Love for Clay

I discovered claymation with Taare Zameen Par’s dazzling claymation titling. Enamoured by it, I wanted to study under the man who had made it - Dhimant Vyas. While that did not materialize, I decided to make myself a clay selfie. It wasn’t too bad except that I looked inflicted by some serious skin and bone disease.

In college, I took a clay snake on a trek to Tungareshwar.

More of Saamp here - http://on.fb.me/1gVCjVz

Recently, Anthony had taken up a commercial project – a bunch of claymation films to promote a VoiP brand. Forever interested in claymation, I turned up at the set just for fun. I watched them shoot, ate free food and played with the leftover clay. I got to see tools that professional clay modellers use – nothing fancy but highly functional.

Spending time pressing the soft dough and watching the clay figures become the Shahrukh Khan and Madhuri Dixit of Anthony’s film one still at a time inspired me to start playing with clay regularly.

I set up a page called ‘A Lump of Clay’ with a seemingly philosophical bio that reads – ‘The world is changing and so is this lump of clay’. Every day, the lump becomes something new.

I started with a dice and went on to do some more. Do tell me what you think. See the rest on the Facebook page - https://www.facebook.com/alumpofclay 

The Lump of Clay

                                      

Shakuni's best friend

Thinking of the grandfather of claymation - Pingu

About time we made our bones

Pheess

When you become old, your kids don’t talk to you much. Even your body stops listening to you.

Be nice to old people. 
They’ll appreciate it.

The Great Indian PM Shopping Festival came to an end today!

I got disappointment. What did you get?

Use this straw to have some thanda thanda paani -http://bit.ly/1qXNFMD

Our Nagaland Story

We arrived in Dimapur early on the morning of 28^th November. How early? Well, it was 5 when we stepped out of Dimapur station and were hounded by cabbies who wanted to ferry us to Kohima right away. We had spoken to a member of the Rotaract Club of Dimapur but we were supposed to call another number at ten in the morning. What would we do for five hours? And what if we still didn’t have a host after that phone call?

We checked into Hotel Maple, something we had found the night before, online. They gave us a single room with a single bed, promising to upgrade as soon as there was more space. After an uncomfortable sleep (read Anthony’s wheezing and my snoring and a few million power cuts) we decided to step out of the depressing room and go out.

So in Nagaland, the sun wakes up early and by ten it feels like 2 pm in Mumbai, bright and sunny. We ambled slowly through the market area, looking at shops, reading signboards and trying not to stare at the very pretty Naga women (Statement: Naga women are very pretty!). I have been craving to have some south Indian breakfast for a long time now and my tongue fell on the ground when I saw a board that said Dosa Plaza. I almost dragged Anthony along to find this place when we accidentally saw Café 77.

It looked like a good breakfast place with a graffiti name plate and all. So I killed the dosa dream right there and walked into the café only to be welcomed by the smell of amazing coffee. A little part of the South Indian in me got satiated there.

As we order breakfast, we see a stand that props up a magazine called GreenCache. I pick it up. It’s good and it’s only their first volume! Crisp pictures, amazing sequential stories and illustrations. I learnt a lot from that one magazine than a lot of Biology lectures in college. I quickly wrote a mail to the magazine, introducing ourselves and telling them how we liked their magazine. Next, I called a number that was on the panel.

Sentinaro Alley, who picked up the phone patiently listened to everything I had to say. Then, she introduced herself as the publisher and promised to meet us at Café 77 in another hour.

What happened next is straight out of a dream. Sentinaro came, we spoke, she rang up a few numbers and three hours later, we were in a cab to Kohima with five pine saplings that she sponsored!

We are now in Kohima, where Richard Belho is hosting us in one the many bamboo houses he has. Richard is an architect. He’s also one of the many forces behind the Kohima Komets – a football team. His dream is to see Nagaland’s Under 19 football team kick the posterior of India’s national team. He believes this will make the authorities comprehend the immense potential in the youth in the state.

Richard, along with help from a lot of people like Bazo Kire and all of his colleagues, is now setting up a football academy which will serve as the home ground for the Kohima Komets. Project 35 Trees planted ten trees in Meriema Village, where the academy will soon come up. We wish the Kohima Komets and the forces behind them all the best! We can’t wait to see them in action!

Anthony loves the food here. Yesterday, he had one of those green piggies from Angry Birds. Today he devoured a distant relative of Donald Duck. As for me, I am glad I’ve started eating eggs and that my hosts generously make me an omlette for lunch and dinner.

We just heard news that there’s a bandh in Imphal. If that’s true, it means we will still be in Kohima when the Hornbill Festival begins!

Age No Bar

We had the good fortune of meeting a 65-year old young man recently.

Call him ‘retired’ and he’ll dunk you head down in one of his many vermicompost pits. Mukul Varma believes he’s making headway in his new career and he is, we saw. Having seen all of the corporate world’s rigmarole of structures and processes and having grown to Managing Director position, he has a dream.

He sensed lack of employment as a huge problem and wanted to fix it. His objective – to help a few villages find their economic feet and become self-sustainable.

Chachaji (as he is fondly known by everyone there in Mohammadpur – one of his villages fifty kilometres from Patna) has a family house there which had been long neglected. He nursed it back from its dilapidated condition to a lovely village house, retaining its true structure but adding amenities such as a modern bathroom and curtains on the windows and so on.

Simultaneously, Chachaji started developing the family property they had. With the help of a few locals, he began cultivating radish that wholeheartedly grows in the rich soil there. Along with that, he’s growing potatoes, brinjal, turmeric and coriander.

What he is really banking upon, though, is a polyhouse full of Gerbera flowers. He hopes to get business orders from the three major flower markets – Delhi, Kolkata and Benaras.

There is a dairy farm in the offing. He’s experimenting with more vegetables like bottle gourd. There is a successful vermicompost unit that not only makes enough organic manure for the entire farm but also sells it to nearby farms.

All these ventures provide labour to the people of the village. Students studying in nearby junior colleges and living in the village are being encouraged to take care of the Gerberas and other crops and taught how to manage the water-efficient drip irrigation system. Chachaji has roped in two girls who are studying Chemistry in college to take care of the chemical additives. He hopes it will help them gain confidence and inspire more girls to join these two. He has planted teak trees along his vegetable plantations.

Sometimes, Chachaji stays in his house in the village. Sometimes he only visits. With every visit, he watches his crops grow, he sees the leaves of the teaks grow bigger and bigger. He won’t admit it but he’s proud of what he has managed to accomplish in two years that included deciphering complex government schemes and working around babus who do not lift a finger to help.

Chachaji also understands that he is far from attaining his dream. While the villagers have only just started warming up to his efforts, the first crop of Gerbera flowers in the polyhouse are almost ready to bloom and there might be a purchase order around the corner. He hopes people will see value in this work once they see the financial benefits.

Chachaji is living every urban man’s dream – to have a house in the village and grow vegetables.

For me, I seem to have found another personal hero. If at the age of sixty five, this naughty man can pull off everything we saw in his village called Mohammadpur, imagine what I can get done!

Maybe I can’t wake up at six every morning like Chachaji but that is only a small war and I know I’ll win it and many more big ones.

______

This story is part of an epic journey across India called Project 35 Trees. Know more about it here - http://www.facebook.com/35trees