A Guest Watches The Hosts Argue At Dinner

                                         A Guest Watches The Hosts Argue At Dinner

                                                 First published in Live Wire, in September 2022

                                                            The air is taut and swollen.

                                                    Stacking itself heavily in corners, oozing 

                                                                     claustrophobia;

                                                      Its tentacles of hot moisture snaking 

                                                                   around the room

                                                       And around necks and bare arms.

                                                       Inside, the overture is tense- no 

                                                                melody, no rhythm

                                                  Connecting the seven- personed table but 

                                                                  tight, brittle glances.

                                                           Some of the tension has dripped 

                                                                           to the floor

                                                               Under the guise of orange chutney .

                                                              My uncertainty sharpens to dread, but 

                                                                        is it my cue to speak?

                                                                Neither my apprehensions nor I have 

                                                                        made the cut it seems,

                                                               As the dramatis personae, in unison, 

                                                                              avert their eyes.

                                                                     I must be the audience then.

                                                            

                                                                The chutney takes centre stage as if 

                                                                   propelled by some unseen hand-

                                                             It is gestured at, pointed at; but no one 

                                                                          attempts to touch it,

                                                             Its stark, cheerful colour is at odds 

                                                                         with the atmosphere.

                                                                 The duo opens- their voices, the 

                                                      swords- striking, parrying and whipping back.

                                                            Then like untrained cymbal players

                                                          Peak to a dissonant crescendo and fall

                                                                       immediately silent, 

                                                            Waiting. As if for a prompter's whisper.

                                                           The others stir uneasily, still gazing 

                                                                   downwards at their plates;

                                                          The duo, remembering their lines, 

                                                                 hurtles towards the crisis-

                                                         A gesture, a rebuke, a grumble, an 

                                                                     answering hiss-

                                                         And the bowl of orange chutney 

                                                                  crashes to the floor.

                                                       

                                                           The final act opens with thunder, 

                                                                       Right on cue,

                                                                  Followed by ill-rehearsed and 

                                                             precipitous rain. A second too late.

                                                                I can almost hear the prompter's 

                                                                      suppressed frustration.

                                                               I rise for the denouement, but the

                                                                   curtains have already fallen,

                                                              And the performers have retreated.

                                                          So I watch the rivulets of rain navigate 

                                                                       the fallen ceramic shards

                                                        And assimilate with the slugs of orange

                                                                      chutney as backstage,

                                                             Costumes are swiftly altered,

                                                                        masks are lifted-

                                                        The room too switches settings, for the

                                                                     next show of the night.

                                                                                   Fin

 

Mightier than the pen: how not to let writer’s block bring you down

 

             Mightier than the pen: how not to let writer’s block bring you down

                   First published in Carmel Beat, in February 2021

It’s a pleasant day, just the right amount of sunny and you sit before your computer, fingers poised and ready to type. You have your beverage of choice, piping hot, on a coaster on your desk. Maybe a snack as well. And your favourite song is playing.

You are weeks away from your deadline, your back is straight, you're calm, composed and ready to begin, and that’s it. You have been ready for a long time but no words come, there are no ideas in your head and that’s where the nightmare begins.

Your deadline looms; you’ve started slumping forward, ready to bang your head on the keyboard. Your eyes are puffy, those bags look like the heavy ones even school children are forced to carry nowadays. You feel sleepy, smelly and sorry for yourself. You’ve waited for it to pass, you’ve brainstormed, you’ve even taken breaks; but to no avail.

There it is- writer’s block! And unfortunately, it looks like it’s here to stay.

We all have different names for it- such as stress, burnout, etc. Some of us are fortunate to have never experienced it, while for others it may even take on the appearance of a chronic illness. For me, it is seasonal.

But what is writer’s block really? Is it actually real?

Writer’s block is a condition where someone with the desire to write finds themselves unable to write, and is a phenomenon that has existed as long as writing itself. Side effects include procrastination, distraction, stress, tears and so much more. Not just authors, but academics face it too. So if that essay you were supposed to submit last week is still only half finished, now you know why.

It can also be caused by stress, or maybe lack of rest or fresh ideas.

Over the centuries, different people have found different ways to deal with writer’s block; some are still effective and some -ahem- are simply too outdated for this day and age; some work and some do not, depending on who you are, how you feel, where you are, what you’ve been thinking about and so on. By now it’s probably very clear that the very nature of writer’s block is completely random.

