Visit to Haritha- In the land of tribals

I took a visit to Haritha ecological centre with mom. Haritha is a society started by Sudhakar uncle (my mom's colleague in IIT-D). Haritha takes the responsibility of providing education to the tribal children in that area. It is located at a village called Paloancha, near the town of Bhadrachalam in Khammam district of southern state of Andhrapradesh. It was my first trip into rural southern India, and I was excited to move away from the civilization into the real civilized society.

Haritha is at its top has three people. Sudhakar ji, who is a proffessor in IIT-D, his wife Usha aunty, a retired bank employee now fulltime at haritha and swamy ji. I don't know the name of swamy ji, but like everyone I addressed him like that. He is another of those people whom I thought I had met earlier somewhere. He happened to do his graduation from a gurukul in Hissar, in the northern state of Haryana, and knew Acharya Devrat. Acharya Devrat was a good friend of my father, and so I assumed I met swamy ji sometime through him. His face looked very familiar to me. Then there are local teachers and kids who together run the school. Sudhakar ji was a permanent faculty in department of CARE (center for applied research in electronics), when about 10 years ago he quit his job and started Haritha with Usha aunty. I'm not sure at what stage swamy ji joined them. The fact that an IIT prof had the courage to quit and start something like this, has forced me to give another chance to these IITians. I simply love him for his effort. A couple of years back he re-joined IIT to work with mom in bamboo technology. Over the period he developed some technology with bamboo, which would prove to be an alternative for the concrete structures. Our visit to Haritha was to see his work on bamboo. Along with us, were Sivanandan Uncle and his wife Sulochana aunty, who own a non-profit organisation in Kerela and our interested in the bamboo technology. They see with it a scope of not only having more eco-friendly houses but also empowering the tribal community. Of course they have also been our family friend, and so it was great to see them again after sometime. With them were Jaisingh ji, who has retired from CBRI (central building research institute), Roorkie. I reminded Jaisingh ji that this was our second meeting. The first time I met him when we (Sivanandan uncle, Sulochana aunty and me) visited their place in Roorkie on our return from Badrinath. With them was also one George, who happened to be a mechanical engineer cum farmer cum owner of construction company cum working with a non-profit organisation. Then there was Srinivas ji, the local contact along with Sudhakar ji. He was the representative from the Andhra government. There was Suprotic Gupta, a civil engg faculty from IIT-D, who was here to see the strength of the bamboo structures. And lastly there was Sapna, a student of M.tech in civil engg from IIT-Roorkie and also a close friend.

So all of us took this trip from Hyderabad. We not only explored the structures at Haritha, but also went to a village Chatti, deep in the forests on the border of Andhra and Chattisgarh. This was a tribal village, deep in the naxal territory. To my happiness, we were deep in the jungles, where the roads were as good as they can get. The traffic on them was minimal. People still walked barefoot. And we saw real bow and arrows. The bow and its string we both made from bamboo. There were two kinds of arrows. One with a metal sharp head. This one is used for hunting, primarily wild boars. The other had a blunt wooden head. It was used to pluck fruits from tree tops. A local tribal also showed us the use of it.

At village Chatti, we met Chandrasekharan ji, who had offered a part of his land for the growth of desired bamboos for the project. He had only one concern with the entire thing. He hoped, that when bamboo technology would be recognised by the country, its benefit should reach to the common man. He hoped this project would not meet the fate of all those solar energy projects. Research on solar enegry was done in the name of providing electricity to the remotest corner of the country, but in practicality now its only used in the fancy drawing rooms of the rich or in lobbies of five star hotels. The poor are nowhere near it. He hoped, the bamboo he will grow in his fields will not end as some artifact in some showroom, but would be used as real beams in real structures inhabited by common people. Sudhakar ji tried to answer his question to the best of his capability, but I'm not sure if he was convinced. We all knew, that despite Sudhakar uncle's assurance, and Srinivas ji's plan we stand no chance if the government or some corporate decides to hijack this technology. Something similar happened a decade ago to the work my mom was doing on organic farming. The fertilizer industry simply hijacked the project, and as a result her research was limited to test fields and never reached the actual farmers.

Mom,Sapna and I returned back to Hyderabad while the rest continued their trip to Vijaywada where there were some more structures. Our stay at Haritha was like visiting my village. The concept of eating with hand, eating on pattals (plates made of leaves), all that brought sweet memories. Sudhakar ji gave an open invitation for us to visit Haritha again. I would want to go back again soon.

In a conversation with Swamyji the concept of Satvik and Tamsik also became clear. I had an idea of them earlier, but Swamiji's explanation gave new clarity. In hope to meet him again and learn many more things.