Poliana

Of all the essential things we need for survival, air is free.  Because its supply is abundant. You pay for air only when dissatisfied with its temperature. Conditioning of air, cooling and heating both, is generally paid for. Other than that, free air is taken for granted. We notice air only when we are short of it.

The fastest moving consumer good

Food is equally critical for survival. Unlike air, it is not free. In fact, that is one commodity we pay for every day. Food is the fastest moving consumer good. Out of habit, we consume three meals a day: breakfast, lunch and dinner. The word breakfast is interesting. It talks about breaking a fast. What fast? The fast that we, unfortunately, have to suffer during our night sleep. Breakfast, lunch and dinner are the three key milestones of our day. We perform different activities during the breaks between meals. No wonder that none of the readers of this article, nor its writer, really knows what hunger means. Just as air is appreciated only when we are deprived of it, hunger is understood only when food is unavailable.

In this age of globalisation, the availability of food is not global. According to UNICEF data, every 3.6 seconds a child dies of starvation somewhere in the world. Tonight, at the restaurant table we may face the dilemma of stuffing our overfull stomachs with those last two slices of the giant pizza or letting them go. At the same time, five million people in South Sudan are experiencing life-threatening food shortages. South Sudanese able to get a single meal a day are considered blessed. In my own country, thirty million people are considered alarmingly hungry and malnourished, and 50% of the children are underweight. If the Sudanese hunger is partly war related, the Indian hunger is a result of not having enough food supply or the ability to access it. India’s second largest state Madhya Pradesh (72 million) is the epicentre of hunger. It ranks worse than Ethiopia and Sudan in the hunger index.

In our lifetime, the world has been adding 1 billion people every 12 years, taking the global population from 5 billion in 1987 to 7.5 billion this year. It is projected to reach 9 billion by 2042. All 9 billion would want two or three meals a day. Scientists may one day invent instant food pills made in labs. Even if invented, they are unlikely to be tasty, more like the e-cigarettes that failed to satisfy smokers. The world will have to rely on agriculture to feed the 9 billion.

Non-vegetarians may feel they have found a solution to the agricultural food crisis. In fact, meat-eating makes the problem worse. Chickens, cows, sheep and pigs need vast amounts of food and water. If the entire world were to become vegetarian, it will have at least two times more food and a lot more water than today. It takes 27 litres of water to produce one pound of potatoes, but 9000 litres to produce a pound of beef. (Interesting for vegans: It takes 1000 litres of water to produce one litre of milk). Meat-eating also eats up vast amounts of land. An Indian family living on rice, beans, vegetables and fruit can produce their food and live comfortably on an acre of land or less. An average American, who consumes nearly 300 pounds of meat a year, needs 20 times more.

Competition for land and water

Arable land is land capable of being ploughed and used to grow crops. (Land on which cattle graze may be agricultural, but not arable). Only 10.6% of the world’s land is arable. Arable land per person is declining rapidly, in the last fifty years from 0.4 hectares to 0.2 hectares.

Water is in shortage, and agricultural lands have to compete with cities for water. Bio fuels are now produced on the same agricultural land. Fuel vs food is a burning debate. The fields that can feed people are diverted to feed diesel-hungry vehicles.

When food crisis exists and is certain to become acute, when demand for food far exceeds its supply, why do people keep migrating from rural to urban areas? Why are there shortages of farm workers everywhere?

City and village

Instead of working in nature, breathing fresh and clean air, eating healthy organic food, living in spacious houses; most of my family and friends prefer to work in air-conditioned offices with no open windows, stare at a computer screen for ten hours a day, eat a high calorie diet, commute daily for two to three hours either in overcrowded transport or in slow-moving traffic, breathe polluted air, and live on top of one another. Why?

Being a city-lover myself, this is a question I have often thought of. I mainly lived in two big cities, Bombay and Moscow. (I like to be surrounded by 10 million people.) Following is the list I had prepared to justify living in a city rather than a village. (1) 24-hour electricity (2) 24-hour water (3) Internet (4) gym (5) library (6) cinema halls (7) education (8) medical facilities (9) jobs and (10) people, lots of them.

After visiting Martin’s Bulgarian farm Poliana, I began to question this list for the first time.

Poliana, the Bulgarian farm

Martin, our WWOOF host in Bulgaria was very different from Jurek in Poland. Martin qualified as a Chartered Accountant, with an additional degree in international relations and worked for Price Waterhouse for many years. Later he was a successful corporate executive working as a finance director for a major oil company. He speaks in many languages, is a well-read intellectual, appreciates art and has a well developed aesthetic sense. Not really the profile of an organic farmer.

Nine years ago, taking advantage of the recession, he decided to buy 1000 hectares of agricultural land at throwaway prices. It was situated in South-eastern Bulgaria. The population of the village Poliana is 216. Martin gave up his blooming corporate career and became an organic farmer. The hundreds of hectares he bought now produce wheat, rye, sunflowers, lentils, organic almonds, organic walnuts, lavender, salvia, chamomile, dill and many herbs. He exports his herbs and other products to Germany and other European markets.

Parallel to that, the farm breeds sheep, cows, goats, bees, ducks, chicken, pigs, ostriches and other animals.

