Our Native Village, the 100% eco resort set in 12 acres of land in Hessarghatta is an eco-lover’s dream. The resort is designed to take a traveller on a journey into the past, when life was simpler and far slower than it is today. Now, Our Native Village has a new, added attraction, the Soul Spa, which offersAyurvedic massages and new-age therapies like past life regression, taught by highly trained professionals.
The choice to rejuvenate the body or soul, is up to you. If you’ve forgotten how to spin a top, fly a kite, or play gilli danda — this is the place to discover these simple pleasures once again. You can learn to milk a cow, go on a bullock cart ride, spin pottery or just stroll through the resort and enjoy the gentle pace of life in a village. If it’s some pampering of body and mind that you need, you can visit the Soul Spa.
Activities are many and diverse at the resort. You could try your hand at organic farming, spend a day watching the cows graze as you recline in a hammock or wait for a bonfire night to dance under the stars.
Says CB Ramkumar, founder and managing director of Our Native Village, “The whole idea of starting this resort came about in an unusual manner. We had around 12 acres of landon which we had been farming for a long time. Though we had plenty of ground water, we did not have enough electricity to pump it up. That was when I began to dream of a 360-degree self-sustaining model of a resort, and that’s the dream we are pursuing today.”
The eco resort is often considered a pioneer in the world of sustainability, in the hospitality industry. Sustainable technologies have been used in all the infrastructure aspects of the resort, and this includesenergy, water, waste management, architecture and food , which is grown right there.
“Right from generating power to meet our energy requirements, recycling waste, harvesting rain water to growing organic food, we have looked into every aspect of the resort to ensure that it is self-sustaining,” explainsRamkumar.
The resort generates over 70% of its electricity requirements using a windmill and solar panels, which provides enough electricity for all the 24 rooms. The electricity is stored in a huge battery bank and connected to the entire resort.
Waste management is accomplished with the use of two underground biogas plants. The waste decays under anaerobic conditions and generates methane. The methane is then fed into the kitchen for cooking and the rest is stored in ‘bio gas balloons’.
This gas is then used as fuel to power a generator that produces electricity.
According to Ramkumar, even the mud that was used to make bricks for constructing the resort — was sourced from their land and made by hand. The bricks were then sunbaked, instead of being kiln fired.
Rain water is harvested extensively. Vegetables and lentils are grownon their own organic farm. The resort also has a swimming pool, but no chemicals are used to clean it. Instead, the roots of aquatic plants are used, which ‘eat’ up the ‘dirt’ in the pool, and oxygenate the water.
“I have grown up in an environment of prudence — small things like closing a tap or switching-off a light in a room,” says Ramkumar. “We were not allowed to waste anything. The problem in the world today, is over consumption. We consume our resources as though they are infinite. People, however, forget that there are limited quantities of everything that is available today and each resource must be used carefully. My resort is a step in that direction,” he adds.
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