I work these days in a universe deliberately downsized by me. For four years now, I have sought to withdraw from an India whose development trajectory I no longer agree with.

pointReturn, my current project, was conceived to demonstrate what I believed to be the first thing for India to be doing if it wants its urban parts to be supported on a secure edifice; and that is, enabling the development of local surpluses of water, food and energy by a majority of Indians who live in rural India. Mine is a fairly withdrawn and passive life, you might say. You would think the noisy supporters of Anna should not matter to such a mission. I have experienced no transactional bribe-seeking in the project to be rallied by Anna Hazare’s call. There is money enough for the project, and in the last year and a half, three young people have committed to carry on the work with me and after me. What after all, can agitate those committed to restoring a wasteland with rain water harvesting, growing food naturally with least external inputs, reviving an esteem for native grains, and saving and distributing seeds to kindred spirits?

What makes me take time to say I believe Anna’s agitation is important. That is the explanation I want to share here and for that I must go back almost a decade.

In 2003 I traveled to Ralegan Siddhi to see for myself what was happening. It was a visit that was to play a major role in steering me to pointReturn.

Having served the army for 15 years, Anna Hazare returned to his village in 1975 and immersed himself in rural development. When he began, the 4 sq.Km village with 500mm annual precipitation was deep in poverty. He proceeded to turn the village into a community self sufficient in water, food, educational and health institutions. All achieved by marshaling contributed work [Pic]. Villagers who had left looking for work, had returned. Farmers were harvesting 3 crops annually. Ralegan Siddhi seemed to me a ready template the rest of rural India could embrace

That was Year 2003. There was hope in the stories I published in GoodNewsIndia, expecting them to be tales of inspiration. Anna’s time then, was mostly devoted to issues of village development, and only marginally to agitate against corruption at the taluka level. What has transformed him into an unrelenting crusader against countrywide corruption today?

A giant leap in time lies between 2003 and 2004. In 2004, accelerated liberalisation under Manmohan Singh began. Its early windfalls, like freely available telephones and train tickets were indeed refreshing experiences. But within two years I was a disillusioned man, who now regrets some of the euphoric articles I wrote in praise of the new era. Rising income inequalities, cavaliar approach to environmental concerns and pursuit of growth numbers whatever the long-term cost were enough for me get off the bandwagon.

Extract:
“The truly self sustaining projects, that can transform whole communities, ones like these in Karnataka, Rajasthan, Maharashtra lost their shine because Indias leadership was sending out the message that industrialisation is the future; and, that farming had none. The ancient wisdom of nursing water resources and soil fertility was given little thought or marked down as something that can be tackled once we hit a steady state of 10% growth. The Planning Commission may reel out rural investment statistics to prove me wrong but while the figures may even be right, the planners hearts were not in it.”

I stopped writing stories of positive news in GoodNewsIndia, not because there are not any, but because Manmohan Singh’s India made me wonder if my erstwhile readers would not be too preoccupied with stoking the GDP engine.My reasons for ceasing to publish GNI and begin the pointReturn project have been set out in detail in this article. [See box].

In the four years since, the situation has worsened. Today, from a perch away from all the action, though not affected by routine corruption as millions of Indians are, I see new and different forms of it. I sense collusive corruption in policy-making that is not easily visible, but of which, the transactional corruption visible in the streets is the inevitable fallout.

I am watching TV images of thousands of Indians taking to the streets in a process that is converting anger into hope. It is a surging river, to which everyone brings a different experience and prayer. I launch my boat of anguish into it and hope this river will take me to a fairer ground.

Let me begin with the mindset of the Prime Minister. In a rare meeting with the press in Sep, 2010 Singh said: “The only way we can raise our heads above poverty is for more people to be taken out of agriculture.” He also admitted that about 37% of Indians were below the poverty line- that would be 400 million Indians, to be re-employed in industries and services. What will become of agriculture? Presumably, it will be scaled up using biotechnology.

A bill is currently lurking in a dark corner of the parliament with clauses tailor-made to enable a single company Monsanto, to control the seed business in India. “The Biotechnology Regulatory Authority of India (BRAI) bill has been approved by the Cabinet and will be tabled in the Parliament soon.” BRAI will release a series of proprietary GM seeds and its decisions cannot be questioned by anyone using the Right to Information law. This Bill is the response of the Government to massed public opinion against Bt Brinjal. The policy is to let Monsonto feed India. The policy is to work around whatever transparency we have fought for and gained. Previously Indian monopolies were created; liberalised India’s policies are dictated by global monopolies.