It is worth noting that Martin could have made lots of easy money by re-selling the land. Instead, he decided to cultivate it, and make money the hard way.

The most incredible thing on the farm was the guest house he has built overlooking the hundreds of hectares. The owners, the guests, and the WWOOFers stay here. This farmhouse is a modern palace - built tastefully, with all modern amenities, and a speedy internet. Mena was commissioned to paint murals on two walls in the outer coffee lounge.

Meeting Martin and the stay at his farmhouse shattered a few myths for me.

Agriculture can attract a city person. Martin admitted he had no connection with farms before. /Agriculture can be a profitable business. /The farmhouse had 24-hour electricity, 24-hour water, internet, lots of books, five-star interior and satellite television.

There was no gym, but I could run every day in the fresh air, sometimes not meeting a single soul or vehicle for hours. (True, a single horsefly once ran 21 km along with me, buzzing all the way without stinging me. I felt an immediate sympathy for horses). 

Yes, you can’t have millions of people around you in a village. But in the cities, how many amongst those millions have the time or desire to meet you? The megacity crowd is an illusion. Crowded metros have many lonely people. People are becoming self-centred (or Selfie-centred), and relations increasingly digital. I suppose a lack of people as an objection to rural life is no longer as strong. Sitting in Poliana, the Bulgarian village, I talked regularly with my parents and friends around the world on Skype and Facetime.

That brings down the list of the advantages of a city over village life to three. (a) Jobs (b) education and (c) medical.

Martin, with his example, showed that agriculture can be a good business. The career of a farm owner can be as lucrative as that of a corporate executive.

Education of children remains a problem in villages anywhere in the world. Adults can’t really move to rural areas until their children’s school education is over. However with the internet, self-education is no longer a problem.

Medical facilities are usually available in the nearest town. However, if you breathe clean air, work in nature, and eat organic food; medical access won’t be at the top of your mind. The longest living people on earth are found in the villages of Okinawa, Japan; Sardinia, Italy and Loma Linda, California. Not in the cities of London, Paris, Moscow or Bombay.

Takeaway

My biggest takeaway from meeting Martin and staying at his farmhouse in Bulgaria was that it is possible for city people to live and work in rural areas. In the modern world, most of the city amenities can be made available in a village. Food insecurity is one of the global problems, and will continue to be so during our lifetime. Shrewd decisions can make agriculture a successful business.

The problem of company can be solved by a bunch of like-minded people forming a commune and living on a farm.

Martin’s Poliana showed, against my expectations, that reverse migration can enhance the quality of one’s life.

Ravi  

A City Man on an Organic Farm

Growing up in Bombay with its concrete roads, teeming trains, ever-declining tree population; the closest I came to agricultural farms was when my long-distance train journeys passed by paddy fields and fruit orchards. With few humans in sight, the fields looked devoid of any interest. My mother tried to educate me on the names of the fruit trees. To me, they all looked green and undistinguishable.

At the same time, I always took great interest in eating. Indian dishes and potato remain my all time favourite. However, the only food supply chain I knew started from our local street market and ended on our dining table. If I were to come across tall trees with potatoes hanging from them, I wouldn’t have been surprised at all.

Organic farming

Things began to change, as they generally do, with my marriage. Mena was the opposite of me. She grew up in a village; her father had spent his entire life farming. Mena can drive in a jungle without maps and smartphones; yet know the directions and her whereabouts based on the landscape. With her arrival in my life, plastic bags in the house were replaced by cloth bags, water and milk are stored exclusively in glass bottles, burnt crumbs in the pans (which I thought were tasty) became avoidable as they were carcinogenic,  garbage was meticulously separated between dry and wet, my sugar and salt intake went down. I also learnt I was buying the wrong sort of fruit. The big and bright oranges and pomegranates I chose owed their lustre to the chemicals injected into them. Smaller, lustreless organic fruit was far healthier.

Organic farming tries to sustain and enhance the soil fertility without using any synthetic pesticides or fertilizers, antibiotics, hormones or genetic modifications. What grows on organic farms is natural. For thousands of years, farming was only organic. It was only in the twentieth century that modern farming methods started interfering with nature.

The organic farming movement tries to make sure we go back to old, healthier times. The organic products - fruit, vegetables, even meat - certified by the appropriate authorities fetch a substantial premium. I don’t know how unsafe chemically injected or genetically modified food is. It could be like the Kodak vs Fuji case study. By marketing the Kodak moment, Kodak encouraged consumers to pay 20-25% more for a Kodak over a Fuji film. Professional photographers knew the two films were identical. Perception is as important as reality. If you consume organic food and feel healthier, that’s what counts.

Having said that, I remember my business trip in 1989 to Poltava, a Ukrainian town not very far from Chernobyl. Walking in the market, the delegation I was with remarked on the size of the local tomatoes. They were huge and bright red (radiant, I might say). We said no to the tomato salad that evening.

WWOOF

Why do we waste our precious vacations visiting capital cities of the world, one after another, Mena had asked me. They all looked like one another. (Trees look the same to a city man, and cities look the same to a woman who loves villages). With me rapidly running out of relatives and friends willing to offer us a free home stay, I needed to look for alternatives anyway. My internet research came up with WWOOF.

