rain poncho, a sweater, a jacket, gloves and an umbrella in my day pack to handle all eventualities.

We passed several villages and had our lunch at Hille (1460m). The menu card indicated that it was prescribed by Annapurna Area Conservation Project (ACAP). ACAP coordinates all the 'tea houses' in the Annapurna area. The tea houses provide simple lodging, a bed with a clean sheet and not-so clean blanket. I used my sleeping bag instead of the blanket. ACAP seems to be doing a good job except for the fact that ALL the tea houses in the entire area have almost the same menu. It felt like stepping into a McDonalds every time for food and this got tiresome after the third meal.

Almost within 30 minutes after lunch we reached our final destination for today, Tikhedungha (1520m). We passed the downtown area and checked ourselves in into Laxmi Guest House. I had a hot shower (yes, that is possible for 100 Nepali Rupees) and started writing my diary in the dining area sitting next to the Bhurungdi Khola. Narayan sat in front of me and was busy keeping notes and accounts and reading. Narayan is fully conversant in English and he can read and write fluently too. I could see a Verditer Flycatcher a few feet away and a Great Barbet screeching.

Thunder clouds rolled in and it started to hail. There were huge hail stones and it hailed for almost 45 minutes. I again started to worry about the weather. The Annapurna area is notorious for its weather due to the dramatic altitude differences. The South Face of Annapurna frequently has bad weather, lot of precipitation and avalanches. Our destination, ABC is in the south side and hence my apprehension...

Annapurna Base Camp Trek - Part I

I had always wanted to do a long trek in the Himalayas ever since my taste for trekking got developed in the Sahyadris. My first trek there must have been in 1991 when I went for a trek to Bhimashankar during the monsoon with some of my PUCSD friends. It has been 20 years since and recent events gave me a reality check that I am not growing any younger and so I contacted Odati Adventures and joined their trip to Annapurna Base Camp.

April 30^th 2011 – Bangalore to Kathmandu

The Jet Airways flight to Delhi was a surprise. As always I can never figure out if I am flying Jet Airways or Jet Lite. If I eat in the airport I go on a Jet Airways flight and I get food in the flight too or if I don't eat in the airport I have to buy the horrible in-flight food in Jet Lite. Sigh. This flight turned out to be Jet Airways and strangely they had allowed me to web check-in in the business class section. So I actually traveled business class to New Delhi. Since I did not eat in the fabulous New Delhi Terminal 3, the flight to Kathmandu turned out to be Jet Lite, of course. I had been informed that I should take the left window seat on this flight so that I would get my first glimpse of the greater Himalaya. As it turned out the day was cloudy and I could only see the peaks peeking out above the clouds. Still an awesome sight. We had an overnight halt in Kathmandu in Hotel Marsyandi Mandala in Kathmandu, near Thamel. It was an expensive and forgettable place. The rooms were not good, the bathrooms were horrible and generally the service was poor. This applies to Kathmandu in general. It is avoidable. It is dirty, polluted and the services lethargic. This is surprising considering that it is invaded by tourists.

In Kathmandu we got the initial briefing about our trip. Jayesh from Odati was joining us, Mahesh from Culture Treks from Nepal was going to be our guide and I had just one more group companion Zubin Fatakia from Mumbai. I was happy that our group was small and I did not have to deal with a lot of people. I was expecting these 15 days to be quiet and contemplative.

May 1^st 2011 – Kathmandu to Pokhara

We took an early morning bus to Pokhara from Thamel. This was a tourist bus and the seats were comfortable. It was a 4.5 hours ride to Pokhara in terrible roads. There were big traffic jams caused due to vehicles parked arbitrarily in narrow two-lane roads. Nepal reminds me of India 20 years back. Those who keep whining about how things are going bad in India should shift to Nepal. The bus route follows the Trishuli river. There are already pre-monsoon showers and the river is picking up lot of silt and is brown in colour. The building material of the gangetic plains is getting transported from here. We saw some folks in rafts and feel jealous and I think, may be we should be doing rafting too in this trip.

In Pokhara we checked-in into the Lake View Resort and we meet a very scrawny man who was very deferential to us and who picked up our bags. Later we found out that this was Narayan who was going to be our porter for the trip. Pokhara is a stark contrast to Kathmandu. The lake side is very pleasant and Lake View Resort is a good place to hang out. It started raining in the afternoon and this was a constant feature through our entire trip.

