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bigskydreaming · 4 years

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A big part of the reason I harp on NTT #55 and that time Bruce hit Dick after Jason’s death is to me, its just such a perfect example of the downsides of letting something like that go unaddressed. For fans of the whole family, because the ripple effects of letting it go unaddressed either in canon or largely in fandom as a whole....like, those affect every member of the family, even if you’re not particular a fan of Dick or Bruce specifically.

First off, I want to be perfectly clear.....I do believe that a large part of the problem in the writing itself is that the writers and various editors at DC didn’t view it as a father abusing his son. To them, I think it was simply an extreme example of Bruce’s grief getting the better of him....it was meant to be big, dramatic, dark, it was meant to hurt Dick and cause an even bigger division between them, but it wasn’t meant to be abuse, in their eyes, I don’t think. At the end of the day, as far as they were all concerned IMO, it was simply a punch, and Dick’s certainly taken worse in his years as a vigilante.

None of that changes the fact that what was depicted on the page was unequivocally abuse. And I particularly want to break down the mental components of the scene, because I do feel like even when this is mentioned in fandom or fics, the weight of it is rarely felt, because its so often implicitly compared with the lifetime of abuse Jason had before coming to live with Bruce, or the times Dick’s been hurt far worse, or any of a dozen different things. Bottom line is, even when its nominally held out as being abusive, it tends to be in a perfunctory kind of way like “okay, yes, you’re not supposed to hit your kids, that’s abuse, but ultimately it was still just a punch.”

If you’ve been fortunate to never have been abused by a parent, please understand and internalize this:

A punch is never just a punch.

Or any form of physical abuse for that matter...the delivery isn’t the point. Its what it represents.

Even if its just one hit, and the abuse victim has been hit far more or far worse in fights or sparring or whatever.....the damage doesn’t come from the physical blow alone.

The far greater damage is to every single thing that person had until that point built up in their mind to be true about their parent and their relationship with that parent.

Society teaches us that parents aren’t supposed to hurt their kids. More than that, its a parent’s job to protect their kids from harm, we’re told from a very young age....with none of this coming from just one single source, but everywhere around us. We’re immersed in this perception, via entertainment, via our teachers, via everything we’re taught about how to protect ourselves.

What’s the first thing you learn as a kid, that you’re told you should do if someone or something makes you uncomfortable or afraid? ‘Tell your parents’....even if we never hear that advice from our parents themselves, to come to them, its the first thing teachers advise, etc....with there rarely being a caveat about what to do if your parent is the one making you uncomfortable and afraid. Society’s default message to kids doesn’t really factor that in....because those are the outliers, as far as society’s perception goes.

Even as we get older and we start to consume media where older kids and parents have tense relationships, fight a lot....the vast majority of them still end with some form of reconciliation, whether deserved or not, because the implicit understanding is even when families fight, when parents yell, at the end of the day its all okay, because the parents love them and only want whats best for them....because of course they do. That’s how it works. The exceptions, again, are outliers.

The problem is, those of us with abusive parents are just as immersed in these outside narratives as any child with non-abusive parents....even if we don’t get this same reassurance from our parents themselves. Not only does this make it particularly hard for abused children to recognize or acknowledge when they’ve been abused (my parent can’t have meant to hurt me, because they’re my parent, they love me, so its not like they abused me)....

But in addition to that, up until that first moment of actual abuse, up until that first true piece of evidence that our relationship with our parent is not the same as the message we’re immersed in about what it should and should not be....

Before that, in the absence of that, we hear the same narratives and messages everyone else does, about how parents are supposed to protect us, nurture us, be our last line of defense against those who would see to harm us. That they love us, that we should never have to be afraid of them, etc. We absorb these implicit beliefs, the same as any other child. We internalize them. We accept them. We believe them to be true. We believe this to be fact.

‘No matter how much we fight with a parent, they would never truly hurt us. Not on purpose. That’s the last thing they’d ever want, because at the end of the day no matter our disagreements, they love us and want what’s best for us, not for us to be afraid of them.’

A punch is never just a punch, when its from a parent.

Its also the end of that belief. That trust. That unspoken faith we had in the message we’d been taught over and over throughout our lives....

Because its hard to argue that a parent would never really want to hurt you, when you’ve been on the receiving end of a willful and deliberate attempt to hurt you.

Bruce may have been lashing out in his grief, but he didn’t try and take it back. He didn’t show remorse or look horrified by what he’d done. Instead he doubled down, loomed over Dick, glared at him, yelled things about Jason’s death being Dick’s fault, that Dick was jealous that Bruce had adopted Jason but not him, specifically calling up things that he knew were sore points for Dick, things he knew would hurt him....making it unequivocally clear that in this moment, yes, Bruce’s intent was to hurt Dick. For him to be cowed, intimidated, even afraid of him. And then Bruce told him to leave, and to leave his key behind.

And in Dick’s case, all of this is compounded by the fact that Bruce isn’t his biological father, had yet to even be named his adoptive father. Meaning, the unspoken and spoken messages and lessons we’re taught about a parent’s role, and what children can or should trust or expect of a parent...these were only ever things Dick believed (and I don’t think anyone would truly argue that Dick didn’t believe these things about Bruce, that he loved him, wanted to protect him, etc)....

The point being....these things were never taken for granted in this case, because Bruce wasn’t technically or even nominally Dick’s father by that point. They were only ever believed by Dick...because Bruce worked to convince Dick they were all true. Dick was a traumatized orphan when he first came to live with Bruce. No matter how quickly you yourself see or headcanon him as having ‘bounced back’ from that, so to speak....that was only possible in the first place by virtue of Bruce making him feel safe enough to do so. Feel loved enough to well, act like a kid who has love and support in his life. The Manor was only ever Dick’s home because Bruce made it his home. Made him believe it was home. That it was a safe place for him, a place to feel comfortable and secure in, a refuge from the trauma that had made it necessary for him to even need another home.

One punch shattered all of that.

Because there’s no way for it not to. Dick spent years by Bruce’s side as Batman. He knows better than anyone what Bruce looks like when he wants to intimidate, when he wants someone to be afraid of him. He just never expected to be on the receiving end of that, because up until that point, even at their worst or most contentious, Dick still carried that unspoken faith that Bruce loved him even if he was bad at showing it, and as such, he’d never hurt him, not deliberately, not on purpose.....because the very idea of that, we’re taught, is incompatible with love. They can’t coexist. Someone can’t love us, and be capable of even a moment of that.

Life, unfortunately, is rarely that simple.

Make no mistake, someone can love someone and still abuse them. Our tendency in society is also to try and label people as certain things, as though they embody the description we give to them, even when that description originally is just meant to be of an action. So we call people abusive in general, even if at the start, its a specific action that’s abusive. Because abuse is ultimately an action. An abusive action that only turns into an abusive behavior when its repeated. An abusive behavior that only belongs to an abusive person, when that behavior becomes characteristic of that person.

And so whatever it was that Dick had specifically internalized about his and Bruce’s relationship by that point, whether it was that Bruce would never hurt him because Bruce was still his father for all intents and purposes, and loved him, and had made this his home, wanted it to be Dick’s home, for him to feel like it was his too...

