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Smell of earth, a way of life
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Sun worshipper, yogi Josi Valliserry practises bio-dynamic agriculture in Tokyo. He tells Priyadershini S.about it
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Photo:Vipin Chandran
GOOD EARTH Josi Vallisserry with Mizuka
Josi Vallisserry makes heads turn, with his long dreadlock dangling from a head of sparse grey hair. He sometimes sports a colourful turban or wears a floral bandana. Rings in his ear and a casual shirt with jodhpuri style pants complete his quaint appearance. To him visual identity is unimportant. He is on a self-proclaimed spiritual path and practises a lifestyle he says is conducive to all human beings. A sun worshipper, a buhto dancer (avant-garde Japanese dance form), a yogi, Josi is a farmer based in Tokyo and his farming instincts take root in the natural habitat of Kuttanad where he was born and raised. At 61, Josi returns, much like the return of the native, to Kerala propagating organic, bio-dynamic farming, something that he is successfully doing back in Japan.
It is the Kuttanad of his childhood that has shaped his singular lifestyle. He recounts of how the punter rowing him to school would stop in the middle of the river and ask them to quench their hunger by drinking water from the river. “It’s not possible now? You cannot take in the polluted water,” says Josi adding that the complete natural water life of the region was disrupted by the first Allappuzha-Changanasserry road that divided it into two. The waterways were halted. Then the green revolution brought in the idea of two crops a year with the soil being over taxed. Spray guns showering pesticide supplanted the hand held baskets to wean worms off the paddy. Catfish and ducks were all symbiotic to the existing natural environ, but everything changed destroying the natural lifestyle, where the birds, animals and human beings subsisted in a symbiotic manner. “That is permaculture, now propagated by an Australian,” Josi says. It was there in the Kuttanad of his youth but vanished as he grew.
‘Cooperative feudalism’
Another influence that impacted him was the “co-operative feudalism” in the area. “I come from an orthodox family and was inspired by the wandering yogis from Mysore who were trapped in the dark nights of Kuttand finding shelter in homes that provided food and shelter. Ours was one such home. One yogi asked my father to become vegetarian and eat natural food.” And so yoga, wanderlust, non-attachment and natural way of life became Josi’s tenets.
Today, Josi, with his companion Mizuka, farm rice, wheat and buckwheat outside Tokyo but they also do miniature farming in the city. From a 3x 2 m of land the two grow a variety of fruits and vegetables. “We have managed to convert our neighbours into organic farmers,” he says wishing that each household here had a kitchen garden. “We have no idea of miniature farming,” he says lapsing into his altruistic philosophy of life and living. “With a handful of seeds and a place to grow them, you are employed for 24 hours.” And then comes his philosophy of love. “If you visit your farm everyday and communicate with your plants your heart will have more space than you can imagine to store love,” he says, claiming that his purpose in life is to find the truth about the emotion of love.
Josi owns a farm at Tirunelveli too, where peacocks and snakes, mongoose and plants, paddy and worms all live and grow, nurturing each other in a symbiotic environment where he says life’s truth can be realised. “When your thoughts, words and action are united then there is no greater yoga than that.”
He advocates a silent revolution, which is to “think, think and think about a good thing and make it happen.” It’s the power of the mind but you have to be 100 per cent truthful, he says, leaving you wondering about his casual non-conformism. Josi has no children because a child will make him possessive, will limit the reach of love. From the wet, greenlands of Kuttanad, from its natural rustic inner self, can a philosophy of life and lifestyle germinate? Looking at Josi you are left thinking when he clears it all by saying, “My greatest influence is that I grew up in a very secular place where the basic needs of life were there for everybody. I still have that security.” The security that comes from being close to the earth, like the life of a farmer. Josi can be reached at josiphd@gmail.com.
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