Greenpeace virtually admits almost the only person who can cause the withdrawal of the BRAI bill is Sonia Gandhi. And you Anna-detractors, are proffering the collective wisdom of our wise parliament as our protector? The Bill to empower acquisition of land for creating trans-national enclaves of industries known as Special Economic Zones was passed in fifteen minutes. The parliament has been known to enact 12 bills into law in fifteen minutes. But it has required 40 years to enact an equitable anti-corruption bill, known as the LokPal Bill, whose cause Anna Hazare is now championing. Between the provisions of the Anti-Defection Law and diktats of various party High Commands, an MP today has no freedom to exercise his will. In this very fortnight too, a Delhi Court has charge-sheeted five MPs in a bribes-for-vote case, that made the India-US nuclear deal possible in 2008. So much for the majesty, wisdom and supremacy of the parliament. It is obvious a small group of people, without countrywide participatory discussion, can and do enact laws they at best, think is right, or at worst, find in it a juicy bribe.

In a single issue of the Outlook magazine of ten days ago are two instances of this government’s policy, which while it celebrates our industrialists’ entrepreneurial spirit, is killing off our farmer’s.

Citation-1: “Now, it is the farmer who is rising in protest against the government. In the fertile Konaseema region of East Godavari district, farmers have begun a satyagraha of sorts by declaring a crop holiday. The rice bowl of Andhra lies barren, as farmers are refusing to sow paddy on some one lakh acres this kharif season. The protest is against a poor minimum support price (MSP) and difficulty in getting bank loans. They also want input subsidies.”

Citation-2:“The farmers are agitating under the umbrella of Beej Bachao Andolan, a unique peoples movement aimed at saving indigenous seeds and traditional techniques of farming in the hills against rampant and thoughtless modernisation. The point of conflict is one such ostensibly progressive measure: the state agriculture departments mini kit of seeds, chemical fertilisers, fungicides and micro-nutrients being distributed free to small farmers to increase the yield of local milletsmandwa and jhangora….While the farmers are all for millet promotion, they are sceptical about the ways of doing it, contesting that the overt thrust on chemicals is against the very credo of the officially organic Uttarakhand; for years the farmers here have been growing pesticide-free crops.”

In the first case, help that is sought doesn’t come forth; in the second, unwelcome intrusion creeps in for takeover. Rural India has sensed that this Raj has no time for its cares; the middle class has concurred for reasons of its own.

Most biographies of Anna Hazare begin with his career as an army truck driver. To do that is to miss a crucial point: he is rightly, a child born into an impoverished farmer’s family in a bleak village that no one had time for. Like fellow villagers he ran away to escape poverty. Only, he returned to transform the same village into a prosperous one. He has had to fight hard to do that and he has learnt much about what that takes. His astuteness and grit were forged by that experience. Who can blame him for being intractable? Why would he not harbour a distrust of an apathetic, captive parliament? For myself, I would sooner trust his rustic wisdom than I would, an over-educated economist’s, whose lack of grit and knowledge of poor-India is reducing this country to misery.

In a few minutes I became aware of being watched. And there, not twenty feet away, stood a fox staring at me, unfazed by the machine, its buzz or me seated in it. It had been around the whole time for sure, watching. We locked eyes and were in sync, his presence pervading me. We were in communion for several long seconds.

There he was, at ease amidst the brush, almost quizzical about my presence in what seemed his natural habitat. Whatever the omen of staring a fox in the eye, first thing in the morning, it felt good that pointReturn had come this far from the bald hard land that I had adopted in 2006.

That fox was the cue to review the year gone by and to plan the year ahead.
…

Let me begin by restating the pointReturn mission: it is to turn the barren 17 acres into a productive one leading to self sufficiency in food, water, energy and cash for 40 people.

2010’s most significant event has to do with people. pointReturn managed to attract two committed, spirited, young persons in January. Karpagam and Sriram have rapidly made pR their home, and advanced the vegetable and agricultural agenda by at least two years. Had I been working alone, I would have gone ahead with planting trees,yes and maintained them and then awaited the arrival of people such as them. I had imagined they would come when the project had settled rather more than it was at the end of 2009.

