FB Discussions - smoky choolas and cabbages.

Sunil Sood They inhale somke equivalent to 20 Cigarettes unless chulha is designed well and the exhaust is taken out by chimney.

 Aparna Krishnan cooking is mostly out of door, and good dried wood is used. What is the alternative you suggest ?  I hope its not LPG, petroleum based. Which makes them 1. chronically dependent on one more purchased item 2. which dependence on petroleum has unleahsed enough suffering across the globe.

 Ansu VT Face masks that cover the nose and mouth is a good start. Reduces intake. Also keep children away from such cooking areas. Effects on children long term is the worst.

 Aparna Krishnan No village woman will cook with a cloth tied on her face. Anyway you will need to move to a village, live there, understand the nuances, also cook like them, and therein see what could be  

Prakash Thangavel Is cooking with dried wood really causing respiratory illness? My grandmas would have been dead long back if that has been the case, along with their mothers. They still going strong at 95  

Prakash Thangavel For biogas, the person should own cattle and have to spend some capital to build the chamber and buy the stove for bio gas. All we need are three stones, some dried wood and a vessel for cooking

 Mark Johnston It would be very rare for a villager to breathe in more pollution than a city dweller. The smoke from well dried wood in a ventilated space is minimal. The smog hanging over our cities containing all sorts of chemicals from burning fossil fuels for transport, heating (or cooling dependent on climate) not to mention the industries, burning rubbish etc. is killing so many in all nations. Funny that carbon neutral and sustainable (when a community has access to enough land) low energy traditional cooking methods attract such desire for imposed reforms and improvements.

Aparna Krishnan  The urge to 'improve the villager' is getting rather much. When the urbans cannot protect their cities. Also I think its a way of dealing with their conscience. The real thing to do is reduce their demands, which demands are what are impoverishing villages. Instead of that its easier to advise the villager on water and sanitation.

Ansu VT Interersting, no wonder there is massive migration in India is from villages to cities. At least, I have lived over the years at least 2-3 years in a Kerala village. The two people writing in your support: Prakash according to his profile is based in US and Mark is based in Scotland probably sipping scotch while writing this. (Mark it is in humour, no disrespect towards Scottish people).

Prakash Thangavel Ansu VT I lived in my village until my teens and I am living in erode, a small town in TN now. I did study in TAMUK for my MS and worked there for 8 yrs. Happy to be home. Living in a village for 2-3 yrs does not give you the whole picture. As for massive migration, cities keep on exploiting villages and strangle the livelihood of villages in the name of development. This is just a sample. (Four lane highway splitting a village in the middle and coconut groves destroyed for electricity towers. I can go on and on..)

Prakash Thangavel Ansu VT Does it say why migration ? Same statistics hiding farmer suicide as love failure, drinking habit and what not...

Sunil Sood Villages are not free from other sources of pollution anymore. The suspended particulate and burning of tyres, solid waste, dust due to poor roads etc make them more vulnerable. They deserve cleaner fuel as collection and drying of firewood is also an issue.

Prakash Thangavel We dont burn tyres or solid waste. Solid waste always end up as fertlizer and tyres and up as playthings or support structures. Every thing has a use in a village.

Aparna Krishnan Same in our village.

Aparna Krishnan Yes, plastic covers are entering - we are alert. But a minute fraction of the city situation, and urbans can first save their cities. Chemicals are a real issue - which is why organic farming has become a central concern.

Ansu VT Prakash Thangavel Last time I visited Erode it wasn't a small town. It is a city. Wikipedia also claims that.  

 Prakash Thangavel Texas A&M and I still consider Erode as a small town compared to metros. You free to believe wat wiki says

Ansu VT Prakash Thangavel Erode is smaller than Chennai but much, much larger than my ancestral village in Kerala. It is a matter of perspective.