We visited the Mountaineering Museum in Pokhara and got full gyan about mountaineering and geology of the Himalayas. The museum is worth a visit. The plaster-of-paris relief maps were interesting. I could see that our trail to Annapurna Base Camp (ABC) goes through some narrow gorges in the last 2 days and there was avalanche danger. I was thrilled by that prospect.

There have been expeditions to collect the junk that has accumulated in the mountains and the museum has a display of some of the junk collected. It is sad that in our pursuit for adventure we care so little about these pristine places. Hopefully, modern expeditions are more sensitive and collect their garbage and get it back....

When we came out of the museum the rain had stopped and the skies cleared. We could see the entire Annapurna range and Dhaulagiri range towering in the north. It was a crazy sight. Pokhara is probably lower than Bangalore but we can see the 8000m mountains rising very quickly within few kilometers from Pokhara. The mountains seem to loom way up in the sky and it was like nothing I have ever seen before. Pokhara is a very good tourist destination.

Our actual trek starts the next day and we have any early night. I am a bit apprehensive about the weather. It was rainy and stormy....

Civil Society

I have been following the recent protests against corruption spearheaded by Anna Hazare with some confusion. The demand for participation of 'civil society' in anti-corruption vigilance is the cause of discomfort for me. Who decides who is a representative of civil society? In a democratic society, isn't all of us part of civil society and isn't our elected representatives the members representing civil society?

Partha Chatterjee of Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, Calcutta and Columbia University has written about the need for a new conceptual framework of "political society" for a country like India. http://epw.in/epw/uploads/articles/12162.pdf. I pick a quote from this article here...

"...It would be a mistake, however, to think that the result is a convergence of the Indian political system with the classical models of capitalist democracy. The critical difference, as I have pointed out elsewhere, has been produced by a split in the field of the political between a domain of properly constituted civil society and a more ill-defined and contingently activated domain of political society [Chatterjee 2004]. Civil society in India today, peopled largely by the urban middle classes, is the sphere that seeks to be congruent with the normative models of bourgeois civil society and represents the domain of capitalist hegemony. If this were the only relevant political domain, then India today would probably be indistinguishable from other western capitalist democracies. But there is the other domain of what I have called political society which includes large sections of the rural population and the urban poor. These people do, of course, have the formal status of citizens and can exercise their franchise as an instrument of political bargaining. But they do not relate to the organs of the state in the same way that the middle classes do, nor do governmental agencies treat them as proper citizens belonging to civil society. Those in polit ical societ y make t heir claims on government, and in turn are governed, not within the framework of stable constitutionally defined rights and laws, but rather through temporary, contextual and unstable arrangements arrived at through direct political negotiations. The latter domain, which represents the vast bulk of democratic politics in India, is not under the moral-political leadership of the capitalist class.

Hence, my argument is that the framework of passive revolution is still valid for India. But its structure and dynamic have undergone a change. The capitalist class has come to acquire a

position of moral-political hegemony over civil society, consisting principally of the urban middle classes. It exercises its considerable influence over both the central and the state governments not through electoral mobilisation of political parties and movements but largely through the bureaucratic-managerial class, the increasingly influential print and visual media, and the judiciary and other independent regulatory bodies."

Isn't this an interesting take on Civil Society?

Ever since the British left, we as a nation (are we a nation?) have been finding it difficult to introspect inwards and need scapegoats for our troubles. Depending on our political persuasion we blame Paksitan, IMF/WorldBank, MNCs, USA etc etc. The latest goat is the political class. Is it very hard to accept that as a people we don't care much about setting up common rules and following them for the benefit of everyone? One look at our roads would give you the answer.

Our "democratic" politics has been a politics of negotiation for special entitlements and privileges. When people vote for cash to elect their representatives, why are we so indignant when our representatives demand cash for votes?

While being at it, may be Anna Hazare should fast in Tirupati too to stop bribing Balaji for special favours.

Development in Tamil Nadu

I have revived my blogging after eons. I would now use this space mainly to write or quote about Tamil Nadu. My information mostly comes from Economic & Political Weekly.

