went out to see the bamboo folks on saturday. this area was another wonderful surprise about auroville. it is called the industrial area it has a lot of sites relating to what i would called industrious endeavors. as always in auroville it is a lot of lovely jungle with a small 8 foot wide road running through. on each side of the road were various endeavors including companies making musical instruments, spiralina, herb potions, bamboo products and many others. it was a long ways from auroville center in another direction.
at the bamboo place which you can google at auroville bamboo, india, there had a showroom maybe 50 x 30 which had lots of bamboo products, bed frames, couch frames, chair frames, table frames, clothes, model trains, a lot of stuff that is usually made out wood. they are growing bamboo there that are special coastal varieties. at that point they are probably 10 km from the coast. they gather about 60% of their material locally. this is fairly low grade material that they use when bamboo does not have to be straight. they buy the rest of the bamboo that they use for furniture construction. a man their told me of his trip to karula (the western side of india, about even with us here to gather bamboo seed. he says that the bamboo goes to seed somewhere between 1 and 120 years and no one knows when that will be. after they seed they die. anyway he gathered all this seed ad planted bamboo seed to grow some of the varieties that they grow. they have a small plot though so not too much bamboo growing, more of a demonstration. they have been working with auroville to get a larger plot where they can grow a significant amount of bamboo. their main mission is to train youth to produce the bamboo products so that they can make a living for themselves (meaning the youth).
on leaving the bamboo place i trotted off to new territory. i went in the direction of an indian village nearby i love to walk in india but do not like to go on the main roads (more about this later). i found a lovely village, quite clean unlike the cities and larger villages, where throwing trash is a throw it out wherever you are attitude here. the village had some huts which look like traditional tamil buildings which are made from wood or bamboo covered with coconut leaves. the coconut leaves evidently stop rain for 3 years. very heartening to me was a plot maybe 1/2 -1 acre of coconut trees with rows and rows of eggplant interplanted. it was great to see what appeared to be a village farmer growing serious food it was not mulched, so was probably tilled, but still this is a traditional way of growing, with the plants right under the trees. (plenty of light in the tropics allows this.
anyway i got lost as i almost always do on my treks. a woman asked me where i was going and i told her and she redirected me. so i got to walk many more miles out in this countryside. almost no crops growing but a lot of available land.
want to talk about the roads. so these roads were maybe 10 feet wide and as there was no real traffic quite pleasant to walk on. wanted to talk about the indians monkeyness a bit. this is not intended to be politically incorrect but rather to capture something about the indian people i have met. they have an organic way of being where their bodies and whatever they are connecting to seem to become one. they eat with their right hand and it is almost quicker than the eye can follow how they take the chapati in hand gather some grain, some soup, some vegetable and put in their mouth. i have seen them driving along, talking on the cell phone and seen something go wrong with the tuk, tuk and seen them fix it all in the same kind of organic motion. i have spoken with some of the folks at auroville about this and they say yes they do have this quality and also another one which is very passive. in other words if they consider the fix out of their domain they\ will do a work around just as quickly. the boundaries between people are almost nonexistent. this is the reason that 15 of them can fit into a a place on the train meant for 9. anyway on the road it makes for a chaotic scene. when i walk along they come within inches of me. just this morning i stepped right to avoid a cow pattie and a bicycle almost ran me down. anyway all of these tuk, tuks, bicycles, cars, trucks, buses go along the road missing each other by inches, all apparently very comfortable for these monkeyish folks.