the search for community, people who believe in a similar philosophy of life, and
who support one another, through choices which might at the outset look rather radical, yet on the inside our merely reflective of a need for self-expression and authenticity, took me to other intentional communities where people were practicing living close to land, with an intention to be light footed! in auroville, an intentional community seeking to practice integral yoga in daily living, was where a seed was born, inside me. for want of a more nurturing environment and unable to see what the future held, i couldn’t give birth to it then.
years later, those experiences of joy beckoned at me, when the touch of soil on bare skin evoked such sensual pleasures, feelings at teh same time new and raw and at the same time, very innate, and distantly close.
the need for community has been coming up for me and my sister, Harry, throughout our young adult and adult lives. this need was sometimes fulfilled by families of our close friends, whose houses became our second homes, or in many ways our first homes, the need for belonging was sometimes met through lovers, or bonding with fellow participants over few weeks during workshops, at other times meeting a co-travller who echoed similar needs, for a short duration gave a sense of community and shared reality.
wise ones have said, ‘whatever that you go in search for, is also coming in search for you, and if you sit still, lie still,
it will pass through into you.’
in august last year, as the paint was drying up, and the winter planting beginning, i found myself postponing the plan to go travelling, for want of more planting to be completed in september, as well as in a weird way keeping a sense of commitment alive, by choosing to stay with the space i had been working on creating. this was the face of it as i spoke to shammi, who was to be my travelling companion for teh next six months, but in the background, i was burnt out, i had been running out of energy to sustain the farming space single handedly. his words inspired me to stay with the plan to travel, leaving behind the farming, for then, and to go in search of inspiration, in the hope to then come back with a vigour and renewal in energies. in our travelling together, and connecting to community experiments like navdarshanam in bangalore and re-visiting auroville, where we stayed in our friend johnny’s ‘old mac donald’ farm, or in salem, witnessing a ‘leap of faith’; an entire family of four, living in gift economy since the last twelve years, living and learning with them, brought home a sense of clarity. we knew what we were going to take away to re-plant in other soils, and what we wanted to leave behind as unsuitable for our growth.
a year later, with the dream of parshada having been birthed to life, a knowingness envelopes me, which knows that there is a time to travel, and a time to rest, a time to build, and a time to create.
yesterday we started fencing the roadside kitchen garden, which literally falls on the road, outside the boundary wall of the parshada house. it has been a very difficult decision, as the fence along with being symbolic of the need to protect and nurture what we have created, also stands for separation and sending unspoken messages ‘keep out’ messages to passerby’s and others in our neighbourhood.
since a year and a half now, the roadside garden was open, and when passer’s by took some baingan, karela, kaddu, even though we would have liked that they asked us and took the vegetables, developing a sense of community, we were mostly assured that anyone plucking fresh vegetables, with their own hands, would be drawn into the magic of farming, which remains our main passion here. day before yesterday though, there was an unsightly scene, as in a rush to take as many karelas and baingans from the roadside garden, some people had killed the karela vines in an attempt to thin them and gain easy visibility to the karela hanging im th evine thicket. they chose to do this by pulling them down from the bamboo trellis. unawares to the outside rampage, i was inside when this happened, and bablu and biru our street kids, shared how they had tried to stop the people, especially since they saw they tearing apart the vines, without a sense of respect to teh plants.
the pain i felt in , my chest, is not unlike how i would feel if i witness a human being with their limbs
having been severed off, i cried and pledged the fencing would come up, so the plants feel protected and cared for. someone once remarked that having a pet dog had kindled their motherly nurturing instinct, and another friend who has a roof top garden seems to feel a similar maternal bond with her plants. i can connect with these women and have been feeling since a while how akin farming is to
milk feeding a new born, as the infant like a sapling is totally helpless, left on their own. they need nurture, care, tenderness, and commitment, and then how they grow and fill you with joy at their beauty and this magic keeps you in the game, of birthing and re birthing, planting and trans planting.
im reminded of the time we began parshada, with the open kitchen, in the front varandah of the parshada house, without any cupboards or locks, our pans and pots would rest unabound under the starlit sky on a clear night or feel the rain on their surfaces during a cloudy night. one too many mornings of getting up and looking for pots to cook lunch, and finding them missing, brought home
the idea of lock and key.
soon it transpired, with the locking of the kitchen pots, we were unknowingly locking something else
alongside, a sense of freedom and surrender. our friend johnny with whom i shared these struggles, responded
even now teh struggle continues, as it sometimes feels as a loss, loss of an ideal, of trust in our fellow city dwellers, loss of hope. the fencing of the roadside garden feels akin to the kitchen being locked up. because of the greed of one or two people, the possibilities of community and collective suffers, but greed is a part of human nature, it is here amongst us, sooner to accept it than spend time resisting or denying it’s presence.
we never kept an accounting if how many pots or plates we had, as they were always enough, contributions from community of neighbors and friends or my mother’s gifts to us. we took a conscious decision not to buy anything from the market, unless there was an immediacy of the need, like a gas regulator.
