Right from our desktops at work to our social media accounts on cellphones, we are feverishly juggling between screens today. Technology has slowly taken over everything and the more we embrace its numbing comforts, the more we are drifting apart from Nature. Just like ee cummings wrote, progress indeed is a “comfortable disease.”
But is there a way out of this jadedness that has encroached upon our senses? Seems like there is! 34-year-old Pooja Bhale is a conservation biologist who is currently working in the sphere of spiritual ecology. Since her childhood, Pooja was smitten by the bounty of Nature. Her parents recognised her love and curiosity for Nature and started sending her to various camps and trails.
Thus, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that Pooja pursued both her graduation and post graduation in Conservation Biology following which she took a job with the Wildlife Protection Society of India in New Delhi. But the universe had a grander plan in store for this Nature warrior.
A two-and-a-half acres patch of her family-owned land in Pune became the material of both her agitation and fascination as she realised that all traces of wildlife had been diminishing from it. She then resolved to do her part and restore the ecology of the area to whatever extent she could. Thus under Protecterra Ecological Foundation (also founded by Pooja), she embarked on the mission and The Farm was born in 2012.
When she started working on the idea, it left her parents quite worried. In fact, she herself didn’t have a comprehensive plan of action on how she’d go about the things, all that she knew was she had to do it anyhow.
She tells me candidly, “Frankly none of us envisioned this back then. My dad was really worried and he’d constantly ask my mom ‘what is she up to? How much funding would it require?'” Pooja’s mom also kept wondering if her daughter had taken up too big a task.
Pooja shares, “Though we didn’t have it planned, we stuck to our principals. We didn’t want to use anything unkind to Nature, which actually ruled out 90% of the things. I had envisioned a space related to wildlife and ecology where people could engage their minds with Nature and it evolved with time.”
Isn’t that now Nature is? The destroyer and the preserver, always returning back in bounty whatever she is given? Pooja tended her with love and love is what she got in return.
Thus The Farm today is a green space dedicated to the conversation of ecology. It has a tent, a cottage, a tree house, and a Knowledge Cafe, all of them handmade. Workshops, healing and meditation sessions are regularly conducted at the Knowledge Cafe and everyone who visits The Farm always returns with a serene and peaceful smile. The Farm has evolved into a space of love, happiness, and joy.
The Farm also is home to 9 rescue dogs, 25 cats, and 2 goats. Pooja tells me, “I don’t like to think of it as I rescued these animals or adopted them. It’s the opposite, it’s like they rescued me, they have adopted me. The Siberiann husky that we have here is like my soulmate.”
Pooja lives on The Farm itself, in a handmade hut and the experience has deeply impacted her life. She shares, “It changed me incredibly. I think whatever I learned from my degree, I have learned ten times of it through my experience at The Farm. It has made me a much calmer person and has taught me a lot of patience.”
She adds, “There is a space right outside my tent where I sit every morning and look at a tree that has withstood all the seasons. It drys in the summer, gets lashed by winds in monsoon, it nevertheless stays. The Farm has also taught me unconditional love. Doesn’t matter how long I have been away or how my mood is, my animals always have love and affection to give me.”
When Pooja first moved to her tent, her mom was in for a shock. She’d tell her dad, “Pooja has lost it.” But it has been 3.5 years now that Pooja has been living the hermit life and when her mom sees her walking the talk that is reassuring for her.
When Pooja’s dad visited The Farm for the first time he gave her a tight hug and told her, “I am really proud of you.” Moments like these are what reassure her that she is on the right path. Recently her brother got married at The Farm and this according to Pooja is the best compliment that she could have received from her family.
They have also initiated community supported agriculture at The Farm now where they provide a small patch of land on a 5-month membership to families. They can maintain the plot and cultivate their own organic crops on that patch of land. The families can also stay and spend a couple of nights in the space.
“Just today a family called me and told me that they harvested half kg tomatoes from their patch of land. In the end, it is not about the quantity of the harvest but the amount of joy that it brings to these people,” Pooja shares with me.
Talking about how The Farm impacts the people, Pooja shares, “I think anytime when you are in close proximity to Nature, your energy is bound to change. I have seen how the body language of people who visit the Farm changes noticeably. Recently we were visited by a couple where the wife was very much interested in all these activities but the husband wasn’t. But as he stayed he gradually got interested. But it’s the kids who really have a blast here. It is kind of joyful to look at the kids getting their hands muddy and having fun in times when we have gone so clinically and neurotically clean.”
The Farm has now taken up a zero waste challenge and they plan to become a zero waste space by next March. This is, however, is not as easy at it sounds and Pooja is continuously transforming her lifestyle as well. She makes her own soaps, scrubs, and toiletries. They are also planning to launch their own line of environment-friendly products. Only recently they launched a mosquito repellent cream.
“The aim is not commercial here. While a lot of organisations and people talk about going organic and eco-friendly, they never tell how. If we go chemical free, we need to have alternatives to replace the chemical laden products right? That’s exactly what we are doing. We are providing them with an alternative,” says Pooja.