A Perfect Chain

I have sometimes felt that heaven lies not at the end of life but perhaps at its beginning – childhood. I realise I’m making a broad generalisation but in most cases this is often true. It is indeed a beautiful phase in our life providing unconstrained learning and fun. However one tragedy of childhood is that we never realise the complete beauty of it until we become adults. There have been numerous occasions in my life when I had to reflect back and say ‘Ahaa’. Today, I’m narrating one such instance.

Watching Al Gore’s ‘An Inconvenient Truth’ was a turning point in my life. It catapulted me into a storm of discussion concerning climate, energy, sustainability and similar issues. I changed my habits (ok, some remain) and priorities where possible. With a little luck I even managed to crawl into the energy industry. While I have often credited many people, films and books for awakening me, I realise I have never credited one of the earliest influences of my life – my school. It was a boys-only boarding school set in the remotest corners of a vast country, India. I left the school 15 years ago and in this time, especially in the last 3-4 years, have seen countless case studies of well designed ecosystems. Obviously each belongs to a different kind, but when it comes to food-chains, I think my unknown school beats the best published case study. Even after discounting a few points to compensate for my likely bias, I still find it at the very top. Here is how it worked. But first, a quick look at the geographic layout.

Agriculture Farm: The school had its own farm which provided much of the vegetables and fruits for the mess kitchen. Another side-function of the farm was to provide adventure to the boys who would sneak into the farm (against rules), pick their favourite fruits and escape.

In addition to the agricultural farm, the school was filled with mango trees. Each summer the yield was contracted to the highest bidder and that money contributed to the school’s revenue. The contractor then had the tough task of protecting his season’s yield from, well yes, the boys. The daily tussle between his numerous maalees (gaurds) and the boy-teams was a sport in itself, many encounters of which I remember vividly to this day.

Dairy Farm: The imagery of a growing kid in India is incomplete without ‘milk’. It perhaps comes right after school uniform and textbooks.  This vital component fuelling the lives of 700 boys was produced within the school itself. Unless hiding for some reason (funny, but sorry I can’t divulge here), the dairy farm was not a preferred place to hang out among boys. In those days that smell was a bit nauseating, but now we buy tickets to enter similar farms. In any case, the cows constantly grazed and manure-d the adjoining fields which thus turned into well-maintained football grounds. On rare occasions we had to shoo them off the grounds to play but that was fun too.

School Mess: The most sacred place in any boarding school. I don’t need to say anything more.

Piggery: When you have 700 people eating at a place three times every day, there is bound to be significant quantity of leftovers. This was monitored by the house prefects who walked along the tables at the end of a meal to ensure the plates were empty (and shining). Obviously there were odd days once in a while. I remember an instance when the Principal (Wg Cdr S M Shukla) when informed about a particular dinner’s unusual wastage (I blame the chef) immediately summoned the entire school back to the mess. Half-asleep, half-bewildered we rushed in our pyjamas unaware of what had transpired. And then he made us clear and clean all the tables that night. Some lessons you remember for life.

Anyway, despite the control measures, it is reasonable to expect some degree of leftovers and wastage in a mass-scale cooking and consumption of food. Our leftovers were, to be pedantic, not a waste. They were the raw material for school’s piggery. It housed piglets which were fed, among other things, the leftovers from the mess. When the pigs grew to considerable sizes they were sold off profiting the school. As I said, the leftovers weren’t a waste.

Biogas Plant: In our simple language it was called a ‘Gobar gas plant’. I’m not sure whose idea it was to install this in a school, but hats off to that person. This small plant, nestled between the dairy farm and ground, was where all the dung produced by the well-fed cows ended. It cleared the unwanted mess, and also supplied gas required for cooking in the school mess. A brilliant idea.

If all the above is put together the picture looks something like this:

Isn't it beautiful? I personally find it better than most of the art (certainly all modern art) I have laid my eyes upon. Imagine the colossal wastage if each of these functions were happening separately in far corners of the planet, each commercially the cheapest source of its kind, and the additional environmental impact of transport between them. Because nature doesn't charge us we can't assume it to be free.

Well done, dear School, this was another lesson well taught. I’m proud of you!!

PS: Like ignorance is the tragedy of childhood, I guess prejudice is the tragedy of adulthood .Conditioned by  society, culture and media we only see what we have trained ourselves to see. My appreciating global case studies while completely missing a better case closer home all these years is an example. It simply didn't occur to me that a small insignificant place in India could actually do a work worth showcasing at TED. I  think I'm not the only one making this mistake. My point is - look around you. There could be wonderful things happening all the time without you ever noticing. Sieve them out from the clutter of brands, reputation and other embellishments, which aren't necessarily wrong but sometimes cause a bias. Enjoy the beauty of these finds, celebrate their existence and spread their message!