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Who we are

We are an Indian family running a small ashram on our land and a rural music school in the near town of Bailhongal.

Our ashram

It is on four acres of land in the hilly countryside of North Karnataka and comes under the village of Gajaminahal (Belgaum jilla, Bailhongal taluq). It has a long tradition of hospitality. People come to us for various reasons and some of them decide to stay for some time and work with us. We had many foreigners stay with us moved by the desire to understand Indian culture and spirituality, or in need of a confortable place to stay while working with local NGOs, or simply because they found the beautiful hills around us the ideal place for bird watching. Many Indians keep coming to our place to have their meditation retreats, to take refuge in hard times, to shoot documentaries on us, to have a chat and a cup of tea, to participate in the religious activities of the ashram, to do service, to rest. Through our music school called Bhairavi and located in the taluq headquartes, in Bailhongal, we wish to give rural people, especially the young, an opportunity to know and study Hindustani classical music. Many boys and girls had to drop the idea of studying music as they have to travel from their village to Bailhongal and from Bailhongal to Dharwar. Not even in Belgaum, which is the biggest city in our district, there is a school teaching a full range of courses on Hindustani music.

Why are we here

The ashram was created around 30 years ago, by order of a religious guru, who sent a couple of his devotees to live close to that village whose 300 families of Bedara Nayakas (ST) had chosen to follow his guidance. As this area can produce only one crop yearly, after harvesting around November, most families move either to Goa to work as masons or to the jungle of Ulivi to fell trees. They take their children along if there are no grandparents willing to take care of them at home. So the children are able to attend school only few months a year.

Our principles

The income of the family in the past thirty years has come from farming, diary, and from the donations of friends and relatives. The choice not to accumulate money or property, and to live sharing constantly with others both work and its outcome in a spirit of communion, is inspired by the spiritual ethics of the Sharanas, the twelfth century Shaiva mystics of North Karnataka. The legacy of such spiritual tradition is still very much alive in our area where the concept of Dasoha is not only practised in a religious context but permeates the local culture. The basic idea is that resources must be accessible to everyone and the income they generate must be redistributed. The importance of work as service is such that it has found expression in the famous aphorism “work is worship”. Therefore everybody must be given a chance to work and the fruits of his/her work must produce benefits for others as well. In today’s world our choice to remain poor can be seen as sheer madness. But we need to remember that if one part of the Indians are enjoying the fast growth of the tertiary industrial sector, most of the others, who are farmers, are sinking deeper below the poverty line, and the loss of hopes has brought too many of them to end their lives. At the same time farmers are getting organised and start understanding that through traditional and natural farming it is possible to grow crops without having to invest large amounts of money in seeds, pesticides and fertilizers. Traditional village life also teaches us many ways to share resources, efforts, and benefits.

Chi siamo

Siamo una famiglia indiana che gestisce un piccolo ashram su un terreno di pochi acri e una scuola di musica classica hindustani per la popolazione rurale del distretto di Bailhongal, nello stato del Karnataka, in India.

Il nostro ashram

E’ su circa quattro acri di terra ai piedi delle colline, nei pressi di un laghetto. Siamo nel Karnataka settentrionale e, più precisamente, nel distretto di Belgaum e nel taluq di Bailhongal. Il villaggio più vicino, al quale siamo legati, si chiama Gajaminahal e ha 300 famiglie tutte appartenenti a una stessa comunità, i Bedara Nayaka, una popolazione di origine tribale. L’ashram ha una lunga tradizione di ospitalità e condivisione. Tra i molti visitatori, che arrivano per motivi diversi, alcuni decidono di tornare o di fermarsi e vivere per un periodo con noi. Chi arriva da paesi diversi dall’India si ferma da noi per approfondire la conoscenza della cultura e della spiritualità locale, chi viene a lavorare con le ONG della zona trova da noi un posto tranquillo e confortevole per un lungo soggiorno. Alcuni sono attratti dalla natura quasi selvaggia e dalla possibilità di fare passeggiate e birdwatching. Dal nostro distretto e dai distretti vicini arrivano gruppi e singoli a fare ritiri di meditazione e yoga, a volte arrivano giovani in difficoltà che hanno bisogno di un posto in cui riflettere. Da Bombay e da Kolakatta è arrivata una troupe che ha girato un documentario su di noi per la televisione di stato indiana. Dai villaggi vicini arrivano giovani e vecchi, donne e bambini, che ci danno una mano nei lavori e partecipano alle feste dell’ashram. Gli anziani vengono a fare quattro chiacchiere. C’è sempre una tazza di chai per tutti.

La nostra scuola di musica, Bhairavi, si trova nel capoluogo amministrativo (taluq), la cittadina di Bailhongal. L’abbiamo fondata per dare un’opportunità a chi abita in campagna, specie ai giovani, di conoscere e studiare la musica classica hindustani.