What would you call peels of vegetables, leftover rotten food, used tea bags? If you say its waste, she retorts by saying “don’t call it waste, it is a natural resource”, she is Jyoti shah. Who has truly converted fruit and vegetable peels to fruit trees and vegetable garden. If the thought is she is a farmer who has a big farm, she again proves us wrong as all this is done on the terrace of her flat. She calls herself urban farmer. We met her at her terrace garden in Pune. She proudly showcases 26 years of her hard work that has transformed into sugarcane, sapota, pomegranate, mangoes, herbs, tomatoes and other vegetables. Her success mantra any bio degradable material is not waste it is a natural resource and should go back to nature. She has been propagating urban farming and has successfully converted spaces to green spaces. The only requirement for such a garden is a space where there is sunlight for 4hrs a day. We were lucky to meet this green warrior who has been spreading the green word in the busy city of Pune and works with various organizations, companies, and schools to promote urban gardening. Her core message is nature is ready to provide you do you have the willingness to do it? She is open and willing to share her knowledge with anyone anywhere in the world who wants home grown food. Her success story of home grown Coccinia grandis at London served as a proof of what she does.



Pune to Kolhapur

Two co-traveller joined me, Pratik and Bhoomi. We are hosted by a friend Divya to her home at Kolhapur. She was out of town but opened her home to us to stay and rest.
We visit a Naturopathy centre Anand Kunj that focuses on urine therapy. Anand Kunj is on a hilltop surrounded by beautiful Sahyaadri mountain ranges. This centre is started by Dr.Shashi Patil and has treated our former Prime Minister Shri Morarji Desai. Today Dr. Patil’s two sons and their families have taken over the centre and work dedicatedly with values of service. Dr. Sarang shared that to break free of the disease you need to break the routine and once a certain routine is broken the pattern is broken. I started applying the thought to our deep rooted inner patterns and found this to be true. Senior Dr. Shashi shared that whatever we do in the end will result in a big zero-shunyata. We all should be aware about this zero and not get attached to our own glory!



That evening was Wednesday and it became a special Awakin Wednesday. As I reached Kolhapur i realized I had forgotten my phone at the centre -50kms away. We call up the Ashram and to my relief I learn that there is one auto rickshaw guy who has gone from the city and will be returning in sometime. They assure me safe return of my phone. After that we go to the famous Mahalakshmi temple and conduct our Awakin session there. The moment silence gets over we are informed by one of the priests that today is full moon day and there will be special aarti. So we wait for that. As we are soaking ourselves in prayers and hymns being sung we get a call from the auto guy that he has arrived at the temple gates with the phone! He patiently waits for us till we finish our prayers. We share our concern on his coming so far to which he says we believe that “guest is God” and you are on a pilgrimage so this is my offering to your journey. He leaves us stunned. God indeed appears in different forms.

Posted by Sheetal Vaidya on Jun 9, 2014 | permalink