Most of you who have been to Singapore and are ‘Food Fanatics’
must be remembering the Satay, Bak Kut Teh, Char Kway Teow, Laksa and several
other Southeast Asian food served in the very Singapore style. This time also
on the last day, on my way back from ITB-Asia, my farewell dinner from my friends
was at the usual place, East Coast Sea Food Centre near Changi Airport, one of
the few horizontal corners of Singapore, with lots of ‘Chilly Crab’ and ‘mantao’.
The Chilly Crab, which has almost become the ‘Host’s National Dish’ to honour
guests at Singapore comes as a big portion and hence needed a walk along the beautiful
East Coast before proceeding to the airport. Two small boys, escorted by a
senior gentleman were taking something like a balloon, to be put together as a
children’s playing item, from another gentleman. One of the small boys wanted
to have it first, when the man giving it to them said ’son, you must have
patience’. The small boy impatiently replied back “I have money”. The man again
told him ‘but son, you must have patience’.
This was a touching experience for me, are these the values
we are trying to teach our children, is this the future of our human civilization
and many more questions may have come to our minds. Then where do we start
working on this. In Asia, we need to empower the large rural areas; where there
are still some deep rooted values and we need to start from the schools for
children there. We need to let all our children of the world learn from the rural
communities of Asia, where their lives are still governed by the environment
around them and help the children of these rural areas feel proud of what they
have and accordingly help to conserve them.
End of September, 2012, a group of very senior Australian
teachers organized the ‘Regional Teachers Training Workshop’ at the Primary
School at Kolakham (the last village adjoining Neora Valley National Park upper
region), covering about 03 rural primary schools from the area. The Neora
Valley Jungle Camp, which was set up to support the local primary school
(Government) had already become a model rural primary school under the
Singapore – East Himalaya Program for the entire Darjeeling Hill area, further
enhanced by present program under ‘Growing Through Education Foundation’, with
the mission to ‘Help Schools in Need’ in the East Himalaya.
Here, I had managed to introduce Deoashish, the ‘Himalayan
Baul’, who had put together a few socially scattered children into a group
called ‘Varnamala’. This was the first effort in East Himalaya for someone to
write, compose and give music to Nepali (Gorkhali) alphabetical rhymes. Though
he had gathered some popularity in the Himalayan towns of Kalimpong and
Gangtok, yet I always thought that his composition was most appropriate to the rural
areas of Nepal, Sikkim, Darjeeling Hills and other Nepali speaking areas of
Dooars with Northeast. The introduction seemed to work and within 02 hours the
small children Kolbong and Dagyong schools were singing and dancing to the
tunes “Adua khaye piro mani, ama pani auncha nani...”. This is because of the
fact that the words of the rhymes represented what the children saw in day to
day life.
This is what education is all about, relating subjects to day
to day happenings in and around and not pushing students in the artificial
ambiance of classrooms and further in the digital/computer boxes making the
children deaf and dumb about the environment around them. If one visualizes the
‘Gurukul’ s/he will realize that the children of all backgrounds had to go to
the Guru (Teacher), usually in the fringe of a forest, where they used to be
taught in the outdoors with the classroom under the tree. Here they learned all
the elementary things of life. This was to a large extent adopted by Kabiguru
Rabindranath Tagore for the school level, which still continues at
Shantiniketan, near Kolkata.
Even at the Nalanda, Taxila and Sompura Mahaviharas
(Universities), probably the first known universities of the world, the
students had to go from village to village for alms or from vihara to vihara in
search of knowledge, all of these were for the fact for them to understand all
the levels of the society and the outdoors which the human beings live with.
With the Cambridge or the Oxford Universities, the pattern changed and was much
influenced by the industrial revolution, the walls around the classrooms became
a must and text books, exercise copy books, pencils, rubbers, pens, ink, ruler etc
all came out as industrial products, which students had to consume. The trend
continues with the digital age, with the best schools to consume air-condition,
laptops and internet, with digitally smart teachers who can best copy-paste the
human environment and present it in the four walls.
