Within Neighborhood Resources

Our success in our struggle in restructuring the administration of our institute and my interactions abroad urged me to go deep in pursuit of this vision. I urged to reach the masses. I resigned and left the institution.

Coming back to our present discourse, while in Germany I had to point out very often the difference between Gandhiji's approach and the Marxist approach in bringing the grass root social change from within. Marx had his thesis of materialistic dialectics, 'thesis, synthesis, antithesis' as also 'being is becoming' and 'becoming is being', as if an historic necessity. But to Gandhiji, 'Being is becoming was always a creative human venture.' It was to him always creative ventures of human mind. He had his vision of 'Inner Voice'. He always thought of, creative thesis, creative synthesis, creative antithesis as a process of human creativity. He had his tools of 'Ahimsa'. 'Satyagraha', Basic Education (he called Jeevan Shikshan), change of heart and so forth to bring about social change.

After the Mouni Vidyapeeth event, I was in Germany. My stay in Germany became a period of many new revelations to me. On the last night before I returned, we had till late at night, three hours of very free thinking on Prayog Pariwar ventures. Most of the doctorate level students from different nations and in different disciplines in Kassel University interacted. The Vice-Chancellor and also Paulo Freire were present. I concluded the discourse with the words 'Each one of us should try to be a tramp in the field of knowledge, science and venture'.

The news of my retirement soon spread statewide among active grape venturers (twenty thousand farmers). For next ten years I moved among them at all nook and corners of the state as a real tramp, a real gypsy. Their constant, inquisitive, inspiring, enquires to search, resulted in bringing forth many promising innovations to resolve their every day problems in the fields. They on their own, made all India and out side India super market surveys (No MBA's, no external expertise). The first of our grape box in U. K. super market from the most drought prone area Andur in Sholapur, enthused the market so much that hardly within five or six days, experts from U. K. visited the farms, saw quality grapes in tons and tons harvested daily; by more than hundred small farmers, each one with one's small size plantations of less than two acres. The grapes were meticulously graded, and packed in attractive boxes. Cooled in their own cold storage and forwarded.

The real problems faced by the grape growers were, 1. to determine exact optimum water requirements of the plantation. 2. the way their infertile soil can be made fertile and maintained fertile forever using within neighborhood resources only. Moreover, my country wide gypsy stay with them, also made many other inquisitive poor farmer friends to sit with me, to see if by venturing in other crops, they could earn in those crops too as in grapes calculated assured record yields.

But my day and night stay with them and among them made me experience and suffer the plights in any rural and tribal life and living. Their dire, dreadful life settings (no good roads, no good transport, no good water supply, no good health and sanitation condition, no good education, no good communication systems, no good self-employment and no other employment too) made me more and more restless day by day. I found by creating certain oasis of monocrop results as in grapes (that also created employment for six laborers per acre of grape plantation) could bring riches to a few and some good employment for rural laborers but the rural or tribal population can never reap the prosperity found in any of our urban or city life and living. My restlessness about, how the entire rural population can be prosperous or even more prosperous than the metropolitan cities day by day turned into a haunting dream. And Eureka - The concept of Natueco Culture came vividly to me. I realized amazingly in that flash, that a fully energy self-reliant and highly decentralized, advanced industrial life and living is offing in the very neighborhood of each and every village, locale, and habitat.

I began seeing Nature inviting me at each nook and corner in the neighborhood. It showed me how Nature is still busy creating, accumulating the most fertile soil by every roadside, even in big cities, everywhere in the world. This concept of 'Natueco Culture' gave me new power to utter like Aladdin 'Open Sesame' and the whole wealth hidden in the womb of each and every neighborhood burst forth with dazzling reality.