Innocence...of old age..!!

Shades of green.....

Innocence....

A new life and the struggle starts....

This puppy was borne only a couple of days ago. There are at least a dozen dogs in our street, most of them are quite good ones except a few which barks and howls all night.. The life of these street dogs is pathetic. They have to struggle to survive to get some food. Most of the houses chases them out and they live a life of poverty, with their rib bones visible. Still new members get added to their family and their support and togetherness is astonishing. I could see the younger dogs taking care of the new puppies, playing with them, allowing them to climb over them etc. In a few days' time, these beautiful puppies become malnourished and they lose their charm and beauty. These pups are not adequately fed by their mother who herself is ill fed. Even when we try to feed the mother, the other 10 or so dogs assemble to compete for food and she silently withdraws herself ... The struggle for this puppy starts in a few days' time... the cycle continues. But look at the beauty and innocence of these puppy..

Fresh home grown tomatoes...

We have been reading a lot about organic farming and the merits of it. But when I grew my own tomatoes in my garden in pots, I knew for myself the difference between vegetables brought from the market and those grown without any chemicals. The most notable difference was in the fragrance of tomatoes. Now I have bitter gourd, chillies of various colours and tastes etc.

With just three pots of chillies, I dont buy chillies at all. And I have year-long availability of chillies!. My chilly plants are now two years old and still they yield. I prune them once a while and use the vegetable peels in my home as the manure.

May be I would slowly try out other vegetables as well.

Patnitop Workshop

This is the board which welcomes while going up to our Hotel.

Recently (August 9-11, 2011) I had the opportunity to take part in a national workshop which was held in Patnitop which is situated in the State of Jammu & Kashmir. This was a memorable occasion, and the beauty of the place, still lingers in my mind. The place where we were staying was always engulfed in fog, sometimes drizzling rain drops, and as we sat in the top floor of the hotel where the meeting was going on, we could see clouds passing by us. The Wikipedia gives the following information about Patnitop.


Patnitop or Patni Top, is a hill top tourist location in Udhampur district, in Jammu and Kashmir, India, on the National Highway 1A, on the way from Udhampur to Srinagar, 112 km from Jammu. Situated on a plateau in the Shiwalik belt of the Himalayas, Patnitop sits at an altitude of 2024 metres. The river Chenab flows in close proximity to this location.

Origin of the name 'Patnitop' is a distortion of the original name of Patan Da Talab meaning "Pond of the Princess". In olden times a pond existed in the meadows and the kings princess often used to have her bath there. Part of the pond still exists near the youth hostel. It may be that the British had difficulties recording an English spelling of an Indian name correctly in their revenue records. Over the years the name changed from "Patan Da Talab" to Patnitop.


The place where we stayed for the workshop.

The tall Cedar (Devadaru) trees add a mystic look to the area and the beauty of the place is beyond words. May be I will write about the place again with more images.

Smoky lives and dangerous lives!

The average rural household kitchen are something like this. Smoky stoves, blackened kitchen, blood-shot eyes of the woman of the house!. Every year, thousands of women are affected due to indoor air pollution and suffer from respiratory diseases like pneumonia, chronic respiratory disease and lung cancer with out being aware of the fact that their kitchen are killing them inch by inch.

The World Health Organization mentions that "More than half of the world’s population rely on dung, wood, crop waste or coal to meet their most basic energy needs. Cooking and heating with such solid fuels on open fires or stoves without chimneys leads to indoor air pollution. This indoor smoke contains a range of health-damaging pollutants including small soot or dust particles that are able to penetrate deep into the lungs. In poorly ventilated dwellings, indoor smoke can exceed acceptable levels for small particles in outdoor air 100-fold. Exposure is particularly high among women and children, who spend the most time near the domestic hearth. Every year, indoor air pollution is responsible for the death of 1.6 million people - that's one death every 20 seconds".




The Centre for Ecology & Rural Development (CERD) has been installing highly fuel efficient, smokeless stoves and this was one place in Sivaganga district where we installed a stove.

A little investment on a fuel efficient, smokeless chulah can save the precious lives of our women and children.