Living lean, living full, lessons from my grandfather
My grandfather worked as a manager for Khadi Gramudyog, a mission influenced by Gandhi. He wore an elegant white Khadi shirt and a stylish Khadi pant. He used an ink pen, a tiny notebook and walked daily to office. He lived in a small row house having only one room to sleep, one to cook. He raised five kids, got them educated, married, in a salary of couple of hundred rupees. He also took care of my great-grand mother, his brothers children who came to live occasionally to finish their studies.
My grandfather’s peculiar habits always amused me. He hardly went to an allopathic doctor. Once, he was asked to amputate his right leg by an doctor. He refused, read books, went to a nature cure center, healed his leg himself. He used used re-placable blades to shave, milk as shaving lotion, Neem to brush and looked super smart! He washed his clothes, ironed it by hand press, collected second hand English classics, told great stories and helped me to learn mathematics creatively. He was also very silent. He spoke only when necessary. He enjoyed playing with us, gave us chores to complete lovingly. He engaged us without uttering a word occasionally asking us some witty questions. Professionally he never took cutbacks, just did his job, also lost his job because of this honesty once.
He was cautious while spending, generous while giving, intelligent while planning. He grew a beautiful garden, often with fruit plants and vegetables. He lived “lean”. Even today, my mother remembers her joyful days in that little house, cramped with many people. I am sure, many stories of your associations with older generations would be similar.
Living lean is not at all new to India. Millions have lived for hundreds of years with very little resource. In fact in India, if you drive 50 kms away from city, you will see countless examples of living with little.
The big conflict
In my high school, a popular theme to draw a poster or to write an essay was always the word “Pollution”. It was fun to draw earth getting killed by Industrial wastes. It was not until the second year of my Industrial Design course I got serious with its meaning and implications. I read books and scrambled the web. It took few years for me to even accept that agricultural and industrial ideas caused great damage to living systems of this planet in-turn affecting our next generation with lesser resources, increased artificiality of experiences and getting lost in non traceable consumption. Mass production of crops and goods caused serious disruptions in living rhythms. Our ideas of life driven by desire of modern comforts, capabilities could be a threat to our own survival. We tampered with nature ignorantly, and the direction we were heading was beginning to look uncomfortable.
As an industrial designer and an architect, I was in conflict with the realities for couple of years. Architecture directly dealt with peeling earth, raising structures. Industrial design dealt with mass production of products by instantly consuming natural resources from various parts of the world, supplying to a demand created by story tellers of consumption. More I involved, more I felt I was distancing away from my self. My wife also shared a similar feeling. We decided to look at this more closely.
We looked at the ways we deal with goods, consume, dispose, travel, eat, sleep, think, grow, use gadgets, services, get schooled, consume media, products, money, getting a medical help, opening a company, individual health, people ‘s ambitions, ideas of success and finally the living systems including your own self. All we knew was ‘something’ felt not right.
As you start questioning the daily life, you tend to get into an uncomfortable zone with yourself. Initially its a struggle to find whats right or wrong, slowly you get to know the limitation of your capabilities. Next you will find people with similar concerns struggling to make sense of this modernity. Then you want to know more about the limitations of your cultural world. After this, you want some action, you may start planting in your capacity or join a local ecological movement. Then you try to influence others with your understanding. And so on….
The issue of ecology is too large to be solved by individual and also many communities have failed to fathom its enormity. We also try to avoid talking as it is against the current economic models and political directions of country. Over time I have met many perplexed who did not know the way out. I am still one among them. When all doors close, I look up for my grandfather!
He was always silent, strong, clear and effective. What made him gentle yet effective? What made him generous, attentive and respond gracefully to difficult situations? For me, this meant to be more willing to try a few things that affect your comfort, ideology, social status, professional activity, habits and so on.
Own less, Create in your handful capacity
My grandfather owned very few things! So he handled them with care, dignity, respect and love! ‘Things or objects of his’ became special due to this care and attention. His few essentials were his spectacles, his pen, few note books, 5–6 pair of clothes, a few books on natural healing…. cant remember more!!
