Shades of Being Alive

More and more, its becoming visible to me- what’s the work for us. Perhaps, our life’s work. Over 8 years into Youth Alliance, it seems we are just beginning.  Humanity faces a civilisational crisis - that is made up with ecological crisis because we are consuming twice more than earth can regenerate; economic inequity because less and less people own more and more wealth in the world; political polarisation because nationalistic identity based division is rising world over and even spiritual crisis, because we feel more and more alienated from our own selves.  Or perhaps, as human beings we are in a stage of transition. From an industrial society to a life sustaining one. From a story of separation to a story of interconnectedness or interbeing.  From Google Last 8 years, in our work - we have created spaces for young people to get in touch with their own selves, with nature and with people whose realities is completely different from their own. Initial...

The Interconnected Crisis  The world today is at the cusp of multi-fold crisis:  Ecological Crisis where we are consuming 1.5 times the rate at which Earth can replenish Socio-Economic Crisis where 26 individuals own as much wealth as bottom 50% of humanity and inequity is only getting skewed each year (Oxfam Inequity Report)  Spiritual Crisis with a remarkable self-alienation whose one of the consequences is rising number of suicides.  The crisis we believe, is civilizational. It asks of us some fundamental questions about dominant way of being, way of thinking and organising.  The Core Problem  The crises are created by a web of factors – like mono-cultured education, globalisation, industrial modernity and so on. However, one of the most significant phenomenon that has led to these crises is dismantling of communities particularly in the last 30 years at a rate unprecedented before. Because of (a) economic mobility (including displ...

The world is at the cusp of multifold crisis:  Ecological Crisis where we are consuming 1.5 times the rate at which Earth can replenish  Socio-Economic Crisis where 26 individuals own as much wealth as bottom 50% of humanity and inequity is only getting skewed (Oxfam Inequity Report)  Spiritual Crisis with a remarkable self-alienation whose one of the consequences is rising number of suicides.  The crises are created a web of factors, we wish to name the roots as we see it:  Firstly, our monocultural factory like schooling system produce consumers and workers whose humanity is layered with fearful pursuits of material excess. And that has created a system that work for only a few humans at the cost of other human beings, other beings and the environment. The education system was developed for a particular socio-cultural context where Industrial Revolution was rising, colonialism was the order of the day and the paradigm of man’s relationship with...

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...

Seeing villages as a cultural reality and not just an infrastructural setup is the foundation of Gramya Manthan. The first thing most participants notice is the ‘lack’ - lack of toilets, lack of roads, lack of hygiene. Only gradually the abundance seeps in - richness of culture in the village. When the participants interacted with the culture of the villages, they by default connected with their own culture. 3 of the participants shared that while they served friends from the village during Daawat, they remembered how they organised and served at community events in Kerela or in Gurudwara in Punjab. Yash, one of the participants remembered how he missed the sparrows in his balcony in Delhi. Every participant came back feeling warmth and love from the way they were hosted in the villages - more than the discomfort of lack of facilities. The question we held was - ‘Will I be able to host the friends from the village in the city, in the same way they hosted me?’ With dismantling...

I have come to believe that one can learn way more about systems thinking from the village than from any book or any modern facility. Its visible in daily actions. Take, food. Crops harvested from fields, stored for household use, cooked and eaten or eaten uncooked. The inedible remains (like vegetable peels) go to the cattle as their food. That food from cattle becomes poop, which in turn is made into manure for the fields. To let more food grow. Take water ponds. Most villages have had a tradition of maintaining ponds. Annually they desilt it, using the top layer of soil for repairing their mudhouses. Water and housing system, interact with each other. Local awareness, limited resources unleashed deep systems thinking and doing in the village. It has taken a great deal of schooling and ‘working’ to take local systems awareness away from us. The other reason has been tyranny of convenience. We have traded awareness with comfort. In the Systems Thinking session in Gramya Manthan, part...

Dearest Family Member, I hope this email finds you in joy and love.  On this Saturday morning, I have a question for you - Where have you experienced / seen these elements?  Clock   |   Bell    |    Time-table    |      Compartments    |      Uniform      |       Input >> Process >> Output Guessed? Yes, school. Anywhere else? Yes, Factory, Prison, Railway Stations, Shopping Malls and sometimes even in Homes. And if you inquire deeply you would find one or the other combination of these design elements in all modern social constructs we are part of. What have these design done - they have created a story of the world - story of separation, of competition, of rush, of standardisation, of self-limiting survival and of self-interest. What does this mean? Why on a Saturday morning? To that, please allow me to take you away from y...

Dearest Family Member,  I hope January is bringing newer and healthier energy in you to pursue what your heart calls for.  While we were in Kutch, I met an elderly Dadi, she called herself 101 years old but never counted her age :) I asked her if she was scared of death and she said  'सब कुछ राम का है, जब चाहे ले लें '  (everything belongs to God and he can take it whenever he wants). Witnessing her, I felt she treaded lightly while being true to the role that she was given in her life. I have been thinking for myself, while I try to live my purpose a 100% -  what does it take to tread lightly? To not be a weight on the planet - physically, emotionally, spiritually . :) In our country and the world, there's remarkable polarisation, ego and fear and to us the most important way to engage with it - is to live our lives with very different anchors - of trust, acceptance and fearlessness.  What we also need is to cultivate a community that supp...