Had such a good time at Navadarshanam on Wednesday that I decided to return. I arrived this morning and will stay through Sunday, or perhaps Monday. Hopefully I’ll get some work done. Right now I am sitting in a well about three meters in diameter and fifteen meters deep. It’s constructed of stone blocks without mortar except for the top five layers. A stone staircase spirals down the sides into the deep. Perched with my laptop about a meter above water-level, I imagine that I am exploring the ruins of an ancient castle (exploring ruins with a laptop?). If the water is down approximately four meters from the top and each stair is sixty centimeters long, twenty centimeters wide, and twelve centimeters deep, what is the total surface area of the well and stairway?

Don’t want to answer? Me neither. I prefer to observe and document the events in the lives of the well residents. It surprised me at first, but the well is teeming with life. Most obvious is the algae growing on the water’s surface. It’s a brownish-green scum that makes the thought of falling into the well thoroughly unappealing. The scum is the only plant I see from where I sit.

Animal life is more readily observable. Most numerous are the insects. From smallest to biggest: tiny bugs in and on the water, one unfortunate mosquito, ants, JCbugs (I call them JCbugs because they walk on water), dime-sized beetles swimming six centimeters underwater, a single giant blue dragonfly. The dragonfly came and left silently, unannounced.

The other well residents are all reptiles. The smallest is a ten-centimeter lizard whose spot on the staircase I usurped. It seems that I intimidate lizards; every time I enter a lizzard’s field of perception, it vanishes into some chink between two stones. They needn’t worry; I don’t eat lizard. I am too slow to catch one even if I did.

Actually, I seem to unsettle most reptilians since the other well-residents, a turtle family, disappeared even before I saw them. I know of them only because I saw them yesterday. Oh! Just now mamma-turtle is leaving the shelter of the spiral staircase. She is about fifteen centimeters long and eight wide; including appendages. She nibbled at the scum--I guess someone doesn’t find it disgusting. Now she swam down about a meter to hover close to the submerged stairs. I think I can still see her but my eyes might be fooling me. I don’t know how many turtlettes there are; yesterday I only seen one.

Twelve years ago when the land here was barren. Now about twenty thousand grow in the farm’s 120 odd acres, all without being planted. I wonder about the turtles…were they planted? I think so; I don’t see how else they could have gotten there. Well, the baby turtles might have been born in the well, but mama-turtle? Except for the entrance to the staircase, the wall extends a meter above the ground. But if she did find the entrance, she would either have to step into thin air, or descend a dozen steps. This seems difficult for a twelve inch turtle…they aren’t very limber creatures. Moreover, since the turtles seem to be very aquatic, I don’t know if they’d brave three hundred meters of rocky undergrowth from the nearest lotus pond. So, my guess is that human hands or possibly a bird’s beak introduced them to the well. Ah well, they’re there --however they arrived.

It is a cloudy, cool day. Aside from an intermittent breeze, there is little wind. The trees are still in the way trees sometimes are before it rains. The air is transparent and weightless--almost to the point of non-existence. I can see kilometers past Navadarshanam’s horse-shoe hill and valley; except for where smoke from a garbage-fire in the village intrudes. It is easy to see where Navadarshanam ends because everywhere else is either cultivated or rocky, treeless hillside.

Only five of the farm’s 120 acres is cultivated though the whole is fenced to prevent unauthorized grazing. A solar-powered electric fence encloses the cultivated area to keep herds of wild elephants and the occasional wild boar at bay. Crops include tomatoes, peanuts, rice, chilies, turmeric, tomatoes, teak, sandalwood, tamarind, and various other vegetables, fruits, herbs, and timbers. Local varieties are grown where possible and none are genetically modified. Even the five fenced acres are lightly cultivated with plenty of interspersed flora. Crops are fertilized with mulching and cow manure. (First the manure passes through an apparatus to harvest methane for cooking.) Pesticides are avoided, but when necessary a mixture of cow urine and neem oil is sprayed on the plants. Chemical fertilizers and pesticides are not used. Basically, it’s an organic farm, though not certified.

It’s a beautiful farm. I could live here.