WWOOF originally was a short form for ‘Working Weekends On Organic Farms’. This initiative was conceived in 1971 in the UK, to give city-dwellers an opportunity to spend the weekends working on farms in nearby villages. Later, as the idea spread, volunteers wished to spend more time on farms. The movement was then renamed as ‘Willing Workers On Organic farms’. However, with its global spread, the word “workers” confused the bureaucrats and visa-issuers who detested people working without work permits. Finally, WWOOF settled on “WorldWide Opportunities on Organic Farms” as its title. Though the name changed twice, the principles remain the same. A host, generally a farm owner, seeks people to help on the farm. A volunteer, called a WWOOFer, reaches the farm at his own expense. The WWOOFer is compensated in the form of free accommodation and meals for his labour on the farm. He can stay for as long as he likes – weeks, months or sometimes, even years. Over a 100 countries have WWOOF hosts. Australia, New Zealand and USA lead the list, with more than 2000 hosts in each.

Becoming a WWOOFer is a fairly easy process. Generally, by paying a nominal fee, you can access the directory of a particular country. You may, then, short list the farms and kind of work you would like to do and contact the hosts. Once the host confirms, you are booked for the agreed period. Most of it works on trust, there is no formal agreement. In 2013, Devyani - our nine-year old daughter, Mena and I decided to work on a Polish farm.

Nowina, WWOOF Poland

Jurek (pronounced as Yurek), our chosen host, confirmed he would like our family to collect pumpkins in the summer on his remote farm in the heart of Poland. Many years ago, in Austria, I had spent two weeks picking cherries, strawberries and apricots. That’s the sort of farming job I love. Pumpkins sounded good enough. Because of my advance planning, we were ready with our WWOOF confirmation in January. Jurek’s farm was shut for the winter. He himself was on a three month holiday, travelling through the Amazon rainforest in Brazil.

In June 2013, after changing trains twice from Wroclaw, we reached a deserted station. A lone sunburnt man in khaki shorts waited on the platform. Not surprisingly, he was our WWOOF host. In a car that was evidently bought in the previous millennium, he took us to his village. Nowina, he said, had a population of sixty. (I didn’t tell him that the number of my cousins is higher than that).

We were given a cottage to ourselves. There was no one else on the farm. We spent the first evening in the company of ten horses, three goats, two dogs and three cats. Took the horses to drink water. Drank fresh, hot milk straight from the goats’ udders. Our job description changed on arrival. Jurek told us the intense heat wave had wilted and killed the pumpkin creepers, so there were no pumpkins to harvest. Instead, he was running day-camps for school children from the nearby town. They would come in the morning to learn how to make paper by recycling newspapers. Jurek said he would appreciate if we could help him in running the camps.

By the third day, Devyani was helping the fifth graders at the workshop. Jurek’s house walls were made of clay. He wanted to decorate them with Sanskrit verses and Indian paintings, something he had learnt were auspicious during his trip to India. Mena was only too happy to paint his farm walls.

A city person learns something new every day. The following day, other than my attempt to milk the goat, I learnt that tea can be made from poison ivy leaves. I plucked the poison ivy leaves, and how well I remember the stinging sensation and angry red welts on my hands.

One of the evenings, an elderly Belgian couple arrived for an overnight halt in their camping van. It transpired one could also stay at Jurek’s farm without working; I presume the Belgians paid daily charges instead.

Jurek’s trip to Iran

Jurek was a single, a divorcee, in his fifties, living alone on the farm. He was the owner of several hectares in remote Poland, hectares that had little property value. Other than farming, he looked after horses kept on his farm by horse owners. Jurek’s income was meagre, and he tried to supplement it with activities like running kids’ workshops. He was in no position to hire labourers, he relied on volunteers.

Every winter, Jurek shuts the farm and the house. He sends the horses back to their owners. Each year, he visits a warm country for the three winter months. In my life, I have seen some light travellers, and Jurek was one of them. At my Polish volunteer camp, a Swiss boy had arrived with only a toothbrush. Jurek carries a maximum of five kilos of hand luggage in his backpack, nothing to check in, and is willing to spend nights anywhere - on a railway platform, at a camping site, in a jungle. That’s an advantage of being a farmer. He carries his annual savings, which is not much. Out of the several travel stories he told me, I found his Iran stay the most fascinating.

Jurek was pleasantly surprised at the reverse racism in Iran. Because he was a white man, nobody took money from him. He would eat on the street or in a small cafe, offer to pay the bill, the Iranians would smile, utter a few words that he didn’t understand, and refuse to take money. He also managed to knock on a few doors, and find a free place to stay for the night.

All this changed when an Iranian policeman arrested him. Jurek was busy taking photos, when the police came and arrested him. He was taken to the police station and put inside a cell. Jurek knows only Polish and basic English. Nobody in the Iranian police station knew any English. Jurek had no idea what he was accused of or what would happen to him.

In a few hours, though, an interpreter arrived. The policeman and the interpreter sat with Jurek.

“You are a journalist” translated the interpreter. To the policeman, it was obvious that a white man taking photos worked for some foreign media, probably American.  

“No, no, please tell him I am a simple tourist.” Said Jurek.