One punch didn’t just split his lip and knock him to the floor while Bruce towered over him and yelled blame at him. It also made a lie of everything Bruce had previously worked to impart to Dick about his place here, his home, his relationship with Dick and what Dick could expect of him: to always be safe here, with him, to be wanted.

The reason I said at the start I believed that letting all of this go unaddressed was detrimental to the whole franchise and fandom, even if you’re not a fan of Dick or Bruce’s specifically - that goes back to what I said about how abuse initially is just a description of an action, before it becomes a behavior, and through enough instances of behavior, becomes characteristic enough of someone that they themselves are just described as abusive.

Because at this stage in the comics, this point in time.....Bruce’s abuse of his children is still limited to one singular scene, enacted in a time of extreme grief and emotional turmoil.

Make no mistake, I’m not for a second saying that excuses what Bruce did....because no matter his headspace, that doesn’t change the effect his actions still had on Dick’s headspace. An “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it, I was grieving” alone can’t singlehandedly repair the kind of damage that was done to a child’s belief in his father’s inability to truly do him harm, or even want to.

But its a place to start from, and the problem is.....by never actually starting from that place, by never working from THERE, specifically, to stem the behavior that ultimately is seen repeating at various points in the comics....a precedent is made. That he can do this and just have it papered over with a mere refusal to ever really acknowledge or address it, and life will superficially go on the same, as though something fundamental hasn’t changed, shifted....with nothing nearly as impactful put in motion in counterpoint to it, to push back against everything this scene did and implied about their relationship to either of them.

I admit to being somewhat triggerhappy on this subject, lol, but see, the bottom line is ultimately, fandom’s general refusal to give this particular scene real acknowledgment or weight has nothing to do with being a Dick stan, its purely about how abuse narratives are interacted with in any medium, as a whole.

Like, hopefully it makes a little more sense now why it might be downright maddening to see a fandom so frequently write fics tackling Bruce’s behavior.....while largely skipping around and outright avoiding or ignoring:

the initial instance of abuse that without which, and if not for there never having been any consequences resulting from it, Bruce’s actions in this direction would never have kept repeating enough to become a behavior.

Its about for every action there’s an equal an opposite reaction. By one instance of abuse not being deemed worthy of an opposing reaction to address it, attempt to correct it, push back against it and try and return things to where they’d been before an unapologized-for abusive scene skewed things heavily in another direction....

The groundwork is laid for more of the same to happen again, either with the same character, or literally any other.

Because the thing that goes hand in hand with this, without ever really getting acknowledged either, as it would require referencing that time Bruce abused Dick which tends to be counter to this line of thinking entirely:

Instead of trying to ignore that this scene happened because it clashes with the idea that Dick is the favored son who can do no wrong in Bruce’s eyes.....IMO stans of Jason and the others might be better served by looking at this moment in the characters’ lives as “if we vehemently believe that Bruce favors Dick more than the others, and he can still do this to him, what does that say he’s capable of with the others?”

Hopefully I’m making a case for how after a long enough time has past where scenes like this one just exist and yet there’s not a sizable enough pushback or attempt to acknowledge, address or ‘fix’ it....it was literally inevitable that there would reach a point where shitty writers intent on just making a spectacle rather than because they care about the implications of what they’re writing....

Would eventually come up with something like RHATO #25.

How could they not? When the takeaway was that all this prior abusive stuff Bruce did never even got the kind of outcry, dramatic reception that writers like Lobdell live for.....what were writers like him ever going to do but double down? Up the stakes? Do worse?

Bottom line is you can��t keep a pattern from recurring so long as you refuse to acknowledge various of the points that make up the pattern. Especially the initial point, without which there very well might be no pattern.

And going back to that scene from NTT #55....

No, I don’t believe a simple apology was ever going to make it right. But as I said, its a start, and you have to start somewhere. If anyone ever truly wants to address Bruce’s worse tendencies with his children, IMO, you start here....where its still largely limited to a specific moment in time, and can be addressed as such. Forced out into the open and condemned before it can grow due to a lack of consequences. With Bruce expected to make amends. He can’t and shouldn’t expect Dick just to forgive him, but not even asking for forgiveness literally only lays out the inevitable conclusion that he doesn’t need to, in order to have things back the way they were.

Whereas owning up to what he did and its effects on Dick, recognizing that Dick only had this initial security of feeling he’d never harm him because he’d once upon a time worked to give him that feeling of security in the first place......that could be a reminder to Bruce that he did it once, and if he wants to badly enough and works at it hard enough, he can do it again.

But again, that requires focus on what this did to Dick, and what he needs in order to make things better from that point on...as well as effort.

An action caused this. Nothing but action in the other direction can actually have any kind of effect equivalent to the one the abusive action had.

I firmly believe that focusing on this as the starting point of any ‘fix-it’ fics meant to address or even curb Bruce’s abusive behavior in canon, is to the benefit of fans of every Batkid.

Cut it off at the source. Before it ever even gets to the point of RHATO #25, or NW #30.

Because there reaches a point where it becomes too little, too late. Where acknowledging it only once it gets to instances of that magnitude is akin to trying to put a bandaid on a gaping hole going straight through the body.

There are some instances of abuse that are so extreme, so damaging, that....they shouldn’t be forgiven, IMO. Where when if you’re focusing on what’s best for the victim, rather than trying to make things better for the whole family overall, including the abuser, under the belief that the family truly needs and would be worse off without them...

Like, sometimes the best thing for an abuse victim is to just walk away, if that’s at all possible. Cut ties and start fresh elsewhere. Some things are too big to ever truly come back from, to make things so everyone truly feels comfortable and safe and secure in another’s presence.

So I mean, its never not going to be baffling, and a little frustrating, to see fix-it fics for Bruce’s abusive behavior or actions that only act like something like RHATO #25 is a call for an intervention.

Because the thing that never ever gets mentioned in those fics, even when they bring it up and toss it out there like a throwaway line, like its still not that big a deal...

Is if your premise acknowledges that this initial scene after Jason’s death still happened in your fic....that it was the starting point for a pattern of abusive behavior that unchecked grew until it reached the point of RHATO #25....

Then your own fic is acknowledging but not addressing the fact that Dick has been living as an unacknowledged abuse survivor this whole time, without anyone in the fic’s continuity ever having addressed or even attempted anything to repair that initial damage to his faith in Bruce’s desire to protect and shelter and never harm him.

And that has nothing to do with feelings about individual characters, but again....how we interact with abuse narratives as a whole.

Just, please. If you are not a survivor yourself, if you take nothing else away from this, just please remember, reflect upon, and internalize this:

There is a difference between abuse and assault for a reason.

And that reason boils down to the fact that unlike in instances of assault, with abuse?

A punch is never just a punch.

#abuse cw

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mustardyellowsunshine · 5 years

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Reinforcement

For @inukag-week 2019, Day 2: Friends.

______________________

Fighting off murderous, power-hungry yōkai is nothing compared to calculus, Kagome thought as she rubbed at her tired eyes with her knuckles. Sighing, she slumped across the surface of her desk, burying her face in her folded arms.

