From Raging Over Garbage to Making Garbage All the Rage...

 Even though Satya likes to sum up the journey from collecting plastic trash from the local beaches, to turning it into veritable pieces of art, with a simple abracadabra, it is really his optimism speaking. For actually, it hasn't been that easy for the sixty some members of zerowaste, most of whom are young backpackers from around  the world, stranded in Auroville, after that fateful lockdown in March, in the wake of Covid-19.

"Sure, we did have our own set of trials and errors, but, it  always felt as though we were moving in the right direction", Satya confides with his usual smile. Agrees Jorge, an Ecuadorian, who has been living in India for the last fifteen years, and is 

now the chief engineer for zerowaste's   plastic recycling program, being carried out in Auroville.

Livya and Bea, the two twenty year old Brazilian students are thrilled to be part of such an initiative, even though it means cycling several kilometers everyday. Recently, Livya also made an online presentation for her colleagues in the University of Sao Paulo, in which she spoke about the zerowaste group and its plastic recycling project. "The reception from the student body and the faculty was very encouraging," says a gratified Livya.

"Our objective is not only to clean up the beaches, but also create general awareness on its importance," says Satya, adding, "Do you know more 

than 650,000 marine animals  including dolphins, whales, seals and turtles, are killed or injured in discarded fishing nets each year?"

While some artists expressed interest in all the glass bottles that had been collected, and some others in the bottle caps, no one seemed to have any use for all the other plastic and net bits, which had begun to accumulate. "...This is where Jorge stepped in. Jorge's family has been  running a functional plastic recycling plant in Ecuador for years, and so naturally, he was thrilled to be involved with a similar project in India. 

And thence emerged a small unit on experimental scale. With zero investment,  and plenty of good will and determination of volunteers from all walks of life, the project was set in motion. Different kinds of plastics were identified and segregated accordingly, and rinsed thoroughly in big tubs. This heap of cleaned trash, was then left to dry, and be shredded. "It was hard work...trying to cut all that plastic manually, with pairs of scissors," Satya remembers with a laugh. "Some days, ten volunteers turned up to help, including two toddlers, who tagged along with their parents...and on other days, it was just a couple of us..."

A fully functional oven was built out of some leftover bricks by Venkat and Adhavan, two young engineers from Auroville. While a friend lent  a compressor, some volunteers brought in discarded pots and pans, bowls and cups, from their home, to be used as moulds. And thus began the process of melting the plastic,  pouring  it into moulds, and compressing, to produce beautiful bowls, cutting boards, coasters, wall hangings, chess boards, and several objects, with swirls of melted plastic imprinted on them. "It was truly exciting to see one's hardwork and vision come to fruition, " exclaims Satya, adding, "Imagine, had we just sat around, waiting for funds, we would still be writing proposals, and still waiting..." 

And this is not all. With the group aiming to use a 3-d printer to create everyday objects out of the amassed recyclable plastic bits,  sky is the limit. 

Zerowaste team is delighted that a few local youths have got inspired to help them in their endeavour. "Today, we had a new member join our team: Shyamkumar. He is only sixteen, and has been cleaning up the Kanagan lake in Pondicherry for the last two years," says Satya, a sense of awe clearly audible in his voice. For, to him it only translates into one thing: Hope for the future!

 

Break, Break, Break...

 The two fishermen pushed the boat into the frothing sea,  challenging the sudden rise of ambitious waves, as well as us, a bunch of  urbanites, novices in the art of befriending the elements, and embracing the wild. It had begun to drizzle, and the winds were picking up. 'There is a storm warning", one of them casually uttered, to no one in particular. I immediately fetched some homeopathic pills  out of my bag and passed them around to our party of five. "Just two pills under your tongue, folks, and it should do the trick!", The wanna-be-expert in me chirped, trying to sound ridiculously professional. Bryonia, as these pills are called, were  meant to help us cope with sea-sickness, in case we were to fall prey to it. 

