Note on Paripoorna mandal by a Student
Our last excursion was more than memorable. The different thoughts we heard from different people gave us new perspectives. This had our thoughts working on what we can do next about the things we learnt about farming and changing our lifestyles in small and big ways. But as everything takes time this took us three months before we actually started farming in the. Jigmet had had the idea of farming from long before. She told us about it and one night, the three of us ,thought we should really do something about it. So we went to Renna akka and expressed our interests and before we knew we were going to start farming. With the excitement of a beginner we were on it. The Ganga mandala was actually a plan Deepa akka and Roopneet , an intern, were already working on. This soon became our project as well . Our biology teacher was also working on this .The planning , the measuring , the digging all became part of farming for us , adding to the limited definition we had of farming. After 2 months of farming we soon had our first harvest of methi and then of carrots. We learnt about the importance of marigolds and saw natural luffa. The feeling of learning about new things was incredible. There were birds coming to the mustard field and butterflies too. We also did an assembly about our paripurna mandala, which had been named and a hand made scarecrow too.there sunflowers which were blooming with corns around the mandala. The peas were ready to eat and the smell of mint was refreshing. It is amazing seeing a seed grow so big. Sometimes when I was tired I remembered where we started from and it filled me with new energy. That’s how much the start matters.
Trying different combinations of plants together on one plot was a part of the process. While doing that I figured trying is an important part of learning.