0:12 - VEDAVISION studio presents
0:13 - Dedicated to Srila Prabhupada who told us:
“… I want the world to see by our example that life can be lived naturally, peacefully if
one is self-sufficient with land, some cows and chanting Hare Krishna…”
Letter to Jagadisa: 74-06-18, Frankfurt
0:19 - [Texts on black screen]:
For the first time in human history, a smaller proportion of the global population
now lives in rural areas… states the United Nation statistics from June 2006
0:27 - The twentieth century witnessed the rapid urbanization of the world’s population…
As a result villages have been eclipsed in importance, as units of human society,
0:36 - settlement and traditions.
0:43 - 500 thousand villages in India and millions worldwide are endangered to vanish from the face of the Earth.

0:47 - LOST VILLAGE

01:05 - Aravade is a remote village in the district of Sangli, which is about 450 km South-East of
Mumbai.
01:24 - In ancient times, the region around Sangli was the capital of the Chalukya
dynasty, which ruled India.
01:38 - The soft, pink glimmer of the morning sun spreads across the trees and huts on the plains,as the sun edges up over the distant horizon.
01:42 - The lull of the night is quickly shattered by the symphony of birds and crowing roosters.
01:58 - This morning scene is common in Aravade, the hometown of Lokanatha Swami.
02:07 - Village life in India is inevitably bound with timeless cultural traditions and values.
02:17 - The majesty and splendor of untouched nature is exemplified in the simple life of villagers where joy and hardship merge in a struggle for survival and preservation. A struggle, which is crucial to the solution of ecological problems and social dilemmas in modern day society.
02:42 - Whenever Lokanath Swami travels around the world, he is happy to return to his home village, Aravade. "Your home is where your heart is", and his heart is here.
02:55 - Lokanath Swami's travels have taken him to many foreign countries and he observed inIndia as well that people, who live in big cities and industrial areas, need to experience a lifestyle free from stress, worries and anxieties. They are not any longer in touch with the beauty of nature and the comfort it affords us.
03:20 - This pure and natural lifestyle has a profound effect on a healthier and happier life.
03:28 - All that is needed is here - fresh air and clean water, fruit gardens, and vegetables and
wheat grow in abundance.
03:39 - These scenes look so beautiful and peaceful now, as they have been for thousands of years, but for how long will it remain this way?
03:46 - Many things have changed in Aravade. They are not the same as they used to be.
03:50 - To this effect, Lokanath Swami is in the process of documenting his experiences in a book, which gives a glimpse into village life 50 years ago.
04:24 - Here Lokanath Swami often remembers his childhood, when he was playing freely around and growing up in the lap of nature.
04:41 - At the foothills of the mountain he would come to herd the buffalos and cows. 04:49 - The panoramic view of his village, Aravade, was simply fascinating with its hills and clusters of trees. It is so important for children to be in close contact with nature.
05:11 - Before falling asleep, the grandparents would recite stories from the Puranas or
Mahabharata and then they would often dream about Sita-Rama and other great
personalities.
05:24 - During the school days the children used to address their teachers as "guruji". 05:34 - They were just like gurus and taught everything by their personal example.
05:41 - They were shown great respect and in turn they treated the children with affection.
05:51 - Nowadays the title of "Guruji" is just a formal name.
06:06 - At the beginning of the school day in the assembly hall, the children would offer prayers to Saraswati and the Almighty Lord,
06:19 - and with their blessings they would begin their lessons.
06:26 - The curriculum at that time was God-centered, not man-centered, and moral education was very much part of that curriculum.
06:37 - Lokanath Swami recently visited his school again and the only photographs he noticed in the classrooms were those of politicians and scientists. No mention is made about the immortal soul and the Supreme. This aspect of spirituality has been entirely ignored.
06:59 - Only secular needs are emphasized.
07:06 - The children would often cry before they went to school, because of their attachment to the parents.
07:18 - When the school was over they would run back to their homes and meet their
parents with long embraces. Family relationships were very tight, and filled with love
and affection.
07:30 - The whole village was like a united family. There was no disparity.
08:20 - If some leader would bring forward good thoughts and ideas for the benefit of the village, everyone would follow that advice.
08:29 - There used to be humility and humbleness in people. They respected each other.
08:48 - During the time of the Deepawali festival in the morning or at dawn, the young boys and girls would offer their respect to the neighboring elderly persons and receive blessings from them. In the present climate young people avoid the association of elderly persons.
09:08 - The feeling of respect has almost disappeared and cultural values, which are very important aspects of social life, are getting lost.
09:16 - [Text on black screen]: The village used to be like a united family. The very character of the village is gradually being lost.
[CHANGES IN THE VILLAGE]
09:40 - Over the past decades village life began to experience changes and transformations.
