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Meet the very down to earth, inspiring urban farmer Kalpana Manivannan who started Kalpavriksha Farms, and can teach you how to grow your own stuff and many DIY organic products.
Translated from the original in Tamil by the author.
Kalpana Manivannan believes that we reap as we sow. This urban farmer, homesteading enthusiast, and zero-waste lifestyle practitioner is the quintessential social entrepreneur striving to make the world a better place.
“When everything is going well, what is the need to get down to farming?” she was asked, when she decided to do this. Kalpana gave up a comfortable, high profile teaching position to roll up her sleeves and take up organic farming. The decision was born out of a basic need and desire to provide her family with clean and healthy food from the scratch.
Today, she industriously runs the Kalpavriksha farms, a half-acre farm in the outskirts of Chennai which is on its way to becoming a self-sustained space of sorts. For starters, her farmhouse is solar powered!
Kalpana goes about educating children and just anyone with the will to learn the techniques of organic farming. She sincerely believes that children should perceive and learn farming as an essential lifeskill.
She conducts workshops on sustainable, chemical free living, where people learn to make their own organic alternatives to store-bought chemical infused products such as soaps, cleaners, vinegar and what not!
Even as you are reading this, she’s inducting another batch of willing learners into the essentials of sustainable farming.
She also conducts these workshops on Whatsapp, besides blogging and sending newsletters to willing subscribers who get to learn simple, effective homesteading techniques viz., gardening, DIY chemical-free alternatives and ways to go zero-waste.
Naturally, Kalpana has been conferred with a range of prestigious awards including the Rex Karamveer Chakra Award.
She wholeheartedly attributes it all to her husband and children, for believing in her dreams and supporting her in what she’s been doing.
While assimilating her journey of commitment, conviction, and courage, one is delightfully reminded of the famed couplet –
“…for people, though they go about in search of various employments, have at last to resort to the noble profession of farming.” – (Thirukkural: 1031| Chapter: Farming)
Sindhu is a writer and a mother of two. A self-confessed bibliophile and a movie buff, she finds relief and meaning in doodling, cooking, escaping to hill towns, and her friends. A big fan read more...
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Neena was the sole caregiver of Amma and though one would think that Amma was dependent on her, Neena felt otherwise.
Neena inhaled the aroma that emanated from the pan and took a deep breath. The aroma of cumin interspersed with butter transported her back to the modest kitchen in her native village. She could picture her father standing in the kitchen wearing his white crisp kurta as he made delectable concoctions for his only daughter.
Neena grew up in a home where both her parents worked together in tandem to keep the house up and running. She had a blissful childhood in her modest two-room house. The house was small but every nook and cranny gave her memories of a lifetime. Neena’s young heart imagined that her life would follow the same cheerful course. But how wrong she was!
When she was sixteen, the catastrophic clutches of destiny snatched away her parents. They passed away in a road accident and Neena was devastated. Relatives thronged her now gloomy house and soon it was decided that she should be married off.
Women today don’t want to be in a partnership that complicates their lives further. They need an equal partner with whom they can figure out life as a team, playing by each other’s strengths.
We all are familiar with that one annoying aunty who is more interested in our marital status than in the dessert counter at a wedding. But these aunties have somehow become obsolete now. Now they are replaced by men we have in our lives. Friends, family, and even work colleagues. It’s the men who are worried about why we are not saying yes to one among their clans. What is wrong with us? Aren’t we scared of dying alone? Like them?
A recent interaction with a guy friend of mine turned sour when he lectured me about how I would regret not getting married at the right time. He lectured that every event in our lives needs to be completed within a certain timeframe set by society else we are doomed. I wasn’t angry. I was just disappointed to realize that annoying aunties are rapidly doubling in our society. And they don’t just appear at weddings or family functions anymore. They are everywhere. They are the real pandemic.
Let’s examine this a little closer.
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