“Not journalist, but a tourist.” Said the translator.

“Oh, just tourist?” said the police. They talked for a few minutes more and the police knew Jurek was genuinely a tourist. Also, importantly he was not an American. The police brought Jurek out of the cell.

“Where are you staying?” asked the policeman.

“Nowhere in particular.” Said Jurek. He was in fact wondering where to spend the next night.

“You must come and stay with me.” Said the interpreter. He also translated it to the policeman as a matter of protocol.

“No, no. Don’t go to his place, you please come and stay with our family.” Said the policeman. He then turned to the interpreter. “And listen, you will help us with translations if it becomes necessary.”

Jurek spent the remaining weeks in Iran at the house of the policeman who had mistakenly arrested him. Though they didn’t share a common language, he was treated and fed very well.

“Iran is possibly the best place I have visited.” Jurek summarised.

*****

At WWOOF, you usually meet interesting characters that you never come across if you were to book a hotel room.

(To be continued)

Ravi  

All That is Well, Ends

(Continued from the previous diary)

Thalia was never asked to be the chairman, I don’t think. Saner patients were usually chosen for that assignment. After the morning meeting; the doctor, the nurse, the chairman for the day, and myself (volunteer) moved to a smaller room. We adjudged each patient’s progress based on what they said at the meeting.

Roger was given the chairman’s job more often than the others. I don’t know his surname. In fact, surnames were never mentioned; even the doctors were called by their first name. Roger was young, in his late twenties. Tall and slim, his clothes were well pressed. (As a rule, patients were not required to wear a uniform, making it difficult to distinguish them from hospital staff). He had a handsome face, with high cheekbones and light stubble that suited him well.

A man like him can be found in an English theatre, rather than in a mental hospital. His smile was sincere and full of charm. Though he spoke slowly, sometimes haltingly, he looked perfectly normal.

“My father left us years ago.” Roger told us during a meeting. “My mother raised me single-handedly. She always made me a hot breakfast before leaving for school, university, right up to my first job. Hot breakfasts and hot dinners. Every evening, my mother was ready at the dinner table with a hot meal, hovering like a waiter in the restaurant. Sometimes I wouldn’t come out of my room, shout at her. She pleaded with me to join her, heated the food again. Later, she washed the plates. She never taught me to cook, and never asked me to wash. She washed and pressed all my clothes. When I started my first job, she polished my shoes while I was having breakfast. Mom, for god’s sake, don’t polish my shoes, I would tell her. She didn’t listen. I hated her. She was there from morning to night, setting an alarm for me, making my bed, packing my bag even if I was going away for a weekend, vacuum cleaning my room. You won’t believe it; she often knocked on the bathroom door to ask if I had a shampoo bottle inside when I was showering.

To be fair, I could see how much she loved me. And it was all very comfortable for me. If she had suddenly asked me to do the dishes, I’m not sure I would be happy washing them. During my Uni years, it never occurred to me to leave the house. I should have left her and lived on my own. But who would take such good care of me?

Then I fell in love. My girlfriend and I discussed renting a place together. Mom said we have such a big house. Why do you want to move somewhere else? Like a fool, I listened to her. My girlfriend started visiting me.”

We were in the bedroom. Had just undressed. We started making love, when there was a knock on the door.

Mom, I’m not alone, go away, I screamed. She knew I was not alone, I didn’t know what sort of emergency she had.

She entered my bedroom. She saw us on the bed. “Roger, the BBC news is on.” She said. “Do you want to watch it?”

*****

At this point, Roger began shaking violently. His lips moved rapidly, as if to say something more, but no words came out. The stories about his mother were the source of his convulsions, and whenever he retold them, he would get an attack. He hated his mother, and couldn’t get away from her. He understood the scale of her love for him, and he didn’t want any of it. Her obsession for her son had finally driven him to the mental hospital.

Getting it all out by narrating his life story was apparently part of his psychotherapy. At times, it worked. I heard the same story from Roger five or six times, and once or twice he managed to tell it without an attack. However, after each convulsion he was put on medication. He would then be seen in a hospital gown instead of his neatly pressed clothes. His blank smile told you he was not perfectly normal.

The mental hospital shuts down

Shakespeare said: all is well that ends well. I have slightly twisted the saying. “All that is well, ends”.

Margaret Thatcher was the Prime Minister of the UK when I volunteered at St Mary Abbot’s hospital. Thatcherism claimed that mental patients were better off staying with their families, in their community, not in a hospital. The patients were a burden on taxpaying public. The conservative party was opposed to it. Eventually, in 1992, under John Major, St Mary Abbot’s hospital shut down. On hearing the news, I imagined Roger going back to live with his mother, and Thalia throwing things at her family. No more morning meetings to attend, no social groups to share your woes with.

Volunteer camps

Volunteer camps offer experiences your normal job or education doesn’t. After thirty years, I still remember Roger’s face and his story as vividly as if it happened yesterday.

Jobs are configured in four different ways. (1) Great, enjoyable work in a great company. (2) Great, enjoyable work in an unpleasant or awful company. (3) Unpleasant work in a great company. (4) Unpleasant work in an awful company.

Those who are in the first category are the luckiest people, but very rare. Those in the last category, with awful work and unpleasant colleagues are the tragic people. Work is punishment for them.

