: Wednesday, January. 15th 2014 to Sunday, Dec. 19th 2014
: Ubhadanda Village, Vengurla, Sindhudurg district, Maharashtra, India.
Host village Ubhadanda is situated in
Vengurla Tehsil and located in Sindhudurg district of Maharashtra. It is one of
83 villages in Vengurla Block along with villages like Navabag and Vagheshwar.
Walk on tranquil and pristine beaches talk with fishermen. Observe and interact
locals busy in their daily routines with livestock, farming and fishing. Listen
to the sounds of a village preparing evening meals feels oddly intimate.
There’s a thrilling dissonance in hearing the familiar sounds of daily life in
a wildly unfamiliar setting. Nai Talim @ Ubhadana is to create and share a
culturally based knowledge based hub for worldwide natural learners, and other
autonomously learning communities and likeminded people. During the
British period, the sand on the level across the beach was called Danda. While
the geographic formation of Navbaag to Mooth village to this coast was
standing-parallel, the local term being Ubha, along with flat sand thus giving
the village the name Ubhadanda. The villagers are mostly Bhandari, Gabeet and
Christians. The common occupations are Fishing, Coconut cultivation, Mango
cultivation and Farming. The village has a 3km long sea shore and most people
do fishing. The fishermen worship the village gods Khadanaath and Shri Kepa
Devi. Fishermen only begin their fishing after offering coconut to the god Shri
Dev Jalbodeshvar. Earlier, there were around 13 Raapan (a traditional
community fishing) groups in the village but now the number has reduced to only
4 to 5 such groups. There are about 500 hundred boats, including both motor and
hand rowed boats.
There is an old story that,
Shri Usabkar a resident of the village and a great devotee of God Viththal,
could not go to holy place Pandharpur to take blessing of god Viththal, as he
had become very ill and weak. At that time, in the month of Aashaad, the god
himself had come to bless him. Thus a lot of people come to visit the Baba
Usabkar Viththal Temple on Aashaad Ekadashi with great devotion. Shri Usabkar
died 60 years ago, now his decendents, the Rajadhyaksh brothers take care of
the temple. There is also another story that states that there was a
tiger’s cave near the Vaghoba (tiger)Temple on Sagareshvar road. The story goes
that villagers had no trouble. But if there were any wrongdoings in the
functioning of the temple tiger would be sighted more often than if everything
in the temple continued with purity. Thus the village is a very well-known
religious spot . Village is also birth place of the famous cricketers
Sunil Gavaskar and Vijay Manjhrekar. The land of Nature has inspired too many
legendary Artists, Poets and Writersof National and International
recognition. Each moment lived here is A Story, A Poem, A Novel, A drama and A
Film. The thrust of expression comes to its ultimate destination here; where
sky is the limit!!! The scenic beauty gives you constant motivation to write.
CLICK ON IMAGE TO KNOW MORE
MUSING OF UNKNOWN INDIAN
CLICK ON THE IMAGE BELOW TO KNOW MORE CHAI with BHARGAV
Vishven and Bhargav, children of
Dhirendra and Smita Soneji grew up on an organic farm in Gujarat. As children
they played every morning and evening. Language and social studies were learnt
from books published by Eklavya,school books and many other books. Their
learning of maths, science and agriculture was totally connected to the
activities on the farm where they worked every day during the morning hours.
Since their parents had set up a workshop on the farm, they learnt repairs and
maintenance f tools and machinery on the farm itself. Trainingin rural
appropriate technology was taken at Vigyan Ashram in Pabal near Pune. Today
they continue to work on the farm and run a thriving enterprise of farm
processed foods and farm appropriate appliance production and services which attract
advance booking orders. Click on the following link to read more about Bhargav and his family.
