well,

heart-felt thanks to all of you for the understanding/encouragement given to us. Because of extraordinary support given by you, we did manage to achieve 'harvest today, deliver tomorrow' for quite a few people.

We started with the goal of delivering 200 odd boxes - 25 to bangalore and the rest to chennai.

We managed to deliver all the boxes in bangalore by noon thanks to the tireless efforts of one of our passionate friends/supporters Anaha, Rakhi, and Jaishankar. The first customer to open our bok and chew on our carrots (less than 12 hours after harvest) was Dr. Samar Singh in Bangalore.

Chennai was a different experience though, we had to deliver from Ambattur to Palavakkam - Our truck reached Chennai around 8 AM in the morning and we had 2 delivery teams (headed by R.Venkatesan) starting the delivery process from that time till 10 PM. In spite of our best efforts, we were unable to complete all the deliveries. We even had one of our dear friends/well-wisher Krishna, who performed over 10 deliveries till late in the evening. We faced typical problems like people not answering their phones, wrong-contact numbers, improper addresses, not being at home, and the usual difficulty of locating addresses in chennai.

We did not complete deliveries to around 30 homes, if you are one of them - please accept our sincere apologies. We are getting our non-delivery lists and are planning to distribute the rest of the boks today, free of charge. All our boks are in Nungambakkam - and 2 delivery vehicles will be used to deliver them today; we recognize that traffic today will be more painful, but we are committed to honoring our responsibility. A few friends, notably Vijaykumar has volunteered to pickup the boks from Nungambakkam itself.

We started with a dream, and with your active participation, it has become real, Thanks.

After completing todays deliveries, we will take some time to review what has happened and plan on the future course of action. We'll keep you informed. In the meantime, when you get a chance, do visit us in our houseofkodai.

well,

so far, we've received orders for around 150 boks.; thanks to everybody who have called me/emailed me. We’re halfway there and have 12+ hours to reach our target of 300.

for the others, yet to decide, here a few vital statistics:
* bok contents: 7 items (total weight of 5/6 kgs)
1. Carrots (with the greens)
2. ChoCho
3. Radish (with the greens)
4. Hill Plantain
5. Lemons
6. Cilantro
7. Coffee sampler
* cost: Rs. 300 (100 for packaging/transportation - 200 for the produce)
* all the produce is grown organically, here in the hills of kodai, without any chemicals

other than convincing people that im now an organic farmer; our biggest challenge is logistics - a few of you are helping us by taking boks in bulk and distributing it to co-workers/family/friends. We could use a few more volunteers to take bulk boks (any number above 1 is considered bulk for near/dear distribution.

Please spread the word around.

first harvest

hi folks,

after 2+ memorable years of living in the houseofkodai - we finally are going to have our first/second organic harvest in the next few days :-)

living here is peaceful, healthy, and fun. peaceful, because its quite (most of the time its your own thoughts making all the noise), healthy, because of unpolluted air/water and fresh (pluck from the garden type of fresh ;-) organic food and fun because we've been having tons of friends visiting us all the time. While we'd love for all of you to come and join us in our simple-rural-lives; I guess, its not something all of us are destined to do. We figured, if you cant come to kodai - we'll just have to box kodai and deliver it to your homes ;-)

we have always believed in organic farming - and started 6 months ago, after the griha pravesam of our new house (namma veedu) was complete. We tried potato as our first crop; generally one gets 10 times the yield with potato (we planted 500 kgs - expecting 5 tons and got 50 kgs instead ;-) it was certainly a learning experience; we kept the potato for our home consumption, and i'd have to say its' the finest potato we've ever had (if you doubt it, do visit us and we'll roast a few for you)

we're quick learners, we spoke to a few been-there-done-that friends and planted again - and guess what, we're going to have a good harvest this time. of course, a new challenge has come up - what to do with the harvest (this time the yield will be more than 10 times - over a ton). We figured that selling these in the regular market would be a wasted effort (since it would get mixed with the regular stuff and people would never get the opportunity to appreciate it). After a bit of thought and discussions, we have decided to home-deliver it to people, who can enjoy this.

our plan is simple,
"what we harvest today, you eat tomorrow"
every month, we harvest our vegetables/fruits on a Saturday, clean them, pack them in a box, transport it overnight, and get it delivered to your homes the next-day on Sunday. We're calling it the "bok" (box of kodai); it will contain a combination of organic fruits/vegetables/products - few of which will be harvested from our land and others (only organic) from nearby farms/forests. We will maintain a contact list of people interested in our efforts, and update them before every harvest with the cost and contents of our bok; we then prepare a delivery list and get our boks to your homes on Sunday.

This weekend, we are starting the bok-deliveries in chennai (because thats where my grandmother lives ;-). The first bok is going to contain radish, cilantro, mountain-banana, lemons, carrots, cho-cho (squash), and a bit of coffee - its going to weigh around 5 Kgs and cost Rs. 300/-

We need atleast 300 regular customers in chennai to make this an economically feasible, self-sustainable effort. Please, spread the word, inform your friends and family about this, and have them email their contact details (name, mobile, postal-address) to bok@houseofkodai.in - so we can deliver boks to them this Sunday, 24th January 2010.

hi folks,

lets start with the introductions – its just you, we and us - embarking on a journey into the past for the future ;-) now, that the formal part is over; its time to get not so serious:

rather than rant about the past – which is just the usual story of a city-boy driving away to become an organic farmer in the hills of Kodaikanal. After the, all so common, been-there-done-that ride that life offered – one particular aspect stood out – nothing ever happened as planned; it was always different – way worse or way better. From this, anybody could infer that I was pretty lousy in predicting the future; so I just gave up and stuck to the simple practice of
“not planning anything and accepting life as it happens”.
this philosophy has transformed a deeply confused urbanite into your run-of-the-mill organic farmer. let me stop ranting about the past now ;-)

this part of our lives started around 2 years ago – to move away from broadband-connected civilization to mud-walls/tin-roof/no-electricity/hole-in-the-ground toilets/… to building a home for all of us (namma veedu, as it is named means “our house”). Built passionately with complete ignorance; 80% old-fashioned (mud, stone, recycled wood, clay tiles) 20% modern (cement, concrete, electricity, telephone, internet !). Good news, namma-veedu was formally opened (griha pravesam) about 6 months ago. That event could easily fill a 100 pages with readable words.


yup, this is where we live - nice isnt' it?

I guess this is good enough for the first blog…don’t you ;-)

bore you later,
- hok