Rahdebaba, Rajpur, Northwest Uttar Pradesh, India

Mastram, at Niramayam Farm

Patriarch mixing water in with cow manure for biogas system at Punarvasu Farm outside Pudubidri, Karnataka, India. A pipe connected the biogas chamber to the kitchen and they used this as fuel for cooking. But I don't think it got quite hot enough as they burned wood daily in the kitchen too. Unfortunately, I never saw the biogas in action for I never entered the kitchen as this was a very traditional Brahmin family with strict rules and I as a foreigner/non-Hindu/non-Brahmin/occasional meat-eater could not go into the kitchen or the puja (worship) room. I ate on on a lower step on the floor than the others and could not serve myself food. My plates and dishes were kept separate at all times. The father spoke neither English nor Hindi so our verbal communication was limited to "full water." Although he was 70, he engaged in intense physical labor in the humid heat - spending a few days carrying 20 lb baskets of ash atop his head. Several times a day, he would don the white mundu and perform puja - in the worship room and around the tulsi/holy basil plants. He wore the Brahmin string around his torso. On the backs of his legs, long worms were visible through the skin. His wife told me that old me that her farm's typical annual income is about 10 to 15 thousand rupees a year (about $225 to $335)