International voluntary camps, by gathering young students from different countries, made sure you were part of an interesting group. For me personally, the work at a mental hospital was very interesting, if stressful at times. It enriched my life for ever.

*****

When I was six or seven years old, I heard the following story.

An unemployed man goes to the king and says, “Oh king! I have no money, no job. My parents haven’t left me any inheritance. I want you to take care of me.”

The king says, sure. I will give you money, what can you give me in return?

In return? The man asks, surprised. I have nothing, no home, no property, what can I give you?

The king says, I will give you one crore rupees. Give me your left eye.

The man is stunned. Oh King, one crore rupees is a lot of money, but how can I give you an eye, he asks.

I will increase my offer, the king says. I will give you two crore rupees. In return, give me one of your legs.

Please, says the man. My lord, I beg you not to make a mockery of my pitiable state in such a fashion.

My final offer, says the king, is an attractive one. I will give you four crore rupees. Give me your right hand.

The man wants to walk away from his weird ruler. The king stops him. Together, they calculate the cost of the eyes, hands, legs, ears.

See, you are worth crores of rupees, says the king, you just don’t know about it. Use your hands, your legs, your brain, donate your labour and you will get paid for it.

The modern scam

The world was a much nicer place thirty years ago. Unemployed people, poor students, pensioners could donate their labour, and get all expenses (accommodation and meals) paid in exchange. You could attend a voluntary camp for two weeks or six months, and it was worthwhile for hard-up volunteers. Students could enrich their lives without asking their parents to shell out money.

But, as mentioned above, all that is good eventually comes to an end. The earlier fair-minded, innocent voluntary camps don’t exist any longer. Mind you, those camps were held in the pre-internet era. Volunteers needed to research (how did we research before internet?), write letters, order paper catalogues, receive confirmation letters by post. Now the process is easy and the internet is flooded with voluntary camps.

But most modern voluntary camps are a SCAM. They invite volunteers to work, just as in the old days. However, they ask them to donate substantial, sometimes obscene amounts of money to get the privilege of working at a camp. You donate your money, and you donate your labour. It is an unreasonable, fraudulent barter directed at gullible or lonely pensioners who are looking to be part of an international group. Young students can attend such camps only if their parents are rich.

I am glad I could attend international voluntary camps before they turned into a scam.

WWOOF

What can young students or adults with limited means now do to travel the world cheaply? To exchange their labour for accommodation and meals? What is the way for visa-handcuffed nationals to work abroad without a work permit? With the near-demise of the voluntary camps, the WWOOF (World-Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms) movement offers a ray of hope. Next week, I will share with you my WWOOF experience in Poland and Bulgaria.

Ravi

Nurse in a Mental Hospital

Thirty years ago, in August 1987, I began working as a volunteer nurse in a mental hospital in central London.

A couple of years before that, the thought of going abroad, leave alone working in London, would have sounded as fantastic as going to the moon. To my knowledge, nobody in the DNA lineage between Manu (the Indian Adam) and me had ever left Indian soil. My parents’ professions brought in just enough to make ends meet - my father played the sitar, and mother taught Sanskrit. By the time I qualified as a Chartered Accountant, I hated accountancy enough to resolve never to practise it. The CA firm paid me Rs 450 (37 dollars) as a monthly stipend. [It was one of the top firms; the mandatory stipend was only Rs 60 (5 dollars)/month]. My savings over three years had amounted to Rs 2400 (200 dollars), not enough to buy an international air ticket. Like most lower-middle class Indians, my birth-to-pyre journey was supposed to happen exclusively in Indian geography.

Fyodor Dostoevsky, the legendary Russian novelist, was the first to amend my destiny. During my bearded teens, his novels had inspired my study of the Russian language. Dr Nikolay Maevsky, head of the Bombay consulate’s Russian language dept, had recommended my name for a fully paid scholarship for higher studies in Moscow. After Dostoevsky, Dr Maevsky was the second person responsible for my going abroad.

In those days, the Indian passport was handwritten. The opening description page included the colour of your eyes and hair, your height, profession, visible distinguishing marks, and name of father or husband (but never mother or wife). Below that, the name of the person who should be contacted in the event of your death or accident. The passport was valid for all countries except South Africa. It had no expiry date. It was given for five years, and could be extended every five years. I was told one needed a passport and dollars to go abroad. Only fools (or corporate employees) converted rupees at the bank. Black market rates were far more attractive. One of my neighbours was working on a ship. I bought 200 dollars from him at a mutually beneficial rate.

At the airport, for some enigmatic reason, you were required to buy 20 dollars officially, and that entry was made on the passport. On 6 September 1986, visiting an airport for the first time, I proudly held in my hand the free Aeroflot ticket, part of my scholarship package. I carried no credit cards, no travellers’ cheques, no gadgets of any kind – my wristwatch was the only thing with moving mechanical components. My wallet contained 220 dollars in cash that I planned never to spend.

*****

In Moscow, I should have completed my Russian language education, and returned to India on the free ticket. There was no question of ever going to the expensive West.