For instance, Victor Hugo’s strategy to battle writer’s block was to write buck naked.

Despite being a dedicated writer and author of Les Misérables and The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Hugo would also suffer from frequent bouts of writer’s block at which point he would ask his servants to take all his clothes away, ensuring that he could not leave the house until he had written a certain amount.

This may not work for us today, because we don’t need to leave the house to be entertained. We can just pick up our phones and doom scroll through social media, getting sucked indefinitely into the bottomless abyss that is Instagram’s Explore page, which if you ask me, is much more addictive a distraction than any 19^th century partying that Hugo would have indulged in.

But don’t worry, many authors have suggested various ways of combating this pesky condition. Some of these are so eccentrically delightful that I had much rather read about them than actually attempt them.

Dan Brown, author of Da Vinci Code, used to suspend himself upside down from a special frame, part of his gym equipment, in order to get his mind machine rolling. He is known to have given this unconventional approach a name: inversion therapy, and is reported to have said that inversion therapy "does help. You've just got to relax and let go. The more you do it the more you let go. And then soon it's just, wow." So everyone suffering from writer’s block, ‘hang in there!’

Maya Angelou suggests forcing yourself to write every day, even if it is random and boring. Then once you’re in the groove, inspiration may very well strike. Neil Gaiman, on the other hand, suggests leaving your work to its own devices and taking a break for a few days, then returning and reviewing your work. Perhaps all you need is some time off for your head to empty a bit or your empty head to fill up a bit.

I have tried a few things to help me battle writer’s block, usually one of the several hundred remedies that you'll find on Reddit and Tumblr, and sometimes they work, other times they don’t. My biggest takeaway has been that if anything about writer’s block can be considered even slightly consistent, it is its inconsistency. Basically, whatever works today may not work the next time you have writer’s block.

So technically, I cannot really round up this article by giving you any solutions, because it may well not work for you, but a couple of tiny suggestions can’t hurt, can they?

As I mentioned earlier, writer’s block happens to me every few weeks. I like to try different methods to combat it each time. The last time I had it, I was working on a script for a play. I called up a friend and vented to her. Very soon, while casually talking about my work and why I couldn't progress any further, and what plans I had for the characters' futures, ideas and words started to flow again! Of course, this is one of the rare occasions a quick (ish) fix worked for me.

I would say maybe stop writing and do something else like watch a movie, read a book, go for a walk, take a nap, eat a snack, talk to someone and keep doing that till you are inspired to write something. It may not be the thing you are supposed to be writing. For example, you may be working on a novel but your little break may conclude in you feeling inspired to write an ode to soup! That’s great! Go ahead and write that ode! Maybe once you’re cheered up, some novel-related ideas will decide to stop over and hold a party in your head.

Having said that, good luck and as Charles Bukowski says, “Writing about writer’s block is better than not writing at all.”

Oh, wait- 

Finding oneself in times of uncertainty and strife: an existential journey

 

           Finding oneself in times of uncertainty and strife: an existential journey

                                                First published in the Carmel Beat, in January, 2021

 What is happening? What is going to happen? Why do we exist? Who am I, anyway? These are questions that all of us have, and have had since time immemorial. These questions are on the tips of our tongues or hovering ominously above our heads, whether we choose to ask them or not, in every situation we are in. Whether in the context of our careers or our values or relationships, we have several times just sat back and questioned the futility of it all- what is the point of everything, if I’m just going to die one day?

These are existential questions, and we all have them.

As you may have guessed by now, if you don’t already know, existentialism or existential philosophy is a form of inquiry that examines human existence and emphasizes the existence of the individual person as responsible for their own development through free will. Ultimately the idea of existentialism is to understand the purpose of being and how you make your choices and decisions and move ahead with them.  

Existentialism, as a movement, emerged in the late 19th century to mid-20th century in the time of the Second World War. The horrific consequences of the war and its aftermath led people to ponder the meaning of life and question the purpose of existence.

But is this mode of thinking relevant to us now, at a time of such crisis in the world?

“Existentialist philosophy is always relevant, more so in times of crisis. Purely because the philosophy emerged when there was such a state of flux in the world,” says Ms. Sheryl Puthur, Assistant Professor from the Department of English, Mount Carmel College. “We needed to rethink how we understood ourselves, our purpose in life, our meaning.”

