elephant corridor

My Upcycled Life

2011-12-05T21:00:00.000-08:00

Teacherplus»Blog Archive » My upcycled life

My Upcycled Life

Today it is almost mandatory for the words ‘development’, ‘lifestyle’ and even ‘technology’ to be prefixed with the word ‘sustainable’. When we read that something was built keeping sustainability in mind, we feel more comfortable about that product. We may build sustainable homes [often confused with exposed brick facades of buildings] and join the rest of the planet in turning off our lights for an hour in the evening once a year – but really, how sustainable are our lives – and is it possible to live an entirely sustainable lifestyle?

I may choose to ride a cycle to work – thus saving on fuel, which is precious. Once I reach my workplace, I may munch on an apple or pear, and drink some juice that I’ve carried in my backpack – but what if those fruits and juice are imported products – that have reached my Bangalore supermarket all the way from the USA or New Zealand – how much fuel have I really saved? Leading a sustainable therefore, in my opinion, is a snowballing effect or as they say in the Lays Chips ad, you can’t stop with just one [way of being sustainable!]

Some of my friends have inspired me to change my lifestyle. One of them is a CEO of a company – he either cycles or takes the bus to work – about 8 kilometers one-way. No chemical cleaning ingredients can be found in his home. Indeed his home, which was built, recently is a lesson in sustainability. The roof is made of bamboo. There are no tiles on the floor or in the washrooms. The glass for his windows is all sheets from demolished buildings. The wood for the staircase, window frames and cupboards are all wood recycled from packing crates. His kitchen and washroom sinks, taps and even the WC are second hand – from demolished buildings. The water from his washing machine and kitchen sinks ‘grey water’ leads into the garden. His large screen television, state of the art refrigerator and a few other appliances are second hand too. He says there is no need to keep buying new things and junking perfectly good products that may be a little out of style.

Needless to say his home is beautiful. He has also saved up to 40% of his building costs on plaster, cement and interior products.

Nothing looks second hand. Why am I saying this? In our society, there is a stigma against second hand products, against ‘saving’ money if you can afford not to. Plus if you’re the CEO of a ‘BIG’ company, it is almost mandatory to have all the fittings of a ‘hi-carbon’ lifestyle as opposed to a sustainable one. Infact I sometimes think the biggest hurdle to living sustainably is the inherent snob factor.

Another friend lives almost 35 kilometers from her work place. She started a car pool – the rule was simple. If there weren’t atleast 4 people in the car, the car would not be used. Along with her colleagues, a schedule of timings and leave days was made and adhered to. The movement within her office grew and soon car poolers got preferred parking. When she built her home, she invested in solar energy. The result, between 6 pm and 9 am her home is run solely on solar power. She started segregating waste and composting at home. This naturally led to gardening. Which soon spun into her farming an empty plot adjacent to her house – growing corn, tomatoes, spinach and other vegetables. All without chemical pesticides. This wasn’t enough for her - when she realized her ‘grey water’, which had detergents and chemicals from shampoos and clothes whiteners etc, she started using soap nuts even in her washing machine. She even learnt to drink tender coconut straight from the coconut rather than use the plastic straw.

So how did these two people and countless others that I read about inspire me? Ofcourse like many people my first step towards sustainable living was using a cloth bag rather than plastic. I then started segregating my garbage. Now all the vegetable and kitchen waste, biodegradable, go straight into my compost bin and then later to my plants. The milk packets, plastic containers, glass bottles all get recycled. My aim is a no garbage home – one that I haven’t achieved yet.

I stopped buying drinking water – if I forget to carry a water bottle I stay thirsty. I stopped using auto rickshaws for my errands – I either walk or use my bicycle. I hardly ever use my printer. I don’t buy any imported food. I make it a point to look for local foods, I even learnt to make my own ricotta and mascarpone cheese – now I don’t have to buy the one with frequent flier miles!!!

I remembered that my mom cleaned glass with a wet newspaper and I stopped buying the fancy chemical filled glass cleaner.

Infact when I really stop to think about it, I grew up in a very sustainable home - ofcourse we didn’t know it then. My brothers and I used the same school and lunch bags for years on end, we cycled to school, we removed the unused sheets of paper from our notebooks and had new ones bound at the end of every school year. Textbooks were passed on from seniors to juniors. Between cousins and friends, clothes and shoes were handed down – it was never a matter of affordability – everyone did it and there was never any shame in it.

I try to do the same thing with my daughter now – with my other ‘mom’ friends, we have a chain of supply of clothes, toys and books that go all the way from Delhi to Coimbatore. Nothing gets thrown away and we reuse till it can’t be used any longer. She sometimes brings me a box, or a carton and says ‘what can we do with this now?’ Ofcourse the flip side of all this recycling is that now you get really beautiful products that have been recycled or ‘upcycled’ and in the guise of being ‘eco friendly’ you’ll end up buying all sorts of things that you don’t need and then you’ll need to throw it all away a few years later when you’re ‘clearing up’.

