DIALOGUE AROUND SITESPECIFIC ART ACTIVITY: Project by- Mantu Singh

The Adventure of " BABLI " by :- Mantu Singh

Day 1 :-

On day 1, I explored the place, The Turmeric Field, The Berry Plantation , The Potato Field , The Pumpkin Field .....

1. This is Pumpkin Field

2. This is Turmeric Field

3. This is Berry Plantation.

4. This is Potato Plantation .

These are the fields of Babli - the pure natural vegetation. These farms are not even treated with any artificial pesticides , they are only treated with natural pests.
The Analysis came down to an end with what to use under my project work.

Day 2 :-

Second day, I invested in exploring the Babli's Canteen and thinking about the assests that can be utilised to design my work.

1. This is the Babli's Canteen.

2. These are the walls of Canteen, made out of the Bamboo Sticks.

These are the skirtings of the wall that need to be handled with extra care as they are fragile.
I also interacted with the people of Canteen and explored the storage house of Babli.

3. He is Mr. Sahadebe Gupta , Chef of Babli's Canteen.

4. This is the Rice Storage house of Babli's Canteen.

5. Then we Enjoyed the delicious Lunch of Babli's Canteen.

At the end of the day , I planned my work and came up with the blue prints of the proceedings .
I planned to work on the skirtings of Canteen's Wall.

Day 3 :-

I collected turmeric and put them under sunshine to get it dry so that they can be pasted over the skirtings of walls of canteen.
1. Turmeric under sunshine.

2. Pasting Dhan on the Skirtings.

3. Collected Cinnamon Leaves and started weaving them on the skirtings.

It took a couple of days to weave them . This was the task that needed to be done very carefully as the skirtings were fragile.
Also I gained more knowledge about the place from the very trusted source Aditeo Da- The caretaker of the place , also the associated person of a NGO.

Me with Aditeo Da

Day 4 :-
On Day 4 , I continued with the weaving of the leaves adding with the pasting of turmeric , weaving potatoes ,berries and Carrots on the skirtings.

1. Weaving Continues ..

2. Weaving Continues with Potato and Carrot along with pasting of Turmeric.

3. Work in Progress..

Finally the work was almost done and was left for the final touch up.

Day 5 :-
Day 5 was the final day for the work. All the final decorations and finishing were given to the work on day 5th , it was the day of collecting and taking away the good and bad experiences after spending 5 Days in Babli.

The work answers the following questions :-
The agriculture of Babli.
How is it grown and produced ?
How is it transported to Babli's Canteen ?
What are the crops they cultivate and the final products ?
How the crops are cultivated ?
How do they store the crops in Babli Campus ?
How do they use the crops in their daily life ?
How do they cook the food. ?
What are the processes that they use to produce the crops ?
How each and everything is done by the villagers ?
Who are the workers in Babli ?
How is it maintained ?
How organic farming is done ?
In this complete work , I am trying to represent the whole process of harvesting and cooking. The final product of the harvested crops are like :
Rice
Potato
Turmeric etc

I have also tried to cover up some most common recipes prepared in Babli’s canteen.

Knowledge sharing by Chef Sahadebe Gupta

The Recipes of the Delicious Servings of Babli's Canteen.

1. Mug Daal

2. Supto Recipe

3. The Delicious Rajma

4. Seem ki Sabji

5. Arhar Daal

6. Unfried Mug Daal

Me with the executor of all these recipes :- Sahadebe Da : Chef of Babli's Canteen (in Middle )

The learning outcomes and knowledge gained after spending five days in Babli are mentioned below :-

• Total area is of 48 bigha.
• Out of 48 bigha , 38 bigha is for the campus and 10 bigha is not much used.
• 10 bigha of land is divided into four parts.
• 5 bigha of land is not used for cultivation since it has exhausted its fertility.
• 4 ½ bigha of land is used for rice cultivation.
• Rest of the part has pond’s.
• The 38 bigha of land which is the campus area has 13 bigha of fertile land.
• On the fertile area of 13 bigha compost farming is done.
• The farmers usually use organic fertilizers.
• They produce local rice.
• The underground water level keeps dropping from time to time.
• Initially the water level dropped from 60ft to 80ft in 16 years
• Then in last 10 years the water level has dropped from 80ft to 120ft.
• The water supply goes from high ground to low ground.
• There are two submersible pumps which is 120ft deep.
• The farmers cultivate different types of crops every year.
• This year the farmers have cultivated crops like :
• Rice
• Potato
• Turmeric
• Ginger
• Mangoes
• Three types of lemon
• Bitter gourd
• Jujube
• Pumpkin
• Chile
• Spinach etc
• The farmers don’t use pesticides , instead of pesticides they use cow dung, potassium , bonemeal and neem water.
• The campus has an approx. number of 20 workers in total.
• 4 workers look after all agricultural work.
• Some part of the harvested crops and its seeds are stored and reused next year as raw seeds.
• And the rest of the harvested crops are stored and used for cooking.
• These crops are stored in different store rooms which is situated all around the campus.
• Babli has 5-6 store rooms for keeping crops.
• The crops which are harvested are used in the canteen of BABLI.
• The canteen has two cooks.

THE FINAL WORK