Shahnaz and Navzer

Shahnaz and Navez at NAVADARSHANAM (Graphic Novel bit 3) – Stories about the small time farmer; the way they treat their crops and the hardships they face, their current setup and interesting stories and bits about their lives- their view on pesticides, Bt poultry etc. - Bt poultry and Meat - Jaime Oliver.
Tips for urban gardeners – being a green gardener.

Destination Experience 1 –

The Kothwala residence.

Location – Navdarshanam, Ganganahally hamlet, Gumalapuram village.

How to get there – Volvos and buses everyday from Majestic Bus stop.
What to expect at 150/- per person per day:

Experience in:
• Organic methods and maintenance of vegetable, fruit and ornamental gardening.
• Kitchen activities include cooking all meals as part of the routine, sharing and adding your own ethnic flavor to the menu. Making of bread, cottage cheese, clarified butter, jams, sauces and pickles (with seasonal fruits and vegetables) for home consumption.
• Amazing home cooked food, straight from the garden.
• A complete insight into simple living.


The Family – Shahnaz, Navzer, The cats, The dogs, The ducks, The pigeons, The chickens, The cows.
Occasional Vistors – Elephants, Snakes, Panthers.

Me: so you pretty much started from scratch here right?

Navzer: Well yes, we both had some experience in gardening but this required us to give up completely on some things we took for granted in the city. We had to teach ourselves to live completely separated from the grids and the energy systems.

For a whole year we lived on gas lamps, while we waited for the solar panels to kick in, the soil was terrible, only wild sparsely leaved trees growing. We took it by the day though and we managed setting up a power system, a gobar gas line, bought chickens and cows for eggs and milk and worked on our garden.
It was hard at first and this place a bit frightening with snakes turning up. By that time we our helpers move in and help us around the farm and worried for them as well. But things turned out pretty fine. Didn’t they Shahnaz?”

Shahnaz has been smiling at her cats and me serenely. We are now in her vegetable garden as she plucks tomatoes and okra off their stalks and pockets them. She walks though her flowery garden with water lily ponds and weaver birds flying back to their nests.

“I was happy to have all this land to work on… This is my high, Plucking fruits and vegetables and then be able to eat this or cook them into jams and preserves. Its like having a new friend to talk and listen to everyday. The hard times get forgotten when all my flowers are in bloom”

Navzer: Its not sun and smiles though, the night creatures come and remind us of their presence once in a while.
A while back, Our dog got attacked and dragged away by a panther. We heard the struggle and we ran but we were obviously not fast enough. And just a few nights back something almost terrifying happened. We were sleeping, we put our lights out early at night. And we heard this scratching, groaning and grunting noise outside. It was the elephants, they had broken through the electrical barrier and the gates and they were outside our house, just few feet away devouring our sweet, ripe papaya.
We stayed up waiting for more chaos, but they just ate and left… like most of our guests.

Me: So the nights are scary?

Navzer : Oh no, not really. Nothing has ever harmed any of us living here. Even the dogs and the snakes have an understanding. What does bother me are the lights you can see night moving through the forests. Poaching and felling of timber happens abundantly over here. The corruption of it all is more terrifying than most things we have encountered. But we keep to ourselves and make our garden work.

Me : How do you make your garden work… and is it really organic?

Navzer – We like to call it a “sustainable garden”. There isn’t just one way of doing things in an organic garden – there’s different techniques apart from the rest. There is Bio dynamic which is based on the movement and placement of start and other heavenly bodies and the gardening is done according to these cycles. Then there is Do- Nothing famring – Which is Fukuoka’s method – who said let nature take the reins. Don’t prune, don’t disturb the soil… like gardening for a lazy man.
Organic gardening of course is feeding the soil and creating this diverse eco system within your garden and then there is permaculture which is similar, but involves the use of sustainable means of energy, water renewal and each element in the farm is supposed to add something to the garden.
We do a little of all. I read a lot and Shahnaz goes with her intuition and then we mix things up.

Shahnaz is by now fiddling around in the kitchen making us a salad.

“You know its heart breaking to see how these farmers are treated and in turn how they treat their crops. The amounts of pesticides and fertilizers they use are horrendous. They amounts of water they waste everyday are even more horrifying and then come the ones who are suffering because of this, their land are dying and they have no other sources of income.
I have seen the way these farmer treat these carrots they grow… There is this one lake nearby where they take their baths, they wash their clothes, they use that place as their toilet as so their animals. And it is in this water that the carrots are washed… and as if that’s not enough, to make them look orange and shiny and clean they scrubs these against the wet rocky lakeside under their feet.”

Treating industry produced food at home –
Wash and peel EVERYTHING. The loss of nutrients is better than eating poison and gunk.

Navzer : We’ve employed a whole family and more and they’ve gotten so attached to the garden as well. We make sure they get whatever they want from the garden as well. They mostly take care of the chickens and the cows. We’ve only kept the indigenous varieties of both. These modified chicken lead horrible lives, caged up with grotesquely shaped bodies and they can’t even walk, all this so they lay more and more eggs and produce bigger and fatter meat. These chickens are piled on top of each other, pooping on each other and are obviously more prone to diseases.

Our chickens are only brought into their coops at night, to keep them safe from predators, and they lay these beautiful brown eggs. We hatch some, and we eat some.

The omelettes go beautifully with Shahnaz’s home baked brown bread and her mulberry jams. Mmmm.


A quick brown bread recipe :
• 2 cups whole wheat or white flour or a combination
• 1/4 cup sugar or honey
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1-1/2 teaspoons yeast or 1 packet of yeast
• 1/3 cup dry milk powder
• 1/4 cup oil
• 1 medium egg
• 1 cup warm tap water
In a mixing bowl combine the flour, sugar, salt, yeast and dry milk powder. Mix it up with a whisk or a fork until it is well blended. Add the oil, egg and warm tap water. Stir again, making a nice smooth mixture, along the consistency of cake batter. Turn the batter into a well oiled 8 or 9-inch, square or round pan. Set the pan aside in a warm place and allow the yeast to work for about 30 minutes. It won’t look like it has risen very much. That is alright. Bake the bread at 400° for about 20 minutes. It will rise up golden brown and very pretty. Remove it from the oven when the top is medium dark brown. A knife inserted in the center should come out clean. Cut the bread into 12 pieces and serve hot with margarine. This yeast bread has a texture similar to muffins. You could even bake it in a muffin pan if you were so inclined.
Mulberry/ plum/ peach jam –
1 kg of fruit, 1 kg of sugar/ molasses, a large vessel and storage jars.
Deseed and wash the fruit, cut into chunks.
Boil the sugar and fruit in water. There should be water enough to immerse the entire mixture in. Stir continuously and keep adding water till the fruit is cooked and the entire mixture reaches a jelly like consistency. Add lime juice/ organge juice to this mixture and stir in in.
Pour this hot liquid into the jars and then immerse these jars in water to cool them down. The jam will be ready to use in just a few days.
Finish up fast and make smaller batches. You can put these jams into cute jars and containers and gift them off as well.