To begin with I pick a longish quote from an article on Women's Empowerment through micro-finance in Tamil Nadu (http://epw.in/epw/uploads/articles/15883.pdf). The interesting part of this research is that the research have conducted surveys in the concerned villages over several decades. This kind of research gives us an understanding of how things are changing relative to time. In spite of the deafening roar of pessimism I hear all around me, I remain a rational optimist. Going by the evidence available I think things are improving for people of Tamil Nadu.

Here is a quote from the article

"Tamil Nadu belongs to that part of India that has experienced fairly stable economic growth and social development in the past 25 years. In our panel study of six villages in Karur and Tiruchirapalli districts, we have documented this development in various ways. The most important findings relate to a doubling of average real incomes, rapid growth of non-farm activities and a reduction of inequality in terms of operated area and income among the land operating agrarian households in our sample (Djurfeldt et al 2008a).

We have identified the two most important driving forces in this transformation as industrialisation with its side effects and state social policy interventions.

Being close both to the Tiruppur-Karur textile industry belt and the growing city of Tiruchirapalli, many of the households we studied have been able to diversify their economic activities into a number of non-agricultural activities. The actual number of factory jobs is still small, but the number of workers now engaged in shops, various services and modern professional occupations, building industry, etc, is quite significant. Almost 70% of the studied agrarian households have one or more members so engaged. Our statistics on income shows that it has increased faster than farm income over the past two and a half decades. Today 64% of household income derives from the nonfarm sector, that is, the secondary and tertiary sector of the economy. In 1980, this proportion was only 34%.

The development of a rudimentary welfare state is also part of the story. Despite the neoliberal policies at the centre and the pressure on the Tamil Nadu state government to lower spending

on social welfare, we still find functioning state run low price shops in all the villages which supply basic provisions of rice kerosene, and sugar to more than three-fourths of the population. There are more and better government schools than earlier in all the villages and in all of them there are also crèches and centres for the care of pregnant mothers and infants (angan­wadis). All schools and nurseries serve a midday meal to all the children, which helps in improving nutritional standards. Thus working parents are freer to work full time than earlier. This now also provides a larger number of jobs for people in the villages, not just as teachers but also as auxiliary nurses, pre-school assistants, literacy workers, etc, than was the case in 1979-80. However, recruitment to regular public service employment has been at a standstill through more than a decade and a half. Recently, there has been some recruitment of teachers.

It is this development coupled with a somewhat slower but still steady growth of agricultural production that makes up the basis for the material improvements that we have observed. "

Evolution Not Design

I was recently having a long conversation with one of my friends who is also teaching and is generally interested in education and related issues. We talked about Gandhi's Hind Swaraj and it that context he was wondering if by educating the children the way it is now, are we doing more damage. I was desperately trying to convince him that it is not so, that unlike Gandhi that I was fully embracing modernity (though I have to say I have not read Hind Swaraj but I have read a review of it by T.S.Ananthu). I was later wondering about why the essential messages to structure society has always failed throughout history. Messages from Sangam Literature like Purananooru (400 songs about how to live life with regards to the society) or Tirukkural, messages from Plato, Buddha, Jesus Christ, Mohammad or later from Marx or Gandhi all seem to have fallen on deaf ears. I find it not surprising.

My thesis, is simple. Human society, like life, has evolved and has not been designed (well, if you are one of those crazies who subscribe to Intelligent Design you would not be reading this post in any case!). It would continue to evolve and cannot be designed. By that I mean that it will take small steps that would be advantageous to it in the short-term. Evolution does not know about the long-term. All these folks tried to prescribe a design and not surprisingly it has not been adopted. On the other hand, if you look at free-market capitalism, it is by nature evolutionary where choices of individual agents make a system. There is no overall design as such. You can see now why it has been readily adopted so widely!

Our cultural evolution has brought us to a stage where we actually employ some design to organize our societies. This might sound contradictory but if you think carefully we could have just blundered into constitutional democracy and found it beneficial. So the contemporary human society finds itself equipped with some possibilities for design.

That said, what are we to do now? Those who are interested in pushing the society in a specific direction can and should do it only in small steps. Evolution has never made radical changes and our societies would also never accept radical changes. Rather than having grand (grandiose?) goals of an utopia let us take small steps to make each individual a thinking and tolerant member of the society.

Coming to education, the focus on education should remain on the individual. If we have a grand design of a society and we build an education system to create such a society, it is bound to fail due to the reasons mentioned in the previous paragraphs. So, focus on the individual and hope for the best...