Their arrival this year has quickened the pace all around. Their blog conveys their excitement and commitment. Their coming on board has attracted widespread notice. In September, their friend Siddarth became a volunteer too, committing himself to at least an year.

His arrival grew the pace of activities a further notch. Increased activities required greater presence and thus, 2010 became the first year the campus has been manned full time. A work routine is also evolving. Everyday something happens that nudges the project further and makes it a more distinctive place.

Regrettably Raju who had been with me for three years, helping build the infrastructure left in August. The project had entered a new phase, calling for a different routine and that rendered him a misfit. The parting was amicable; he is now employed in the city, which enables him to return to his young family every night. I owe him much gratitude for his contributions in those early years, when it was a stark land with no facilities, let alone comforts.

As 2010 drew to a close, I had a happy development to savour. Karpagam and Sriram came over to meet me on Nov 29. They simply and directly said: “We have discussed between us over the last several months and decided this is where we want to be and live our life. So we formally give you our long term commitment to the project.” They complete an year here on Jan19, and I was eagerly awaiting the passing of that day so that I may pop the question myself, and here they were, clear and decisive. I was overwhelmed.

I now have people to discuss issues with, plan developments and share responsibilities. We complement each other: their first love is to grow vegetables and grains and mine is to enable such activities and to keep the course to make pR a larger thriving community some day. As 2011 dawns, I am far more assured than I was soon after adopting this land in 2006. We can now raise this orphaned child together.
…

2010 saw plentiful rains. In fact since August there has seldom been a fortnight that did not bring a shower. Happily, we were ready to welcome them into waterbodies: there is today a total capacity of about 2.3 million litres between ponds, swales and percolation pits. The work continues to create more.

Thus far we had been dependent on just the windmill. Though it has been a reliable darling we had a scare on one or two windless days. We have now put in a hand pump as a backup.

In March and April we saw the windmill lose suction on many days as the water table fell. The bore-hole it draws from is 200’ deep. The suction pipe was 140’ into it. We had it increased to 180’ this year. Between this move and the good rains we hope to be water secure in 2011.

Taken together, this exercise reads like a good conversation that will help readers understand the pointReturn experiment. I also believe it would be very useful for others who may one day visit us and work with us and those considering similar initiatives. When we are indeed ready to welcome volunteers we may use this material for their orientation.

With his permission I translate from Tamil, where necessary and re-present the whole content. What follows appeared in two blog posts. First on Sep.02, 2010, Surveyson, [our friend’s preferred online name] explained his motive, framed the questions and asked his readers to also post theirs. On October 27, 2010, our responses appeared.

Surveysan’s preface:
I had reported that Karpagam and Sriram have started to work full time at pointReturn. Refreshing your memory about this project, [between 2000 and 2006] D V Sridharan [’DV”] went around the country digging out little known success stories and introduced then to us through goodnewsindia.com He wrote at length on his heroes and explained their work well. Go to that website and read for yourself.

In 2006, he began a new initiative, called pointReturn. Buying 17 acres of barren land in the village of Jamin Endathur, he has sought to turn it green, by means of extensive rain water harvesting, tree planting and stewarding the return of nature. Working alone and spending his own money, he dug a pond, installed a windpump and experimented with new techniques for restoration. He was looking for volunteers to join him.

I said to myself: “Bah, who’s going to give him his life and join him to work in the wilderness”. Boy, was I in for a surprise! Karpagam and Sriram did exactly that. What surprised me was that both are well educated and with good careers; how did they decide to leave their comfort zone and step out to work under the harsh sun in the interest of common good.

I too consider myself a man with public concerns: every now and then I bemoan India’s public ills and then quickly turn to chase the next dollar. Many self-centred people like me however, harbour tiny dreams of making a difference by acts of sacrifice. But where do we start? How do we walk away from good careers and money? How do we say, ‘enough’ to money? I was confused. To work for public good, needn’t we at least set aside two or three hours per week? What use is our education? An education paid for by the society at large? What do we do in return for the comforts received. Yes, yes I used to be confused. Then I would douse these questions and move on to the next chore at hand.

So I was curious how Karpagam and Sriram [-and Siddarth, who has come on board since Sep,2010] came around their confusion and made the jump. I decided to ask them a few questions in the hope their answers will clarify me. What follows are my questions [-and your questions as well if you sent them in]. When their answers come it, I shall list the Q-s and A-s in some order.