As Hamlet said in William Shakespeare’s play of the same name said: “To be or not to be, that is the question.” Here he is asking the primary existential questions- why do we exist and what is the purpose of life? Hamlet, in this part of the play, has just lost his father, the King of Denmark; lost his throne and his mother’s love to his uncle Claudius; and finds himself in a position where his very purpose in life has lost its foundation.

It is a time of crisis for Hamlet, and that is what leads him to the question he asks. For us, this is particularly significant because we find that we experience existential crises when in desperate or urgent situations, just like Hamlet did.  

But what is existentialism to you and me? What has it got to do with our identity, with how we see ourselves? The answer is- everything.

Existentialism gives us the space to question every single thing around us and in us. Existential thinker and writer Jean-Paul Sartre believed that you shouldn't be limited by the idea laid out for you, that you should have the ultimate freedom of choice. Sartre did not believe in the idea of fate or that there is a pre-existing path in life for each of us to follow, and that it is up to us to carve that path.

But during a pandemic or any other difficult situation, this does seem very hard to do. Even if one is in the habit of examining the existential nature of everything around one on a regular basis; the uncertainty, the feeling of helplessness and the prospect of death hovering in the side-lines brings one to the point of despair. We begin to question our own mortality, our place in the world we belong in and the nature of that world. Above all, we question our identity.  

Anton Chekov’s belief that “ the world is, of course, nothing but our conception of it,” brings up the idea that everything is a construct, including but not limited to our identity as well, and this idea is disconcerting to more than just a few of us.

“The word existentialism gets a lot of bad press because people connect or compare it to nihilism and see it as some kind of emptying philosophy. I think we should look at it as a positive concept, purely because if you go back to Sartre’s idea -existence precedes essence- what it implies is that you exist as a person even prior to you being given an identity or a purpose,” says Ms Sheryl. “It is not given to you, you make it yourself. This makes more sense in a time like this, in the middle of a pandemic, where people have found their previous ideas of themselves, of self, of identity, coming under question.”

Therefore, a viewpoint like existentialism becomes all the more relevant because it tells you that you can reinvent yourself. It tells you that there is no fixed identity to you. You are the one who gets to decide how you construct your identity.

But when it comes to looking at our identity, in a pandemic, or in times of any kind of uncertainty, perhaps the real question is: what is this uncertainty and why does it disconcert us so much?

We all dislike it when we slip into any state of uncertainty, when we are uncertain about what the future holds for us, or what our careers are going to look like. But as existentialists ask, when were we ever certain, not only of such life changing phases in our lives, but of anything?

It is disconcerting for us because a crisis or a time of uncertainty, however big or small, suddenly does not have any structure, meaning, and all that we have come to depend on as definite suddenly is not definite any more. Therefore, existentialism is perhaps our awareness that the world is not as definite as we know it, and that the world as Chekov suggested, is what we make it.

But being in a state of crisis, in a state that has no discernible structure or meaning can cause in us a great deal of anxiety. Contradictorily, this idea of suddenly having too much control, of suddenly being able to construct our own world and identity can also give us a great deal of anxiety.

Perhaps it is this duality and this ambiguity as to what a crisis is and what it is not, that disconcerts us.

“From the very beginning, existentialism defined itself as a philosophy of ambiguity.”
― Simone de Beauvoir, The Ethics of Ambiguity

But the scope that existential philosophy provides one with, for reinventing one’s own identity is tremendous. 

Existential philosophers and writers Sartre and Søren Kierkegaard wrote extensively on the idea of subjective or relative truth. Everyone looks at their own truth and you as an individual will create your own sense of truth​, based on the framework you create about the world around you.

Though existentialist thought appears to be a perpetual state of questioning and of introspection, perhaps, as it is relevant in every era and in our changing society, existentialism reflects personal growth and the journey of one’s identity. This is especially significant because in every crisis, minor or major, growth is what we look to and identity is what we hang on to, and existentialism allows and urges us to explore both.

 

 

                         Permaculture: tracing the origins of our food.

                              First published in  Carmel Beat, in September, 2020

As humans, the way to our hearts is truly through our stomachs. Our lives revolve around our food: what we eat, how much we eat, and when we eat. Empires are built upon our love for our food, and food, like the rest of our fast paced lives, has become incredibly industrialized.

 However, in our ongoing pursuit for economic gain, how many times do we ask ourselves: where exactly does our food come from? What has gone into the production of our food? Where is our food grown? What is the carbon footprint of the food we eat?  

