After a lecture and workshop in Calcutta which paid my travel expenses, the
next 10 days were spent visiting and filming the work of the 8 NGO's in
and around Thiru that we have supported and those that we intend to support.

During this time John Button and his family arrived and he will remain for
another month helping follow through on what has been set in motion. With
lots of help from locals I organised all the things needed for a 3-day
Festival of Regeneration to strengthen bonds between these groups and to
create focus for more co-ordinated planning for both reforestation and also
fire prevention and fire-fighting.

The first day some 60 of us (including 40 of the workers from the various
projects, those whose sweat has watered in the trees) visited 3 of the
projects (ARS, Mountain of Medicine (Govinda) and Kadu Shiva (Apeetha and
Kasi). Paul, an English biologist from Auroville was with us identifying
wild species, adding lots of suggestions and comments.

We wandered around the mountainside lush with the best rains in a decade,
planted Bodhi and Neem trees on each other's sites and made friends. Lots of
streams are running, all the tanks are full and the lake is overflowing.

The second day we met at 6.30 AM, climbed into a truck, a couple of Suomo
taxis and a motorbike and went 2 hours to the Jawadi Hills for a picnic
(Some of Govinda's women workers had cooked up a feast). We were stunned by
an incredible wilderness of 25,000 well-protected hectares with occasional
stunning views of Arunachala through the haze in the distance. Only a
handful of the people present had been there before.

We had with us an 8-person theatre group who (with Jayaraman from ARS and
myself) have written a drama for us about Arunachala, Shiva, Parvati,
nature and trees, using material from ancient scriptures and folk lore. A
Tamil botanist from Auroville accompanied us and he and those most
interested including a couple of guys sent by the District Forest Officer
spent a lot of time identifying trees and collecting seeds. The rest of us
splashed in the streams, hiked the trails collecting seeds or just hung
about.

We trecked up a mountain to a Malayali tribal village and performed the
(uncostumed) dress rehearsal for the workers and the village getting home
long after dark. We had made twice as much food as the 61 of us required
much to the delight of the tribal children.

The third day we had seminars about fire and brainstorming ideas for things
we could do to further our collective efforts rather than for the work of
any particular group. Everyone had known for a week that RIC/Organic India
had committed US$5000 to carrying out some of these ideas and everyone
contributed to the discussion.I took notes and I'll append the email I'm
sending everyone with the list from our brainstorm. Dev Gogoi was present
throughout and (not being associated with any of the NGO's) has agreed to
take on a co-ordinating role. Various people are figuring out the budget
needed for various items we identified and they will have another meeting on
29/12 including Dev and John Button to further discuss and prioritise.

It was clear to everyone at the meeting that for every tree planted 100
trees were regenerating on the mountain and that fire was a huge issue.
There was a concensus that much more could be achieved by allowing the
natural regeneration to proceed than we could ever hope to plant.

We started work on a telephone system that would spread the alert as quickly
as possible. I committed to another US$5000 to be available for cutting
fire lines, purchasing water-backpacks with spray nozzle such as we use in
Oz and the US, a couple of dedicated cell-phones and other equipment,
repaying transport costs for firefighters rushing to the scene etc. and said
that I would come up with another US$15,000 this year for proposals from
the individual groups

Then that evening the Sesadri Ashram hall was full to overflowing with
mostly Tamil people to see the glittering costumed rendition of the theatre
and slide presentations from some of the NGO's, John Button and myself.

Among those present were 100 teenagers working with Mr KR Durai (more about
him below) who had all fought fires on the mountain before and were ready
for more. I shook all their hands as they stepped out from the line and told
me their names and I promised each one a t-shirt and cap saying in Tamil and
English something like "Arunachala Fire-Fighting Brigade".

With Durai's help, my press release went out to 10 Tamil newspapers who (for
a fee of 300 Rps each) will, I believe, run the story.

Jayaraman read me many ancient scriptures and one that I remember was Shiva
saying that he preferred that people worship him with live plants which can
drop their seeds rather than with flowers.