If you care to look beyond the million gods you encounter in India, you would find a sturdy belief system that would be worthy of some fundamentalism. A ministry awaits a messiah who has the energy to found a new fanatical religious order based on it; and I would happily join it. For about a quarter century since I became aware of the concept of Pancha Maha Bhuta, [Bhuta is pronounced 'bhootha'] I have wondered why we as a civilisation have not yanked it from behind and worshipped it instead of the gods in front.

I translate the Sanskrit phrase “Pancha Maha Bhuta” [PMB] as “Five Grand Spirits”. They are Space, Air, Fire, Water and Earth. “What of them?”, do you ask? Well, wait until you discover how ‘Indian Tradition’ [IT: a nomenclature I like, ahead of the narrow sounding 'Hinduism'] sees these five spirits permeate every material reality that surrounds us. For several millennia people of this land have instinctively subscribed to the primacy of PMB. They explored the integrated system that the five Spirits amount to, examined it with rigour, discovered order in them, documented the knowledge, and then -and only then- perhaps to spread the idea in the streets, suffered to bring in the arts, temples, and gods. The short point is the Bhuta are the fundamental reality; the gods come later.

Let me begin to share my enthusiasm starting with this wondrous passage I found here. It is one of the verses by Vedaranya, a scholar and administrator of the Vijayanagar Empire

“Only one quality can be seen in space: it can reverberate sound, but we cannot touch it, taste it, smell it… Space can only cause an atmosphere for creating a vibration of sound; so, as nothing else is possible there, Sound alone is the quality of space.
But of air, there are two qualities: air can make sound, and also it can be felt. It can be touched. Sound is the quality of space; sound and touch are the qualities of air.
But fire has sound, touch and has form, as we can also see it.

And water: we can hear its sound, we can touch it, we can see it, we can taste it. But we cannot taste fire, taste air, taste space,
Earth has five qualities: it can create sound, it can be touched, it can be seen, it can be tasted, and it can be smelled. Smelling is the quality of only earth,
…so Earth has five qualities, Water has four, fire has three, air has two, and space has only one quality.”

Let me make a list out of the above:

• 1- Space: Heard, [as a hum, or Om, if you prefer]
• 2- Air: Heard and felt
• 3- Fire: Heard, felt and seen
• 4- Water: Heard, felt, seen and tasted
• 5- Earth: Heard, felt, seen, tasted and smelt

Our ancient folks were active list makers. They went on to map our five senses to the PMB:

• 1- Space: Heard: Ear
• 2- Air: Heard and felt: Skin
• 3- Fire: Heard, felt and seen: Eye
• 4- Water: Heard, felt, seen and tasted: Tongue
• 5- Earth: Heard, felt, seen, tasted and smelt: Nose

From a Tibetan source, I discover more equivalences:

• 1- Space: Vibration
• 2- Air: Motion
• 3- Fire: Heat
• 4- Water:Cohesion
• 5- Earth: Solidity

So it goes. How does it all come together? I decided to make a set of tables out of what I was digging out of the Internet. I neither know Sanskrit, nor am a scholar or a philosopher; just an enthusiast for earth’s environment. My hope is to discover an argument that might give environment a primacy in our search for material prosperity.

Siddarth is the fourth person to commit to the pointReturn mission. He came on board earlier this month and has moved swiftly to share our work and responsibilities. He comes about eight months after Karpagam and Sriram; that isn’t a surprise because they have been friends for over a decade.

Like Sriram, Siddarth too is an IIT alumnus and an MBA from IIM Calcutta. He is 39. He worked for 9 years with a software firm, rose to be a Vice-President, travelled the world and made money. But he says he had a finite goal even as he began his career. He decided on this, he says because of a great human being, Dr Dilip Veeraraghavan who mentored him in IIT. “Dr Dilip was a professor of humanities; he truly humanised many future technocrats. I learnt how limited material success was without larger concerns, spirituality and a respect for traditions as a teacher. By ‘tradition’ he meant a very broad set – traditional agriculture, for instance.” That influenced Siddarth to resolve he would make enough money to live the simple life and then quit to live it.

He did just that. In 2005, he joined two other IITians [-some of them seem to be right-programmed in that august institution!] to care for a patch of land in Karnataka. In 2007 he moved on to buy two acres of his own to practice agriculture. I met him briefly around that time, when I myself was starting the pointReturn adventure. Once Karpagam and Sriram moved in at pointReturn, his own interest quickened. And so he is here. “I realised the ride is more enjoyable and productive when you are in kindred company,” he says.

I am of course delighted to have three committed young people to work with. All three enjoy the rough and dirty physical work [-not common in 'educated' Indians], share a commitment to the environment,have the easy smile and friendly ways.

