Karuna Farms chronicles

1st July 09,



I reach Kodaikanal, after a 12 hour journey - jump onto the farm jeep and bounced all the way down to Karuna Farms - Neville's organic coffee estate. I'm shown to my little cottage and then summoned for tea and a talk to Neville's cottage. We talked the first day for about two hours, which were filled with instense conversations about the world and its fate and how deeply food, politics, spirituality and money were linked to each other.









A few key points i gathered -

The farm started 23 years ago, as nothing but a vegetable garden. It soon became a part of a group of 10 people who were trying to create a market for organic food in the Kodaikanal. Only 3 left now, including Neville who stopped farming for economics.

The farms is spread across 20 acres, sustaining families that live within and contribute to the community with their own talents and projects (mostly based around spirituality and sustainability. - 70percent of their food from the estate itself, and they are currently attempting to crow cereal as well.

The Hippies sowed the seeds to all these new "trends" that are coming up - vegetarianism, peace, organic food, the vegan ways, spirituality, yoga, reiki, I ching - every thing "in" today - that is the future of the world... not a cloned sheep or nuclear power. - That isn't the future.
The technologically developed generation isn't sustainable... it will crack... and your planes will crash.

"WE" (people involved in building sustainable communities) are setting the Base for the the future.... Its not like we live in isolation from the science and technological advancements... we use the basics - GPS, the Internet, blogs and websites - but we play smart and we power these appliances with solar panels - we generate our own power and store the excess. ~ we are ideological not fanatical. Fanaticism makes you blind.

BUT WHEN THE SHIT HITS THE FAN - hell, you can't eat nuts and bolts.
- Media is the biggest rascal
- What moves the body - the mind ; What moves the mind : the intelligence; And what controls this intelligence: EGO.
- The Ego is not perverse - In fact advanced economies function with a perverted Ego of I WANT.
-They are propagating a psyche of dissatisfaction, they make you believe that this is right -
-Michael Jackson propagating consumerism and a chemical unnatural lifestyle - living within negativity.

- the Indian youth is twenty years behind - the west is not adopting what was truly our lifestyle of simplicity and family unity.
Everyone wants to add to the economy - to what end? By becoming more and more unnatural.

- the environmental repurcussion are going to snowball.

- THE NASHA HAS TO CHANGE - alcohol is the current nasha, makes people aggressive and want more - they pay more and more. Its the opposite of something like ganja which is passive and anti communist... makes you sit back and be content... more empathy is instilled in you.

This mind set of the "dirty - hippie" came later... when even that lifestyle too started getting consumerist and bastardised - politicised rather. Its two opposite lives and mind sets - what we need to achieve is not the black or the white - but a shade of green in between.

-Today's Big war is Economic Growth v/s Nature - that is the way- not the little 9/11 and terrorist attacks and other such skirmishes.

- Our basic needs are still the same and we are like animals... like sheep, following the leader of the herd- but the leader of this herd is blind or halfway there... they will all follow him into the ditch. let them fall... that's when they'll wake up. .

The difference between us an animals is that we can create and shape our own destiny - so we ARE in fact responsible for each of our actions... however in spite of our scientific outlook our calculations have gone skewed somewhere... far back.

People like Michael.. blinded and true degenerates... are failures spiritually and in the materialistic world as well.
- where are they going after death - Spiritual inclination and concept of karma is ingrained in this land. - Its the negative age, but its coming to and end- or we have to possibility now to pick ourselves up.

Here in Karuna farms we try to achieve some sort of a balance... Grateful dead manger was here and talked about how the flower power isn't dead - its flowers are just blossoming. We started this and YOU the flowers... the fruit should take over.

Yes, the consumerists are predominant, but the 10 - 15% count on the cosmic level.

The west has been propagating disinformation and a false illusion of what a successful life is- an illusion they propagate through the TV. They have made us believe that their life is better and their people are more beautiful... but there are beautiful and ugly people every where... physically and otherwise. TV is an amazingly powerful medium- hell even the commies sold out eventually.

- they call me the prophet of doom - but the planet is destined for change...

- All the tsunamis and earthquakes and draughts are just a small knock on our head coming from mother nature.

- We're falling in a trap of lies - blaming the swine flu on a poor pig... and AIDS from a monkey... HAH. Its their damn chemical companies, that screwed up somewhere... pigs, hah!... LIARS!!
- And this GMO ... they're playing with GENES we couldn't interfere more with the laws of nature... and yet even they could have made great things... positive things, but they are trained and leashed up buy the people with the money.

They come up with things which are filled with chemicals themselves and make us more dependant on the drug industry... as they provide no nourishment whatsoever.

But the west is now smartening up... Obama is going to clean up America and shit on us - people here are easy to manipulate... just show the donkeys the carrot made from western money. Look at Chindabaram - he was to make us a SUPERPOWER? He's doesn't even know what that means, all we'll be doing is falling deeper into the ditch dug up by the west.

Ambani - the rich bastard - is sick rich, off OUR money - the billion people of India.

I had money... i made good use of it - didn't lose a thing during recession - but i still face difficulties with farm... all you have to do is patiently tend to the problems and return to the good days again. We shut down an American factory here, dumping mercury into the lakes - we have proof of the corruption in the supreme court! We won that one... but then ten more such pop up.

- i feel satisfaction in knowing that i haven't just been fighting a system... but created an alternative one as well.

- Bangalore used to be amazing with the bands and the open culture - the bands and music events on the streets.

- corruption and pollution are good friends of progress.