It's all right, she told herself, trying to ignore the beginnings of panic building in her lungs. You can catch up. Just be patient. Don't panic. Panic and studying don't mix well.

She wished the sour feeling of anxiety curdling in the pit of her stomach would listen to reason.

Don't. Panic.

She'd once read online that slow, conscious breathing could be calming and centering. Kagome took a very deep breath through her nose.

But all she managed to do was inhale flecks of rubber eraser shavings scattered along her desk, which threw her into such a frenzy of coughing that she had to rear upright in her seat, thumping her chest with a fist.

Okay, she thought as her eyes watered, maybe scratch the deep breathing.

Wiping at her eyes, Kagome surveyed the textbooks spread across the expanse of her desk, along with all the crumpled up wads of notebook paper, loose mathematics worksheets, the color-coded and intimidatingly-detailed notes she'd borrowed from Ayumi... and worst of all, the failed test she'd gotten back from her teacher earlier that week, absolutely covered in red marker and written comments which got progressively more curt in tone with each failed answer.

Kagome had seen yōkai corpses with fewer red marks than her failed calculus test.

While her teacher had clearly been unimpressed with her performance, he was also laboring under the delusion that Grandpa's lies were true—what illness had Gramps told the principal she suffered from now? Mad cow disease? Gangrene?—and had offered Kagome the chance to take a makeup test. "This is an important test, Higurashi," he had said brusquely after class, "if you can't get a handle on these concepts, you won't be able to understand the next section of the material. And I don't need to tell you how vital an understanding of math is for your high school entrance exams." Her face flaming at the reprimand, Kagome had nodded fervently and bobbed a hurried bow. Just as she'd turned to leave the room, he'd added, "Study. Find a cram school, or a tutor. Make this work, Higurashi."

But considering that she'd spent the last three days studying and she still couldn't make sense of the subject, Kagome didn't have high hopes for the makeup test.

Make this work, Higurashi.

She grimaced, and resisted the urge to slump back over her desk.

That's what she'd been trying to do for six months now—ever since the day she'd been dragged 500 years into the past, ever since she'd gotten mixed up with the Bone Eater's Well and the Shikon Jewel and actual real yōkai, for heaven's sake! She'd been trying to juggle two different lives in two different eras, trying to make it all work.

It wasn't her fault that the machinations of a vengeful, homicidal demon took precedence over homework. Usually, anyway.

And the thing of it was, she wanted to do well in school. She wanted to go to class. She wanted to study regularly. There was a part of her that had always taken pride in her academic performance, that had reveled in the challenge and had pushed her to be one of the top students in her grade, year after year.

A lifetime of hard work, and it had only taken a few months of travelling between eras to completely torpedo her academic standing. Now she was one of the worst students in her grade, if not the worst.

It stung her pride, but worse than that, it left her with a vague sense of shame, a lingering fear that she was somehow letting her family down.

Her lungs constricted. Her stomach roiled.

Panic and studying don't mix. Deep breathing, Kagome, come on! Pull yourself together!

Why was it that her attempts to get a handle on her anxiety only made her more anxious?

"Okay," she whispered, slapping a hand down on her desk. "I just need a plan, is all. I can make this work. I'll make this—"

"Oi, Kagome!"

The girl shrieked and whipped around in her chair.

"Fuck," complained the hanyō swinging his leg over her windowsill, "do you try to make my ears bleed? You're loud enough to wake the dead."

"Inuyasha," Kagome breathed, pressing a hand over her fluttering heart. "Don't do that! You scared me half to death!"

"Keh!" He stood next to her bed, his frame silhouetted by the afternoon light streaming in through the window. His silver hair seemed to glow, stark against the red of his suikan. "You should've been expecting me," he said with a scowl, crossing his arms over his chest. "You said you'd be back today, remember?"

"I said—" Kagome paused, then gasped. "Oh, no! I did say that." Groaning, she dropped her face into her hands. "Inuyasha, I'm sorry, I completely forgot!"

His eyebrow twitched, and his fingers drummed against his bicep. "I figured as much."

His grouchy tone grated on her nerves in a way that only made her feel guilty instead of angry. "I'm sorry," she repeated quietly, dropping her hands to her lap and glancing up at him. "But the thing is..." She winced, then continued, "I don't think I can come back tonight."

His scowl blackened, and he took a step forward. "What?! Why the hell not?"

"I just— I have to— because I failed my—" She felt her heart rate speeding up as the awareness of everything she had to do flooded her brain. When she'd told Inuyasha she only needed a few days to catch up on homework and attend a couple classes, she hadn't been counting on the failed test, or her futile attempt at studying. The makeup was the day after tomorrow: she'd have to take two extra days, and she knew Inuyasha wouldn't be happy. She didn't blame him. Now in addition to disappointing her teacher and her family, she'd gone and let down the friends who counted on her—Inuyasha, Shippō, Miroku, Sango, all of them—because who knew what the consequences of delaying their hunt for Naraku would be?

Dimly, Kagome noticed Inuyasha's expression shifting to one of alarm as he stepped closer to her, his crossed arms dropping to his sides. "Oi, Kagome, slow down."

She'd seen complete havoc unfold in mere hours, what kind of chaos could Naraku wreak in two whole days, and all because she'd slowed them down, made them wait on her—

"Kagome!" She jumped in her seat as she felt Inuyasha's hand clamp down on her shoulder. He stood right in front of her, his bare feet on either side of hers, and he was staring down at her with a concerned frown. It was only then that Kagome became aware of her accelerated breathing, and the way she was wringing her hands.

He opened his mouth, but she shook her head vigorously, flapping her hands at him. "It's nothing! I've— I've got things under control!"

"Got what under control?" he demanded. When she didn't respond, he gripped her other shoulder and said, "What's up with you, huh? Tell me."

All she could manage then was another head shake and a gulping inhale.

He growled under his breath, then seemed to make a conscious effort at patience, because his tone gentled a little when he said, "Kagome, you need to breathe."

Remembering the inhaled eraser shavings, Kagome laughed a bit hysterically and was vaguely horrified to feel a telltale tightness in her throat, a prickling at the inner corners of her eyes.

Inuyasha's nose twitched, and his golden eyes narrowed. "If it's got you almost crying, it's not nothing." He crouched down on the balls of his feet before her, his hands sliding from her shoulders down her arms, finally settling in a loose grip around her elbows, the tips of his claws just faintly pricking through her shirt. His chest grazed her knees as he leaned forward a bit, tapping his thumb against the crook of her elbow. "Tell me," he said.

Kagome began to shake her head, but stopped mid-motion. She was caught by the look in his eyes—how unwavering they were—and the way his grip felt oddly grounding. Like he was crowding out her panic with his nearness. Forcing herself to focus on his gaze, she started taking deep, even breaths.

When the tightness in her throat had lessened somewhat and she felt a little calmer, she told him everything. She tried to stick to the bare essentials, avoiding any reference to the anxiety gnawing at her insides. But he still knew. Of course he did. It's not like she'd done a great job of hiding it so far. As she spoke his frown deepened, his nose surreptitiously sniffing at the air, no doubt scenting the true extent of her stress.