They arouse a curiosity in me. Why would such young people leave lucrative careers? In 2005, when I was still publishing GoodNewsIndiaI met the great Dharampal in Wardha. He lay dying but suffered to receive me. When I mentioned I went around gathering good news, he growled: “What good news have you found?”. It was clear he was a disillusioned man, quite broken by the path India had taken.

Quite unprepared, I found myself saying, “Well, young people today have the potential for bringing about change”. He was nearly angry and wanted to know why I said that.

“You see they begin in highly paid jobs and lead highly stressed lives. When quite young most of them brown out and look for something less stressful to do. They put away enough money and gain freedom from ‘jobbing’. I believe they will make the corrections for India.” He stared at me for a while and turned away, unimpressed.

He may have rightly distrusted my optimism. Many do make the big money but most go on to create comfort zones to insulate themselves from the India beyond their front doors. But there are a few who commit to living the life of their deep convictions.

I know at least three; they are at pointReturn.

Even less celebrated than the pump is its sadly anonymous inventor, a mechanic from Sholapur, Maharashtra. Till 1967 it was known as the Sholapur Pump. It’s specialty was the ability to pump from depths beyond 25′.

Both 1967 and 25′ are significant numbers to deserve our attention. By 1967, India’s traditional simple methods of accessing water from wells, ponds and via the classical S-handled pumps became difficult. 20 years into Independence, a rapidly growing population and urbanisation appear to have lowered the water table. Concentrations in cities and towns made hand drawn water from ponds and wells impractical. Oil engine driven agricultural pumps accelerated water depletion. A culture that had practiced rain-fed or surface irrigation for centuries was running out of water; water by the early sixties, had to be accessed from greater depths.

All mechanical lift pumps can only pump from a maximum depth of 25′. The reason for this is worth learning by every non-technical homesteader. The atmospheric pressure at sea level is 14.7 psi [pounds per square inch] or 1bar. What this means in practical terms is this: if a perfectly friction free pump has a 33′ long suction pipe let into a well, then if pulling the piston up like a syringe creates a perfect vacuum, then atmospheric pressure acting on the well water’s surface will push the water all the way up the 33′ long suction pipe. That is the theoretical limit. In reality there is always friction and a perfect vacuum is impossible to create. Therefore it is not possible to draw water from depths more than 25′.

In 1967, when India faced widespread drought it appealed to UNICEF for help. And in came a battalion of drilling rigs that could bore down to hundreds of feet.”Between 1970 and 1974, UNICEF shipped in 125 hammer rigs, along with trucks and spare parts. Each of these rigs could drill about 100 boreholes a year — theoretically supplying water to 12,000 villages and about 9 million people” [All quotes are from this reference]What was needed was a rugged hand pump that can lift water from 150′ depths.

The way to lift water from very deep wells is to place the pump within 25′ of its level or better still, submerge it. Electric submersible pumps do just that. The pump and its driving motor are encased in a waterproof tube and lowered into deep well. Power is supplied via a flexible cable and the pump’s discharge is led to the surface via flexible pipes.

The Sholapur Pump, the forerunner of the Mark 2 pump is a manual, reciprocating equivalent of the electric, rotary, submersible pump. Referring to the illustration at right, the “Cylinder Assembly->” [shown in red in the upper picture], is let down deep into the water in the “Bore Hole Casing->”. A “Connecting Rod->” connects the “Plunger Rod->” of the “Cylinder Assembly->” with the “Handle Assembly->”. The “Stand Assembly->” may be at the surface and the “Cylinder Assembly” as far down as 150 feet. When the handle is operated water is ‘pushed up’ by the cylinder [instead of 'lifted from' as in older pumps]. Water rises to the surface in the “Riser Pipe->” Thus water deep down became accessible due the Sholapur Pump design, and its derivative the modern Mark 2.

What has been happening at pointReturn? What is daily life like? What have been the changes in the last three years?

What is the progress on the four self-sufficiencies of the mission- water, food, energy and cash?

Is the dream still intact? Who is keeping it alive? How are we going to realise them in full?

A new long story answers all your questions: Click here to read ]]> http://goodnewsindia.com/pointreturn/online/home/2010/07/inside-pointreturn/feed/ 4 http://goodnewsindia.com/pointreturn/online/home/2010/07/the-humanure-handbook/ http://goodnewsindia.com/pointreturn/online/home/2010/07/the-humanure-handbook/#comments Wed, 07 Jul 2010 17:02:43 +0000 pointR http://goodnewsindia.com/pointreturn/online/home/?p=379 Read]]> The Humanure Handbook is one of those alternate lifestyle classics that people have heard of, come across, intuit what it might be about – but rarely read in full or in depth. Much like War and Peace. Woody Allen once said, “I read War and Peace in twenty minutes. It’s about Russia”. Well the Humanure Book is not just about shit.

