|
|
"The greatest pleasure lies in simple living"
Umesh Babu, Viswadarsanam
Having grown impatient with my cultural edification being limited to the melange of themed, Time Out-voted and Zagat-vetted restaurants London has on offer, I began to anticipate an excursion that would pique more than the palate. It may have been a subconscious act of amelioration that drew me to India, for the joys she offers are matched only by her challenges.
Kerala held for me all of the mystique, minus the daunting experience northern India had been on my first visit to the subcontinent, and so there began my search. Some frantic Googling (Is there another sort?) later, I felt I had found the perfect oasis. Called Viswadarsanam it described itself as a centre for humanity and nature. Wary of the spate of retreats and ashrams that touted the holistic experience - acquired mostly by replacing one’s habitual sanyas with their brand of sanyas - I was gladdened by the knowledge that Viswadarsanam had been running for two decades. Its inception coincided with a time when people were swapping television sets for sunsets, convincing the pessimist in me that that it was the real thing.
Out of its anomalous beginnings, Viswadarsanam has played a pivotal role in dissemination of environmental awareness and community education in the Pathanamthitta district, and beyond. By the time Umesh Babu established the centre in 1987, he had had his first taste as of using the media to educate the masses as a journalist. Later, he expanded his skill set to work as an advertising executive. It was his work in sales and marketing for a pesticides company that awakened him to the fact that the short-range benefits of chemicals in agriculture were outweighed by their longer-term negative impacts on the ecosystem. Viswadarsanam comprises of two Sanskrit words, viswa and darsanam, meaning ‘global’ and ‘vision’, respectively.
After convincing a cousin from Australia, Avi, that the introspective path he’d been seeking of late meandered through India as well, I met him in Trivandrum. Umesh received us warmly at the airport, and we set off for the two-hour car ride from Trivandrum to Viswadarsanam in sleepy Nariyapuram. Arriving at the centre late in the night, our first impression of Viswadarsanam was of pristine isolation. We were enthused by the purity of the air and serenity of our new surroundings, Avi to the point that he chastised me on my stash of adulterating shampoos and lotions. In my defence, only those that have suffered know the debilitating effect of incorrigible bed hair.
Mornings at the centre started early to an avian orchestra and sweet milky tea, both of which were instrumental in fortifying us throughout the day. Volunteers at Viswadarsanam are encouraged to begin their mornings with physical activity and, if they’re inclined, in meditation. Dotted around the one and a half acres on which Viswadarsanam extends are signs that commemorate Umesh’s nature initiatives. An old wheel from the bullock cart he rode throughout the Pathanamthitta district for a month in 1988, raising environmental awareness in rural life at numerous colleges and public places, remains full of symbolism in the serene gardens. This particular initiative was selected by the National Environment Awareness Campaign as one of the outstanding campaigns conducted that year in all of India. A conservation plaque also takes pride of place in the compound, an exact replica of one constructed in the Museum Gardens in Trivandrum on Earth Day, 22nd April, in 1991 as another Viswadarsanam initiative. My favourite feature was a six-foot tall stone sculpture representing Mother Earth cradling what doubled as a birdbath. It was made and gifted by a local stonemason.
I took to refilling the birdbath, clearing up along the nature trail or raking the open-air speaking arena for my morning contemplations before a delicious ayurvedic breakfast, such as idli and sambar. No two meals were alike during my one-week stay such was the culinary repertoire of Umesh’s wife, Janee. One of the volunteers, Andrea, who’d arrived three weeks before us joked that we might have to put in a special request for a dish if we wanted it again during our short stay, and she wasn’t far from the truth. Not that I could choose a favourite when I thought all of Janee’s dishes were runaway successes.
The main water source at the centre is a well, from which all drinking and washing water is drawn with a pump. Our initial reaction to drinking the untreated well water was, “So, you boil it, right?” a question to which Umesh seemed familiar, and informed us that it hadn’t. “Not even filtered?” we ask in alarm, mentally checking for symptoms of all possible water-borne diseases known to mankind. This question too answered with an amused negative waggle of Umesh’s head - not that dissimilar to the affirmative waggle of the head that you eventually learn to decipher in India – and the reassurance that we were perfectly safe. We had to admit the water was tastier and fresher than bottled water.
|
Tags
You must be logged in to add tags.
|
Writer Profile
Shivanjani Naidu
This user has not written anything in his panorama profile yet.
|
Comments
You must be a TakingITGlobal member to post a comment. Sign up for free or login.
|
|