and so it would happen that anju who holds teh fort on most days with cooking and cleaning, said she has an extra peeler, she can spare for us, or kuldip from next door after observing the umpteenth time we borrowed a tava to make dosas, offerred to bring her spare one over, or parul, who is a mother and keen on a roof top garden of her own, whilst observing me light the stove with the last match stick one day, vouched to bring one of her two lighters when she came next. ayesha walked in with a dinner set of plates, bowls, serving bowls and cups, only with a forewarning, ‘in case my dad comes to you in a bad mood and needs the dinner set back, please give it to him.’
we agreed, and i recite this story to all, in the spirirt of non attachment and impermannence.
this spirit is also what permeates all that we do here, as the house itself doesn’t belong to us,
it is a joint family property. the fact that the joint family happens to be mine, is an insignificant part,
in the greater scheme of things. although we didn’t begin the farming or community building here, with an explicit permission from the family, we just began sowing seeds, and then things happened, and plants grew, we shared teh harvest with them every season, and so it continues. the support of the family, extends to the time that they feel they need the space, and in the spirit of non-attachment, we hope to continue till then.
meanwhile the struggles continue. daily, we come face to face, with issues of whether to have parshada as a wholly volunteer run, partly paid staffed, or fully paid staffed run place. when we began, the original vision consisted of having the parshada space wholly volunteer run.
i think the word, 'volunteer' is not very equaniminous, and i feel uncomfortable using it for myself or for anyone else.
recently, anna, a wwoof’er from sweden, pointed out that she and raj (who is from bangaldesh), saw themselves as community members and not volunteers.
i feel more comfortable with the word community members, and i think before beginning to manifest on land, or soil, parshada is an idea that begins inside us, in response to a need to find our own community, a family, for support and someone holding the space for us to grow and nurture each other.
after going back and forth with our ideas and putting these in practice, we know have accepted the help of anju for some hours every morning, although, it remains an idea that needs further exploration.
wherever there are a group of people, coming together in search of an idea, a way, creating their own answers, there is a sense of hope, and beauty, in their realization of this idea. however, there is also a loss which can be felt as well, the distillation loss, of what gets left behind, when a certain way of doing, an ideal, an uncanny commitment to the vision, almost a concretized rigidity to the original philosophy, starts limiting the potential of what was to be-come. so in striving to embrace change, we are always working and re working on what it is that makes parshada, and us come alive, and trying to let go of the processes that our not life-serving anymore. this is how the ‘open kitchen cafe’, where once we would dish up healthy meals to anyone who would call in few hours ahead and join us for lunch or dinner, is now transforming into more of a ‘community kitchen’, where we meet to cook different variations of coconut ladoos, trying kuttu atta chilla’s in response to teh difficult method of making a kuttu roti, and always, always having a pot of herbal tea brewing with mint, and tulsi from kuldip’s or livleen’s house, and lemon grass plucked from our own garden.
to live on land, and grow our own food and create the things that we need with our own hands, this dream is being born. for as long as i can recall, things were bought from the market, we would go to the shops for meeting our material needs, meeting emotional ones was another matter.
free store is a space, we hope can grow to meet the physical needs of clothes, books, shoes, bags
and perhaps help to connect people through this inter-change and gift of things, people that otherwise wouldn’t talk to each other, would now be inspired to tap the other on their shoulder and say, ‘hey, i know that dress, and it hasn’t looked more beautiful than now!’
on a typical day, activities range from farming, bringing mulch from neighbourhood, composting, healthy cooking, cleaning, hosting community events, building upcycled lamps and furniture, to hosting free store and painting the walls when moisture seeps in. one of the constant struggles we face here, is the drive to do everything that needs to be done, this busy-ness, is high lighted when the physical symptoms of disease and ill health appear, with drowsiness and fatigue marking some days following seven day work weeks. it is often difficult to distinguish rest time from work time, when the work one does is giving so much joy and fulfillment. also when the work space, and home are one, where does the line get drawn, as visitors keep trickling in, wanting a tour of teh space, or simply recieivng their enthusiasm, as one retired lady, chandrakantha queried, ‘is there a membership form to fill?’
when julia and willy, a cantonese - quechuan formerly residing in canada couple, who have moved to chandigarh recently for two years, asked me earnestly for a source of 150 kgs of organic compost, for their ‘one square foot’ kitchen garden, i felt really frustrated with myself , at not having started the community compost pit six months earlier ,like i had intended to. perhaps wishfully thinking , had i started earlier on, they would have been able to help themselves to beautiful almost organic farmyard compost, by now. upon hearing my chastisations, an organic farming friend, gaurav sahai, who has an organic store twice a week here, and is truly living gift economy, as both the farm he is farming in and the shop where he sells, are gifts in goodwill to him from friends, reminds me, 'relax..and let go..you can't do everything..' the question is, can i let go..
