Yesterday Afternoon I went for a nice walk to the Karnataka/Tamil Nadu Border. There are a couple of small villages on the way, and one medium village called Gundapulam. On the way out, three people offered me a motorcycle ride. I accepted the first offer, but got off after about a kilometer. My added weight was too much for the little bike to handle. Was it generosity or curiosity that motivated these people? Would they offer any villager a ride or just foreigners? Would they offer a city person a ride? City people probably stand out almost as much as foreigners.

People always look at me quizzically, even in Bangalore. I don’t like the attention, though I suppose it’s understandable Everyone notices what is different and unexpected, and as a foreigner I fit those qualifications for many people. What bothers me is my inability to communicate in Kannada. I am a little ashamed of being in a country and not even studying the language. Anyway, my usual response to quizzical looks is to smile. Most people return the smile, but being out and about is still somewhat daunting.

I would wear a lungi and go barefoot if it weren’t for the additional attention I‘d call to myself. A lungi is a long skirt that men in the villages wear. It can be gathered up in the heat, and let down in the cold. Being indigenous to the region--I imagine that the lungi has other advantages too. But I also think that it would be fun to wear a lungi. I am envious of my female classmates who wear beautiful saris. They get away with it because many Indian women wear saris--especially the married ones. However, lungis are rare in the city, and really stand out. Nonetheless, I think that at some point I’ll try on a lungi.

I go barefoot as much as possible at Navadarshanam. It makes me feel free, and puts me in touch with the environment. When I don’t wear shoes, I feel like a “mountain man.‿ I don’t worry about injuring my foot; but I do sometimes worry about getting worms or being bitten by a cobra. But going barefoot anywhere but here would be like wearing a sandwich sign saying “look at me!‿ Hardly anyone goes barefoot; and even the sadu (see below) has homemade wooden sandals. Wow, I am very concerned about what people think of me.

I tried to be in the moment during my walk; repeating the mantra I learned from Living Buddha, Living Christ:

Breathe in, my body relaxes
Breathing out I smile.
I am in the moment
This is a beautiful moment

It is beautiful, but difficult to live in the moment. Pending work pulls me towards anxiety, and it’s a Herculean task to resist the siren-call of my daydreams. However, the calmness and peace that comes with living in the moment is worth it. Doing yoga each morning also makes me feel very good, but it‘s difficult to start. More often than not. I end up skipping yoga and living in the moment to do schoolwork.

One interesting thing: I notice sights far more than sounds, smells, tastes, and textures. This makes me want to blindfold myself for a week. I wonder what depriving myself of my predominant sense would like. How would I find things? I’d have to remember where I put them. And, how would my eyes react to a week of darkness? Legs lost an astonishing amount of muscle mass after a week in a splint. Maybe I’d have to do eye exercises. Perhaps opaque, but translucent glasses would be advantageous--I‘d still use my eyes enough to get the exercise. But, I think that completely blindfolding myself would be more interesting. It would be an eye-opening experience. You don‘t have to laugh at that pun.

Yesterday a Sadu came to the farm for some leaves for a puja . Sadus are ascetic recluses--the kind for which India is renowned. This sadu lives in a cave just outside Navadarshanam’s property. Once in a while he makes the rounds of the villages asking for money to buy his necessities. I find him intriguing.

This morning during breakfast I asked Swami, the foreman and caretaker of the farm, about the building method employed here. Swami is also a mason and explained that the basic principle was to use on-sight materials to reduce cost and environmental impact. Most bricks are made with earth from the farm and baked in the sun. They contain less than 3 percent cement and lye. The few fired bricks, such as the tiles used for roofing, were also manufactured on-sight. I am not sure where the foundation stones were procured from, or what was used for mortar. I am also unsure about the flooring.

I sleep in a house-room of about 250sqft. The walls are nine feet high and the roof slopes peeks at about fifteen feet. A small space between the roof and the top of the walls to allows for airflow. Coconut wood from trees that no longer bear fruit were used for rafters. Hot water is supplied to the small attached bathroom via a solar water heater. The room is lit via two medium-sized windows and tiles with small cut-out windows. There are also low-power florescent lights and two electrical outlets are powered by the farm’s solar array. It’s a well-built, pleasant structure.

The total cost of my room-house, including labor, was about 40,000 rupies--less than $900. According to Swami said this is very inexpensive. According to me, it’s almost free. Transportation costs were eliminated because building materials were procured on-sight. Reduced transportation also conserved energy, and still more energy was eliminated by sun-baking instead of firing the bricks. In terms of money and energy, the bricks cost little more than the sweat-equity used to make them. This construction method seems to draw inspiration by Laurie Baker, a well-known British-Indian architect. Laurie baker lives in Kerala where he builds low-cost and environmentally-friendly houses for low-income families.

I asked Swami if he would use this method for constructing his own house. He said he would. Not only are such buildings low-cost, well-built, and environmentally friendly, they are also more suited to the climate. They stay cooler and are better ventilated. I asked if this construction method is used in the villagers, but it is not. However, Swami does conduct workshops, and I imagine word will soon spread.