Once she'd finished talking, they looked at each other silently for a moment. Then Inuyasha made a low noise in his throat, and said gruffly, "Listen, Kagome. Just focus on, " he jerked his chin in the direction of her books and scattered papers, "whatever that shit is, all right? You don't have to worry about us. We can wait."

"But—!"

"Keh, your ears broken? Shut up and listen, will ya? We can wait. You just do what you gotta do here."

Kagome stared at him. "Are... are you sure? Because I know I promised it would only be a few days, and what if—"

He snorted, and it looked like he was trying very hard not to roll his eyes at her. "How are you this dense?" When she spluttered in indignation, he cut in, "This test thing... it's important to you, right? School is important to you."

Unsure of where he was going, she nodded slowly.

"Then it is important." Inuyasha squeezed her elbow and continued, "So stop beating yourself up. We can wait. Okay? All you need to worry about right now is taking care of this."

He sounded so matter-of-fact, so confident, as though he had no doubt she'd get it done.

She swallowed miserably and looked down at her lap. "I've been studying for nearly three days straight, and I still don't understand it."

Inuyasha leaned back, releasing her elbows in favor of bracing his arms against his bent legs. "And let me guess—you've been worrying your fool head off the whole time?"

"Hey!"

This time he did roll his eyes. "Dummy. No wonder you can't concentrate! Stop stressing about all the other shit. Just focus on what's in front of you. Ain't no different than bein' in a fight. You concentrate on your opponent and nothing else."

Kagome blinked.

Trust Inuyasha to compare her academic career to a sword fight.

Only... Kagome blinked again, and felt a spark of realization.

Only it wasn't her entire academic career she was tackling. It was just one test. Isn't that what Inuyasha was saying? It was one opponent, one fight, not an entire army.

And just like that, the tightness in Kagome's throat eased away. She felt like she could breathe freely again. "Inuyasha..."

He must have seen a change in her face, or smelled it in her scent, because he smirked at her. "Better?"

She smiled back slowly, feeling a sense of calm for the first time in days. She nodded. "Yeah... I think I can make this work now."

"Good. Get to it. I'll be ready whenever you're done." He rose to his feet and strode toward her window, but instead of leaping out of it as she expected he would, he dropped into his usual pose—cross-legged and cross-armed—underneath it, his back resting against the wall.

Puzzled, Kagome hesitated, then asked, "Are you staying?"

She might have been imagining it, but she could've sworn she saw the faintest red flush across the bridge of his nose.

"Keh!" he mumbled, turning his face away, "Not like I got anything better to do. Besides," he glanced back at her, "someone's gotta keep you from losing your shit again."

He was baiting her, but she saw right through it. She smiled at him. "Thanks, Inuyasha. I'm... I really needed that. I'm glad you came. I'd probably still be hyperventilating if you hadn't shown up."

He shrugged and closed his eyes, all gruff nonchalance. "Whatever."

She turned back to face her desk, and as she did, she heard him add under his breath, "Besides, you'd do the same for me."

Blushing and biting her lip, Kagome grinned down at her math homework.

With Inuyasha at her back, she knew she could conquer it.

______________________

A/N: Friends can give you much-needed perspective on things, don’t you think? ;)

In my mind, one of the hallmarks of a good friendship is support. Friends support one another. And though I adore the many ways that Kagome supports Inuyasha through the series, I absolutely love seeing how Inuyasha supports Kagome. I wanted to play in a space where Inuyasha provides unexpected, but very welcome, support in Kagome’s life, meeting her where she is and helping her along.

#inukagweek #InuKag Week 2019 #Inuyasha #Inuyasha fanfiction #InuKag #my writing

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highvoltagearea · 4 years

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Take A Virtual Tour of Malawi, the ‘Warm Heart of Africa’

At the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, with travel restrictions in place worldwide, we launched a new series — The World Through a Lens — in which photojournalists help transport you, virtually, to some of our planet’s most beautiful and intriguing places. This week, Marcus Westberg shares a collection of images from Malawi.

When I stepped off the plane in Lilongwe as a 23-year-old, I had no idea of what to expect, though I was excited about the prospect of my first solo trip to Africa. I spent the first few days wandering around the city — it felt more like a small town than the nation’s capital — before deciding that it was time to see more of the country.

A landlocked country in southeastern Africa, Malawi is often overshadowed by its more better-known neighbors: Tanzania, with its abundant wildlife; Zambia, home of Victoria Falls; and Mozambique, with its picture-perfect beaches.

But Malawi — roughly the size of Pennsylvania — has plenty of natural beauty of its own: the clear waters of Lake Malawi (close to 365 miles long and 52 miles wide, it’s sometimes called the “Calendar Lake”); the magnificent cliffs of Mount Mulanje; the unique highland plateau of Nyika; and its wildlife reserves, including Liwonde and Majete, where cheetahs, lions, elephants and rhinos have been reintroduced.

Still, it was never the country’s natural charms that kept drawing me back. It was the people.

As a photojournalist and travel writer, I am wary of clichés and generalizations. But few countries have been awarded a more appropriate slogan than Malawi, which is known as the “Warm Heart of Africa.” While I have rarely been made to feel unwelcome anywhere during my travels, in Africa or elsewhere, Malawi has always felt different.

Of course, it would be unfair to gloss over the country’s many challenges. Crime has risen dramatically since my first visit. Sexual abuse of minors remains a significant problem, especially in more traditional, rural settings.

In addition to being one of the world’s poorest countries, Malawi has also been afflicted by severe deforestation, overfishing, high levels of infectious diseases, low levels of school attendance and election irregularities, although the newly formed government is receiving much credit for its crackdown on corruption and embezzlement of state funds.

The coronavirus pandemic has brought much of the country, including its international tourism, to a standstill, adding uncertainty to an already precarious existence for many.

On that first visit 14 years ago, I eventually ended up at a small guesthouse in the fishing village of Senga Bay. Initially intending to stay for a night or two, I didn’t leave for more than a week.

Much like the country itself, the appropriately named Cool Runnings made a lasting impression not because of its location or aesthetics, but because of the people I met there. Half a dozen visits later, I never fail to be amazed by the ingenuity of the proprietor Samantha Ludick and her small team, all of whom come from this small lakeside community.

The latest in their seemingly never-ending list of projects, ideas, and initiatives is Swop Shop, where plastic collected in and around Senga Bay is exchanged for points, for which a wide array of goods can be obtained. These range from biscuits and stationery (paid for from the proceeds of selling the plastic to a recycling plant in Lilongwe) to donated clothes, tools and soccer balls.

An astonishing 40 tons of plastic, and thousands of non-reusable glass bottles, have been collected in the two years since the project’s inception. This includes 180 pounds of plastic brought in during my most recent trip by the Senga Boys under-12 soccer team, in exchange for new uniforms. Despite playing barefoot, they comfortably trounced the group of visitors I had brought from Sweden in an impromptu match — aided in small part by the cows that kept wandering onto the field and in large part by being the far better team.

Experiences like that have colored virtually all my visits to Malawi. Whether planned or spontaneous, on assignment or while going to the market for vegetables, time and time again I have found myself staying far longer than intended. As is true everywhere, mutual respect, curiosity and trust — and knowing when not to take yourself too seriously — go a long way to establish genuine connections and create meaningful relationships, whether they’re are fleeting or last for a lifetime.