I quit tea as I didn't like the way our western tropical forests were murdered to grow tea plantations. I sold my car, tried to reduce travel where ever necessary. I reduced/worked on my traditional diet, 2 meals, 2 breakfast model was replaced by handful of greens as you get hungry and in some regular intervals. Cane furniture, reusing of an old house to stay, recycling of clothes every quarter, cutting TV, not buying any unnecessary gadgets, buying from local vendors, locally hand made products. Going organic with food, also growing organic in all of our farms was a giant step. We have very few products compared to an average urban home in general. We started growing a few things, couple of experiments in urban farming, we grew our vegetables, made manure from wet waste, cross cropping and so forth.
These were “reduce, replace, recycle” examples. But in parallel, our main interest was to understand the true nature of “nature” itself. Sciences fell short of telling a full story of living systems. We started getting sensitized that “Earth” is the melting pot of life by direct experience. It is the richest source to enjoy the mysteries of living systems. I had to stop “thinking” and start “sensing” and “uniting” with “Natural systems” to access its mysteries.
‘World’ not Words
My grand father spoke less and only that is essential. Most of the time he enjoyed everything around.
Sometimes, to understand a phenomena “words” fall short to describe and engage us in the concept. We have to ‘live it, feel it, be it’ to make it into a knowledge that can respond with wisdom. We wondered “what is stopping us to know, feel, be part of natural systems?, What is misleading us, is it modernity? it is modern knowledge based on words? have words become too dry due to evolutionary additions? Why does it become difficult to awaken our inner sensibilities? Are educated adults ‘zombies’ incapable of unifying with natural systems caught in wordy knowledge? Can we learn from Tradition, Nature or Children as they are touched less by words?” Million other questions followed.
Words seem to be very limiting to give a sense of how natural systems worked. It needed to make us explore and upgrade our sensing abilities. We had to see more deeply without the distraction of thoughts, we had to listen, smell, feel and engage with it more silently and not be in a hurry to describe to others using words. It is difficult to exchange your experiences with it using words. We had to internalize a few things. We watched few mysteries. “How does or what makes a seed become into plant, how does the water ripple, how does water change its shape, how does the earth breathe, how do the butterfly flies, how does the wet waste become manure, how does wind travel, what can your eyes see and cannot see, how does the child cry, how do kids play….so on…. many cannot be described.
The very idea of removing the limitation of words to understand or describe opens up space to experience limitless things. Children are naturally in this state as they know lesser words or reasons to use words. This is very hard for me as I am drained in reading and conceptualizing with symbolic modeling in my daily work. But for sure, by removing words, we are able to access the essentials of experience.
Life essentials as centre of daily activities
My grandfather welcomed life in many of his activities. He was conscious of air he breathed, sounds he heard, peculiar human problems he observed, plants that grew around him and the limitation of his profession to see beyond monthly pay. ‘Success’ he said….success does not depend on what you are….but who you are!
“Who am I?” is an eternal question! Ramana Maharshi will take you for a deep dive if you are interested. While the west got interested in exploring “What is it? and hence why?”, we Indians got interested in “Who am I? and how do I achieve Moksha*?” (*Liberation). The quest for self is normal in our countryside.
What are the essential values “Swadharma” of Designer, Parent, Friend, Son, Father, Husband, Researcher, Artist, just another guy in the group etc.? What makes them alive? How does it affect if we move away from these essentials? What happens if we are away from these values? For example, as a father I have few essential values with my child. Love, attention, care, wisdom and play — anything away from these opens unbearable conflicts that destroy harmony. These essentially are the reasons for order. As a designer, deep understanding of the problem, sensitivity to form giving, empathy for participants of the idea, least damaging solutions act as essentials. As an artist, deep interest in mystery/unexplainable, discipline/mastery of craft, realization of ultimate are the essentials. These keep changing according to role you take.
My grandfather displayed these abilities so well. He was kind, loving to us. Listening to his wife. Inspiration to his kids. Able manager to his boss. Helpful friend….and so on. He executed his role with a certain precision.
One fine day, he arrived at our house in Bangalore city from his town. He had a few days work in his office at the center of the city. He got ready, headed straight to a cycle stand to rent a cycle. I asked him, “Ajja, are you trying to save money?”….and he answered “ Yes! but I also get to see more”.
