Raithara Santhe (farmers’ market) located in Old Yelahanka on a Sunday morning.
To be connected locally is to live life in high-definition. For life hides and reveals itself in details, often so minute that unless we explore it through local language and cuisine and through the eyes of the people we talk to, we live through a blur. Continue reading
On this World Soil Day, it’s time to revisit Walt Whitman’s beautiful poem on compost. Let’s compost and send it back to the soil.
THIS COMPOST
SOMETHING startles me where I thought I was safest;
I withdraw from the still woods I loved;
I will not go now on the pastures to walk;
I will not strip the clothes from my body to meet my lover the sea;
I will not touch my flesh to the earth, as to other flesh, to renew me. Continue reading
Modern comforts in the midst of a rural setting… Nothing beats it.
Our search for a home in one such setting ended in Yelahanka in a complex that has plonked itself amidst three villages. There are some aged green giants like peepal, banyan and neem settled on roadsides and also small strips of vineyards and coconut plantations. Two tiny lakes on either side of the building sparkle in sunlight but lose out to the heat during summer. Continue reading
“Long ago, I jumped off my ship which caught fire. Not a bruise or a burn on my body. I swam to the shore. But the land didn’t agree with me.”
As Khan uncle sat against the blameless blue skies on an extraordinarily beautiful sunny morning with that charming smile, it was difficult to agree with what he said. Continue reading
The buzz started at around 2 pm yesterday with a just few bees. In the next couple of minutes, the swarm grew bigger and bigger and the bees started piling up on each other. Eight minutes of manic activity, this massive beehive took the shape of black icicles and then, everything went silent. Continue reading
A series of articles based on my personal experience of turning our manicured garden, used to synthetic fertilisers and pesticides, into completely organic with the help of like-minded enthusiastic volunteers.
In a majority of cases, apartments sprout on what was a cultivated land or a lakebed or both, previously. Thousands of trees get uprooted to make way for a gated community. This is happening at an alarming pace especially in green areas like North Bangalore. Relatively greener, that is. Continue reading
A series of articles based on my personal experience of turning our manicured garden, used to synthetic fertilisers and pesticides, into completely organic with the help of like-minded enthusiastic volunteers.
Sometime ago, a friend of mine recounted a heart-breaking tale involving her housemaid who had suffered massive crop damage in her hometown located in a neighbouring state. It was nothing to do with untimely rains or drought or any other vagaries of nature. But something purely man-made—a guided tour of disaster, planned and sponsored by agriculture experts who swear by deadly cocktails of pesticides. Continue reading
