For this 50-year-old physical education teacher from Kannur, there is no such thing as waste. “Nothing is really waste. These are things that we buy with our hard-earned money and carefully wrap to take home. It’s only when we throw it away and neglect it that it becomes branded that way. When we have no need for it, we don't even wonder how it contributes to the environment around us,” says Jinal Kumar who teaches at the Government Higher Secondary School in Chelora. Perhaps it is this outlook on life that allowed him to convert 15 cents of wasteland near his residence into fully fertile farmland in the span of four years.
Originally from Thiruvananthapuram, Jinal had worked in various schools in Kannur before joining CGHSS a year ago. He admits to being greatly influenced by the school's Eco Club activities. Under the Central Government programme, coordinators of the club annually distribute an amount of around ₹5,000 among teachers to partake in environment-friendly activities like farming. In 2016, after moving to the NGO headquarters in the district that was alotted to him by the local government, Jinal explains that he was taken aback, “When I first went there, people were not even able to tell me where it is located because it had been covered in waste. It had become like a designated area where people would come to throw their waste. And thanks to vegetation growing through the building and a whole population of street dogs, it seemed uninhabitable.”
But from his childhood, Jinal has grown up hearing that Earth, once cleaned, has the ability to renew itself. So he got to work. First, he cleaned up his own quarters. In the very same year that he moved in, he personally counted almost 25 buckets of water that was being distributed among the residents being thrown out as waste. After he began to clean the land, he used this water for the 49 banana trees he planted that now stand proudly in place of a garbage dump. Today, it has become unrecognisable with banana trees, cassava plants, a range of fruits and vegetables in addition to a few chickens that feed on the waste. He says, “I distribute produce from this nursery free of cost to the people who live here. And for those who come from outside, I offer it at a nominal amount.”
So, does PE teacher Jinal take these lessons from the soil into the football ground? “Some of my students have never even heard of the vegetables and plants that I grow. When I asked one of them where a tomato comes from, they answered that it can be found in the fridge! I don’t blame them, they are far removed from this way of life. But I try to teach them whenever I can. When I used to coach football, the students and I would farm in the area for at least half an hour afterwards. It became a ritual of sorts later.”
