Shades of Being Alive

Gramya Manthan has been happening for 8 years in the same village cluster in Kanpur Dehat and we have been sitting in the shade of this banyan tree since then. Only this year, we began calling it Dadimaa Bargat (Grandmother Banyan). Gramya Manthan invites people to reflect on one’s days - how would it be to draw from a witness of 300 years, was a sense we tried to hold. Grandmother Banyan has seen several storms, monsoons, changes in her lifetime. One of the work that has happened to us and through us is to reclaim the sacred in nature. Looking at nature not just as a material resource but as a spirit. And not just nature outside - what would it be to not just look at our own bodies as a material resource? Another aspect to this has been experiencing a different rhythm of life than the rhythm most urbanites are used to - clock-time, weekday-weekend etc. Experiencing seasons, experiencing daylight and nightsky, experiencing birds chirping or trees shedding leaves. We would start the d...

A mentor of ours, Aseem described passion as capacity to suffer. One of the reasons why Gramya Manthan happens in peak summers in Uttar Pradesh is inviting people from all over the country to experience the rigour of the place that shows up in the heat. Within the team, we have discussed this several times on the need to do it in summers. It also acts as an auto self filter for non-serious candidates. Summers in rural can be hard in Northern India especially for young people from urban areas. In the middle of the program, we have been experimenting with creating a simulated experience around Food inequity - where people get divided into different economic classes and based on that they get their food through the day. A poor will get a roti and onion for instance and a rich may get delicacies complete with desert. Its a disruptive experience even for the holders of the experiment - the cohort surprises us each time. This time immediately after breakfast, unrest built up and th...

One of the participants, Aarti shared in one of her reflections, that it was difficult for her mother to let her go beyond 300 metres alone as a child. While as she visited a family in the village - Kaki asked a kid, Anjali from the neighbouring home to accompany her to show around the village. And Anjali walked with Arti the whole day around the village. Two things struck with her, the sense of freedom and comfort that Anjali had with the whole village and the idea of ‘home’. Kaki felt comfortable asking a neighbouring kid take a guest around and the kid accompanied her all along. ‘Home’ felt somewhat expanded to Aarti in the village. Environmental Wilderness obviously is endangered in our world, with forests being butchered and snow caps melting. However, the wilderness of the human heart is also endangered. Kids today are growing up in enclosed rooms with enclosed minds. Sedentary lifestyle is the order of the day. Trust in human relationships is encroached upon by transaction...