Cycle of Learning. Anne Fitzpatrick

and interviews

      This book features the stories of people I met on my visits to Kodaikanal in 2001, 2004, 2007, 2008, and most recently in 2013. On the second visit, I interviewed some of the children and young people there through an interpreter. I have tried to leave these stories as close to what was relayed through the person interpreting as possible. Permission has been given by those profiled to use the stories and photos that are included in this book.

      Permission to be included by name was also given by the people I’ve written about who I met during my bike ride. I met so many other wonderful people that I was not able to include or track down everyone who was part of my journey. I have changed the names of people who I wanted to include when I wasn’t able to locate them to ask permission.

      Geography and chronology

      The book follows the format of diary entries from my cycling journey. They are snapshots, days or weeks apart, along the route, based on the daily blog I posted online throughout the year of my ride.

      Acknowledgements

      I would like to thank the Fathers, Brothers, Scholastics and staff of Sacred Heart College who have hosted me during my trips to Kodaikanal and also the students, supporters and friends of PEAK and Grihini who have welcomed me into their worlds and shared their work and knowledge with me.

      I also would like to express my gratitude to the people who supported me on my bike ride of 2005 and 2006. New and old friends hosted me, people I met along the way encouraged and took care of me, and friends and family supported me in so many ways via phone calls, email, text messages, thoughts and prayers. Thanks also to all of those people who generously donated to the Cycle of Learning trust fund. I have not mentioned by name all the wonderful people and communities I visited, but I am grateful to each and every one of you.

      Without the assistance and support of Colleen Fitzpatrick, Christine Knight, Bonnie Fraser and Steph Davis this book would not be possible. My late aunt, Jenny Wagner, provided invaluable work in editing the manuscript for this story. Warm thanks go to Linda Nix from Lacuna Publishing who has been wonderful to work with. I really appreciate how you have taken up and contributed to this cycle of learning.

      Lastly, I would like to acknowledge Father Prem Kumar – the person who made my initial three months in Kodaikanal the world-shaking, eye-opening, perspective-spinning time it was. He guided my reading, discussed ideologies and spirituality with me, and took me with him on his work, to his masses and to visit his family. This is where I learnt the most important things from him through his actions – his respect of others, compassion for any person experiencing oppression, courage to speak out, a willingness to debate with an open mind, and a warm sense of humour. Over the years, Prem has remained a good friend, and continued his work with the poor and oppressed, most recently as country director of the Jesuit Refugee Service in Afghanistan.

      In June 2014, Prem was abducted by an armed group at a school he worked with in Herat, western Afghanistan. At the time of publication of this book, no group has yet claimed responsibility, and Prem’s family and friends continue to wait in uncertainty for news of his whereabouts and well being.

      The author and the publisher will be donating a proportion of the proceeds of the sale of this book to support the Grihini Program in Kodaikanal and the work of the Jesuit Refugee Service.

      For Maureen Thomas and Jenny Wagner

Prologue

      The rush of wind and the roar of traffic drove me to pedal harder and harder along the path to work. My new bike, with a wonderfully light frame and pedals that my shoes clicked into, took me to speeds I’d never experienced before.

      I felt unstoppable. This new bike made me feel like I was flying. The clunky blue bike which I’d retired with the purchase of this smooth and speedy silver one had served me well for years, carting me across town, between university, casual jobs and social events. It was slow but steady, towing me and my changes of clothes, books and day’s food supplies wherever we needed to go.

      Six months ago, I had been pushing my way up South Road on Clunky Blue while mulling over my plans for the coming year. My brain has a particular gear that it slips into when in steady motion: I get my best thinking done when I’m coasting along by train, bus, foot or bicycle.

      As I slowly pushed up the hill, dodging the broken glass near the curb, I realised I didn’t want to go straight into a teaching job after my study. I was almost finished a Bachelor of Education, and happy with the plan of being a teacher at some stage of my life, just not yet. I wasn’t ready to be tied down to a job, a place and a routine.

      I slipped past the line of cars waiting for the lights to change and considered saving up some money to do something else for a while after graduating. Maybe a bike ride. I could carry a tent. How far would I go? I could go part way around Australia. No, that would be just stupid. Why go part way around anything? I’d have to go the whole way! And, if I did that, I could raise money for PEAK, a program in India where I had spent time volunteering a few years ago. I could visit schools along my ride and tell the students about the young people I met in India, and how education was helping them.

      I made the decision within a few kilometres of congested South Road. The next year I would ride my bike around Australia and raise money for PEAK.

      The wheels started turning. I travelled back to south India in the mid-semester break to meet with PEAK once again. I started contacting schools, community groups and the media. I tracked down equipment and a new, less clunky bike. This sleek, silver Shogun made cycling so easy that, as I raced towards work that afternoon, I felt like Around Australia was going to be a piece of cake.

      The grin on my face lasted just a few seconds before a flash of movement in my peripheral vision warned me to slam on my brakes. I wobbled on the spot with the hybrid terror of being centimetres away from riding into the path of the car and not being able to get my feet off the new clip-in pedals.

      I finally crashed to the ground, landing sandwiched between the bitumen and my bike. As I untangled bike and body parts, avoiding eye contact with the driver of the car, the enormity of what I was planning to do settled back on my shoulders, a load heavier than that piece of cake I was just contemplating. I had three unfinished assignments to complete in the next week, only $3000 in the bank to cover food and accommodation costs for the coming year, scores of letters, emails and press releases to write to get my fundraising organised, a chronic lack of sleep – and somehow I was expecting to ride this bike solo and unsupported around Australia. I couldn’t even ride it to work without embedding bitumen into my knees and grating strips of skin from my forearms. What was I thinking?

Introduction

      In 2001, after almost a year of backpacking through Asia, I found myself in the Kodaikanal hills of Tamil Nadu, India. Most of the people who unload from the buses that start in the plains and then zigzag through the hills to chilly Kodaikanal town are tourists from around India. Honeymooners in particular come for the very un-Indian cool climate, views of green, unlittered hills, pony-rides and home-made chocolate, and for the chance to take a row boat out onto man-made Kodai Lake (something that probably seems more romantic in theory than the splashy, hard-to-steer, ill-fitting life-jacket reality).

      Marker showing location of Kodaikanal region in Tamil Nadu, India.

      This town of Kodaikanal, or “Kodai” as it is often referred to, is named after the region with the same name in which it lies – a chain of hills with over one hundred villages tucked into its pockets, some close to the zigzagging roads, some in places so remote that they are almost impossible to reach.

      The Kodaikanal area has been settled for thousands of years and, in recent centuries, been subject to waves of immigration. Pulaiyairs and Paliyars, known as Tribals or Adhivasis, are considered the indigenous people of the area. Adhivasis make up about 8%