Warli Tribal Woman and Cow Dung

Warli woman uses cow dung wash on new bamboo container and baskets

for their maintenance. There are no special classes or schools

to learn several uses of cow dung. The child here is learning by experience

and example, not by scholarly treatises and expert discourses.

The western (and the westernized) societies can only think of production

and use of, even local material such as cow dung on a mass scale; obviously

to keep control on the mass society and profit through centralized power.

Cow dung as building material

(This excerpt is taken from my research paper, “Tribal Housing Buddha and the Art and Science of Karvi Hut”. See LINK for full Text and Images)

Some time ago the Indian Petro-Chemicals Limited (IPCL), Baroda came out with a chemical for waterproofing treatment of mud walls. The offer came through 'Council for Advancement of Rural Technology' (CAPART), Delhi to use it on experimental basis, at 90% subsidy on its cost, on the first 50 houses built for the tribal, under RLEGP. Being sceptical about such industrial products about its cost, economy, and the after-effects etc. we declined. Instead, we suggested using traditional cow dung wash on the walls. The chemical was highly toxic. Thankfully, IPCL had a good sense of withdrawing entire stock from the market, perhaps in good time.

Traditionally the tribal and villagers use cow dung for finishing the mud floors and mud walls. They also use it for the grain silos made of mud mixed with cow dung, or apply it on bamboo silos. People must have observed that pest does not affect the grain stored in such a condition. From the Vedic times, ‘Agnihotra’ – a ritual with fire – uses cow dung, which is believed to purify environment. Are these superstitions? Perhaps the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) and IPCL could divert some of their resources to understand cow dung. We should not be surprised, though, with use of chemical fertilizes and pesticides even the cow dung may also found to be ‘fouled’!

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© Remigius de Souza, all rights reserved.

iTECHNOMAN (self-portrait)

iTECHNOMAN

Self-portrait by Remigius de Souza, Mumbai, India (1972)
Colour on handmade paper 9"x 12"
© Remigius de Souza

You may read or interpret “iTECHNOMAN” in various ways that you may prefer.

Remi (Remigius de Souza) is marginally literate, not only in computers, but also in any of the Arts and Literary disciplines.

He began to learn writing Letters and Numbers of his vernacular language MARATHI on a slate, at his native village in Konkan.

Simultaneously he also took lessons in his basic needs, which are farming in agriculture, horticulture and aquaculture; mud house building and its maintenance; and spinning and handloom weaving of cotton fabric: FOOD, SHELTER and CLOTHING.

Industrial society has failed after centuries to reach this ability or level, which is mentioned above, to impart education to any citizen anywhere in the world, certainly not in India.

Decades later he learnt computer programming in an antique language “1401” in an intensive course of one month, which was given by Tata Consultancy Services (TCS): that was the only formal training he received in computers.

© Remigius de Souza, all rights reserved.

Grandma's Legacy: a Last or Lost Link? (Comment)

Image Source: Hindustan Times

Grandma's Legacy: A Last or a Lost Link? Thankfully not yet. There is much to savour the legacy my grandmother left for me - for us.
Grandma’s legacy is not a lost link. They found some in Andhra Pradesh – it is everywhere in India – provided you look for it.
They should show these movies to the ruling minority – politicians, bureaucrats, experts, specialists, planners, the educationists and the self-proclaimed leaders, and the urban elite – before showing them to the world.
This “Soil Unrecognized Indian” is now being seen…

More on Grandma's Legacy >>
1. She Lived Her Living Doctrine
2. We must carry our own burden

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© Remigius de Souza, all rights reserved.

TERRA INCOGNITA INDICA

INDICA: I deliberately use the word ‘Indica’, a biological term, instead of ‘India’. It is precisely to indicate a ‘region’ and not political boundaries that associate with the State. In the historical time political boundaries have been subjected to change, anywhere.

TERRA: literally ‘soil’, which I refer to ‘Land and Waters and People, and Biotic and Abiotic Nature’. The biotic and abiotic nature is intrinsic in the life, therefore also in their culture, of the people – the daughters and the sons of the soil.

INCOGNITA: the literal meaning is ‘unknown – unexplored – unrecognised’ alike the medieval (European) map showed the known world encircled by ‘terra incognita’ where monsters roam.

Indeed even in the twenty-first century, the ‘soil’, in my way of comprehensive meaning, still remains ‘unknown (to the world) – unexplored (by the pundits) – unrecognised (by the so-called Authority or the State)’, whom I fondly call my ‘anonymous’ kin, from whatever glimpse I have had through my six decade journey in the Third World India and the Fourth World India.

INDIA has almost a continental size. Broadly there are about 50 – 60 cultural and social sub-groups (as illustrated….). No. We are not referring to the castes or cults or the creeds. We are not taking of, in American lingo, of the Class or the classless society. We are speaking of the ethnic and adivasi – tribal – communities (that is the cohesive collectives), not the civilised advance societies (that is the fragmented collectives in the modern times).

She indeed is a thousand-petal lotus, our national flower. There have been as many topographic and climatic regions – bioregions – that have great hand in shaping the culture, expressed in food, clothing, shelter (or architecture!), visual and performing arts and crafts, languages an folklore… and thus as a result a superior quality of sustainable living. I call it a model for the modern world, a world heritage, now facing a wipe-out.

Unfortunately in the global race to make India an industrial power by the petty imitators – the ruling minority – comes at cross-purposes with the survival of the agrarian society and the diverse bioregions. The petty imitators are out to homogenise them with monoculture of industrial civilisation. The industrialisation here, so far, only helps the power mongers and profiteers through their invisible tentacles.

Indeed one lifetime is not enough to see and to assimilate and to understand this phenomenon for any person or even a group of persons. Any documentation, even a fraction, would reveal great treasures of wisdom and knowledge and skills, across these diverse bioregions, accumulated over generations of anonymous People of India.

India is such a vast country with diversity that it is impossible to manage even the welfare of the people (for the lack of understanding) for any centralised power, even with an iron hand. This is true of any region in the world which has been proved time to time. Decentralisation of powers, down to earth in practice, (power in the hands of peasants) is the only answer to this malady; M. K. Gandhi came very close to it in his concept of Panchayati Raj – power to village self-rule.

See LINK (TERRA INCOGNITA INDICA)
10-05-2009


© Remigius de Souza, all rights reserved.

Man and Nature (within and outside)

Presentation accompanied with the paper “ARCHITECTURE AND BIODIVERSITY IN INDIA: A Context to Aesthetics in Our Times”, presented to PAITHRUKAM 2004: Seminar/Workshop on “Aesthetics in Indian Architecture: Past, Present and Future”, at MES College of Architecture, Trissure, Kerala.
Author: Remigius de Souza, 14 OCT 2004

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Man And Nature (Within And Outside)

More PowerPoint presentations from Remigius de Souza

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Note: All the references to images and quotes in the following presentation are not mentioned. Also the permissions of the authors and publishers have not been taken. The author acknowledges their copyright. These are used purely for the academic purpose.


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© Remigius de Souza, all rights reserved.