Let me make this a tour of many topics that are worth reporting on. And because it’s a rather long-winded tour, I must be considerate and offer quick jumps. Click on any of these or read on.

• Phase shift: A slight and perceptible change has occurred
• The work rhythm: What is the work routine and life at pointReturn?
• Growing food: Experience with growing vegetables and grains
• Water, now: Status of water availability following rain water harvesting
• The road ahead: Where do I see it go and what are we doing about it?
]]> http://goodnewsindia.com/pointreturn/online/beginning-to-grow/ “A swale is a water harvesting trench, dug usually on a contour line.” That’s the technical definition- it tells you as much as a definition of the horse as a four legged animal does about that splendid beast. Between the time I read of swales in Bill Mollison’s Permaculture Designer’s Manual in 2006 and actually decided to embrace them as the central feature of pointReturn, it was a good three years. It was even a whole year after I did the Permaculture Design
Course.

Slideshow
I have put together a slideshow on the swale work done at pointReturn. A link to the slideshow appears at the end of this article as it is best viewed after reading this.

That I had fallen in love with the word ’swale’ helped. It kept buzzing at the back of my mind like some tempting movie I must see someday. ‘Swale’ is a decidedly lovelier sounding word than Continuous Contour Trench- or its abominable abbreviation, CCT, the usual tag for a swale in India.

How I eventually came to love swales, is a story worth telling in some detail. Long time visitors to this site know most of what I will quickly summarise in next few paras. I had gone out of the way to seek a land that was abandoned, bereft of top soil, water and any agricultural activity. [story]. I wanted a blank canvas on which to demonstrate restoration from levelZero. My goal was to make 18 acres self-sufficient in water, food, energy and cash for forty people.

In 2007, I installed a windmill to pump water based on a logic that went as follows: ‘No doubt the groundwater is likely to be little, since the bald sloping land must have shed all rainwater -and topsoil- as runoff. There must have been very little groundwater recharge over the years. Still, being so close to a hill, there must be some water down there. Maybe it cannot sustain a multiple horsepower pump- but a windmill? A windmill sucks but under a litre per stroke or about 50litres per minute. Surely, there must be a sustained water supply down there to feed such a windpump’.

]]> http://goodnewsindia.com/pointreturn/online/swales/ There’s a large new shelter at pointReturn now. It is a 1,000 sqFt at the ground level, another 1,000sft 8′ off the ground, and further up, there are two sleeping lofts, of about 200 sFt each. I like to call it the pavilion.

The choice of name rests on my fondness for cricket; a pavilion is central to the game. Players feel a proprietary right over the pavilion, and it belongs to them for the duration of the game. There they rest between their labours, observe the happenings, discuss options and pick the next moves based on the evidence on hand. pointReturn needed such a place too, to review plans and progress, to meditate on outcomes and to correct course as necessary. So I call it a pavilion.

I imagine it to be a centre for all activities. The ground level will house a library, an Internet connection and a work bench, still leaving a large floor area free for whatever need arises . There is also a verandah -an additional 300 sFt- which will be set up in a cafe mode where residents may sit and shoot the air. The first level above ground is a vast space that can be used for meetings. It will also double as a dormitory for up to ten people without feeling crowded. Further up, there are the two sleeping lofts.

Adjacent to the pavilion on the ground level is the existing kitchen with two wood fired rocket stoves. Close by on the other side of the pavilion is a washroom which is still under development.

Balancing costs, speed of execution, total embedded energy of materials, user comfort and ability to withstand storms common to open spaces, I picked on the construction style popular in Auroville near Pondicherry. I shall explain it in some detail in a moment, but first some speculation on how the technologies might have come together to create robust structures which have come to be referred to as ‘capsules’

It is fascinating how waste products of groves and plantations have been used to create products of wide utility. After the coconut has been dehusked, fibre in the husk is separated, carded and spun into ropes, thin as a twine to as thick as needed to moor a ship. Going back at least 1,000 years, ocean going ships in India’s west coast were built without a single nail. wooden scantlings were sewn together by rope and caulked with pitch. Coir rope has reigned irreplaceable till this day. It’s available in every corner of India, in many sizes. Fine coir rope is the tie-cord in traditional hut building.

Coconut palm leaves have for millennia, been hand plaited into mats. Lightweight, flexible and good for 3 years, these mats are laid on roof slopes to form as thick a pile as possible. The spathe of the palm that encloses coconut inflorescence maybe discarded by the tree once the flowers are exposed, but the rural Indian finds it makes a stiff yet pliant thong with which to tie down coconut mats on the roof frame.