P.S. - I was actually tempted to keep the title as “It is not teleological” but my wife somehow hates that word, especially when I use it....

Wait is over!

The arch is standing! Here is the evidence

Murthy, standing proudly under the Arch he helped build. Guna is getting busy to start on the next one. We actually use only mud and bricks, no cement at all. All construction in Puvidham uses very little cement. Mainly at the foundation level to prevent termites crawling up. Otherwise it is mostly mud. Here you can see Mani and Selva mixing mud with their feet..



Turning to more mundane facts, I spent two blissful hours yesterday evening programming! Yes, now I do programming as a relaxing aside from my stressful day job of teaching. I created a small relational schema to hold information about my students assessments. I can now prepare report card for each student and get them signed from their parents! I used Open Office for this with their HSQL and the forms and reports! Yeah, I can hear some mumble that this ain't no programming... I know I should have used RubyOnRails but with Reliance Wireless Connect as my connectivity to Internet I don't have the bandwidth to download it!

So far this school year i have conducted 9 tests for the 8th class students (poor things!). I showed them the grim outcome today. Only 2 have cleared (35%) all the tests. hmm.... reflects poorly on the teacher, doesn't it?

Now to the real stuff

The class 8th students of Puvidham are now building real arches in their hostel building. I did not know it was so goddamn difficult to build a wall straight. We had to bring down the walls 3 times before we got it right. It is really a lot of skilled work. In any case there was slow progress (5 days) and we now are at the stage of building arches. Thrilling, I must say. But wait till we remove the scaffolding! The process
- Build side walls
- Use bricks as scaffolding
- Use string with radius length like a compass and create scaffolding with mud
- Arrange bricks on top of this platform with mud filling the gaps
- Those who have faith pray and others like me just worry and wait....


Murthy admiring his handiwork....

Ravi and Mani finish their first arch... you can see the scaffolding for the second one next to Ravi..

Arch

Was thrilled with my class in particular and education in general! The class 8th students built an arch with just bricks and stones. No mortar, not even mud!

It was a wholesome educational experience. Meenaksi, our school principal wanted the children to participate in the construction work that is going on for the hostel building. We thought they can build an arch for one of the verandahs, since it is a structurally interesting concept. I downloaded some reading material from wikipedia so that they were aware of the concepts like compression, tension and keystone. Last Saturday we did the initial work in the hostel, laying the founding with rocks and mud. The placing of the rocks to form the basement is a skilled work and it was done by Sabari (who is in class XI now in a government school but is an ex-Puvidham student). We less skilled folks helped in mixing mud, shifting stones and bricks and providing him those materials. But our students also observed how he placed the rocks and jammed them together. We have finished the basement.

I thought may be we should experiment building a small arch before getting to the real thing. I do not know enough about structures and was not sure if we could build one with just bricks. Meenakshi, who is an architect by training, said of course! So we embarked on building an arch. Actually I had no role to play other than explaining the wikipedia article to the children (and also suggesting we could use cycle tires for initial support). Most of them are construction workers children, unlike me who is a child of a college professor and a central government employee! So they knew more about that stuff than me and so I quietly let them do the job.

This arch is such a counter intuitive thing that almost all of them were quite sure that this whole thing will come tumbling down. But voila it didn't! All the students were absolutely thrilled and so was I. I thought I will share this joy with you all...(sorry about the picture quality, it was taken with Nokia 2500 phone camera!)

The amazing piece of architecture.. (the school dome which in itself is cool is in the background)..
And below are the proud architects (left to right Selva, Murthy, Ramesh, Mani, Prashanth, Kalimuthu, sitting under the arch Ravi)

Teacher Man

I am reading this very interesting book Teacher Man by Frank McCourt (author of Angela's Ashes). It is autobiographical about his teaching career. I am now in the section where he teaches English to teenagers in a "vocational and technical school" in New York City. The students from this school are working class children and are never meant to go to college. McCourt is hauled up by the guidance counsellor because he encouraged one of the girls to go to college. I quote the guidance counsellor from the book:

"A man's reach should exceed his grasp, but you better make sure they have something to grasp. Don't create impossible dreams..."