Cresting the waves in a small trawler,  we were an excited lot, albeit a bit cold, in the middle of September. Tasting the  brackishness of the spuming spray on my lower lip, and the nectarine sweetness of the rains on my upper, my intoxication mounted as we left the shores far behind. The fearful amassment of paranoia, isolation, confinement, and depression I had been harbouring during nearly five months of lockdown, just deconstructed itself and dissolved into the vast expanse which surrounded us. No more a 'mere mortal', threatened by the pandemic, but a part of this rolling, rumbling, exuberant infinity...

This is it....This is what I had purposefully let slip into oblivion: my age-old camaraderie with the ocean. Images of myself jogging on, and on, in the lashing rain, by the tumultuous sea and its stud of crashing waves,  galloped past me, with a sweet fury. 

I was in my element then, as I was in it now...Being rocked by the turbulent sea, the  anchored boat kept us entwined in some sort of daydream. We gazed at a colony of gulls as they drifted on invisible  thermals, now, hugging the misty air, and now...skimming over the wrinkled face of the ocean:  fish slithering in their pale yellow beaks. The resounding crash of the distant surf sought to drown out the shrill wailing and squawking of these animated birds.  "I think I am gonna puke," Bella's strained voice broke the spell, woven by the violent yet rhythmic movement of the heaving waters. I attempted to offer her a couple of more sugar pills from my supply, but she refused. "I just wanna go ashore," she insisted. So, with a few quick movements the anchor was retrieved and stowed away. The motor rumbled to a start, and we took off...A fleet of fishing boats passed by, and we waved at them. They returned our wave with a stoic stare. To them perhaps, we were just a bunch of pampered picnickers. While they had a long day ahead, with hours of arduous work, we had a netful of memories to feast upon, and share them with our friends on Instagram, blog, whatsapp... twitter, and what not!

An Ode to Lao Tzu

 In response to my constant whining about feeling trapped in the daily rigmorale of things, which, in the final analysis, translated into the "great futility of it all", my good friend, Joe, once wrote:

All the things of the world are, as the Taoist would say, this and that. Expecting more seems to be just a "great futility of it all."  Sometimes I stand still and and think, "this is it?" And I realise, yeah, it is! And that won't change. But in that moment, I can also realise the possibility to love what is.  Even from a logical and contemplative standpoint, what else is really left? My body is always going to be doing something, there is really no true value to any particular thing beyond doing it in love now? My Grandmother seemed to be at peace with washing the dishes; I don't think she ever was a spiritually contemplative person; but without knowing it, she taught me that doing the dishes was as meaningful as saving the world from whatever; it was the world, period.  

"Being a Taoist seems a bit of an escape to me", I flung back. "When we fail to grapple with ourselves, with our surroundings, and with the world at large, the best thing is to accept. But, what then of human strife, of what good is the infinite pain borne by great Prometheus, bound to chains, and condemned to eternal damnation? Had he simply reveled in his titanic might, and vied with the gods, we would still be in the caves, chasing the illusion of light", was my answer to Joe. For, to me, a Taoist's 'this and that' was an over-simplification of the complex layers, the sandwiched Life likes to present itself in.

But, then came Covid-19. And, there in a jiffy, Life, as we know it, was stripped off its layers, and was presented to us in its crudest form, paranthesed within asleep and awake, and three meals in between. Acceptance was our only redemption, and our only escape from insanity. I wrote to Joe, saying perhaps we were all Taoists now, in our universal acceptance of the new paradigm.

Only last week however, it was through a chanced glimpse of a goatherd, sitting in my backyard, that I gained an understanding  of what Joe meant when he spoke of his grandma doing the dishes, and its relation to the great philosophy as propounded by Lao Tzu. What follows is a free verse I composed to capture that moment of epiphany.

The old goatherd

sits in the gathering

shade of  a neem tree. 

what goes through your

mind, old man?

what stray thoughts, 

impressions do you glean

while your six goats graze...

...and bleat.

there are no crossroads here,

in these wild, heirless fields

for my  vain quest

to meet the patience

of his crow-feet eyes.

he just sits and watches,

being the moment,

and the time that flows,

the ancient eyes

catch a hint of blue

and green