I recently sat down to read it and soon realised it’s a seditious book that can change you forever. I have read a few books that do that, but this one still remains sort of a black book. Naturally, you might say, because the subject is human excrement that Joseph Jenkins calls Humanure. But such an outlook is far from natural. Humanure like excrement of other life forms, is meant to be returned to enrich the soil. It is a valuable resource now being treated like a problem waste. Our ‘fecophobia’ -another Jenkins coinage- is a measure of separation from the web of life that we have suffered.

Jenkins’s mission is nothing less than to knock us out of our folly and make us realise we are throwing away a valuable resource- and in the process harm the planet. Take this data: by simply defecating “…Americans each year produced 1,448,575,000 pounds [0.7million Tonnes] of nitrogen, 456,250,000 pounds [0.2mill.T] of potassium and 193,900,00 pounds [0.1mill.T] of phosphorous”. And they are throwing it all away. Getting rid of this precious resource, needs billions of litres of good fresh water, piped to homes at great cost. In sewage ponds where the resource is flushed to, energy is expended to extract the valuable stuff – and readied for burial in landfills. Oh what a First World living that is! And our leaders in India are ever striving to give us that.

Scale that up for India’s population and you will be stricken by the tragedy of it all. If instead one simply composted the excrement where it is dropped, India would increase food production, reduce water use, improve public sanitation, conserve energy and strengthen its economy.

To bring that about would require visionary leadership that Gandhi alone possessed. So many fastidious sanctions exist around defecation in Indian culture that one is amazed Gandhi dared pioneer several departures. To me personally, Gandhi is a revolutionary not so much of the political kind as an environmental one.

Historically, China has been more sensible about excrement than India [-and today it is losing its senses faster than India]. According to Jenkins, in 1908 the successful bid was a sum of 31,000 gold dollars for the exclusive right to collect human excrement from all residences and public places in Shanghai. The contractor probably sold most of that to farmers to nourish their fields.

How wonderful it would be if a politician displayed daring and initiated a programme to massively convert excrement into compost everywhere in India. I don’t think what comes in the way is our traditional aversion for all things scatalogical; what is lacking is conviction.

Emilia began studying Fukuoka’s method of growing food. She stated his fundamental principles of natural agriculture to be these four: no tilling, no weeding, no artificial fertiliser or pesticide. Do read her insightful statement How does one practice this on a large scale? One doesn’t; one begins with a small area that is manageable consistent with the above four principles. [Scaling up is ideally achieved with a large number of small-scale practitioners -everyone, if possible- instead of a few at industrial scale 'modern' agriculture, as now.] Holding the four principles firmly in view, Emilia came upon the idea of growing vegetables on raised beds.

In early January, 2010 I built the first two raised beds at pointReturn. There were a few surplus arecanut slats left over from the pavilion construction. I used these for raising the sides of the bed. The bed was located at the head of a slope. Each bed is 4′ wide and 7′ feet long. The width enables reaching from either side without stepping on the bed. Walkways between the beds are provided for the same reason. The walkway is mulched to prevent weed growth.

A designer constantly looks to extract merit from a problem. So I cast about for a solution that seemed right by me and nature. I picked the two-pit, pour flush privy. It used little water, converted human waste into compost and required no maintenance. Then after a whole year, during which I observed the flow and stand of rain water in the land near the toilet pits, I began to worry a bit: how safe is my two-pit system from mixing with ground water? Flush water is too little to create a leachate, but what of reverse flow of ground water into the toilet pit. Increasing rain water harvesting activity must surely raise the ground water level? Success in water harvesting might be jeopardizing water safety; such are the contradictions one must constantly address. It was re-design time again and in my book that always translates into converting a problem into an advantage.

It was then that I received an email from Sriram suggesting the ecosan system.Ecosan is short for ecologically sound sanitation. Its principles are several: human feces and urine are valuable resources; they ought to be separated and put to use in agriculture; water use should be eliminated except for washing up oneself. This sort of thinking to me is true ‘modernity’. A modern mind investigates a practice, picks the best from it and designs out the worst. The ecosan movement seems to be doing this with sanitation.I remember reading some decades ago, Han Suyin writing how public toilets in old China were auctioned annually; the winner would be carting away the material to his fields. Alas, China, that once innovative nation, now thinks ‘modernity’ requires flood flush toilets and miles of sewage lines.