I pondered about this quote and found it profound even though I am unsure whether I should agree with it. Should teachers be responsible for creating impossible dreams? Should we really make sure they have something to grasp? Who is responsible for possibility? Doesn't impossible dreams create possibility?

As I struggle with a bunch of 8th standard boys (this is their last year in this school and we are trying our best to prepare them for the "mainstream"), the above questions are not academic but existential.

Your thoughts?
I posted this on my M.A.Education forum and one wise man replied to it..I am quoting his reply here
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Yes, the quote is profound. It reminds one of Tsar Nicholas stating that no man should be educated beyond his station or even of Manu when he puts a ban on shudras studying veda, though is couched in more humanitarian terms.

Education is about creating dreams and ability to make those dreams real. This business of creating dreams and requisite abilities is not always very neat, it is mostly messy--dreams running away alone or abilities remaining dormant, etc. Teachers should refrain from playing God and controllers of destiny. They should definitely try to fire imagination and have faith in the basic rationality of the students to create the balance between dreams and capabilities.

While writing all this I am aware the problems unrealisable dreams could cause in terms of the emotional upheavals and happiness of the student. But, we should remember that humans are much more than we can ever estimate them in their abilities and the world is much more unpredictable then we think it is. Therefore, to determine which dreams are realisable and which are not may not be possible for the teachers.

Also, even making "sure that they have something to grasp" involves dreams.

Tightening of screws

It has been more than a month since the new school year started and I am teaching 8th standard (the last class in our school). We in the school have decided this class is going to be the preparatory class for the children to get into 'mainstream' education and I have been given the hatchet job of executing it! This means more academic focus, homework and tests! Not so surprisingly it has been very unpopular at least with some kids (Though, strangely, several of them like competitive tests and are working distinctly harder to get better scores. Nothing so far has motivated them to work on their subjects as effectively as tests!). One kid though seems distinctly unhappy with this change. He was (almost) my star kid last year. His photo appears in an earlier post in my blog. Ravi, the smart(ass) one. He has not been coming since last Friday and I had really thought he was sick. Today I hear news floating around in the campus that he is actually quite ok. So I take my bike and head off to his village (around 3 kms from our school)....

Ravi was in the hostel last year. Both his mother and father were working in Bangalore. Before he was in the hostel, for one year, he used to cook for himself and his younger sister before coming to school. He was impressive last year. He is bright, no doubt and he used to put in reasonable effort. This year he insisted on staying back at home because he and his sister did not like the hostel food. So his mother is now forced to stay with him. Since then he has been very irreregular with his work. Last week at the beginning I had sat down with him to find out why this change. He said he was attending RSS shakas and that was taking up most of his time. I tried dissuading him from attending those shakas and enquired what transpired in them. Not surprisingly the kids were given some 'nippat and pori' (munchies) to eat and were also fed some anti-muslim rhetoric along with it. We had a discussion about how there are no differences between people as such and they are only good and bad (mostly bad :)) etc and he agreed he would not go to the shakas again. I was pleased then, but wondered when he vanished for few days...

I went to his house (a small but pucca house) in the village and the door was partially closed. I peeped inside and here was Ravi spread on a cot and watching TV (colour) at a distance of 2 feet. There was another old woman sitting on the floor watching it too. She was not his mother, who had gone off to work. He came out looking sheepish and when I asked him why he did not come to school, he said he had fallen down from the cycle on Thursday evening and so could not cycle on Friday (it is a tough 3 km ride with ups and downs). Since his friends had Saturdays off, he loafed around on Saturday and since he did not come for two days and could not get a leave letter he did not come on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. When I asked when he planned to actually come to the school, he had no answer.
His mother was back from work by then and she started bawling that how hard she is working so that he goes to school and here he was watching TV. She said that the only way he could get out of her situation is to continue his education. "I am in this state because I did not go to school" (how true this causal analysis is, is not clear). By this time there was a small crowd of old women outside the house (curious about the dapper looking outsider in jeans and t-shirt) and giving their bit to this hapless young fellow. Feeling sorry for him I took him away for a walk and asked him that if he is really interested in coming to school he should come, if not I will not trouble him like this again and let him be. He said he would come tomorrow.
I am hoping he would!

What am I digging at?

