A few years ago, Vineeth Iyer, 36, was living with his wife and twins in a four-bedroom bungalow with a chauffeured car. He headed HR for a multinational. You would have thought life couldn’t get better. Vineeth thought it could. He first began to volunteer for Gandhi Ashram; then quit his job to head an NGO in Mumbai. And now he says, by next year, he will quit the city altogether and move to a remote village in the Konkan hills.
On one side, malls are getting bigger, pubs slicker, and cars faster. On the other, more and more people are growing sick at heart of the urban rat race and leaving for the hills and verdant countryside. When Vineeth joined an organic farming workshop last December, at least 15 of the 45 participants had left the city to start farms or were trying to balance both worlds.
Almost all the people we spoke to had very similar stories to tell. Of growing tired of the crowds, the mad rush of artificially urgent schedules, of toxic air and chemically-altered foods, of an overwhelming sense that life was rootless and meaningless.
More than anything else, they wanted a return to nature and simplicity. Vineeth and his family, for instance, have started to prepare — they’ve moved into a small flat and don’t use their car. They don’t visit malls, pubs and restaurants. They have cut back consumption.
And that, possibly, is the biggest feature of city life today — endless shelves displaying an endless choice of the next thing to buy. In Globalization and Culture, Australian social theorist Paul James speaks of how in the absence of other sustained macro-political and social narratives, the pursuit of the ‘good life’ through consumerism has become a dominant global force.
It is this that these people reject. It’s not easy. They have to give up schools, hospitals, electricity, and easy public transport. But in its place, they get clean air, healthier lifestyles, no stress, and no competition. They want a simpler, more sustainable way of living, and a more meaningful connect with life and nature. One big attraction for Vineeth, and >Sriram and Karpagam is the physical labour. “I didn’t know how to cut wood or grow a tomato,” says Vineeth. Karpagam insists on using an old-fashioned mortar and pestle.
In many ways, they are returning to their roots. Is it just idealism, I ask. “Perhaps it is,” agrees Vineeth, “but I want this ideal, I want it for myself.”
