home, home at last.

so who knows what any of this means but i appear to have found this
mangolandia i've been headed towards all along. i created this whole
"brand" and idea and email address when first i came to india as a
musafair (traveler) in nov of 2005. ostensibly to study ayurveda,
classical music, and gandhiji.

and now, 2.5 five years later, mangolandia has found mangolandia. its
a farm, an organic farm, headed towards a natural farm (meaning
fukuoka style), in maharastra. district amrawati. taluka warud.
village rawala. family of vasant and karuna futane. six acres of
mangos and then a lot of food forest type land and six acres of
gorgeous cathedral bamboo and then some straight row crop and as well.
and people who have drunk deeply of gandhiji and vinoba bhave, karuna
who grew up with the latter -- a hero for me.

when i came to visit last year for the shikshantar farming conference,
it was january and delightful. but no mangos. and i was hungry to come
back. and thery had invited me "swamiji, you may always return to eat
mangos". so here i am and so naive and childishly happy, taking care
of the trees, picking up the fallen fruit, building a hut in the
grove, eating mangos. carving mangos. juicing mangos. and its not even
proper season yet. things havent really begun -- just one or two trees
that are providing a few threshold ripe mangos every day. one or two
trees out of 400, out of 50 varities, most of them traditional
unbranded types.

so, mangolandia has arrived. and these kind people, well, weve fallen
in love with each other and its quite possible i could come and stay
here every year, be part of this simple community living honestly and
fruitfully with the earth, trying experiments with diet and natural
farming. fulfill our dream of a meditation center, mud huts amidst the
fruit trees. it could happen here.

so there's that. i just wanted to share. kind of a powerful thing. if
im always ahead of myself and moving forward, it means i should change
this email address pretty soon.

one love
ankur