“...
Run rabbit run,
Dig that hole
Get the sun
When at last
Your work is done
Don't sit down
Its time to dig another one
...” - Roger Waters



I went with the 8th standard kids to dig mud from a nearby tank bed. We have clay activity in the school where children make things out of clay and we needed mud for that. Our school correspondent drove the tractor and we all sat in the trailor. The aim was to get one load of the trailor. It was back-breaking work and after almost 2 hours of work we decided what we had loaded was enough. While we were digging an old man (in his fifties) came with a bullock cart to fill it with mud. He was digging for a family of potters who live in Adhiyamankottai. When we chatted with him he said he would get 200 Rs a load. I couldn't help wonder, may be it would be better for me to work in Infosys and pay this guy his 200 Rs for the load. By doing his work am I denying him a livelihood opportunity? Since I am trained and capable (hopefully) of doing IT work, should I be doing that instead of digging holes? I was not terribly happy doing IT and I am not terribly happy digging holes? May be I should just twiddle my toes...

An Appeal

I guess most of the readers of this blog know that I have been working as a teacher in Puvidham. This year there has been a sudden surge in the number of children who want to be in the hostel. Last year two girls from a nearby village joined our hostel, and from this village now there are almost 20 kids who want to join too. The parents from this village go to Karnataka to work in stone quarries where there are no schools or facilities to take care of their children while they work. When they heard about a hostel which provides a good environment for their children they have flocked enmasse! We had foreseen this and had already planned to build a new hostel building, but now the needs are immediate. Puvidham has already started constructing the building without any funds! But without money to pay for labor the work has made slow progress, the teachers provide their physical labor whenever time permits. So your assistance would help Puvidham get the hostel constructed. If you are interested in donating for the construction of this building please send me an e-mail (ramchandar.k@gmail.com). I have included the proposal below.

Surabhi

A home for children studying in Puvidham Learning Center

Proposal
– Construction of 3200 sq. ft. of living space for 80 children.

Why a new block ?

• The current space of around 600 sq. ft. is proving to be very inadequate for the 43 children. In the school year 2008-09 there has been an addition of 30 children to the hostel. Due to the collapse of agriculture in this area, parents are migrating to Bangalore in search of work and want to leave behind their children in the hostel. The hostel needs to accommodate totally 80 children and we need additional space for them.

• Currently there is no facility for a study space, place for indoor activities and a facility to wash and dry clothes.

• Since the children sleep in one big room together, there is a need for a separate sick room to prevent infections spreading from one room to another.

• The boys and girls are growing up fast and it is appropriate to have separate buildings for girls and boys.
  Other needs

• Fuel expenditure on firewood for cooking and hot water has been more than 2000 Rs. per month. A long-term sustainable option would be to use the biogas generated from the toilets.

• For hot water a solar heater would be a good alternative solution.

• The electricity supply is erratic. An alternative power supply based on solar energy would be appropriate.

• Open well water is used for drinking purposes. A bore well is more hygienic.

The plan

• A new hostel block with 3200 square feet plinth area. This would give each child 20 sq. ft. of floor space.

• Convert the existing two rooms into a library and a carpentry and toy-making unit. The toy-making unit is currently operating in a makeshift space in the school.

• Fix a biogas digester that would digest the night soil from the toilets and generate fuel for cooking purposes.

• Equip the hostel with a solar water heater that would heat around 500 liters of water.

• Setup electric wiring and fittings that would run on solar power. Solar panels are being donated to Puvidham trust.

• Dig a bore-well and equip it with a hand-pump for pumping drinking water.

The Budget

1. Building Construction (3200 sq. ft @ Rs. 300 per sq ft) - 9,60,000
2. Biogas Digester - 60,000
3. Solar Water Heater (500 litres) - 20,000
4. Bore-well and hand-pump - 40,000
5. Solar Electricity (We have panels, need batteries and fittings) - 20,000

Total - Rs. 11,00,000

Food Crisis!

What should we do?
1. Protest against the farming subsidies provided to the farmers in the first world. Yes this would increase the prices in the interim but would eventually make the markets efficient.
2. Transfer these subsidies to food programs across the poor world especially in Africa.
3. In India, stop subsidising fuel and transfer that savings to poor directly to compensate for the price increase. Food stamps may be?
3. Ethanol, hybrid, electric, hydrogen - nonsense. Just ditch it! Public transport it is. Suburbia out, congested cities in. Higher density, better public transport. Get friendly and use less deodorant.
4. Eat less meat! A vegetarian diet consumes less energy.
5. Ah, finally, stop having children. You will not just have a smaller footprint but would avert a stampede altogether!