 Asking ourselves these difficult questions, according to Mr. Krishna McKenzie, is the essence of permaculture.

 Permaculture is a permanent blueprint for perennial and sustainable agriculture.

 It is a shift from the more traditional methods of agriculture, that are infamous for not supporting other life forms to a more sensitive and long lasting form, that allows vegetables plants and fruit trees to grow together, and provide food for not only us, but for birds, insects and other animals too.

 “The conscious design and maintenance of agriculturally productive systems which have the diversity, stability, and resilience of natural ecosystems. It is the harmonious integration of the landscape with people providing their food, energy, shelter and other material and non-material needs in a sustainable way.” – Bill Mollison

 The term ‘permaculture,’ coined by Bill Mollison in the 197Os, is a portmanteau of the words ‘permanent’ and ‘agriculture’ and has since expanded to include the word ‘culture’ as well, as permaculture is a way of life rather than merely a set of horticultural techniques to follow.

 “It is not just a different kind of agriculture,” says Kalki, a 20-year-old student from Vizag, who has attended a workshop on permaculture in Aranya Permaculture Farm, Telangana. “You make do with what is there; you don’t strategize for the sake of short term profit. The yield will be gain for both you and for biodiversity around.”

 But what IS permaculture?

 “Permaculture is rediscovering our connection with the foundation of our existence: nature, our planet.” – Krishna McKenzie

 “Permaculture is man’s relationship with where his food comes from, with all his ecology, and how he can value all the resources he has,” says Mr. Krishna McKenzie, owner of Solitude Farm, in Auroville.

 Traditional agriculture or mono-cropping, where you grow a single crop on the same land year after year, leaves the land barren and stripped of its nutrients.

 But permaculture focuses on intercropping- growing two or more crops in proximity with each other- and growing perennial crops that don’t need to be replanted every season after harvest.

This is according to physiological differences and the time they take to grow, rather than how much profit they generate. For example, fruit trees take a very long time to grow whereas cucumber and tomato are fast-growing plants.

 “What interested me most about permaculture is its purpose,” says Rishika, a 20-year-old student from Kannur, who also attended a workshop in Aranya. “To grow crops that support the growth of each other and support habitats for the growth of other organisms. Permaculture is not just a replacement technique, it is actually sustainable.”  

 A permaculture plot does not have a fixed size- it can be anywhere from a one acre plot to a large, sprawling field. There are trees planted to shade the vegetables and the various perennials grow side by side and contribute mulch (a layer of compost that insulates and enriches the soil).

“It is very interesting to watch the interaction between these different plants,” says Kalki, “they protect each other, and support each other. They both benefit and co-exist with each other.”

 Permaculture is not a religion or a set of doctrines. It is simply a sustainable framework that encourages us to be self sufficient and innovative, and search for solutions to the several issues we face today.

                                                  Ethics of permaculture

                                                   1. Earth Care

                                                  2. People Care

                                                  3. Fair Share

 The main challenge of permaculture according to Mr. Krishna McKenzie, is how to make people move away from their habits, and to be aware of their conditioning. At a time when convenience has become the driving force behind living our lives, “how do you get them and yourself to change direction?” he asks.  

 Though permaculture may not mass-produce one crop or yield enough to be sold wholesale after every harvest, it can feed you, and the other organisms that surround you, including the creatures we consider pests. What are pests after all, but organisms like us, who simply seek food?

 Permaculture enriches the soil and is low maintenance, and after the initial planting of a few plants, they will grow by themselves and engage with each other.

 “It works because the plants are the ones that are growing themselves,” says Rishika. “Permaculture mimics the relationships found in natural ecological systems.”

 

Principles of permaculture

 1. Observe and interact with nature

2. Catch and store energy-

3. Obtain a Yield

4. Apply self regulation and feedback

5. Use and value renewables

6. Produce no waste

7. Design from patterns to details

8. Integrate don’t segregate

9. Use small, slow solutions

10. Use and value diversity

11. Use edges and value the marginal

12. Creatively use and respond to change

 “When you work with local food, you slow down, body and mind are better, you’re out of the rat race, and in this environment the chance for something else to emerge will sprout.” says Mr. Krishna McKenzie.

How to get started

                               “Anyone can walk this walk.” – Krishna McKenzie

 

·      Put your hands in the soil, interact with the earth.