Most of our visit to the ‘Places of God’, which is often
referred to as pilgrimage, is today completed through television or on
internet. The ‘pilgrimage’ is all about the ‘Yatra’ or Journey that one has to
undertake to reach the place of God. The journey which makes you understand the
different communities, their culture, the different forms of nature and the
outdoors in general. The journey that makes you wiser in the process of
reaching the ‘Place of God’. One has to travel in person and not virtually to
achieve it. The five senses with the sixth support which we are born with
becomes defunct without travelling and living beyond the four walls of houses,
vehicles, classrooms and computers. It is, as if people have forgotten to
travel outdoors, even when they undertake travel it is within such controlled
conditions that there is no connectivity with the outdoors. The time has
arrived, when we must strive to be a generation who will play with the clay and
water to make gold from the sun. A generation who will travel outdoors for
their ‘primary education’.
21st February, 2014:
Today, there are celebrations of International Mother Language Day across the
world. It was an opportunity to join
Sunil to MCCS, to see him address the students of classes IX and XI, and the
teachers on the need to develop a Palliative Care Forum for North Bengal. He
explained about the way to love people who were suffering from cancer, old age
and other terminal diseases. For doctors, any patient is treated for the
disease or suffering, but in Palliative Care, it is all about going towards
death with friends around you, trying to keep you happy on your last journey.
This is what only one can do voluntarily, and today we need more volunteers in
this society.
When Prince Siddhartha realized
that suffering and death are obvious once you are born, he left his palace in
search of the path, which can take you through the journey of life with more
happiness and peace. He sat under the Bodhi Tree and as the world says he
achieved Nirvana, an enlightenment through which He shows the path of Peace and
Happiness in this world even today as Buddha. Recently, as a part of the Green
Circuit Team we had gone to explore the Nirvana Trails of Lord Buddha under the
leadership of Deepak, an old friend from Nalanda from the UNDP Rural Tourism
days. Ajoy, the President of ACT was helping with the audio-visual documentation,
supported by Sayantan.
After His Enlightenment, Lord
Buddha arrived at the village called Jethian (Jesthivan). The news of the
Enlightenment of Buddha as one of the Greatest teachers of all times was
already in awareness, and the then King Bimbhisara at Rajgir (Rajgriha) heard
about his arrival and reached Jethian with his entire court and army to receive
the Teacher. He requested Lord Buddha to give him the Diksha (accept him as his
disciple or student) and then took Him to Rajgir, where He accepted to stay at
Venuvan. This was the first royal patronage, which was later recognized by
Emperor Ashoka, who spread Buddha’s Teachings as the Dhamma, way of life. Even the Great Buddhist
Scholar and Chinese Pilgrim, Xuang Xang mentions spending 02 years at this blessed village
of Jethian.
The people living in Jethian
today, had migrated from Sambhalgarh in Rajasthan and are proud to be called
the ‘citizens of the first village of Enlightened Buddha’. Though their basic livelihoods
is mainly dependent on cattle rearing and to some extend on agriculture, yet
the hospitality of these people living below the poverty line is amazing. The
entire area with adjoining villages is a mine for Buddhist Treasures, wherever
you dig, there are remains of temples, statues, plaques and more. From the time
of Ashoka to the Pala Kings, it seems there was hardly any place in Asia which
was not influenced by the Teachings of Buddha, specially blessed was the
Magadha Landscape with East and Northeast India.
The Green Circuit team had
village meetings and initiated the process of Homestays and Village Tourism at
Jethian. The adjoining villages were also visited, and the Heritage Protection
Teams in the villages were motivated and the village collections were also
documented by Ajoy. Finally, we reached the Cave, where Lord Buddha had
meditated, close to a village called Aer. All the villages still live as if in the
18th century, traditional livelihood and happy communities. The road
connectivity has improved in the past few years and mobile user numbers have
taken over toilet user numbers. Also lot of the forests, which were sources of
water have vanished. Scarcity of water, fuel-wood, livelihood opportunities and
empowerment have forced the youth to leave the villages.
Lord Buddha, who has showed the
path of happiness by living with nature, the places where we have his footsteps
calls for the return of nature and this can only happen through volunteers of
love. Volunteers who can create compassionate destinations, through their acts
to mankind, nature and heritage. Volunteers who are not torn apart by the
worries of climate change and degrading social values, but are ready to learn
from traditions and help the citizens of this world to be part of the
sustainable development in villages are already going ahead. Like the old routes
from Nalanda, the volunteers from the sacred landscape of Magadha will be
connected to Silk Route and Sea Route Destinations across the Indian Himalaya,
India’s Northeast, the Eastern and Western coasts, Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh
and Myanmar. The opportunity lies by connecting The Green Circuit Team at ITB,
Berlin during 1st and 2nd week of March, 2014.