Puvidham Photos

Here are some photos of the place where I have been spending time the last few months..

This is the house where I live

This is the school where I work

Settling into a rural rhythm

It has been extremely difficult to do any kind of writing. I have fallen way behind my assignment schedules for my M.A. course and you all know that I have done no blogging. Something to this rural phenomenon that I feel knocked out by 8:30 at night. To keep at least an arms distance from the zillion bugs that have made my home their home too I sleep inside a tent inside my bedroom! It actually makes sense. Mosquito nets are too cumbersome to put on and take off. The tent has netting and it is very easy to handle. Getting back to the sleeping early situation, yes I do wake up early in the morning at around 5. I look around and I see no sun in all its full glory and I pull the sheet tightly over my eyes and sleep for another hour and a half. My beauty sleep is now 10 hours and the effects are showing. Bollywood beckons.

I made some soap with the 7^th standard boys. It is rather simple. You can 200 ml of sodium bicarbonate and mix it with 100 ml of Aloe/Neem extract (grind the neem leaves into a juice and filter it). Soak this mixture for a day and the next day you add 100 gms of gram flour and some fragrance and mix it well into a paste and then shape it into soap bars and let it dry. After a month the soap is ready to use. This would give you around 10 soaps. The children have made almost 70 soaps and they are eager to sell it in the school’s annual fair at 5 Rs per soap. Ready to buy?

What do you do with students who go far beyond the teacher? There is this Ravi (hmm.. I can hear some in the audience sniggering that it is all in the name) who solves puzzles in 10 minutes that took me more than 12 hours and I still could not solve. All teachers except Meenakshi, who has excellent visual sense (she is a trained architect after all), could not solve the puzzles. Ravi is in 7^th and is good in almost all subjects except English. Even English, in a single year he has picked up the entire decoding aspect (making the correct sounds out of the print) but cannot comprehend. He did no schooling for couple of years moving with his family in Bangalore on construction work. He is now in the hostel. We have around 10 to 12 puzzles that we are planning to display as a challenge in our fair. The customers pay Re. 1 for trying it and get back 2 if they solve it. For the difficult ones they get Rs. 20 if they solve in 30 minutes! Ravi is manning that booth.

Ravi - Yes, this is how they come to school everyday!

Lost?

This is a ping post not to let the cynics conclude that all who wonder do get lost. I have shifted locale and am now teaching in a lovely school (www.puvidham.net) in the Dharmapuri district in Tamil Nadu. It is about 150 kms from Bangalore. I live in a house that is 500m from the school and I teach Math, English, Science and Football (which I enjoy the most). I have 1 student in the 10th standard, 6 students in 7th and 3 in 8th. It is a small school and I have now built personal relationships with each one of my students which is nice.
The place has no real internet access, I use a Reliance wireless connection but it is lousy there. I am now sitting in the downtown Dharmapuri, waiting for a bus to Chennai, in an internet center. Between the school, the house and my MA course (which i have duly neglected) I am more busy than I have ever been! So much so for retiring after a gruelling (ha) career in IT industry. The IT folks are truly blessed, getting paid truckloads for warming their seats!
So folks if you are in the vicinity of the great place which one of the 7 great Tamil patrons (Adhiyaman) ruled, please do drop by. I will ask you to help me in my cleaning...

Aims of Education

Any educational endevour should be clear about what its aims are. Here we look at some of the aims of popular efforts in India – Siksha-Satra propounded by Rabindranath Tagore, Nai Talim of Mahatma Gandhi, The National Curriculum Framework of 2005 and finally a list provided and justified by yours truly. In the coming Asha bi-annual conference I am planning to propose these aims and see how Asha would go about developing a strategy and implementation for achieving these aims.

Siksha Satra

1. Education should provide an environment and opportunity for children to exercise their natural desire for self-expansion and growth.
2. Education should provide skills in art, science and business to assist in self-preservation of individuals
3. Education should prepare individuals to operate effectively in the field of human service and citizenship. It should inculcate in individuals the capacity to understand and sympathize with their neighbors and hence function as a decent member of the human society. Through education of children entire neighborhoods can be rejuvenated for active self-governance.
4. Education, through art, should assist the individual in self-expression and imagination. It should provide the ability to expand the horizon through this imagination for spiritual abstraction and human welfare.
5. Through the above education should provide the basis for a renaissance of the countryside in India.

