Eastern Trip: June 2013

Bangalore, finally, here I am. I have tried to avoid this city for 5 months... Fortunately, Martina introduced it to me, showed me the right persons, the shops to buy mango juice and vegan chocolate (she is vegan), taught me tricks, the beggars to give and the ones not to give, the pace of the city, the things you shouldn't do, like running to the 4 cardinal points of the city in the same day. Thank you, Martina, for the 7 hours of rickshaw (= 3 wheeler = tuk tuk)! My legs, my back and my eyes (because of the dust :-/) still remember!

So, the basic thing to survive is to avoid transportation as much as you can. And then, with fun and interesting people around, you can definitely appreciate Bangalore. Almost everyone speaks English, and in India, Bangalore is the easiest place to hitchhike. Like Grenoble, it is full of ITs and other engineers, I feel at home! Without snow... however. The difference is these engineers practice yoga or meditation, hihihi! The capital of Karnataka seems to count 600 permanent working French people. I've been told they were mostly in cuisine and art. Am I part of both activity? of one? of none? I haven't seen any French fellow... I am not really interested, except for sharing a Rolland Garros match (French Tennis Open)!!

Before the Ragi Girl, Martina, left to France, we had to make the best use of the time: exchanging contacts, sending the parcels of millet seeds, millet food products, millet flours (the repetition is intentional, you're gonna hear about ragi and other millets from now on! :-), planning my millet activities in Karnataka. I continued following her till the last days: making the last shootings for her documentary, packing the last ideas, the last products, saying good bye to India without any wish to leave... God, that will happen to me too!

Martina shooting Majestic

Majestic bus stand, THE bus stand of Bangalore

Parcels to send to France

Me watching Rolland Garros in a sports shop

Jayaram is a well recognised lawyer in Bangalore. Especially because he is not corrupted, he is fair and reliable. One day, he decided to spend his money, time and energy in valuable causes, he chose environment. He founded The Green Path 6 years ago. He built an eco hotel in Bangalore, opened an organic shop, invested in 2 organic farms. One nearby Bangalore (Nelamangala), for organic vegetables supply. And the other one is a coffee estate, in Coorg district (Madikeri), in the Western Ghats. He is finishing building an eco and nicely rustic resort there, which will be open for the monsoon! The Western Ghats is known to be wet wet wet and humid for 4 months (from June to September)!!! Raining all day long, without stopping for days, hehehe! Hot water solar system hardly works, and power cuts are VERY common at that time. Bangalorean people taking rest for a long weekend there are going to enjoy! ;-). But for me, the week I've spent was a paradise: no noise, no pollution, a few shops nearby for mangoes, bananas and soap, green hills to walk around. Activities of the day were: working on interviews Martina and I had recorded before, figuring out clear ideas about millets nutritional aspects in order for Martina to give an interview to France Culture (cultural French radio) back home, and playing badminton with nice local youth! :-)

Here is a non exhaustive list of the green alternatives and initiatives the Green Path hotel is into:

solar heaters, rainwater collecting (details below), rainwater harvesting, organic soap and shampoo, organic food of course, waste sorting, biogas, urban farming, solar oven (doesn't work for now!), water filters (to prevent from buying plastic bottles). The restaurant serves vegetarian food, and promotes eco crops and healthy food, including ragi balls, ragi rotis, ragi flakes... Suuuuuuuure!, the Ragi Girl is around!

Water in India is a big issue. Water shortage is everywhere now, in field as well as in cities. In concrete area, rainwater can't go back to the ground. As a consequence, and because of the huge water needs, the groundwater table lowers down drastically. Bangalore (a few millions people ;-) supplies water thanks to thousands of tank lorries traveling everyday from the hilly stations to the city! Rainwater collecting is a solution: to keep some concrete free parcels to enable the water to infiltrate the soil again.

So, while looking for some wwoofing projects in Karnataka, I found a wonderful network of eco and social activists, both in south India and in France. From one day to another, potential became huge! :-) Indeed, thanks to Martina and Jayaram (Celebrate life, sustainably!:-), I met a multitude of amazing people, involved in many different subjects but all toward the same goal: better behaviours for a better world. No doubt about it, compared to north India, south India (Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Andra Pradesh), because of the higher rate of education, counts many more people aware of these issues.

website: www.thegreenpath.in