·      Eat local food, reduce fast food and make a few eco-conscious actions when it comes to what you intake.

·      Start finding out where what you eat comes from, where it was grown and how it was grown.

·      Try growing your own food at home, even if it is one pudhina plant in a flowerpot. Then move on to some onions and take it further from there.

“It all boils down to what you eat, where it comes from and what your relationship is with it,” says Mr. Krishna.

 

 Book Recommendations:

One-Straw Revolution by Masanobu Fukuoka

Earth Care Manual - Patrick Whitefield

Permaculture: A Beginners Guide - Graham Burnett

Permaculture Design: a Step by Step Guide - Aranya

People & Permaculture - Looby Macnamara

Permaculture Principles & Pathways Beyond Sustainability - David Holmgren

A Designers' Manual - Bill Mollison

The Permaculture Garden - Graham Bell

Creating a Forest Garden - Martin Crawford

Gaia's Garden: A Guide to Home-scale Permaculture - Toby Hemenway

Earth User's Guide to Permaculture - Rosemary Morrow

 

Places you can (and should visit):

Solitude Farm, Auroville

Navadarshanam, Bangalore

Aranya Permaculture Farm, Telangana

 

 

1.      https://www.permaculture.co.uk/what-is-permaculture

2.      https://www.rightlivelihoodaward.org/laureates/bill-mollison/

3.      https://permacultureindia.org

4.      https://www.auroville.org/contents/2897

Fiction, folklore and feminism: the myth of Medusa

 

                              Fiction, folklore and feminism: the myth of Medusa

                                     First published in the Carmel Beat, in December, 2020.

Throughout history and especially ever since the advent of the Percy Jackson novels, the tale of Medusa has been one of the most popular myths that have been told and retold over the years.

In the Greek myths Gorgon Medusa or Medusa, as she is more popularly known, was a young woman who was raped by the sea god Poseidon in the sacred temple of Athena, goddess of wisdom. Enraged, Athena transformed her into a hideous monster with snakes for hair and eyes that turned to stone anyone who looked into them. Medusa was made immortal, forced to live this way for the rest of eternity, branded as a monster, while Poseidon, perhaps because he was an immortal being himself, escaped scot free. But different versions tell the tale differently. Some say Athena blessed her with this new form to keep her safe from other men who could take advantage of her, others say Poseidon did not rape her but that they were an ‘item’ and that she went willingly with him to Athena’s temple.

However, in every version of the tale Medusa is cursed, made hideous and eventually beheaded. The hero Perseus, egged on by Athena, tricked and beheaded Medusa and gifted her severed head to Athena to adorn the latter’s shield Aegis. “It is interesting to see how Medusa’s story has been told and retold in a patriarchal society: a victim of rape is portrayed as a powerful but repulsive monster,” says Ms Tracy Jose, Assistant Professor of the English Department of Stella Maris College, Chennai.

One of the earliest representations of Medusa was in ‘Metamorphosis’ by Ovid, where he describes her, as was customary in his time, only in terms of how attractive she was to the male gaze. 

Over the years, we have seen Medusa appear in many fictionalised versions of the Greek myths, in literature, art and pop culture: sometimes as a stereotypical cunning and manipulative female, sometimes in a more empathetic retelling as an innocent caught in the crossfire between two Immortals.

Italian painter, Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio and Italian sculptor Benvenuto Cellini were known for their androcentric and phallogocentric portrayals of Medusa. Cellini’s sculpture, titled ‘Perseus with the Head of Medusa’ shows a naked Perseus standing on Medusa’s mangled body, holding her head aloft in triumph. In one of his two paintings of Medusa, Caravaggio depicts the final moments of Medusa as she is beheaded.

Since then, feminist retellings of popular myths have frequently had Medusa at their centre. Patricia Smith’s poem Medusa, for instance, contrasts starkly with Ovid’s depiction. Smith paints a picture of Medusa as a confident and poised seductress until she is cursed by Athena. Carol Ann Duffy, in her dramatic monologue Medusa, examines Medusa as a symbolic representation of jealousy as using her as a metaphor for a jealous lover. Feminist writers and thinker such as Helene Cixous have used Medusa’s story to challenge the male gaze and male writing. 

“In popular culture we see Medusa through Uma Thurman’s portrayal in film and we also see Rihanna transforming into Medusa for a magazine cover,” says Ms Tracy. “These stories are often told as a challenge to the patriarchal perception of Medusa (like Freud’s highly androcentric theory that Medusa’s decapitation symbolizes castration, for e.g.), as women fight back within a larger culture of male violence.”