Seth Godfrey was a close friend at my Moscow Institute. He was an American communist, but with a healthy sense of cynicism about communism. One day, during a walk in the woods next to the institute, he said: “Ravi, now that you are in Moscow, why don’t you travel to Europe? It’s a wonderful opportunity to go to places like France, Germany, England.”

“Seth”, I said, “I need visas to go to all these places. I am unmarried, with no money and no job. Which country will give me a visa?”

“You can go to work there.” Seth said.

I laughed. Americans can be so naive at times. “If tourist visas are so difficult, how will I get work visas?”

“Listen, you can do voluntary work. I am on the board of Volunteers for Peace.”

That was the first time I had heard of voluntary work. Volunteers for Peace (VfP) organised camps around the year. A booklet gave detailed information about each camp. You needed to submit your preferences. For each camp, 15-20 volunteers, up to 27 years of age, were chosen. The organisers made sure the group would be diverse; you usually had more than ten nationalities at a camp. You were expected to land at the camp at your own cost. After arriving, until the end of the camp, you had no expenses. Your accommodation and meals were taken care of in exchange for your labour. Volunteers for Peace sent a confirmation letter for each camp. That letter would serve as the basis for getting visas. I had applied for camps in countries where I had friends. VfP changed only one of my requests. Instead of the Ireland camp I had asked for, I was booked as a volunteer nurse in the St Mary Abbott’s hospital in London. You would work with psychiatric patients, thanks and best wishes, the letter said.

*****

My Indian training on virtue and economy had benefited me. I had saved 400 roubles from my Russian stipend (with the 220 dollars still intact for a black day). That money bought me a railway ticket that would take me to each of my camps. I have previously written stories from my Poland camp where volunteers restored coffins in a beautiful Warsaw cemetery. [E.g. Ashes to Ashes Dust to Dust(week 32: 2004) and The Gentleman with a Dog (week 33: 2004)]. From Warsaw, in August 1987, with a train-ferry-train combination, I landed in London. Straightaway, I made my way to Kensington, to reach St Mary Abbot’s hospital.

*****

The hospital was built in ‘Jacobethan style’ whatever that means. It was a four-storey lime-white and brick-brown structure, typically English. On a brochure, it was described as a long stay hospital for chronically sick, geriatric or psychiatric patients. Lush green lawns in the courtyard made the ambiance pleasant. The round-the-year rains make the English green greener, and lift the spirits even at a mental hospital. The top floor of the hospital was spacious, bright and empty. We, the volunteers, were allotted beds there. It was the most comfortable stay among all my camps. Breakfast and lunch provided in the hospital canteen were clean and in plenty. The camp gave each volunteer two and half pounds daily, in lieu of dinner. Alas, the following month showed that such hospitability is not enough to sustain the volunteers. Working with the psychiatric patients is not easy. Volunteers began leaving the camp one after the other (voluntarily), and by the end of the month, I was the only one left attending the famed morning meetings.

*****

Every day started with a formal meeting of the patients. Each group of nearly twenty patients was assigned a doctor (generally male), a nurse (generally female) and a volunteer nurse (such as me). The starting time was 08.00. In a giant room, we all sat in a circle. Each day, a new chairman was appointed. The chairman of the day was chosen from among the patients.

“You select a patient as a chairman. But aren’t they... aren’t they.... mad?” A German volunteer had asked on the first day during our briefing.

“Most of them are classified as psychiatric cases, yes. But the degree varies. Day-patients are here only during office hours. The residential patients, again, can vary widely. Our aim is to improve their condition. It’s important they chair the meetings, and not us.” The English doctor had explained.

Each patient was encouraged to speak. Topics were not prescribed. Everyone was free to talk on subject of his/her choice. Usually, a patient would try to unburden himself by talking about his condition, his fears, his experiences, his dreams (or nightmares). For the patients, this was their community. Some of them looked forward to this meeting, a few dreaded it.

Kevin, a recently retired man, was fairly shy. He was a day-patient. Many times, he turned up at the hospital after the meeting was over. He would apologise for the delay. His doctor then made the meeting mandatory for him. As a volunteer, I got the additional task of getting him to the hospital every morning. He lived within walking distance. I would call on him at 07.30. I had to ring the bell a few times before he opened the door. Kevin was polite and reserved. Yes, yes, I am coming; he would say and disappear inside the house. The following week, he came out with a colourful, big brush in his hand. He was painting the walls.

‘You see, I need to finish painting this wall. Please tell the doctor I can’t attend the meeting today’, he said to me.

‘Kevin, it’s the other way round. You’ve started painting the wall, because you don’t want to attend the meeting.’ I said. One didn’t need an education in psychiatry to see through Kevin’s mind. On my sharing the wall-painting news with the doctor, he smiled. ‘You are absolutely right’, he told me and assigned another man, a strongly built security guard from the hospital to bring Kevin in from the next day.

The morning meeting was scheduled for 90 minutes. The chairman of the day was expected to facilitate the meeting as well as take notes. The doctor and I were not allowed to say a word. It was like a school classroom. Because the twenty odd patients met daily, they knew much about one another. Their stories and experiences were assimilated by the fellow-patients.

People were generally well behaved. But a team of guards always stood outside, ready to be summoned. My most vivid memory is about Thalia, a sweet looking round-faced young girl. When she talked to you, nothing seemed wrong with her. At that hospital, for the first time, I realised that distinguishing between sane and insane people was not an easy task.

