from
"S.Prout & A.Advani"
date
Feb 12, 2007 12:01 PM

subject
To: Satya Vayu & Tara Re: Coming to Sadhana Forest

mailed-by
gmail.com

Dear Satya, Vayu and Tara,

I am writing to you from Sadhana Forest, where we were hoping to travel together from Kerala. I am looking forward to you joining me here soon.

This is a camp in the countryside where many people have come together -- to live and work together -- and to re-establish the forest that used to grow here. It is called the tropical dry evergreen forest, and it used to be a thick, rich, mature jungle until people from outside came and started to cut down the forest about 200 years ago. Ever since the trees were cut down, the soil has suffered more and more. In this area where I am, rain water has washed away tons and tons of soil over many years, creating ravines and canyons where the forest used to soak up the strong rains.

I have stood in a place where a few of the large and very old trees stil stand, along with the smaller plants that were part of the wide wide forest that used to be here. This old place, this grove of trees is around a small outdoor temple or shrine in the place where the land of one village ends and the other begins. In this special place, one can feel the cool shelter of the forest and imagine how the trees harbored so many wonderful animals in the old days.

So when you come here we will work to help the forest to grow again, by protecting the soil from being washed away more, and by caring for the many many young trees that people have planted here since the Sadhana Forest project was started three years ago.

Several children are living here too, nonschooling -- and other children living near here come to visit and play when they don't have school. I think you will enjoy this place -- i can imagine Satya riding a bike and Vayu on a swing and Tara crawling under the play structure cave. You might also enjoy the pet animals here.

You can re-read this letter again later on.

I love you.

Papa


Reply Reply to all Forward

marathon man

Having spent the past week in a collective workcamp to help resuscitate the tropical dry evergreen forest,

why am i traveling for two days up to Delhi by bus and train to pick up Sara and the kids and bring them back the same day, again by rail, instead of flying them down here for an extra two or three hundred bucks?

Is it simply that planes are an abomination and that the money could build a checkdam on this severely eroded land? Or am i just a cheapskate?

Ajay

ajay's interview in the davis high school paper

draft

When did you and your family start talking about leaving Davis to travel to India?
What did the talks entail?
In early 2006 Sara and I started talking concretely about how to give our kids a real experience in Indian culture, and to shake up some of the patterns of living we've drifted into. I also wanted the kids to learn some Hindi.

When did you inform Mr. Richardson and Mr. Cawley of your intentions?
In March or April, I think.

What emotions did you have at the department farewell lunch at the end of the school year?

When did you and your family leave Davis for India? July 20

How did you feel about leaving your teaching behind you?
I am at a bit of a loss without the rigor and playfulness of it, but am happy and grateful for the opportunity to get outside the box. It makes thinking outside the box, especially about education, much easier.

What part of India are you in currently?
We are in the state of Kerala, where we just spent several days at Kanavu, a unique residential school in Wynad District. Wayanad is an area where the indigenous / tribal people had no onslaught of settlers until relatively recently. At Kanavu the students determine their own curriculum and have a hand in how the place is run. In fact, the older students are now fully in charge, and the Trust they have formed owns the land. Maybe I can mail over a CD with a film about Kanavu to be screened at DHS.

Where have you been so far?
We spent August to December living in Udaipur , Rajasthan. There we participated in a group called Shikshantar, which is dedicated to transforming the way people think about learning. Google it – the website has more than one meal's worth of food for thought.

Are you working at all in India?
No paid job. An opportunity to be a person instead of a "teacher. "

How does your wife and kids feel about the experience?

Any regrets?
I'm glad you asked about regrets. Where do I start? Actually, Sara and I are both glad we took on this experiment, but it has been endured more than enjoyed, I think. But: no pain, no gain. Having regrets depends on hindsight, but also on the hopeless wish that we could run a reply and avoid the mistakes the second time through. I'm appreciating mistakes' crucial role as a crucibles for learning.
Here's an example. I regret being short-tempered with my kid the other day – and would love a second chance to do it right — but if I had known how inappropriate the match between us and Shikshantar would be, I would have missed a few excellent lessons that I've gotten since August. And so even in hindsight, I might run that play the same way.
The kids, Satya, Violet and Tara, have also been stressed by the move, but not to the point, we hope!, of causing damage. Since before having children we have worried about the constraints that are commonplace at home. We call it a free country but if i've seen one, it's here, not back there. It seems the kids have had a richness of experience here that they could not have gotten at home.

The auto response on your e-mail says you are on a sabbatical for 06-07. Are you coming back for 07-08 or are you and your family staying longer in India?
Our visas will run out, so the latest we'll be back in Davis is June.

trapped with tourists in kanyakumari

today we spent some time with a couple from America

in the late afternoon shared a car down to the shore with them from our hotel. sara and i didn't engage the hawkers selling postcards, shell necklaces, seashells, pearls -- so we were left alone to enjoy and explore... but the couple did engage, so we were quickly invited into a tangled web of consumption. temporarily escaped, but mostly spent the time in the commotion of commerce while finding cool shells, seaweed, dead fish, rocks of many kinds, sea-sculpted tennis shoe soles, while playing catch or splashing. right after the sun disappeared but with plenty of light left they said "it's getting dark" and headed off to the car with their catch of the day -- mostly items that, granted, were once natural or wild, but were notable in having been selected and prepared for consumer consumption.

such was their interaction with this place of abundant beauty, this sacred place at the very tip of the subcontinent, where the sands of 3 seas mingle.

by ajay

more importantly, looks like satya needs a root canal. NB brush well, floss often!