In 2008, artist Luciano Garbati, in his sculpture ‘Medusa with the Head of Perseus,’ reimagines the myth showing what would happen if Medusa was the ‘victorious hero’ instead of the ‘slain monster.’ In his sculpture, a naked Medusa stands over Perseus’ mangled body, holding a sword in one hand and his severed head in the other. The important thing to note here would be that instead of  triumph, her expression held only resoluteness; as if this were something she had to do, as if rather than to prove a point, she beheaded Perseus to survive.

Medusa has since not only become a symbol of the feminist movement but also of the #MeToo movement.

However, all these versions of Medusa, including Garbati’s, have one thing in common.  “All of these stand for the zeitgeist of the times they were made in. They tend to hypersexualize Medusa as an object to be viewed by others,” says Ms Tracy. “If we are to consider Medusa as a symbol of the #MeToo movement, it must be done by listening to her as she is retold by womxn as a sexual assault survivor, far away from the stronghold of the patriarchy and the male gaze”.

But why is Medusa relevant to us as Indians as well as womxn?

We are in a country that is deeply invested in its mythology, several such stories have been fed to us over a significant part of our childhoods. Mythology itself has been the foundation for the oral tradition of storytelling throughout history, and questioning them would be to question patriarchy itself.

In Hindu mythology for instance, we have Shurpanakha, another Medusa-esque woman who was disfigured by a virtuous male hero in ‘self defence’ and who has also been the centre of several feminist retellings herself.

As we live in an age of retellings, in order to topple any of the pillars of patriarchy, it is paramount that we question and examine the nature and various interpretations of our well known myths. In an age full of narrations and re-narrations, only if we look at how these myths that were never set in stone to begin with, can be subverted, can they enable us -through each retelling- to tell our own, individual tales.

 

From faeces to fertilizer: a sanitary solution

 

                       From faeces to fertilizer: a sanitary solution

                                  First published in The Carmel Beat, in October 2020.

 

    Sanitation is an essential part of our daily lives. At a time where discussion surrounding better sanitation for rural schools and the need for toilets in every house is gaining momentum, it is imperative that we examine what sanitation actually entails.

     “Sanitation is not a question of just taking care of waste,” says Mr. G. Gautama, director of Pathashaala PCFL-KFI, a residential school in Tamil Nadu that has taken several steps in conserving water and other resources. “Sanitation is about closing the loop. If we look at ways for human beings to dispose of their bodily waste- it’s one thing to take care of it and quite another to provide a facility where it can be taken care of. ”

     Regular flush toilets use 10 litres of water per flush, and out of the 135 litres of water an average human being uses per day, maximum is used when flushing the toilet.

     It may not seem like much- because we accomplish this job with a simple press of a button or pull of a handle; we don’t even see all the water go down the pipes. And we certainly don’t see where it ends up, or how it looks at the end of its linear journey.

     However, we are aware of what is happening. “We are aware that we are wasting good resources, creating pollution, and our lifestyle is unsustainable for future generations. We know it’s not working. But we already have an existing model in place that we are hesitant to replace,” says Mr. Gautama.

     Luckily there are several solutions that have come up over the years. Examples include screw conveyors that transport waste to be composted in a centralized location and several eco-sanitation models popularized in Finland and Sweden. However, what is applicable in a country of 5 million people will not work in a country like India with its population of 1.38 billion.

     So is it possible for each household to take care of its waste? This, according to Mr. Gautama, is the most basic question we must ask ourselves. We have become so used to throwing out our waste, knowing that someone else will take care of it and we can go on with our lives. Therefore, is there a way in which we can take care of our own waste?

     Enter- the dry composting toilet.

     Dry composting toilets or waterless closets as they are otherwise known do not use water to remove the waste from the commode. Instead, your liquid waste (urine) and solid waste (faecal matter) are separated in the commode itself, with your liquid waste passing through a pipe to fertilize the plants outside while your solid waste remains in the commode.

     After using the toilet each time, you cover your solid waste with a carbon additive such as sawdust or ash. This creates aerobic decomposition that essentially, after six months, turns your human waste into compost that can be used to fertilize plants and crops.