Many years later, as a mature student, (I was 41) I studied psychology at the University of Derby. At the beginning of the first lecture on abnormal psychology, the professor took a quick survey. Please, he said, those of you who consider yourself completely normal, raise your hands. I knew I couldn’t fall into that category. I had acquired a CA degree and refused to use it, I had left my career at forty to write books. No way could I be normal. But my classroom was shared by more than one hundred students aged 18-22. Surely, many of them should be normal. Well, not a single student dared to raise his hand.  

Anyway, back to Thalia. This sweet looking girl would suddenly become unrecognisable. Her language and actions became aggressive, with loud banging on tables and throwing of objects. One day she was telling us, in a very nice way, about her friend from school. In the middle of a sentence, she pursed her lips. Her eyes began burning. And then she started shouting, swearing and throwing everything in the room she could lay her hands on. Papers flew, plates broke, tea splashed in the face of another patient. She ran to a cupboard in the corner and knocked it down. It made a terrifying sound as it crashed along with all its contents. Initially, two female guards tried to control her. When they couldn’t, their male counterparts rushed in and took Thalia away. For several minutes, nobody spoke. Even the doctor sat in stunned silence. We wound up the meeting soon. For a week after that, we didn’t see Thalia. When she returned, she looked dull and aged. The spark in her eyes was gone. I guess she was heavily sedated after the incident.

(To be continued)

Ravi

Passport Racism

In the Bulgarian city of Varna, I met three different foreigners on a single day.

The first was an Indian Gujarati couple who owned an Indian grocery store. Familiar smells of Indian spices pulled me into the shop. You see such shops in London, to see one in Bulgaria was a surprise.

“We’re trying to cultivate a taste for Indian food among Bulgarians.” Said Mr Shah, the shop owner. “This country has very few Indians, only some students. Bulgarians have little knowledge about Indian spices or masalas.” Mr Shah was born in Kenya. In the 19^th century, thousands of Indian workers were taken to Africa. They were called “indentured labourers”, a euphemism for slaves. Over the next two centuries, many of their hard working successors prospered, and moved to Europe in search of a better civilisation. Mr Shah has his parents and brothers in the UK.

“We like Bulgaria. We are settled here for the past ten years.” He said. “It was easy for us, with our British passports, to move here once Bulgaria joined the European Union.”

*****

Two hours later, we were inside a bookshop “Shakespeare and friends”. The store stocked books in Bulgarian, Russian, English, and French. Diana, who owns this charming little place, is an elderly and energetic American from Seattle. In the 1990’s, she used to live and work in Moscow, as a journalist for the Moscow Times, Russia’s authentic English language newspaper. We were thrilled to learn she and I were in Moscow at the same time for almost ten years. Diana later moved to London, and ten years ago, decided to move to Bulgaria for good.

“After Moscow,” she said to me, “I didn’t like living in London at all. The West doesn’t have the charm of Eastern Europe. I love Bulgaria - a quiet, nice place. And people here are warm.”

*****

Bulgaria may be Europe’s poorest country. But it is culturally rich. In terms of historical heritage, the three richest countries are Italy, Greece and Bulgaria. The cities of Sofia and Plovdiv are built around well maintained ancient archaeological sites. Each Bulgarian city offers a “free walking tour” led by professional guides, who as a rule are young but experienced history graduates. On one such tour, I met an Italian gentleman, probably in his sixties. We walked together in Varna, and bumped into each other in Sofia.

He explained his tour of Bulgarian cities. “I’m exploring the country because I wish to settle here. I’ve a pension of 2000 Euros in Italy. And a disgusting percentage of that is grabbed by the Italian government as tax. Bulgaria has no tax on pension. I’ll soon move to Varna, probably rent a place in the beginning. Even if I fly to Italy every weekend, I would still save a lot more money than if I were to live in Italy.” he smiled.

*****

 The Gujarati grocer from the UK, the American bookshop owner and the Italian pensioner have made or will make Bulgaria home for their own benefit. Neither Indian spices nor English novels are a burning need in Bulgarian society. On the other hand, Bulgaria faces a huge labour shortage both in agriculture and industry. Bulgarians call themselves lazy, sometimes proudly.

Milena, the Plovdiv shop owner I mentioned in an earlier diary is a non-smoker. She hates employees smoking while attending to customers, or leaving the shop for a smoke-break (which is often). She said she tried for years to recruit non-smoking workers. That proved impossible. She asked the workers not to smoke during working hours. A customer enters the store and finds nobody, because the person supposed to serve him is outside, smoking.

“Finally I resigned.” She said. “If I don’t give up on my principles, I’ll have to shut all my shops.”

A Bulgarian farm owner told me his hectares remain uncultivated because he can’t get people to work on his farms or drive tractors.

*****

Fertile Bulgarian farms are short of workers. In my Indian state of Maharashtra, hundreds of farmers commit suicides every month. Is there any logical solution to these two problems?

The co-existence of unoccupied houses and homeless people, uncultivated lands and unemployed farmers, wasted food and hunger deaths is the tragedy of the world we live in. The chief reason for such contradictions is the restriction on free movement of people.