09:49 - Some of them are perhaps for the better, but some are being looked at with great concern and worries,
09:59 - as they impact directly the survival and shelter of millions of villagers.
10:10 - 80 % of the Indian population lives in small villages, but the number is rapidly decreasing.
10:21 - Is this a sign of progress or a sign of social decline?
[10:31 – 10:52 - Namdar Sanjay Kaka Patil]
10:53 - The very character of the village is gradually being lost. People are overlooking human values. The elders were never unwanted or considered worthless, but wise, with lifelong experiences, from which the young would always benefit.
11:14 - There was an awareness that although the old may have been frail they would always offer valuable advice to the younger generation and that was one of their important contributions.
11:27 - [Lokanath Maharaja]: Family doesn’t come together, the only time the family is together now is while watching the TV. My heart breaks, the heart breaking experience to see these changes.
11:43 - In the past a typical scenario would be one big home, one big family. The family unit is deteriorating. The very fabric of the family spirit is being diluted and the villagers are becoming more selfish.
12:09 - There is a kind of tension between the forces of ancient heritage and values on one hand, and modern values on the other hand.
12:23 - Because of their natural life style people were healthy and strong. The doctor in the local area rarely visited. There was no need as hardly anybody fell sick.
[12:39 – Sujata Potdar] In the past there was not so much need of clinics but now people need medicines and hospitals. People use to do more work and they do not have so many diseases.
13:10 - Even the elderly women were quite strong. They would grind grains by hand with a grinding stone while singing songs that were
related to the Lord and His pastimes.
13: 33 - These were traditional songs, called "lokgita". The grinding was heavy physical labor.
13:44 - Because of such exercise especially during the early morning hours their appetite would increase, food would be then digested nicely, and thus they would stay healthy.
14: 11 - The men were also very healthy and strong. This is naturally the result of eating self grown fruits, vegetables and grains, which give strength and vigor to the body.
15:10 - There was a lot of interaction with the cows and bullocks. The cow was considered especially valuable.
15:56 - People used gober gas, which is produced from cow dung.
16:04 - They used it for cooking, for fuel and to light lamps. This is self-sufficiency. There was no need to depend on an industrial network to get some light or cooking facilities.
16:23 - The villagers’ hobby used to be raising nice bullock pairs.
16:35 - Even nowadays they still have bullock cart race competitions. They decorated the bullocks with embroidery cloth on their backs on special occasions. The horns were also being colored in various ways.
16:51 - The cows were treated just like mother. On one particular day the whole village would gather and officially worship the cows and bullocks.
17:03 - Even Lord Krishna Himself decorated and worshipped them. It is an ancient tradition, which is still intact to some extent.
17:13 - However, people are losing their previous emotions and feelings toward the animals that are very useful in daily life and religious functions.
17:28 - The farmers would plow their fields in the early morning hours. The whole atmosphere was filled with the sound of spiritual songs. Sometimes when the farmers would not sing, the bulls would refuse to plow the fields.
17:47 - There is a mutual reciprocation between the
farmer and his bulls that are peaceful by nature, obedient and friendly.
18:18 - The bull is gradually being replaced with the tractor.
18:32 – Some farmers nowadays play passionate cinema music to overpower the noise of the tractor.
18:40 - There is no more peace.
18:44 - One may argue that by using the tractor the agricultural products increase in quantity, but at what cost?
18:57 - [Lokanath Maharaja]: Farming is getting commercialized, so to make money the farmer gets the tractor, sometimes he has to take a big loan, and sometimes they can’t even repay those loans and they end up committing suicide.
19:20 - [Vandana Shiva]: Today a 150 thousand farmers in India have committed suicide in areas where seed has been destroyed, where they have to buy the seed from Monsanto and buy it every year at very very high cost; and that high cost seed is getting them into debt and the debt is pushing them into suicide.
19:39 - The trading is changing rapidly as well. Wealthy merchants come, buy the products wholesale and store them, to release them for higher prices in times of shortage. These are the kind of tricks and tactics that are being used in the villages these days.
19:58 - Many different types of crops are grown in the field, which are "cash crops". From cash crops farmers profit more. Now in this area they have begun to grow tobacco and tea, because it makes more money.
20:15 - Farmers are losing interest in producing grains and vegetables.
20:24 - The traditional village culture was meant to benefit everyone, including the animals, with a healthy long life.
20:32 - [Written text on black screen]: Festivals used to be very special occasions. They facilitate the cultivation of the higher values of life.
[FESTIVALS]
20:49 - The knowledge and wisdom of village people are of great value for resolving the
diversity of conflicts and problems found in present-day urban civilization.
21:05 - Undoubtedly, the natural surrounding facilitates the cultivation of the higher values of life.