 Mark Johnston I don't drink :) My cooking stove has sat in this house for twenty years and still works well, it was forty years old when we installed it. Our village has three houses although around 250 people live in the 10 square mile rural parish. My lungs, damaged by child hood TB, cope far better here than in any city I've stayed in Europe or India. Our history of being cleared from the land to make way for agricultural 'improvements' and to feed the industrial revolution has had a long term negative effect on our physical and mental health. It is not for me to tell anyone else what to do but I can hope that the peoples of India manage to learn from some of our mistakes. A gram swaraj type of movement, in my view, could have greatly helped the people and the environment of Scotland. When India gained independence my parents were children living in rural poverty. Neither family had running water or electricity. My father's side were squatters, my mother's side managed to rent. Both working families with many children crammed into tiny houses.

 Ansu VT Prakash Thangavel If you are a citizen of India you have a right to contest and get this corrected.

 Ansu VT Mark Johnston Just as a funny side story, I was standing up to a dear British friend in England once for Scottish independence. After some debate, she said come with me. We went to a Scottish restaurant and she ordered haggis among other things. She said to try it. I did for the first time. I almost spat it out. Then she said, that is Scottish national dish. Do you still think they should get independence. Just a funny incident in my life.

 Prakash Thangavel Now we are arguing over a status of a place for no reason. Please help Aparna and her village if you can

Aparna Krishnan just what i wondered. Ansu VT, would you buy pickles ? that would help more than debates.

Ansu VT Aparna Krishnan My pickles, pappadams and masalas come from my ancestral home mostly including plaintain and jackfruit chips. I am not concerned about migration. Just stating facts and reporting it. It is a majority consensus from most villagers.

Aparna Krishnan ok, if u are not concerned, why waste bandwidth in discussing villages. and time.

Sunil Sood Reason why i want people to shift to cities is to reduce their dependence on agriculture and to avoid over production of crops. Agriculture consumes more than 70 % of water and 20% of electricity. Let the supply be less than demand so that less food is wasted and less no.of farmers commit suicide and the farmers get paid well.

Prakash Thangavel Sunil Sood By moving more people to cities, what kind of jobs are you going to give them? If they consume 70% of water, do they not produce the food you eat? And is water not a basic right of everyone, including wild life?

Prakash Thangavel Also please do some research on how much water is used to make a car, jeans or a bottle of beer.

Mark Johnston Haggis is a food for poor people utilising many parts of the sheep that richer people would choose to waste. I choose not to eat any part of the sheep or any other animal. Boswell stated that oats were "A grain, which in England is generally given to horses, but in Scotland appears to support the people.". Now oats are a fashionable superfood amongst middle class English folk ;)

Prakash Thangavel Ansu VT Why mass migration is happening? Why cant people stay in villages?

Aparna Krishnan Not because of smoky choolas. not in my village.

Prakash Thangavel Survival is the question here. There is no water (polluted would do fine) to drink, underemployment and no way to climb up the economic ladder. Coco Cola is pumping out millions of gallons of water from monster borewells near river beds and selling it back in cities as aqua fina and coke mean while wells and ponds go bone dry in villages. Dead pool in reservoirs is being diverted to beer factories mean while people are dying of thirst. This is just a sample. Should I give more example about what is happening in villages?

Ansu VT Prakash Thangavel Since you brought up Coca Cola, you may have heard about Mayilamma, an illiterate tribal woman from Kerala. She single handedly started a movement that shut down Coca Cola plant in Kerala (Plachimada). You claim to be educated in US. Where this a will, there is a way. You can do it too. 

Prakash Thangavel Ansu VT  Ansu VT We kicked them out from Erode, but they have setup shop in Nellai. And they do have subsidiary bottling plants which are not known to many. Also one near Attapadi, near river Bhavani near pristine forest land against which protest are going on. City folks do need pristine water in bottles right? Since you are all so worried about village welfare and mass migration, why can't you stop drinking bottled water, coke, pepsi and bottled juice, which will help keeping the water table stable in villages?