Philosophically speaking, each human being, each of us, exists on this planet and not in any particular country. An astronaut tried to locate his country from his spaceship. But all he could see was this beautiful mass of earth without boundaries, without countries. Countries and borders are a political fiction created by mankind. 

The European Union defines four fundamental freedoms for the union’s citizens: freedom of movement for capital, goods, services and people. Anyone from the 28 EU countries can travel to, work, reside or settle in any of the remaining 27 countries. That is the reason an Italian pensioner can so easily decide to migrate to Bulgaria.

What has happened inside the EU needs to happen on a worldwide basis. Russia, with 17% land in the world has only 2% of the world’s population. India with 17% of world’s population has only 2% of world’s land. Wouldn’t sending a few million Indian workers to Russia benefit both the countries? If European workers are not interested in working on Bulgarian farms, shouldn’t Bulgaria employ farm workers from Bangladesh or India? I am an advocate of a borderless world, not as an Indian, but as a student of economics. Open market and free competition should match the demand and supply curves; not fences, walls and visas.

The main objections to removing borders are that terrorists, refugees and other unwanted people of all kinds will enter the civilised world and spoil it. A poor man migrating to a rich country is a burden on that society.

Each argument has a flaw. Determined terrorists usually find the means to enter another country if they must. NATO countries indiscriminately bomb countries like Syria, and then complain about Syrian refugees entering them. This is absurd. Stop the wars, and you don’t need to worry about refugees.

An honest immigrant is not a burden if he is contributing to the country. He has a mouth to feed, but also a brain and two hands to work.

The major worry for Europe and America is migrant workers working longer and harder for less pay. In England, shopping hours were heavily regulated in the past. Trading on Sundays was illegal. But South Asian migrants were willing to operate the ‘mom and dad’ shops seven days a week, keeping long hours every day. That pressure ultimately forced the UK parliament to allow Sunday shopping. Over the years, the shop hours have become longer as well. Germany was worse. I remember walking hungrily on the streets of Frankfurt on a Sunday evening, with nothing - not even McDonalds - open. Throughout Europe, immigrant food workers have solved the weekend hunger problem.

Securing borders, building walls were measures to keep wages high, working hours short and protect the local population from competition. Protectionism made rich countries richer and poor countries poorer. The wages in those groups presented such a contrast that manufacturing was finally outsourced. Since you couldn’t get people from Bangladesh to the UK, you sent machinery from UK to Bangladesh to make things. In the 1990s, I could still buy running shoes made in the UK, now they are made exclusively in Bangladesh or Vietnam. This was followed by the internet revolution. Rich countries outsourced their back offices and call centres to poor countries. People who think a borderless world is a fantasy should look at Facebook. Mark Zuckerburg has revolutionised the world. Facebook has no borders.

Though free movement of people is still restricted, free movement of labour (in the form of outsourcing) is the norm of the 21^st century. Anything that can be outsourced from a high wages to a low wages area will be outsourced. Competition increasingly happens on a global, rather than on a national, scale.

*****

My main objection to protectionism is that it is on racial lines. An illiterate, uncultured Romanian can move freely in Western Europe, work anywhere, live anywhere. An educated Indian or African struggles to get a tourist visa which, if given, comes with conditions and a defined short term. All people from a single country are lumped together. I call this passport racism. I will end this week’s rambling with the story of a bizarre job interview I faced in 1995.

*****

At the beginning of 1995, a head hunter called me up out of the blue. I was living in Moscow and employed with BAT, a British multinational company. The expat network in Moscow was strong and active. It’s possible someone had given my name to this head-hunter. An American company was searching for a person to run its office in Russia. The office would be responsible for all former republics of USSR. The jobholder needed to be fluent in Russian, have a good understanding of finance and marketing, previous experience of travelling around Soviet republics for work. The head hunter, after talking to me for an hour, said I fit the bill. Would I mind meeting an American delegation at Hotel Baltschug Kempinski for dinner?

I said I didn’t mind. (A free dinner is always welcome). I met three American men over dinner the following week. They were probing but pleasant. We moved to a conference room after dinner. Our talk must have lasted three hours or so. They talked about the package, which was quite good. (Fortunately, they didn’t ask me what I was getting. British companies offer better perks, American companies give more cash).

“We would like you to attend one final interview in New York.” One of them said. “We will arrange for a business class ticket and a hotel close to our Manhattan office. The earlier date you can give us the better.”

“Thanks.” I said. “I’ll need some time. I don’t know how much time it’ll take for me to get an American visa.”

“Visa? What visa?” One of the gentlemen asked.

“I’m an Indian. I can’t travel to the USA without a visa.”

“Oh, I... we.... thought you were a British citizen. You work for BAT.”

I said that was not the case, sorry.

“All right, we’ll get back to you.” The head of the delegation said. All three cordially shook hands with me. I never heard from them again. My sense of dignity prevented me from contacting them or the head hunter. But I wondered why their faces fell on hearing I was an Indian rather than a British citizen. They seemed willing to employ me, a non-American, along with my skin colour, accent, and manners. But only as long as I had a respectable passport. After that job interview, I had coined the phrase ‘passport racism”.

 Ravi