An educational + leisure trip to Melukote was arranged by Abheek for Inspiring kids of 6th grade. The main criterion for this trip was to experientially understand fibres and fabrics which they are learning about in their chemistry section. Apart from this, they visited the Melukote Cheluvanarayana Temple and Rangantittu Bird Sanctuary as well.
Breakfast 7:50 hrs – Breakfast was at Bidadi for some famous Thatte Idlis. From there we continued our journey to Hosa Jeevana Daari at Chinakuruli road, Melukote.
Arrival at Hosa Jeevana Daari at 10:20 Hrs -- Hosa Jeevana Daari is a local body / a Society formed by the Mr. Surendra, under the mentorship of Mr. Jayaprakash Narayan. This society was inspired by none other than Mahatma Gandhi and has been training local people in the ancient Indian art of making yarn from cotton, weaving, colouring of cloth etc. Today, Mr. Santosh (son of Mr. Surendra) heads the Society as the Secretary. With the help of Mr. Manu, the children from Abheek were introduced to the society, Melukote, cotton and the processes that take place in making cloth without stitching.
Their journey with cotton started from ancient weaving techniques, through events under the British Rule, its connections with the Industrial and the Green Revolution, Gandhi’s influences on skilled labourers and modern age practices of cloth making.
A connection with Local Geography, biodiversity, weather and climate changes were also added. This gave the children and the educators of Abheek a holistic picture of our past.
We had some lovely hot Lemongrass Tea in between served by Mr. Suman. He was a local who has been given free education and trained by the Hosa Jeevana Daari Society.
The next stage was to see how the yarns were made and spooled into weave-able fibres. They visited the weaving and cloth dyeing centre to understand how the fibres were made and woven into a single role of fabric. The children also used the semi-traditional “Charaka” and spooled fibres into small rolls.
After this, they made a short visit to Melukote Cheluvanarayana Temple before it closed for the afternoon. Due to lack of time, they were not able to visit the Yoga Narasimha temple and the Akka – Tangi Kalyanis’.
Upon return, a sumptuous home-made (with organically grown vegetables) lunch was served. The standard Bisibelebhath, with Melukote’s famous Puliyogare, cucumber raita and curd rice were served. For desserts, a local form of sweet pongal was served.
Leaving Hosa Jeevana Daari – 14:45 Hrs -- Soon after lunch, the Abheek gang moved towards Rangantittu Bird Sanctuary and Srirangapatna. Reaching at 15:30 hrs. We had 2 hours to spend at Rangantittu. The whole group went for a boat ride and spotted many birds, crocodiles and bats. The highlights of this part of the journey were the crocodiles, who camouflaged themselves like rocks. Apart from the crocodiles, the children saw White Ibises feeding their newly hatched chicks. With the end of the boat ride came the end of our trip as well. The sun was setting fast behind us. We hit the highway, encountered some heavy rains in between Channapatna and Ramnagaram. During all this time, the children played games, listened to music and some even slept off for a short while. We finally arrived at Abheek Academy at 20:20 hrs thus marking the end of a lovely journey.
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