I have always had a passion for writing and have now decided to give vent to my own expression…….below is my very first blog

The Closed Loop Ecosystem 

Last evening I had this wonderfull experience. Here I was all by myself at ‘ Namaste Farms ‘, when gradually my mind began to wander. 

On the farm we have a few Nepali workers. While most of the time we would laugh, joke and play cricket together, I could not help but wonder what drove this ragtag bunch of cousins so far from their little mountain village ‘ Dhuni ‘high up in the Himalayas. Each of them earned maybe INR 7,000 and maybe went home for a month or so every other year. It takes them 4 days just to get home!! 2 to get to the Nepal border near Gorakhpur and a further 2 by bus to get to their hamlet. 

Tiku and I got talking…..He said that his little village had maybe 150-200 dwellings. Each dwelling had a minimum of 4 persons. 

Nepal as country has suffered from apathy, corruption and general remoteness for centuries. Generation after generation of kings and monarchs have only done what has suited them and that is almost nothing. The nett current result is that, of a population of 26million, literacy is below 50%, healthcare only barely exists and per capita income remains low. 

So how has this and the simple lifestyle of the mountain villagers impacted this little hamlet called ‘ Dhuni ‘? The answer is ‘ little ‘!! These people are continuing to live their life as they did for centuries. With a few modern modifications ofcourse. 

Every little dwelling has it’s own little plot of land. On this land they grow crops such as wheat, rice, masur and other lentils.In it’s own form of subsistence farming, whatever each family grows it keeps for its own use. Furthermore each family will normally have at least one buffalo for their milk needs and one goat for meat purposes. In addition they have a few chickens. Fruits such as oranges and bananas grow wild and it appears that their basic food needs are served with almost no cash transactions. The only cash transaction that I was able to ascertain was when they slaughter a goat. As the meat of a goat is too much for one family they sell the rest at approx NPR 150 per kg. This the family that bought the meat has to pay in cash even if at a much later date. The barter system does not really exist here. 

The size of each house is approximately 750-1000 sq ft. Each house is built at multiple levels normally into the size of a mountain. At the lowest level is the stable. The next level or two is the living area and they store their grain and hay right at the very top. The cooking area is normally at level two. So are the houses warm….not really says Tiku. They are made of stone if they want to heat the place they normally light the ‘ Chulha ‘ in the kitchen. Of course in winter they have to bundle up under layers of clothes. The toilets are outside the house. 

Now that food and shelter are taken care of at almost no cost, why do so many men from their village leave for Mumbai in search of employment, when for centuries they did not? 

I think the answer lies in self improvement. For centuries they lived a life of grinding poverty, living off the land, the modern day changed all that. In pretty much the same way that Indians started heading to the Gulf in search of opportunities, these villagers also started doing the same. They are all illiterate or semiliterate at best. Places like Mumbai offer them opportunities that just did not exist. The INR 7,000 that they earn is almost completely saved. This money when sent back to their villages betters the lives of their families….no different from the Malbari in the Gulf. So why not the Gulf?? 

As the conversation with Tiku carried on, I asked if his village had electricity, and he said yes…but he also said that they generate their own power!! This got my ears all perked up….what was this guy talking about?? Turns out that there is mountain river that flows thru their village, as there was no sign of the national electric grid reaching their village anytime soon, they went to a local ‘ Sanstha ‘ for help and guidance, this NGO then put them on the track of green power….the NGO supplied them all the materials needed and the villagers had to work on their electric power generator system…they had to build a canal and large holding tank that siphoned off water from the river….they then had to install a turbine and generator set along with wiring into the village….once all this was done…the NGO technicians came in and commissioned the entire system. This one caught me by complete surprise and I googled it….National Geographic ran an article on Nepal Micro Hydo systems…there are some 2,300 of them across Nepal and they employ about 5,000 people at the rate of 2 per Micro Hydo…and who pays the salaries?? To power each bulb the individual household has to pay NPR 30 per month and this goes towards salaries…apparently these systems are more reliable than the national grid and in fact their excess power has to be bled off as there is no storage facility and it is a closed loop. 

The more I heard of this little village, the more enthralled I was by this line of conversation, for the first time I was actually looking at an ecosystem that was a closed loop by itself. Despite repeated probing I could not really come up with a breach. 

I asked Tiku, who were the traders in the village, he said that they were the villagers themselves. Did any outsiders ever come to the village, he said no. Who were the doctors in the village, he said that the two doctors were from outside…this was the only point of external dependence I could find. 

So what drove these guys to work in Mumbai?? I think there comes a time when the harsh life needs a few basic comforts and these can only be bought with money….the ecosystem in the village was built around self sustinence and the result is that there is almost no cash in the system….they boys working in Mumbai and the Gulf were changing that. 

Lastly I asked, would he prefer Mumbai or the village?? He did not have an answer….