Time for us to leave to Western Ghats,Waynad. Two of us started to Mananthavaady to check the problem with few installations done by group of volunteers earlier amidst the mountains for the adivasi people. Lighting their houses in such a beautiful place. We are excited. Excitement never comes alone. We had some tension same time as we are running out of time to catch bus due to rain and traffic. Rain and Traffic are best combinations in Bengaluru to check how patient people are. Luckily we managed to board the bus on time.

4:30AM, we reached Manathavaady. Half an hour early to the scheduled arrival. Complete dark, fully chilled with no trace of a single vehicle other than the bus we came in. Finally we walked to Amrita Ashram where we are supposed to stay. Beautiful room on terrace but no power in the room. Our fun time starts there. No charge in phones. 😛 After a small nap we met Hareesh ettan who is supposed to take us to the sites where the installation is done. After a tasty kerala breakfast in Indian Coffee house we went to the first location in auto. Now time to trek a small distance through the greens in small drizzle.

IMG_20160712_121915254Our first location comes in 20 minutes after starting to climb up. Completely burned monitoring device with no trace and blown out fuses welcomed us. Ranga is quick enough to analyze and said the possible solution and checked whole system. Replaced the fuses with 1.5 times higher rated than the system to avoid peak current during lightning times. Removed all the burnt ones rewired everything in an hour. Now its time for us to check how well the system is working. Asked local residents to check the lights. Perfect. Master hand did no wrong. All good. We configured the systems timer back to 6PM to 6AM. One of the 6 clusters is good now. Our journey started ahead now to the next cluster.

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Happiness of success from first one started driving us with more energy to next two clusters which are close to each other. Now its time for more fun with drizzle turning into rain and mud road into slippery slope. With all these its the tools weight also behind us. Out of all these the beautiful green with drops of water on it and the lovely smell. What a beauty. No pollution, no traffic nothing. Just we. Surprisingly we did not even realize that we reached the site after half an hour of climbing up. We quickly ran into the inverter room with the rain drops hitting us hard to rush us. When nature is doing its part outside we started doing our duty inside. Quickly checked everything in both clusters replaced fuses and made sure everything is good. Now time to watch the nature to soothe so that we walk down the hill without getting drenched in rain.

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Finally we reached our fourth cluster out of six clusters while eating lunch. Yes lunch in hills. Bananas, what else can we expect. The tasty bananas. Be like a monkey in forest to be best with nature. Now we finished with the fourth cluster check even though its working fine without any issues. Its always good to correct things before problem persists what the problem could be. Here ends our day one successfully. Now back to Mananthavaady town for lunch cum dinner followed by sleep in dark. Power was not back yet.

We are trying to light up there on the hill and staying in dark to do that.

How beautiful this example in life could be. Experiencing things, to love the work we do. The beauty of light can only be enjoyed only if we experience the darkness.

Day 2 : Its time for a higher place. Trek an hour at-least from the bottom of the hill. Such a silent path, just the sound of crickets along with the sound of water stream flowing down the hill. Mesmerizing nature’s magic.

IMG_20160713_124850188 Finally we reached the fifth cluster and noticed that the land slide which occurred recently covered around half of door for the inverter room. Since the system is all good, we explained hareesh ettan what should be done if there is a problem and we moved ahead to next cluster which is on top of the hill. Like mentioned earlier excitement never comes alone. The beautiful nature is getting disturbed with the mines digging there on the top of hill.

 

Nature should be enjoyed, experienced, to be felt but it shouldn’t be disturbed. Testing the patience of nature is not safe for us.

Finally we reached the next cluster, the final one with the most beautiful location among all. The view of the whole Waynad on the front and the great Banasura hill behind us.  The magic hands of Ranga worked quick and we finished there too in no time. I’d love to Ranga if he could remove and reconnect everything so that we get enough time to enjoy nature while we charge our phones through the batteries there. 😉

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Finally, our first target of work got finished and we started to trek back amidst those hills with covered greens everywhere.

A big bow to nature and deep satisfaction being in field of renewable sector and trying to do our part to nature.

 

 

 

 

Important person here is Hari ettan who is helping out the people there with his support what ever possible way and the one who helped us to run things smoothly. We thanked him and moved with a mixed feeling of missing the place with a satisfaction that we could be of some use. Thanks to boss for the opportunity.

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