Nai Talim

1. The core aim of Basic Education is to help students to develop self-sufficiency. This self-sufficiency is not limited to the narrow sense of preservation, i.e. dependence on others for daily bread but also develop the power of acquiring knowledge for oneself and ability of individuals to rule themselves to control their senses and thoughts.
2. Basic education laid a strong emphasis on manual work. The belief was if everyone in society does most of the manual work required to sustain themselves materially, it would make society more just. Material production also involved co-operative and co-ordinated activity and thus education would also promote these important values.
3. Basic Education did not look at art as a separate area but as an integrated component within the physical work. Whether creating a pot or building a hut, adequate energy was spent on the aesthetic aspects. Doing a job well done and moving beyond the mere function and giving importance to the form was emphasised.

National Curriculum Framework

1. Education should aim to build a commitment to democracy and values of equality, justice, freedom, concern for other’s well being, secularism, respect for human dignity and rights.
2. Education should aim to build independence of thought and action and value-based decision making independently and collectively. It should make individuals capable of constructing knowledge independently by learning to learn and unlearn.
3. Education should aim to develop a social temper. It should help develop capabilities that would enable individuals to participate in democratic processes and economic processes. It should enable individual to find work not only for self-sustenance but also to contribute meaningfully in the socio-economic processes of the nation.
4. Education should encourage creativity and aesthetic appreciation. It not only provides creative avenues for self-expression but also guards against exploitation of aesthetic gullibility by vested interests.

Aims of Education - Thus Spake Ram

The essential aim of education is to provide the ability to persons to achieve their various needs – individually and collectively. The needs can be broadly categorized as physical, psychological, social and self-actualization. Good education should aim to create a disposition amongst students that would make satisfaction of these needs possible. Education should strive to create:

1. An introspective and confident being – Knowing and understanding oneself is an essential quality that a person requires to live in a community. Education should provide the opportunity and space for individuals to introspect and understand what kind of person they are, what their likes and dislikes are and what their capabilities and limitations are. Understanding and accepting oneself helps in acquiring self-confidence and one of the primary aims of education should be to help individuals be confident about themselves. The ability to introspect and evaluate oneself for the consequences of their actions and inactions is essential for harmonious communal living.
2. A knowledgeable being – To know about things around them is a natural curiosity that human beings possess. This curiosity needs to be encouraged systematically through education. Knowing what, how and why about things and events should be a habituated desire and the ability to find the source of such knowledge and assimilate it is essential if a person needs to understand the world around them and act accordingly. Education should aim at helping this ability to construct knowledge.
3. A rational and thinking being – The ability to reason and find rationale is critical to operate in a complex environment, which is what human society is. In a democratic society, force of custom or word of higher authority cannot be sufficient justification for a person’s actions and its consequences. Justifications have to be made based on logical reasoning that is acceptable to all. Science has made enormous progress to increase our understanding of the world around us and it is also based on reason and critical thinking. To create a scientific temper is an important aim of education.
4. An adaptive being – Self-sustenance is very important for any individual. But school education rather than teaching ‘a specific skill’ to its students should create the ability and disposition to learn skills as necessitated by changes in the external environment. Since change is constant, only those who adapt quickly and correctly to these changes would end up successful. Education should also go beyond providing mere adaptability; it should also enable individuals to be agents of change themselves.
5. An ethical and moral being – When capability is not followed up with ethics and morality, society is riven with injustice, inequality and strife. School education should help students explore the ethical and moral dilemmas and develop a social temper. How important is individual liberty? What is the balance between individual liberty and communal responsibility? Education should assist in at least making students think about these issues and finding satisfactory answers for themselves.
6. An aesthetic being – Humans have always aspired to transcend beyond the mundane through artistic expression. Ability to appreciate and participate in good art brings out so much joy in us that it is imperative that education brings out and develops this aesthetic temper amongst us. High art and literature may also temper our desires and acts as a curative in our ethical pursuits.

A society that consists of confident, knowledgable, rational, adaptive, ethical and aesthetic individuals would definitely be a more just and equitable one.