21:22 - In traditional Indian village life, spiritual festivals are of great importance and celebrated with much grandeur. Villagers gather from afar and participate in elaborate prayers and worship.
21:37 - Spiritual bonds are solidified as they all congregate on the banks of sacred rivers in a mood of total supplication.
21:47 - Visiting sacred places and spiritual festivals is considered going into the past thousands and millions of years, when modern technology did not exist.
21:59 - Even then people knew how to build enormous monuments and structures of beautiful and sophisticated architecture.
22:31 - [Lokanath Maharaja]: Relationship is a big part of life. In the villages you see more steady, more reliable, more long-lasting relationships. My mother was explaining how her marriage lasted for five days. Divorce, this is something that was unheard of.
23:45 - [Lokanath Maharaja]: Occasionally the whole village gets together. They all sit together and eat together like one big family. These are their loving exchanges, exchanging food, exchanging gifts. And towards the end they all sit in the rows and they are served sumptuous food. This food is good for body, good for mind and good for soul also. It is said, you are what you eat, you are what you eat.
25:40 - [Lokanath Maharaja]: Family that prays together stays together. This binds them spiritually. Spiritual bonds are solidified as they all come together on the banks of the sacred river Indrayani.
25:54 - Festival days used to be very special occasions, anticipated with excitement by the villagers long before the event.
26:05 - Nowadays these festivals have started to become merely social events.
26:09 - [Written text on black screen]: Rural-Urban migration: By the year 2025 slums will be everywhere. Current economic model, consumerism, can never manage the earth.

26:16 - Mumbai - home to approximately 14 million people, is projected by 2015 to be the planet's second most populous metropolis, after Tokyo.
26:30 - Since slums occupy just 3.5% of Mumbai's area, an estimate puts the number of people living in them at 400,000 per square kilometer.
26:45 – More than 6 million people live in slums today.
26:53 - Many also live dangerously close to the railway tracks, which cut through the heart of Mumbai. The class divide is starkest in cities like Mumbai, where million-dollar apartments overlook million-population slums.
27:11 - For all its glitz, Mumbai remains a place of inefficiency.
27:20 – At least one-third of the population lacks clean drinking water, and 2 million do not have access to any sanitary facilities.
27:43 [Lokanath Maharaja]: People from the village are running to the town, they are running to the cities, and the population in the cities is ever growing. Already more than 50 % of the people are in the cities and the projection is 20 years from now there will be 1/3 in the villages, 2/3 in the cities. And the situation is getting worse and worse. This is very unhealthy. There must be some promotion, propagation, education must be undertaken so that this running from village to the city could be stopped or minimized at least.
28:30 - Is this a progress to reside in a situation like this? This is very hellish.
28:42 - Outdated trains are crammed with an average of 4,500 people, although most only have a capacity of 1,750. It is not surprising therefore that an astounding 3,500 travelers die every year on the tracks, with hundreds simply falling from the trains.
29:09 - Nonetheless, every day hundreds move to the city to seek their fortune. One day all those millions of expectations will have to be satisfied. But for now, Mumbai, or the "City of Dreams", is living up to the very meaning of its name.
29:30 - [Statistics]:
- Almost 54% of Mumbaikars live in slums today.
- Another 25-30% live in chawls and footpaths, which leaves just 10-15% who live in
buildings, bungalows or high-rises.
- 200-300 new families come to Mumbai daily and most end up living in a slum.
- According to Professor R N Sharma (head of Urban Studies of Social Sciences):
"Mumbai is undoubtedly disintegrating into slums. By the year 2025 slums will be
everywhere."

30:05 - We are already more or less used to the conditions we are living in. But the first year when I came to Mumbai it was hard and often I used to run back to my home village but I have come back to this polluted place as our work is here. In a city we have no proper time for eating and sleeping and we always have to run here and there. In a village we just do our farming and stay peacefully with our families. But here nobody ask you anything, nobody here cares for you as family does no one cares if one is alive or death. In a village even a someone is your enemy he will help you in critical situations but you will not find anyone here who will help you.
30:59 – Things that we can experience in a village cannot be realized in cities. Today everyone is running towards the city but they are not happy. They could live very peacefully in village.
31:16 [Denis Harrison]: It’s the understanding of men’s relationship with nature that has to be rectified. Then everything will come back into balance. The fact is that the consumer model, the economic model of consumerism is in itself contradictory to the pursuit of happiness.
31:37 Yuvraj Patil - When we compare the standard of living today with that of 20 or 30 years ago, we can see a significant change. The people who have simpler need are naturally more contempt.
30:50 - [Denis Harrison]: Although we are told that by consumerism that will increase our happiness. Exactly the opposite is true because if you understand how the consumer
society works, it’s not based on achievement of happiness, it’s based on dissatisfaction
and remaining in the state of constant dissatisfaction.