The fun part about living this way is if you really stop to think about all your actions, you can find ways to make everything sustainable. I work from home – so if I bathe in the afternoon – I don’t need to switch on my geyser. The water is heated up in the tank anyway and I get piping hot water. Free of electricity! Yea and that’s another victory for the planet and me!

Think about it - let me know what else I can do.

Pig Sacrifice at the Myuko Festival

2010-09-20T23:55:00.000-07:00

I've always thought it's very important to know where your food comes from - I've heard stories of children who have gone off milk after knowing it comes from cows! Why I have adult friends who couldn't think beyond the milk vending machine or nicely packed and clean looking cold cuts in their favorite store. So when I was in Ziro with my friends who were making a film there - and I heard we would be filming pig sacrifice on the festival of Myuko, I being a vegetarian thought it would be too much for me. But no, it was a great experience. Children and adults alike participated in the sacrifice; slaughtering the pigs the family reared...far from being gruesome, it was clean and quick atleast from the human point of view.

children watch - our perception of 'protecting' them doesn't apply here

the cut meat is hung up to dry

Rural Kitchens

2010-09-13T23:09:00.000-07:00

Sparkly clean and no detergents, cleaners or any other chemicals in sight! And the food that is churned out - manna from heaven!

be sure to wear some flowers in your hair

2010-04-29T19:19:00.000-07:00

Free Range vs Processed

2010-04-19T23:50:00.000-07:00

Free chicks vs caged from birth

Manually fed grain to supplement worms vs mechanically fed grain with antibiotics

Eating together and well, eating together - differently

Rather this space than a room with a view

new beginnings

2010-04-12T08:52:00.000-07:00

A fisherman and his family celebrate new beginnings and hope for a good year ahead - decorating their boat during the day of Ayuda Puja - a day dedicated to the instruments of one's profession. This day was especially poignant for this family as for the others along the coast of Tamil Nadu as this was the first Ayuda Puja after the tsunami of 2004.

ayyanars

2010-04-09T08:05:00.000-07:00

All over the Tamil Nadu countryside, startlingly magnificent statues of Ayyanars can be found - in sacred groves, at the entrance to villages, by the sea...this protective deity is almost always on horse back, accompanied by a dog; and an able assistant. Gifts of terracota horses are left behind by devotees whose wishes have been fulfilled.

protest

2010-04-07T20:21:00.000-07:00

Bhopal 2002

Cochin 2002

Cochin 2002, mourning the 'death' of the pollution control board

Bhadravathi 2002

relief

2010-04-06T19:22:00.000-07:00

A Boat travelling by truck to a fisherman who had lost his home and boat in the tsunami of 2004, Tamil Nadu

the tea lady

2010-04-05T19:48:00.000-07:00

Nammakal, Tamilnadu

healthy laddoos

2010-04-04T23:57:00.000-07:00

Indu Huike is the first woman sarpanch of Pavnar Panchayat; a village in the Wardha district of Maharashtra. As the leader of the VHNCC or Village Health and Nutrition Co-ordination Committee; she ensures that nutritious care and advice is provided to children in need of it. And there are many such children – malnutritioned children and underweight babies are the norm here rather than the exception.

As a solution, Indu Huike turns to an old Indian recipe – ladoos made of jaggery and groundnuts – these delicious ladoos are made and delivered by the sarpanch and her assistant. She says that after a few weeks of eating the laddoos she can see a definite improvement in the child’s health and weight.

sleep ...

2010-04-04T08:51:00.000-07:00

butterflies

2010-04-02T19:50:00.000-07:00

plovers in goa

2010-04-02T00:58:00.000-07:00

Sparrows in Bylakuppe

2010-01-14T03:34:00.000-08:00

The only place I've seen sparrows in Bangalore are at the Bangalore International Airport - sparrows in plenty hop around the food tables greedily grabbing any crumb that falls from tables in the cafe area. Their chirps compete with the announcements of flights...but I do miss them within the city and in my garden...and was happy to see them in Bylakuppe.

The Yamuna

2009-12-20T21:30:00.000-08:00

With or without climate change's help the Yamuna has been dying for years now - it was even pronounced officially dead in a newspaper about 10 years ago! Industries all along the banks of the Yamuna spew their untreated wastes into the river - along with the domestic and sewage wastes [again untreated] from millions of homes. Unsurprisingly the stretch of the river that runs through Delhi is the most polluted. On a good day - depending on the wind or if you have a stuffy nose, you'll be lucky not to smell it as you reach closer to the river.

