Garden in Bangalore, India, Part 1
Author: World Food Garden | Posted: 9/4/2010 2:24:44 AM | View Comments
written Aug 2, 2010 and posted one month later
I&rsquom sitting under an umbrella at a cafe on a rainy day in Bangalore, India. This small patch of dry seating reminds me of living in my old treehouse in SC. I love the rain. I will attempt to utilize this peaceful moment to write a much overdue blog about the last 2 months I&rsquove spent in India as it relates to gardening. I&rsquoll break it up with titles so skimmers can more easily choose sections of interest.
I came here because Freeman, a successful Silicon Valley entrepreneur, daring eccentric, and mentor to startups invited me to build a vertical garden and help create a living building out of his new art and tech space here called Jaaga. Freeman has been volunteering tech support to World Food Garden remotely for a year. He&rsquos also been helping advise on how I can accomplish my goal of creating the world&rsquos first Sustainable Garden Calculator, an online tool that will help people plan their gardens by sustainable growing methods from anywhere in the world. After trading room and board for garden work in San Francisco and then in Costa Rica, and having during that time applied unsuccessfully to numerous grant competitions in hopes to fund the garden calculator idea, I jumped at the chance to go to India and build a garden at a tech center in the tech capital of the world and get some help on my project.
Jaaga
Jaaga is a far out organization that was founded by Freeman and his partner Archana, a visual, sound, and video artist. The modular 3 story structure was built in one day out of palette racking material, and it feels like living inside an erector set or one of those constructions that the Dozers from Fragile Rock are always rebuilding. In fact, the main builder guy here, Kiran, reminds me of a dozer in a daily basis. There is always some event going on too, day or night, from dance performances to writing circles to tech talks to the regular occupance of the many small IT startup teams that use the space and fast-track environment to focus on their projects. During my first week Archana asked if I would host a green event here. The planning for that event filled my first few weeks with aggressive outreach to many new inspiring garden contacts who taught me much about home gardening movement in Bangalore.
continued in part 1 1/2 |