     “The approach of dry toilets is very interesting. First of all, it doesn’t use water for removing the waste therefore you save an enormous amount of good water,” says Mr. Gautama. “You also prevent the entire cycle of converting good water into bad water, then pumping it far away to treat it and subsequently pumping that same water back to be used again.”

     In this process, you don’t use water to pump your waste down a pipe but only to wash yourself after you have done your job.

     Pathashaala has only dry composting toilets for all its students, staff and support staff to use. As a former student of Pathashaala for 8 years myself, the knowledge that with each time I used the toilet, I was not contributing to the depletion of such a valuable resource was extremely humbling and empowering at the same time.

     “Conserving when a resource is scarce comes naturally and is easy, but to conserve a resource that is available in abundance is very difficult and needs immense consciousness. And this is what using dry composting toilets has taught me,” says Saahithi, a former student of Pathashaala.

     But in our urban setting, given that we live in apartments, how feasible would it be to adopt these changes?

    It is possible, says Mr. Gautama, to find a solution.

    “Even the urine separation needed in a dry composting toilet is still possible in any urban toilet. But what is more difficult is how we can treat the waste once we collect it.”

     For instance, in every apartment, the height of the toilet roof is lower than the rest of the house so there is almost a foot and half space available there.

    “That space can be used to collect the material in a manner that can be taken out and then it can be treated using Effective Microorganisms (EM),” says Mr. Gautama. “And then you’ll find that you’re actually helping your waste matter become compost and you’re not using much water except for washing yourself. And all this you can do in your existing latrine system, you don’t even have to remove anything.”

     Oftentimes, there are certain fears and apprehensions that come with using an alternative toilet facility. These fears include having to endure bad smells and hygiene, even though this is not the case if kept clean and moisture free. For people like us, having been so used to someone else dealing with the waste we create, making these shifts can be daunting to say the least.

     But as Mr. Gautama asks- are we willing to be inventive with our lifestyle? Are we willing to live with some problems while being part of the solution? And most importantly, are we willing to shift from a consumer mindset to a creative one?

 

 

 

Mangoes In Summer: Childhood

                                          

                           First published in Catharsis Magazine, in September 2020

                                                  Slicing mangoes in summer 

                                                          Is no mean feat.

                                                 You need hardened patience

                                                 You need to resist temptation

                                        So you tear off the peels with your teeth

                                              Sink them into the tender flesh

                                       Rise from the ashes with a yellow face

                                        Yellow, sun coloured, mango coloured.

                                                    There are people outside

                                                Some look feverish, unwieldy

                                                 With slaughterhouse smiles

                                                Some have nice smiles, sweet,

                                                   Tender, soft to the touch

                                                  Like mangoes in the summer.

                                              I lie on the cool floors of an old house

                                              We used to visit faithfully twice a year 

                                                                     And think:

                                              Monsoon is not the smell of yearning

                                                           Or nostalgia or hope

                                                      It's everything in between

                                                       The curved mango tree

                                                         Doesn't speak anymore

                                                          Its leaves don't wiggle

                                                             And twirl and flirt

                                                      With the slivers of sun rays.

                                                                  And think:

                                                 Why didn't we evolve from birds?

                                                  Our noses are like beaks anyway.

                                                             Where does the-

                                        How many mangoes can I eat before tomorrow?

                                                         There are clouds above

                                                          One shaped like a heart;

                                                      Another, a cow; a third, a mango.

                                                  Does that one look like a waving hand?

                                                                    I don't know.

                                                          Thinking, sensing, picturing

                                             Bittersweet: a romance novel on a rainy day

                                                       Cool: ducks splashing in water

                                   Tangy: sawing a raw mango apart with a ruler after a morning jog, 

                                           an old newspaper envelope holding chili powder and salt.

                                                      I have my writing trousers on, for inspiration

                                                           With its flecks of paint: blue on green

                                                                          But I don't paint

                                                           So the blue is whispered encouragement

                                                                      And the green is the self.

                                                                 There is also a yellow speckle.

                                                           Yellow, sun coloured, smile coloured?

                                                                             Mango coloured.

                                                                                It's a hot day

                                                               But the sweltering heat is not hot

                                                                               Only glares are

                                                                       A cap is no shield there

                                                                       Sweat is no sweet relief

                                                                        It's a sign of weakness

                                                               Tomorrow's face will look different

                                                          Store bought mangoes will taste different

                                                                           Going back in to eat

                                                                           Curd rice and pickle,

                                                                                Mango pickle.