Having been born to the legendary Mr Peter Pullambra, it is not surprising that Joy, from a very early age in his, life would be inducted to a kind of education fairly different from the one most children receive. Being close to nature and appreciating the rich harvest that nature offers had instilled in him a keen sense of holistic education. Joy’s schooling was from Saint Joseph’s Pilvai. Some holidays would mean travelling to Kerala to meet his grandparents and extended family. Haven’t railway stations always held lots of appeal, especially to children! Packed to the core with people from all across, the riot of colours, the shouts of hawkers and yes those nondescript railway bookstalls on wheels which always have loads of books and magazines across all genres, right from education to pilgrimage, travel to Sciences, general knowledge, Comics and what not! Reading was a passion inherited early in life. But these exposures to railway bookstalls opened Joy’s eyes to the plethora of variety of the printed word.
Similar travels would happen every weekend to and from Ahmedabad and books picked up from the bus station bookstores were the only means of entertainment in these solo travels by bus. It was during this period that Joy began to take an active interest in subjects beyond those of his academic interest like environment, harvesting, travel and the like.
Joy pursued his HSC from Saint Xavier’s, Ahmedabad in 1990. At this juncture, he was most keen on joining aviation as a career option. But his frequent travels during the weekend to the school run by his father exposed him and attracted him greatly to the beauty and tremendous scope of rural India. Mr Peter Pullambra by then had successfully established a system of education beyond simple classroom studies. Joy was inherently close to and deeply involved in farms, harvesting, cattle, biogas plants and several other such environmental initiatives right from his school life. These drew him closer to nature and opened his eyes to the vast potential of rural India and the immense opportunities which lie untapped in these sectors.
During Joy’s higher studies in BSC and MSC from Gujarat, his involvement with the school and boarding school deepened. He began to appreciate the true meaning of a holistic education imparted so successfully by his father. All this while, his knack of reading various genres picked up from railway book stores remained. Joy by nature, was always somewhat of an explorer, always looking for things beyond his cognitive understanding and reaching out to topics he had no education on. These only opened his mind and sharpened his thirst for knowledge.
During one such train journey, he happened to pick up a magazine named Down-to-Earth, where he read with increasing interest about a family growing its own vegetables in small plots of land and in terraces. It was also during this time that the school students had once approached Joy and expressed their interest in kitchen gardening. No further inspiration was needed. The ultimate realisation that a family can very well be self-reliant from the produce of their own kitchen garden was one that directly struck the right note. And in the year 1999, Joy along with his students began work on minimum expenditure farming along with cattle rearing. In years to come, this would be one of the key sources of food and milk for all the borders at the school. Later, fodder for cattle would also be found alongside other vegetables.
During his higher studies, a visit to the library in MSU where he was pursuing his Master’s in Applied Physics introduced Joy to Biomass Gasifier and this was the beginning of his undying curiosity to pursue this subject more. Joy was so intrigued by this Science that he went on to venture into other renewable sources of energy like solar, wind, tidal, wave and the like. The result of exploring these areas of study had one key learning for Joy; that our rural communities could be made completely independent of commercially inclined institutions. And that these rural sectors can be empowered as independent stand-alone commercially stable communities.
While all of these began to attract Joy more and more towards exciting prospects, he has introduced to Dr .S K. Philip at the Applied Physics Department, (M.S.U.) where Joy was then pursuing his higher studies. Through Dr Phillip, he was introduced to Dr T.K. Chaudhary and under his aegis, Joy began exploring other renewable energy sources while pursuing photovoltaics at SPRERI, Vidhyanagar.
Inspired by his mentors and always motivated by his visionary father, Joy began formulating plans for initiating sustainable development projects at the school. His dream had been to install a rooftop solar system for the school hostel; however, the cost then was quite prohibitive. Alternately, biogas (GEDA) and solar cooking both found financial assistance and willing executers. In the year 1998 – 99 the first biogas and solar cooking system were successfully installed for the hostel mess.
Joy’s dream remains to install projects which would bring in the concept of sustainable development in a holistic manner. As of date solar photovoltaics seems very promising and we should see its successful implementation shortly.
Today Joy stands tall in his dreams of a better tomorrow for his school and his immediate community. He has successfully steered ahead the wonderful initiatives initiated by his father. Today Saint Joseph’s School, Khanusa can boast of milking cows, biogas plants, small plots to grow vegetables, rainwater harvesting, solar light and fan, reuse of greywater and many more of such wonderfully environmental friendly and sustainable initiatives.
So where to from here? When we threw this question at Joy, he with his ever-humble smile, replied that he wishes to take such noble initiatives beyond the boundaries of Saint Joseph’s School, Khanusa. Success to him is when such work becomes a nationwide movement and many replicate and benefit from similar initiatives. He says success means taking forward his father’s dreams of giving children of today a holistic education across the length and breadth of India.
With this dream in his eyes and his confidence along with his humility, Joy looks ahead to a more promising tomorrow where children and nature coexist and where the environment is an inherent part of formal education.