As a mzungu, the ubiquitous name for a white person in much of southern and eastern Africa, my obvious foreignness and my earnest, if seemingly hopeless, attempts to communicate in Chichewa tend to create enough curiosity to dissolve any awkwardness or tension, especially when accompanied by a big smile and an apparent appreciation of the rather complex local handshaking culture.

(It is perhaps appropriate to point out that the photos of children included here were taken in the presence of teachers or parents while working alongside the local staff of the nonprofit organizations funding the schools, boreholes or agriculture programs I was there to photograph. Whether in a school or a village, my general policy is to not take any photos until I have been introduced and done what I can to ensure that everyone is comfortable having me there, to the extent that this is feasible.)

Like anywhere else, Malawi is a complex a society, full of contradictions and complications. How could it not be? And yet, if you were to ask me where in the world I would feel the most comfortable walking up to a stranger — any stranger — to start a conversation, my answer, simultaneously recognizing and ignoring my own subjectivity, would unhesitatingly be Malawi.

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tripstations · 4 years

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The posh of time – A Luxurious Journey Weblog : A Luxurious Journey Weblog

By Katie Chown on Jan 08, 2020 in Journey Miscellany

Time. A phenomenon as but undecided, undeciphered, unreal. It exists as each an idea and a actuality. Many physicists, mathematicians and philosophers have tried to unravel it, hypothesizing and postulating until the cows come dwelling. However it stays an elusive phantasm.

“Time – nature’s approach of holding all the things from taking place directly” – Physics Nobel Laureate Steven Weinberg

I’ve talked beforehand in regards to the luxurious of area – the idea of area and the passing of time are irrevocably intertwined; one permits the opposite to exist in our minds as dimensions that make it attainable for us to tangibly contemplate our presence on the planet. Have I misplaced you but? Stick with me – the subject of time itself is intricate and excessive, as even quantum physics fails to adequately clarify it. In different phrases, it’s tougher than rocket science.

“The older I get the extra I realise that the final word luxurious is time” – Michael Kors

On a each day degree, we perceive time as having a pure order, a flowing sequence the place one factor occurs after one other however can’t occur earlier than one thing that has already occurred. And the Legal guidelines of Physics don’t assist as a result of the actual fact is, our expertise of time simply is mindless. Time exists, that’s for certain, however the best way to describe it as an actuality is but to be nailed down. It denies definition, but everyone knows what time is. Dictionaries have it written as a ‘measured interval throughout which an motion, course of or situation exists or continues’, however that in itself is problematic after we dissect the phrase – a number of of the phrases used are descriptions of time; interval, throughout, proceed. It’s a Pandora’s Field of seemingly infinite prospects – does time have boundaries, even? Simply as infinity is unattainable to think about, so too is the thought of time.

We solely perceive time inside our personal limitations; our time spent on this earth, how we spend our time, what little time we’ve, what to do with our time… We unconsciously measure our time by means of adjustments and actions, quantifiable representations of issues taking place round us and to us. However in Classical Mechanics, time is ‘one thing that passes uniformly no matter no matter occurs on this world’ (researchgate.web) – Newton and his concept of absolute area and absolute time. And but, one other esteemed scientist got here up with the other – with the Particular Principle of Relativity whereby time doesn’t movement at a set price. That scientist was Einstein, a reputation synonymous with being a genius, so was he proper in saying that transferring clocks seem to tick extra slowly relative to stationary ones? Unusually, time is measured by movement but in addition is measurable by means of transferring. I’ve misplaced you once more, haven’t I? As I stated in my final article, The Luxurious of House, ‘maybe we’re transferring so quick we don’t see the wooden for the timber. It’s ironic that we’ve so many time-savers however a lot much less time’. However what has all this acquired to do with luxurious holidays?

Nicely I used to be questioning in regards to the idea of shopping for time, as if a concept is usually a commodity. On a each day foundation we expertise two sources of time; clocks and our personal inner physique clocks, our private, psychological imagining of time passing. We measure our actions by the clock, use it to quantify (and due to this fact make tangible) the summary. That is nothing new; sundials have been round for 1000’s of years, historical Egyptians even utilizing the passing of water by means of a stone vessel to measure time. It was the traditional Babylonians round 1800BC that divided up time into days, hours, minutes and seconds and it’s wonderful to assume that that historical idea has actually been written in stone ever since. Each single civilised human on the planet accepts the slicing up of time from that way back. Loopy whenever you assume an excessive amount of about it. However time is a fairly loopy idea, as confirmed by our incapacity to correctly outline it.

Everybody who ever existed within the historical past of the world has measured time in a technique or one other, whether or not or not it’s by the place of the celebs or the solar, each of that are surprisingly correct by right this moment’s requirements – no-one really is aware of if every second counted by a clock was the identical size of time because the final. And there’s no approach of going again and checking! All of us expertise time otherwise, what felt like a minute to at least one particular person would possibly really feel like nearer two to a different. Time passing is subjective. So is all of it in our heads?

“Time is merely a characteristic of our recollections and expectations” – Persian Thinker Avicenna

There’s one other concept, known as relationalism, that states that point can solely happen if change occurs. It implies that if all the things have been to cease; motion, development, mobile exercise, even ideas – like a suspended animation occasion – then time would cease too, as it’s only a measure of change. Maybe that goes some strategy to explaining the phrase ‘time stood nonetheless’, used when a time limit appears to final without end, whenever you’re locked in second till one thing adjustments to interrupt the spell; a breath-taking view damaged by a flapping seagull, a lover’s embrace quelled by a rain bathe, ready for the winner to be introduced – these are moments when time appears to stretch, the world disappears round you and also you maintain your breath for an eternity.

Or a minimum of that’s what it looks like to you in your second. For everybody else round time passes because it all the time has. And that’s why we have to find time for…effectively, time. Time is a luxurious we ill-afford ourselves after we ought to really permit extra time-outs from this busy world.

“We don’t have the posh of time. We spend extra due to how we stay, however it’s essential to be with our household and pals” – Sara Blakely

We take time with no consideration, it’s a given, an ever-present infinite a part of life, silently ticking away within the background as we go about our day. It’s a good suggestion to not overthink it as that may result in severe existential dread – there’s a really scary infographic about how a lot time you get to spend along with your dad and mom in your lifetime (on common). Seeing the statistics in black and white actually hammers it dwelling how valuable time spent collectively actually is. If you would like a actuality examine, go to the Wait However Why web site – they visualise what number of weeks you’ve gotten in your life based mostly on residing to the ripe outdated age of 90. And it matches on an A4 web page…

When you’ve been totally petrified at how quick life is and the way little time you must spend with the folks you like, you’ll begin to realise what a luxurious time might be.

“Time and silence are probably the most luxurious issues right this moment” – Tom Ford

How does time change whenever you get away from the on a regular basis? They are saying time flies whenever you’re having enjoyable – presumably, as we’ve learnt above, as a result of enjoyable includes a number of exercise, exercise = change = time passing. However that kinda takes the magic out of it!

