Meet Ankit Arora, an eco-warrior bicycling throughout India to assist construct self-sustaining villages

He believes cycle, as a medium of transport, has helped him “connect easily with different cultures”. “It’s not too fast, it’s not too slow. People notice me easily on the roads and often, out of curiosity, come to talk to me about my journey. Interestingly, many of them also invite me to their homes and locality and share their culture. If I were on a motorcycle or a car, I would have probably zoomed past an area. But on a cycle, I can easily take a break, sit with people, share a chai or a meal and talk to them without bothering about speed, time, fuel consumption and mileage productivity,” Ankit, who was born in Rajasthan‘s Ajmer, mentioned.

Ankit Arora believes that cycle as a medium of transport has helped him “connect easily with different cultures on highways and roads than any other vehicle”

His routine modifications every single day “depending upon the locality and the community [he] is in”. If he’s in a village, he may go with the native farmers on their fields or assist them make mud homes. “Similarly, if I’m with an artisan, I’ll in all probability be studying their craft. Or if I’m in a college, I might be sharing my tales of India and educating the scholars, and so forth,” he described.

But, his journey isn’t just restricted to exploring totally different villages, cities, and cities and assembly individuals. In-between, he additionally helped construct a self-sustaining village in Krishnagiri, Tamil Nadu, in December 2021 — a neighborhood the place one can observe varied arts, crafts, natural farming and construct pure mud homes. “After studying about totally different cultures and expertise, I’m in a position to implement them. The household with whom I began the eco-village ‘Innisfree Farm’ (impressed by the WB Yeats poem ‘The Lake Isle of Innisfree‘), had been internet hosting me in Bengaluru. After understanding about my dream of organising an open neighborhood eco-village, in addition they determined to go away metropolis life and transfer to a village close by. Soon, they purchased a land in Tamil Nadu, and after the primary covid lockdown, we zeroed in on a land in a mountain space close to Cauvery Reserve Forest. The village was began in October 2020, and now it has two mud homes, one wood home together with two eco-toilets, and a few vegetable farming is being achieved,” he defined.

In his personal phrases, a self-sustaining village must be a spot the place residents are in a position to produce at the least 80 per cent of their meals and dairy consumption. Also, fodder for his or her cattle or livestock is self-produced and the wants of livestock can also be taken care of internally. Besides meals consumption, there should be a rainwater harvesting for ingesting water and a correct channeling of flowing water which will be saved in ponds. This water can be utilized for farming, gardening, for livestock in addition to within the washrooms.

“The traditional wisdom of nature farming is used in a self-sustainable village. It helps avoid the expenses on seeds and chemical fertilizers. Also, there must be one or two ash crop depending upon the size of the land which will help the village to sustain financially and invest in more activities. Further, after self-consumption of vegetables and staple crop, some produce should be left to regrow within the land. This cycle of growing one’s food and reseeding will generate organic food within three to four years. Later on, these seeds can be shared/sold to nearby farmers who will grow it in their land. Thus, these seeds can be packaged and branded and sold in the market which again will help generate income for the village to sustain its activities, construction activities, labor charges, and livestock,” he mentioned.

He believes it is very important “use local resources like local mud, local labor to build mud houses or earth architecture in the village which will help increase the employment”. “This concept of mud houses and retreat houses also invites tourism which in return help generate income for the local youth,” famous Arora, who entered Limca Book of Records and India Book of Records in 2016 for overlaying the 700km Golden Triangle on cycle — connecting Delhi, Agra and Jaipur — and not using a break in simply 69 hours.

As of now, Arora’s pure farming practices contain producing greens for self-consumption which incorporates cabbage, inexperienced chilies, tomatoes, okra, bitter gourd and marigold flower with out use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides. “We would like to expand to sell outside along with turmeric (cash crop). We have also got some trees which gives us good produce of raw mango, jackfruit and tamarind which is locally cherished for various purposes in Tamil Nadu and whole of South India. We are also growing other trees like cherry, mangoes, sapota and some for avocados. These trees are being grown with the method of natural farming which includes preparation of Mother Earth with red clay soil, lake soil, and compost. Another method which we are doing is integrated farming, where these trees have been planned and planted within a certain distance from each other like 25 feet from each other in a row and 30 feet in a column from each other. In between this distance, other crops like turmeric or peanut will be grown. For the supply of nitrogen to the land we are using the stems of some local tree which naturally gives good nitrogen to the land and we don’t need any chemical fertilizers or pesticides for natural farming,” Arora, who has two elder brothers who’re bankers, mentioned.

For pesticides, decaying neem leaves are utilized by mixing it with turmeric powder or garlic water. “We are also using panchgavya as fertilizer which is made of besan, clay mud, cow dung and cow urine,” he talked about.

While Krishnagiri stays his most cherished reminiscence, all the opposite experiences that “I have got working with farmers and learning various skills from tribals in Chattisgarh, working with wood sculptures and handicraft artisans in various states are the best memories”.

Ankit Arora additionally believes that it is very important “use local resources like local mud, local labor to build mud houses or earth architecture in the village which will help increase the employment” (Source: Ankit Arora)

These days, he is additionally “trying a new thing which is walking around the places”. “I recently walked in Karnataka and Tamil Nadu to go more into interior places. I also worked with a community of single mothers in Belgaum, Karnataka where I taught them to make wooden utility items like kitchen cutlery, and chopping boards. I had used these skills in our eco-village also to make our own furniture out of waste wood, and kitchen cutlery out of coconut shells. I will be teaching these skills to other communities in other villages,” he shared.

Top 5 learnings in his total journey?

*Connecting with communities can educate us many issues about life expertise,
*Everyone should exit and discover one thing with a purpose to study extra. The data acquired on this approach cannot be taught by a university or a college.
*It’s extraordinarily straightforward to attach and discuss to strangers. People need to meet and know one another regardless of of adverse rumors unfold throughout.
*We should exit and learn to make connections with individuals from totally different cultures and totally different languages ​​to combine with them. A journey like this helps us to embrace different’s life-style and have empathy with them.
*The extra we experiment, the extra tales we’ll get in actual and these tales assist construct ourselves.

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