]]> http://goodnewsindia.com/pointreturn/online/pavilion/ There are many lessons one learns in an undertaking such as pointReturn. Those from Nature come in accompanied by compelling evidence and demonstrations. These are exciting to learn. Those of a personal nature however, seem harder to accept . I will quickly deal with the latter first.

Personal lessons highlight what we know but seldom accept. For example, that money can’t dictate speed. Deliveries of goods and services are a consequence of interactions between a number of people and events over which one has little control.

Quite a part of the time in this project is spent waiting for things to happen. I, being at the age i am, sit and despair that with all these problems and delays to cope with, I will never complete the project. Then suddenly things move and I forget the delays and expenses. I have thought that I should write these difficulties down here, but even in spells of inaction I am busy: researching options, making calls …and of course fretful. [By the way, the antidote for this malaise, that I have discovered, is to sit quietly and ruminate on all that has been achieved at pointReturn so far.]

Lessons that Nature teaches you are to do with re-learning knowledge that one was certain of; in the light of experience in the field one scurries back to corrective information. One makes mistakes frequently; what seemed a permanent solution hits a new hurdle. The antidote is to try things in a small scale before spreading iout.

Water woes:

One of the missions of pointReturn is to make it self-sufficient in water for all its needs, which, given the inadequate groundwater, meant harvesting enough rainwater. Readers who have been following my endeavours will recall, how the windmill had struggled and how I had dug a 1.3 million litre capacity pond encircling the borewell from which the windmill pumped. There was a distinct improvement in the windmill’s output; I had raised first year’s tree plantings successfully on the water pumped; and I had cropped two small grain harvests in a tenth of an acre

However, it is clear, there is more to do. Lack of the usual bonus summer showers this year has exposed how marginal our water security is. We have struggled to water all the plants. I am now chagrined that my declaration of “Mission Accomplished” a year ago, ranks with the other famous premature one in recent history.

]]> http://goodnewsindia.com/pointreturn/online/status-report-june-2009/ A Rocket Stove is probably so named because the vertical column of flame in it resembles that of a rocket’s. The flame however does not descend as in a rocket, but rise. The updraft thus created, draws ample air to completely burn firewood. The net result is that the stove is smoke free, economic in firewood use and fast to cook with.

It was invented by Dr Larry Winiarski about a decade ago. There is growing interest in it worldwide, among people who have been searching for the ideal cook stove for the poor. It has been found that respiratory diseases among poor women are traceable to long hours spent cooking in unventilated indoors using smoky stoves. The Rocket Stove addresses all these issues with great simplicity. In addition, making do as it does with twigs and slender sticks as fuel, a Rocket Stove has a beneficial impact on the environment. Women are also spared long treks in search of cooing fuel.

Winiarski has stated the principles governing design at this link. If that is too rigourous read, a quick illustrated explanation
is found here. Simply speaking, a Rocket Stove consists of two pipes arranged in a L-shape; the vertical limb, [usually about 400mm or 18″] is longer than the horizontal. The horizontal limb is where the fuel is introduced. Some free space is ensured here for combustion air to be drawn. Fire is begun using an oily rag, paper, straw or pine needles. Slender twigs are then placed over the fire and once they catch, larger sticks may be introduced. Soon the initial smoke ceases and there is a steady brisk column of fire. Heat is controlled by pushing in or pulling out firewood. [This site has a good review of various wood stoves, their merits/demerits and finally a simple Rocket Stove design]

Looking back on the first Rocket Stove project at pointReturn, it is now clear it was both too large for current needs and over ambitious in design. I was building a stove that can cook for a dozen people who are not yet on the horizon. An over creative approach led to incorporation of a two-pot top with a damper control and two baking boxes. It was fun to design and build though. It engaged five of us on a full fun-filled day. You can see the detailed drawings I made at this link. You can also choose to run them as a correctly sequenced instructional slideshow. Caption in each frame explains the step.

But before you build one like that, here is a critical review. The size as I said, is too large. On the day it was inaugurated it did cook for 26 people but such a stove is more efficient when it is used regularly, more or less all day, as in hostels and restaurants. Chunky lengths of firewood are required to sustain a robust vertical flame. In other words the design is for a professional cooking.

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