However we need to protect time on vacation, savour each second, make this valuable break final so long as attainable. It’s time to take a timeout, cease doing all the things you normally do and actually loosen up. Cease and stare on the world round you. Take a second to understand the little issues. Hunker down in a luxurious place to remain and benefit from the wow issue. Benefit from the luxurious of getting time to be collectively.

The time you take pleasure in losing, will not be wasted time.

Katie Chown is Co-Creator of The place Oh The place. The place Oh The place is a brand new approach of discovering your good place to remain within the UK, with luxurious hideaways that transcend glamping.

If you need to be a visitor blogger on A Luxurious Journey Blogin order to lift your profile, please contact us.

The post The posh of time – A Luxurious Journey Weblog : A Luxurious Journey Weblog appeared first on Tripstations.

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jacewilliams1 · 5 years

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One last airplane ride for Dad

We had slipped between two showers near Van Wert, ducking under a cloud that was surely about to burst itself, and emerged into open sunshine to the west, and a long, gray annular cloud laying across the Ohio farm fields ahead and below, looking a bit like an exhausted roll cloud, its enthusiasm depleted after the afternoon’s deluge, hovering too low to glide beneath, yet still a bit too Janus-faced to climb above. As expected, a line of training storms had redeveloped late on this August afternoon over northern Indiana, but they had not scooted along into Michigan as fast as I had hoped. Best we follow the sunlight for now and keep our options open.

Over the farms of Ohio, Mother Nature showed who was really in control.

The Fort Wayne controller said the precipitation further north, between us and our destination, Steuben County airport, was extreme; back toward the east it was light, at least on his radar. Pirouetting our trusty old straight-tailed Cessna 150 around and commencing to motor back the way we had come, I started looking for signs that that long, low roll of a cloud wasn’t as duplicitous as I thought. We only had about 30 miles to go as the crow flies, after a three-day trip from Vermont. We had spent the previous day weaving around rain showers and other remnants of a lethargic trough for a good part of the way, stuck between model train villages and the spectacular papier-mache topography of central Pennsylvania below and an annoyingly persistent ceiling above.

Thirty miles over the ground to Steuben County, and, as it happened, with a dash of not-so-subtle déjà vu, a bit over four decades back through time.

My grandfather Russell, Grandpa Green, my father’s father, passed away in August 1975. He had been in Tampa, working on city water system surveys, as he had nearly every summer for decades. He was an only child from a relatively loveless home, narrowly missing deployment during World War I, an engineer who spent most of his life teaching high school and college applied mathematics. He always seemed old to me, balding, with snow white hair and rimless glasses. His ability to sustain a handstand well into his 60s more or less escaped my notice as a child.

I had seen him a few weeks before he died, when I had flown over to Tampa from George Speer’s old Palm Beach Gardens airport. By that time, I had realized what a treasure of history he was, and I peppered him with questions over dinner. But I think I knew. I remember his grip as we shook hands before I climbed into my airplane, and I remember thinking, briefly, that I would never see him again. Within a few weeks, it was clear that when he shook my hand, he knew that for certain.

When he died, I was on a solo hike in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. We knew things were not good; after my first night, I came down to civilization to call home and see what was up. “You’d better come home,” Dad said. I thumbed my way back to my old ’65 Volkswagen and set off on the four-hour drive back home.

Dad and I took off from Chester, Connecticut, in N5072D, our old 1958 Cessna 182, the next morning, headed for Steuben County Airport in Angola, Indiana. Angola was the home of Tri-State College, where my grandfather taught and where both he and my father obtained their engineering degrees. It was near Fremont, where the Jordan Cemetery was, and most of the family on my grandfather’s side was buried there. My grandmother had died four years before, and we buried my grandfather right next to her a couple of days after everyone had gotten there. The morning afterward, Dad and I set off back to Connecticut. He had to get back to work, and I had to get back to college.

The weather was going to be a problem. Neither of us, or the airplane, was qualified for instrument flight. In those days we were still intimate with the sound of hammering teletypes, and when you dialed… as in spun the dial on the phone… the Flight Service Station, a live person answered. But a weather briefing at the Steuben County airport was sorely lacking in visual aids. We ended up landing at Van Wert, Ohio, and later at Lima.

Sliding offshore to avoid clouds – surely they’ll break up…

As I recall, the weather we were encountering was not the weather we had expected, and the frequent stops were to review the situation and wait out some change. One way or another, we ended up going past Cleveland Lakefront airport a couple of miles out over the water at about 500 feet, to slip between showers; immediately to the east the clouds broke up and lifted. We climbed comfortably to 7500 feet, on top of a broken layer, and I distinctly recall that we were certain these clouds would disappear completely as we motored east.

At some point, the generator failed. And we didn’t notice, until the battery failed as well. And there we were; on top of what had become multiple layers of broken cloud, no radios, no fuel gauges, and about three and a half hours of flight already behind us. It wasn’t particularly hard to spiral down through gaps in the broken clouds; the real problem was what to do once we got down below the bottom layer. We were about 1500 feet above the rolling countryside with only a vague idea where we were. We spent 15 or so minutes wandering about looking for some kind of recognizable landmark or any usable airport. We found neither. And then we made what was probably the smartest decision we ever made: we picked out a good farm field and landed.

The farmer was thrilled. No one had ever landed in one of his fields before; it seemed like the high water mark of his entire summer. We quickly determined where we were on the sectional, and saw that there was an airport about ten miles down the river. Dad took a look in the tanks, saw we had a couple of inches of fuel left, and we decided to set off for the airport. Dad had plenty of experience from his teenage years hand-propping airplanes with no electrical systems, and of course that was the only option. First though, we walked the entire length of the field to make sure there wasn’t some hidden ditch that nobody remembered. And then I held the brakes, ran the switch and throttle, Dad propped us off and climbed in, and I lifted us gently and easily out of the farm field. A straight tail 182 is a magnificent airplane, particularly when it doesn’t have a lot of gas in the tanks.

Sure enough, in a couple of minutes there was the airport, and we rolled up to the fuel pumps hoping to keep our little secret… until we got out of the airplane and saw the leading edges thoroughly covered with cow manure. The farmer had wisely called ahead, of course, so there was no secret anyway. We fueled up, cleaned the leading edges a bit, Dad propped the engine once more, and later that evening we landed back in Connecticut.

That was 43 years ago, at pretty much the midpoint of my father’s life. This past winter, Dad finally finished his own journey, after a lengthy bout with Parkinson’s disease. He had absolutely no interest in formal funerals, ceremonies, wakes, or burials. He had, at one point, mentioned that he thought it would be nice if we affixed a small plaque to his parent’s gravestone out there in Indiana.

I spent the day after he died doing the things one does, particularly trying to figure out what to do with his ashes. I chatted with the cousins and sent messages to friends that I knew would want the news. One friend, a pilot at my airline, asked what the funeral plans were. I told her that we would probably inter Dad out there at the Jordan Cemetery in Indiana. Knowing something of his aeronautical passions, she texted back, “Oh, that’d be nice. He’d get one last airplane ride.”

And in that instant, staring at her message, I knew there was only one way Dad was going back to Indiana.

