Eastern Trip: The Green Path IN

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