The Adyar Poonga. My recent assignment led me to Chennai to work on a draft restoration plan for the Poonga. The Poonga is a stretch of 58 acres of an inland wetland in the midst of a dense urban area (www.adayarpoonga.com).
As I learnt more about the Poonga, she began to acquire a personality for me. Caught between the push and pulls of the environmentalist, the restorationists, the government, the High Court and the citizens, she is like an adolescent abandoned orphan, staring with her large doe-eyes, wondering what her fate will be. Some want her protected for life in a half-way home, some want to deck her like a bride and marry her to the City and some wish to foster her in an institutional environment. Each side vehemently pushes for their opinion. But, pray O' Gentle muse, who will ask you of what is best for thee ?
As I keyed away, in a quiet, dark small room, on the massive tome which was to be her horoscope, many a times the Poonga spoke to me. Sometimes she cried, at times mocked, sometimes there was disgust and anger. At the rarest of times, she presented herself, very coy in her glorious green dress, a blossom tucked away behind her ear, thick black kaajal outlining those bright wide eyes, afraid to smile. She would play around me, the sounds of her trinklets were a pleasant disturbance, then she would look over my shoulder to the laptop screen, reciting some silly Limerick, the child in her would not be bogged down. And yet there was the nascent flowering of this muse, a hope of her intense feminine beauty beckoning me to find her a suitable groom. So that one day she may bear forth many offsprings spawning from her womb.
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In introspection about my relationship with the world, I am led to a thesis put forth by William R. Jordan III. In his book,' The Sunflower Forest: Ecological Restoration and the New Communion with Nature', ( More info) he discusses environmentalism and its application to restoration ecology. Jordan brings up the issue of our existential shame. As we discover our existential unworthiness, we realise that as a person we are not omnipotent. We are actually dependent on all that around us - a world of differences and limitations. It leads to a deep sense of Existential shame within us – but not guilt. A shame arising from death, necessity and dependency. Religion and the Arts give us a way to deal with it; the rituals gives us a deep sense of connectedness and completion that we achieve in our belonging to community.
Communities have to be created by protocols and practices of culture, art and religion; its mythologies and theologies and often demanding religious practices. Culture provides us with path for dealing with the instrumentality of life (the technical and economic basis) and the intensification of shame that these bring about when we confront our human-ness.
Restoration is looked upon as a substitute for rituals, engaging in a performance to giving back to nature what we also take away. In this view, the process is not just an environmental conservation but a deep process within us to redeem our existential shame.
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The proposal was presented to the Chief Minister on 10th August amongst much fanfare. And as we invaded the Poonga with our electric golf buggy, star tortoises on display and a few trees planted in the bosom of my Poonga, she kept silent and just watched our performance.
And so, I have returned to Mumbai to enjoy the hot and wet August in anticipation of my forthcoming assignment. But I am still left with a sense of ambivalence towards the Poonga. Did I really listen to her whilst planning her future ? I connect to my existential shame in the helplessness of my limited human role of not really being able to help her. But I put my hope in the community to which I belong, which will choose a path for her. The Poonga is quite a adamant survivor and she will fight till the very end.
She is the embodiment of all the 4 qualities of the Divine Mother - Maheshwari, Mahakali, Mahasaraswati and Mahalakshmi. I am privileged to have made her acquaintance.