I hadn’t flown a light airplane in nearly three decades, but a couple of very talented young flight instructors at the local flight school soon had me straightened out. They each had just a bit more total time than I report on a year’s worth of first class physicals, but they know their stuff, and gently steered me away from pilot-induced oscillations and back to rudder-controlled stalls, with an occasional reminder about other faded memories like P-factor, primer strokes and control positions when taxiing in wind.

Suddenly, I was aloft over Lake Champlain, quite literally on my first solo flight in 28 years, with the approach controller putting the finishing touches on my Rip Van Winkle awakening by calling out crossing traffic, at ten o’clock, coincidentally also at 3000 feet, subtly nudging me to the realization that there was no TCAS, and that perhaps I ought to actually do something.

Getting reacquainted with a Cessna 150 after a lifetime flying airliners.

By a stroke of luck, my friend Doug Smith happened to have recently acquired a wonderful old straight tail Cessna 150, and he offered me the use of the airplane for the week or so I would need. Doug’s wizened old 150 was perfect. And pretty close to our 182 in shape and style, if not in floor plan and power. Manual flaps… I love manual flaps. Old radios. Airspeed in miles per hour. There were a few welcome additions… a shoulder harness STC. Great big sun visors that I’ve never seen in any 150 before. Dad and I had learned to fly together in a 1967 Cessna 150. A 150 of that vintage seemed like a perfect ship for the occasion.

And so Dad and I had set off on a Wednesday morning, starting a three-day aerial journey across America, retracing a good bit of his life, just the two of us, in a manner of speaking, taking a last airplane ride, making about 95 miles per hour give or take the wind.

Dad’s first flight had been a memorable ride in a PT-19 at Austin, Texas, given by his big brother, my uncle Wayne, the future physics professor, who was a C-46 instructor during the war. Dale Mollenkopf, the manager of Branch County Memorial Airport in Michigan, had taught Dad the basics of wrangling Pipers, Ryans and Aeroncas during his high school years, and in the blink of an eye Dad was an engineer at North American in Los Angeles, listening to George Welch describe his near-death experience the morning after a gear door popped open when flying an F-100 through a Mach calibration run.

By the time I came along, Dad was part of the powerplant systems group at North American’s Columbus, Ohio, plant, in what is now known as Air Force Plant 85. After straightening out the Navy’s fuel problems with the T-28, he was tasked with fabricating and running the fuel systems mockup for the A3J Vigilante, shortly after I had discovered fire by sticking my finger in the single candle on my first birthday cake. Ever the avid cameraman, Dad had photographed the whole sequence, leaving a wonderful legacy of my learning style in vivid black and white. Thus began the infusion of the family tradition of prudence.

And so it was that, 60 years later, on our second evening, we alighted on runway 28L at Columbus, immediately adjacent to Air Force Plant 85. The following day it rained quite a bit. Careful analysis of several forecast tools and discussions indicated that an afternoon respite in the showers would give us a chance to make a dash north to Indiana, with numerous alternates open along our route if things didn’t move as fast as we hoped.

Sure enough, the exhausted, breathless roll cloud was dissipating, but there was a crisp palette of grays in the sky beyond, while Fort Wayne was clearly visible in sunshine to our right. If that was light precipitation, we didn’t need to mess with it. And beyond that, what if we succeeded? Once we were on the other side of it, what would we find then? We puttered along for five or six minutes, cogitating, as Grandpa Green would have said. Let’s see… two hours airborne, at 5.6 gallons per hour, so we’ve got about an hour before we have to be on the ground if we want to land with any reserves.

Even if we could get around the precipitation, it would take 20 minutes to go this way, and another 20 to go that way. This was not a winning plan. Finally, I said aloud, “You know, Dad… I can’t think of one good reason why we would want to be over on the other side of that weather with an hour’s worth of fuel left. What do you think? Close enough? Let’s land and get a car.”

And with that, I keyed the mike. “Fort Wayne, Cessna 43T… you know what? I think we’re gonna come visit you today…”

More rain arrived as we got the airplane tied down, and the hour drive to Angola was rather wet. My cousin was at Ruby Tuesday’s, and we had a late dinner. The following morning, we revisited many of Dad’s childhood haunts, including the Branch County airport, where Dad had become briefly famous in his Air Scout troop after he succeeded in getting the APU started on the surplus, donated C-46, so the Scouts could power up the rest of the aircraft systems.

The trip home included many personal stops, like this one in Columbus, Ohio, where the North American plant still stands (left of runway).

We buried Dad that afternoon, back at the Jordan Cemetery, in front of his parents’ grave, next to his grandparents’ grave. It was just the two of us, my cousin Nancy and me. We didn’t have anything else appropriate to say, so I read aloud a poem, written by our grandmother and found so many years ago in our grandfather’s wallet. It seemed to fit. We then retired to a surprisingly delightful restaurant, Timbuktoo, of all the names in the world to choose for a restaurant in the farmland of Indiana, and we spent the late afternoon upholding the family tradition of solving most of the world’s deeper problems over dinner and coffee. Nancy drove back to Chicago that night.

The weather was good the next day. I took off at nine in the morning, stopped three times for fuel and arrived back in Burlington at around seven that evening. It was a long day, but peaceful, certainly no more challenging than a four-leg day in the MD-80. My landings had improved markedly, until the last one at Burlington, on a beautiful, clear summer evening, absolutely windless, smooth, and so I managed to squeeze three landings into one approach, just in case I was getting an airline pilot’s fat head.

It took a few minutes to unload 43T, to pull out my overnight bag, cameras and survival gear. I slipped the towbar around the nose strut and rolled the ship back into its tie-down. I had to knot the ropes back into the lugs in the ramp, since I had taken them with me. Window shades in place, pitot cover on, ropes snug, I gathered my kit and slipped out the back gate.

I had wanted to give Dad a simple, old school flight back to Steuben County, keeping faith with his curmudgeonly dismissal of modernity. And yet, in the end, there was the August weather again, stirring the pot, laying down the gauntlet, and one way or another we ended up making the same decision we did 43 years ago… to quietly and discreetly land, before we got into trouble, before we drew attention to ourselves. Funny, that. Maybe that was the way it was supposed to be all along.

The three pillars of prudence, taking counsel, judging of what one has learned, and exercising command, held great value for Grandpa Green, my father’s father. If I remember anything about him, it was that he had a prudent demeanor, and a prudent expression. His eyes belied an expectation of patience, honest effort, and cautious judgement. He strongly suggested questioning assumptions. He persistently urged the investigation of how you know what you know.

These ideas were the subject of many evening discussions, of which I was but a privileged observer, over copious amounts of coffee and curling pipe smoke. Drawing attention to yourself, on the other hand, was rather plainly frowned upon. Now that I think about it, I suspect that drawing attention to yourself was frowned upon by pretty much everyone buried in the Jordan Cemetery.

Alas, it seems that perhaps we arrived in grand style after all. In any event, Dad is home now. And, thanks to a simple old Cessna, so am I.