More often than not, the ugliness and foulness of the river is blamed on the hundreds of hutment dwellers who live along its banks. However, the sewage and pollution they release into the river [ considerable thouhg it may be] cannot be compared to the vast vast amounts of toxins and sewage from the industries and the privileged classes around Delhi.

These are images of Yamuna's true children - the ones who live by her, with her and in her - uncomplaining for they have no access to any other water.

Smoke Factories in Paradip

2009-12-10T18:58:00.000-08:00

Along the banks of tributaries that join the Mahanadi River in Paradip, smoke from factories obscure the sunset even. Unfortunately I had loaded a roll of B/W film so you can't see the colours - but our boat ride was anything but pleasant. A foul smell filled the air our boatman who is also a fisherman told us of dead turtles and large fish deaths he'd seen on the river. For more on the pollution here, click here.

I always believe that nothing makes sense till you get to know the people who live with the problems surrounding them - we did interview after interview with children and adults who told us about almost daily occurrences of breathlessness, retching, nausea and water related illnesses because of the pollution in their front yard.

road to jaduguda

2009-12-08T17:32:00.000-08:00

The road to jaduguda is built from tailings of radioactive waste from the uranium mines that dot the road to the village. Tailings or radioactive waste are dumped in an area labelled dumping yard. It could be funny if it wasn't for the children. It seems as if everyone except the government and the mining industry knows about the horrific dangers of radioactive contamination.

Read this for a bizarre incident of radioactive contamination that happened recently in Tamil Nadu - people in charge call it 'mischief' !!!

Ash Hills Of Kolaghat

2009-12-07T22:33:00.000-08:00

Little did I know the dangers of ash hills from thermal power plants quoted here when I was in Kolaghat. All I could tell immediately was that it was difficult to breathe, difficult to even keep my eyes open. I wondered how the residents lived so close to these hills - but then they were everywhere dotting the landscape - that seemed bathed in shades of grey except for new leaves that would soon turn grey too. The water from fresh water ponds - the only source of drinking water was grey as well.

post script Endosulfan

2009-12-07T22:22:00.000-08:00

Countries that have banned endosulfan include Bahrain, Belize, Cambodia, Colombia, Cote d’Ivoire, Jordan, Kuwait, Malaysia, New Zealand, Norway, Oman, parts of the Philippines, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, St Lucia, Sri Lanka, Syria, and United Arab Emirates.

India however still looks to China and the USA before it makes a decision on this ban. here's an excerpt from The Hindu December 7th 2009.

The Union Government has no plans to ban use of endosulfan in the farming sector, Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar said today.

A committee, appointed to study various health problems noticed in areas where endosulfan was used, has not recommended any such ban of the hazardous chemical, Mr. Pawar told reporters on the sidelines of a function here.

The minister was apprised of the plight of people of a village in Kasaragod which had been badly affected by aerial spraying of endosulfan in cashew plantations and the state government's strong plea for its ban.

Although some countries had banned endosulfan, many others including the US, France and China have not banned its application. Besides, endosulfan was found to be very effective in controlling pests in certain crops and farmers cultivating these crops are against banning it, he said.

For the full story click here.

2009-12-05T23:18:00.000-08:00

The aerial spraying of Endosulfan began in Kasargode in rhe early 1970's. From the late 70's newspaper articles started highlighting anomalies in animal births and illnesses among the residents of Kasargode.

However it wasn't till 1990 when Down To Earth magazine broke the story of endosulfan poisoning among this community that the true horror of this tragedy came to be known.

When we visited Kasargode in 2002 to make a film, we saw that children who didn't have visible deformities had other illnesses - all related to pesticide poisoning. By this time, there was ample evidence that the water, vegetables grown there, milk, and even human blood has traces of endosulfan.

Endosulfan is still used in Kasargode and many other places in India and around the world. The children of Kasargode are still seeking justice and the community continues the effort to ban this pesticide.

Remembering the Bhopal Gas Tragedy

2009-12-03T00:24:00.000-08:00

I was in Bhopal filming for 'Miles To Go' on the eve of the anniversary in 2002 - I met some wonderful people - survivors of the tragedy - who laughed and sang as they remembered events of that night - the women at the centre run by Rasheeda Bi argued as they tried to remember what movie they were watching on Doordarshan that night - something with Amol Palekar was the consensus. A peanut vendor walked in and recounted his memory - " all over the streets were covered with bodies, of children, animals - even the leaves on the trees weren't spared".

Later , we filmed a protest march - here are images from that day.

I'll keep posting pictures of other 'Bhopals' this month as a remembrance of all the people's protests everywhere in the world.