32:11 - [Written text on black screen]: Villages worldwide are endangered to gradually
disappear. This diminishing factor is of great global concern.
32:45 - The morning mist, gently touching the hills and mountains in the valleys, slowly reveals the splendor and beauty of untouched nature.
33:00 - The lush green grass spreads like a soft carpet through the fields and forests as if inviting busy humans and animals to be at leisure.
33:18 - Bumblebees collect honey from a variety of colorful flowers, rivers are filled
with fresh clean water, and a large variety of trees and bushes carry fruits, berries and
nuts in abundance.
33:48 - Mother nature provides everything, including the raw materials people require for providing all the necessities of life.
34:03 - [Lokanath Maharaja]: 40-50 years ago while I was a child in my village we were just satisfied to be here but now there are different trends. People of the village are
moving to the town, town folks are moving to the big cities, big city people are trying
to go to the moon. So wherever they go they don’t seem to be very happy. But the
formula to be happy is natural living, or a simple living and high thinking.
34:54 – [Village Lady 1] – As our occupation is farming we are settled in a village and we love it there. We do not prefer cities as our main livelihood is farming. We do our household jobs and then we do our farming, we could not stay in a city. We are happy with village life.
35: 24 - [Village Lady 2] – We grow sugar cane, wheat, corn, grains, peanuts and vegetables – everything is from our fields. We never go to markets to purchase anything.
35: 47 - [Village Lady 3] – We only do farming and we do not hanker for more. Farming is the only source of income for us. We like to stay in a village very much because is in a lap of nature free of all kinds of pollution. There are beautiful farms here and very nice kind people.
36:11 – [Villager - Husband] Indian villagers are quite self sufficient. Villagers depend mostly on agriculture. All the food that is required by them for a whole year they get from the field so they are self sufficient.
36 : 24 - Early in the morning there would be sound of grinding grains and happy singing. The butter would be churned for cooking, and the food was being offered. Then the whole family would be sitting and eating together. Relationships are a crucial part of our lives. In the villages relationships are more steady, reliable and long-lasting
36:49 - The whole village is like one big family, depending on and supporting each other.
36:54 - It used to be like that, but unfortunately this is changing now.
[37:05 -Yuvraj Patil] In villages one can get milk, good food stuff without the risk of pollution. Village life is more peaceful and self sufficient with fewer problems compared to city life.
[37:26 - Shidha Patil] I can honestly say that I have attraction for a village life, with a clean air and pure climate one can actually progress by doing farming. Real life means to work in a fields, real nature lays in a villages.
[37:46 - Namdar Annasaheb Dange] India is a land of a villages, its entire economic status is based on farms. If the villages become prosperous then it wont take much time for a country to become prosperous as well.
[37:59 - Lokanth Maharaj]: I am doing what I could do to create awareness what is being lost in the villages and how we could preserve the villages, the values, the heritage …
38:15 - It seems that gradually the city ideas, concepts and the style of living and thinking, begin to dominate and defeat traditional values, the innocence of people, and the unity and purity of the village.
38:33 - Not only Aravade is endangered of being lost, but rather five hundred thousand villages in India and millions worldwide. This diminishing factor is of great global concern.
38:47 - There could be the best of both worlds. The best of villages and the best of towns and cities. But the rate at which things are changing and getting lost, one cannot even begin to imagine what the future will hold for us and our future generation.
39:07 - [Lokanth Maharaj]: Let’s not see this disappearing from the scene, the simplicity of the village, the purity of the village; we should all do everything within our might, all
the forces, so it is my appeal to each and every one of you.
39:28 [Written text on black screen]: Village life is and must remain an integral part of human society. Intimate connection with natural environment: Everyone’s only shelter on this planet!
40:13 - Despite the dramatic upheavals in rural communities, village life is and will continue to play an integral role in the fabric of human society. The sense of tranquility, the principle of pure living, the presence of farms and animals, the co-existence with nature, and the intimate connection with the earth and environment, remain the shelter for everyone on this planet.
40: 50 - Villages and farms, often hardly even noticeable on maps, are the cornerstone of human civilization. These villagers and farmers need all the support they deserve in their battle with the urban invasion.

41:11
producer, director, script GUNNAR REIMANN
editing assistant director ANTON “ADRIANO” RUDAN
shooting assistant director DUSAN VOJTECH
production manager IVELINA PETKOVA
cinematography ANDREI BOCHARNIKOV
script development STEPHEN RAISZ, IVELINA PETKOVA
narrated by EMMA THURSTON
music composed and performed by JIRKA MUCHA
editing ANDREI BOCHARNIKOV, STIPE KRISTIC, WILLEM MILICEVIC
a GUNNAR REIMANN film
43:35