The post One last airplane ride for Dad appeared first on Air Facts Journal.

from Engineering Blog https://airfactsjournal.com/2019/02/one-last-airplane-ride-for-dad/

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porfirioetter-blog · 6 years

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caramelophibia-blog · 7 years

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(Photo Credits: Carmelita Fernandes)

The first thing that one notices about Krishivan farm is its sense of tranquility. The property has three warli painted huts and two wooden log houses as described in the previous blog post.

(Photo Credits: Carmelita Fernandes)

Warli painting art which is an ancient art is befitting this agro-tourism venture. With its roots in tribal art typically seen within the state of Maharashtra, warli painting is seen in rural parts of the state like Dahanu, Golvad and the like.

(Photo Credits: Carmelita Fernandes)

In the picture above is my hut, my very own thatched hut for a day. Basking in the October sun’s full-orbed glory. Living in a hut for the first time and not the last one am sure. Perched on low stone steps with nothing to do but to delight in the natural sun rays and rustic beauty around.

The set of log houses are offered on double occupancy, for couples only, owing to its dearth of interior space. How convenient! The log houses stand pretty on this not-so-touristy property which once was a wasted land.

(Photo Credits: Carmelita Fernandes)

This place may not be everyone’s cuppa tea perhaps but to me it was unlike anything else. The benefits are minimal but the experience is rustic and somewhat rural, hugged by fields, cattle and so on. With no TV and minimal Wifi connectivity there’s nothing to do in the real sense but there’s a great deal of time to lounge around. Or chat, or swing. Or lie in a hammock, or sing. Believe it or not there’s a guitar on the farm too!

(Photo Credits: Carmelita Fernandes)

There is a dish installed here but the network is poor. This was being worked upon and may be up and about by now.

Talking about chat, in one among my lazy chat sessions with him, Sachin recollected a conversation with a professor – Prof. Velyumane – of Thyrocare Institute, Pune. Prior to starting the enterprise he had had qualms of its success and wished to procrastinate the project until after he had spent a few more years at his job at Thermax. Moreover, Sachin wondered about who would want to marry a farmer! Point.

“What are you waiting for?” asked the professor.

“To earn some money before investing in a farming venture”.

“Tell me, Sachin, what is the ultimate reality of life?”

“Success and happiness” he ventured.

“That’s poppycock” reiterated the professor, “the ultimate reality of life is death. It could come a-visiting within a month or a year or a lifetime, who knows. If you aspire to do something, just go ahead and fulfil it. Upon weighing its pros and cons of course.”

There was no turning back, and Krishivan thus came to be born. Sachin earned the full support of his family even though they, like him, were aware that farming wasn’t looked upon gloriously.

He considered promoting eco-tourism with an emphasis on attracting families with children and senior citizens. It was not to be an activity-based venture unless one looked upon harvesting, tractor rides, milking desi cows as activities. The primary focus was for the place to serve as a quiet retreat, away from the milling crowd. Like a home away from home.

As soon as we arrived on the farm at 10 a.m. or thereabouts we dropped our bags and made for the fields. While the access to the farm was smooth, the main road to Alibaug was a bit of a challenge as the road was badly pot holed and could deter even the most ardent roadie.

(Photo Credits: Carmelita Fernandes)

October is the time when paddy is harvested at this farm as in other farms. So this is where we headed to upon arrival. Even in the late hours of the morning it was hot. A good thing then that I smeared capfuls of sunscreen, wore large sunshades, a stetson hat and full-length denims.

A sickle with a saw like blade is what allows for sharply cutting the grain crop in just one single strike. Many a labourer are engaged in the reaping process.

Don’t the workers get sun burnt, I wondered. Not if they turned their backs to the harshness of its glare. An ingenious idea.

(Photo Credits: Carmelita Fernandes)

The picture below captures the threshing process by a daily wages labourer. The process involves beating of sheaves of paddy on strategically placed stones to enable separate the paddy grains from the cut crop. Only skilled hands can apply the right amount of force and the right manner of twisting the wrist to create an impact so as to get all the grains separated in just two or three beatings. The potential energy is what coerces the grain off the stalks. A labour intensive job.

(Photo Credits: Carmelita Fernandes)

We walked on until we came upon an old but useful implement to cut straw. A straw cutter it was into which bales of straw are fed to cut them into tiny bits. The product (that is, the bits of straw) serves as fodder for the cows bred on the farm. How remarkable that anything and everything is recycled on this farm and put to another use!

(Photo Credits: Carmelita Fernandes)

We walked on some more and next came by a pair of tractor wheels awaiting a coat of red oxide. This is a primer that shields ferrous metals from rust. Fortunately, there was yet another tractor on the farm with sturdy wheels on which I enjoyed a ride across the property.

(Photo Credits: Carmelita Fernandnes)

A few miles into the farm we hailed Nandini, the desi cow on the farm. She peered discreetly at us from behind the bushes as we looked on. Her clan comprises Ganga and Yamuna and daughter, Radhika.

(Photo Credits: Pixabay)

Nandini is left to graze in the fields simultaneously helping trim the grass. A two-fold benefit. Its dung serves as manure making it a three-fold benefit. Cow upkeep, grass maintenance and fertilizer generation at no added costs. Cost efficiency at its optimum.

(Photo Credits: Carmelita Fernandes)

The walk was enough to make us hungry as ever. This brought us to their open shed like dining area where a sumptuous lunch awaited us.

(Photo Credits: Carmelita Fernandes)

As far as the food goes it tastes close to home-made, typically Maharashtrian. The kitchen is run by a Kaka and a Kaki together with a few farm hands. The foodie that I am, I couldn’t resist peeping into the kitchen where a pot of rice boiled furiously on a large flame while an earthen vessel with curried fish simmered on another. The additional farm hand would fetch fish from the marketplace miles away from the farm. As the desi chickens were too small to go through a skewer the larger ones were bought from the market, if there was to be a barbecue that is. Before you ask, yes the charcoal is home-made too!!

(Photo Credits: Carmelita Fernandes)

On the first day we enjoyed a meal of piping hot steamed white rice , dosas, and red pomfret curry. The prawn masala was cooked the traditional way with lots of chopped onions, green chilli and farm-made garam masala. There was surmai fish fry to accompany, all marinated in home-made masala. The green salad came from their farm grown juicy cucumbers and blushing tomatoes together with home-made rice crisps.

(Photo Credits: Pixabay)

Photo Credits: Carmelita Fernandes

A point to note here is that lunch and dinner have to be pre-ordered else it would leave you driving a distance to come upon a restaurant. Breakfast comes with the package and it was a relief to find that sodas and soft drinks were available too – at an additional price of course. Consumption of beer/spirits is not encouraged especially with large male groups.

With as much walking and information we were in need of a much needed nap. And so back we trudged to our hut only to return to an evening expedition.

More to Krishivan to follow in the next blog post. In the footer of this blog post is a link to the farm’s website which will tell you all that you need to know in terms of its features so as to allow me to dwell solely on its finer attributes.

In the meanwhile, do log on to www.krishivan.com to glance through its gallery, features and amenities.

(Photo Credits: Carmelita Fernandes)

KRISHIVAN: An Agro Tourism Venture (Part II) The first thing that one notices about Krishivan farm is its sense of tranquility. The property…

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