English is not my language but I need to speak it here a lot and I have to manage Tamil too, and on top of it the language of the monkeys! So, let me write in English! Forgive the mistakes, here is no one to correct and I do not want to use AI.
The Yogapractice in a magical place is completely diffrent. The group coming from UK is transformed. They looked worried when they came, but now their faces are blooming with smiles. In spite of the problems here in Base with the workers – first of all not enough people wanting to work here far away from the towns – and the illness of our main watchmen with his kidney failure – its still a paradise. We just live with less expectations..
M uch happened in our absence in the moth from May to January. A few acres of lanterna growth – the last usurious outgrowth into which one could not step in – , has been removed with its roots and a pepper garden with amaranth and pumpkins has been planted. The earth is so lash there. In the midth of this new incredible beautiful landscaps with rocks and sourrounded at the bounderis by large evergreen rainforest trees, stands the new round shaped mud hut. What a special energy to sit in such a building. We smoked it out and wait till it dries out in the approaching summer. The bamboo bed to sleep on is ready and Varun started a dry toilette behind the hut.
In our times with rulers like Trumph, haters oft he wild, beautiful mother earth, humilating any feminine thinking, we are proud of doing the opposite. That gives an happiness, the feeling, working far off in the jungle is creating a positiv alternative to what is going on in the world.
Workers here are a massiv problem. Again a suiced in the family of workers. A young, good looking, healthy man drank poison. It must be by now the 10th suicede we whitness since we are here (from 2014). Mostly young man. Maybe the family pressure, the old system of patriarchy expecting the male to go out and fetch the money, is massiv, the promise of instagram and other media reaches their little phones and they feel left out. The watch us coming from somewhere and being happy here, but we have a huge back up of money. Then the loans they take are killing them. They do not understand money. The hard work farmers can and do is amazing. When we brought down massiv dry trees – one of this group fell on the house last year – one could witness their incredible skills. There is no crane or ladder. Three men did it with ropes, climing up on the trunk barefooted – quite a spectacle to watch. Still all this people will look at the cities and compare.
The slums in India are growing, while the rich are growing masiv with their wealth. Everywhere Modi builds roads, everywhere tourists. We went with so many groups over the last years down to the falls – that is now called pepper falls and over run by jeeps bringing down tourist. The litter and garbish, the noise down there – I just heard horror storries. This is the other side of tourism in India.
I have taken the small 4 year old boy, son of our new cook Selvi, a few days to kindergarden. Its nearby, a catholic school run by nuns. 1/2 km walk from the gate of Base. Even there people are missing. Today was no school as the schoolvan- driver, who is supposed to pick up children, has not come to work.
Only the monkeys are without fail. The went into the yoga hall dismantled the lampshades and created a mess with the matts and left their shit. What do we humans do in the wild? Why are we in their land? We need to run away from world politics what else???
I had time here to read:
I have read quite a few books by indian writers writing in their nativ tongue like Kaanada, Tamil and Urdu translated into english. I really loved Kuvempu ‘Bride in the hills.’ Or books of Perumal Murugan or Banu Mushtaqu. They have such enterly diffrent world view and other topics than European writers. It is the trouble of the family structure and not the individual suffering. Never in a psychological way, more importance is given to the consequences of poverty and to their survival struggles. Or how to deal with money not take loans for sometimes 80 % and what is the meaning of landownership. This type of thinking and writing has a more revolutionary spirit than our literature in Europa. It was an eyeopener how Kuvempu wrote about nature. About us humans – the lost beings, jumping from topic to topic like monkeys from branch to branch in a gigantic nature. We are monkeys too, but it’s language that could make us different. But it is also the language that creates this wars.