If you can imagine a 20 sq km area transforming from a barren expanse of red sand and sparse vegetation into a haven of creative thought, divine consciousness, and sustainable living in a few decades, you have successfully imagined Auroville. This township in TamilNadu was created for the sole purpose of realizing human unity. When I visited the place in December 2018, the creative impulses for writers, artists, and photographers, mind-blowing architectural conversations, and the way the entire world converges here took my breath away.
It is tempting to write a travel article that brings in Puducherry, Auroville, Mahabalipuram, and the ECR or the East Coast Road clubbed into one. However, this simply will not do any justice to this experimental township called Auroville that is around 150 kms south of Chennai and around 14 kms north of Puducherry. We drove to Auroville from Chennai and the numerous water bodies along the route with the roaring sea to the left put us in the right frame of mind for the two days that we had ear-marked for our stay inside the township.
The city of dawn
When asked why he opted to place Auroville near Pondicherry (now Puducherry), Aurobindo writes that this was the site ‘appointed by those who are Beyond‘. He called the site as a ‘place of retreat, my cave of tapasya, not of the ascetic kind, but of a brand of my own invention‘. The name, however, is from the French language where ‘aurore’ is dawn and ‘ville’ means city. The City of Dawn was founded by Mirra Alfassa and architecturally designed by Roger Anger. Most of those who have read about Aurobindo will know that Mirra is also The Mother, and she was the one who thought about the conceptual layouts for the township.
What matters is the experience
Yes, Auroville has everything that any travel enthusiast wishes for – architectural finesse, food that sounds like quaint and exotic music to the tummy, locals with their friendly smiles, graffiti to stare and wonder, and of course the unique signature of the place so far as meditation, yoga, and massages go. All this is besides the workshops, seminars, and impromptu conversations on everything from divine consciousness to the way Aurovillians think.
‘It is the overall experience that matter,’ said one of the functionaries who we met, ‘and the experience is better when one stays in the township and isn’t just a hurried day visitor.’ She is right because this township isn’t ever in a hurry. The meandering red sand pathways go around in their strange eccentric way with helpful natural landmarks that many outsiders use as a navigating guide because conventional sign-boards are few and spread apart. This, of course, can be a bit unnerving for the typical city dweller who is accustomed to a rush of signboards all around… and all kinds of ISPs to take care of online navigation. Despite problems with connectivity, one doesn’t feel lost… I believe this is because when one is in a ‘place of an unending education, of constant progress, and a youth that never ages’ and where the caretaker Aurovillians want the place to ‘be the bridge between the past and the future’, the possibility of fear remains subdued. Just a night or two spent within the township strengthens the feeling that this is where discoveries from without and within may be possible. But then this isn’t a place for those who fear the hot and humid climate that stays on for a large part of the year. We got to know soon enough that a lot of foreigners return to the climate their bodies are accustomed to during the summers and sometimes return during Indian winters. They may of course be doing this to get back to their normal jobs and earn enough to be able to sustain their prolonged stay within the township.
A place like Auroville is rejuvenating for both the mind and the body. I say this because the nearly 2500 residents 52 nationalities and the thousands of tourists who have been here believe this is to be true. Frankly, a 2 or 3 night stay in the township can hardly ever ‘rejuvenate’… however, the easy-going friendliness around, eating food grown by organic farming, the unhurried yet disciplined culture, the spirit of volunteering that is evident, and over 50 acres of 15 botanical gardens with over 250 species are enough reasons to fall in love with this place. Does this mean there is nothing else to SEE? I mean, the typical Indian tourist wants to SEE things, click selfies, and generally buy handicrafts, agarbattis, khadi stuff, soaps, health products and a lot of pamphlets and free booklets. Yes, they’re all there, so don’t worry you will not be returning home empty handed from this cash-free, non-religious place that ignores creed, culture, colour, and nationality.
What do we SEE here?
Most tourists are surprised to find that Matrimandir is just one of the things that one can visit while inside Auroville. Yes, this 29 metres tall gold-plated dome with a large golden near-spherical with red cement lotus petals that has inside it a beam of sunlight falling on a crystal ball is a marvel that captures one’s imagination. However, the very concept of Auroville is about living in ‘conformity with India’s highest ideals and aspirations’ and this is reason enough for the Indian government donating more than $200,000 to this township every year, and UNESCO has protected the township since its birth in 1968. This idea is strengthened when one goes around and discovers neighborhoods here with Tamil, English, French and Sanskrit names like Aspiration, Arati, La Ferme, Auromodel and Isaiambalam. The element of harmony is seamlessly blended with every big and small facet here.
Auroville, by the way, is luckily placed on a plateau region with its maximum elevation of 32 m (105 ft) above sea level located in the Matrimandir area. The website informs us that ‘the annual rainfall average is 1,200 mm (47 in) mainly from the SW monsoon (June to Sept.) and NE monsoon (Nov to Dec) with a dry period of approx 6 months. The average maximum temperature is 32.2 °C (90.0 °F), average minimum 20 °C (68 °F)’.
Once a person has been to Matrimandir, where the entry is ticketed and a visit needs to be planned in advance, one looks around for other attractions beyond this structure that has been given a lot of names like a huge golf ball, an alien spaceship, a massive ferroro-rocher like building. Photography inside Matrimandir isn’t allowed because this is a place where even casual tourists are introduced to the cleansing effect of meditation. But once person leaves the precincts of Matrimandir, the choices range between being awed by the 120-seater Cinema Paradiso (where we spent an evening watching a play performed by the kids who stay here) to visiting the Kala Kendra for art activities or Arka for a wellness focus and an introduction to concepts of divinity. There then the Savitri Bhavan, the centre for spiritual education, where we spent a few hours browsing their picture gallery to understand the vision of Aurobindo and The Mother. The township also has 6 Peace tables made from the wood of 300 years old eastern black and walnut trees and one of these is in the Hall of Peace since 1996. Auroville has a lot of varied workshops, lectures, and classes on yoga, art and craft, and sculpting going on but one needs to know how and when to book a seat in one of them in advance.
Yes, there is also the Bodhi beach and the Repos beach, which is the breeding ground for Ridley turtles. During our stay here the water was choppy and the beaches were deserted.
What about food in the township?
On one of the days that we were here, the township celebrated their Africa Day and we had a nice time tasting a whole range of delicacies that our taste buds loved. For the more conventional, there are cafes and restaurants like Marc’s Café, Greek Café, Tanto Pizzeria, La Terraza, Kopi Bar, and Dharma Swasti for everything from chocolates and wood-fired pizzas to any form of conventional food that we are accustomed to. I must mention here that the cheesecakes at Auroville Bakery and Boulangerie were as good as the ones we had while we were roaming the streets of Paris a couple of years back. The food at the Solar Kitchen is sourced from their own organic farms and is tasty as well as healthy.
One does have the final option of hopping on the hired scooty or motorbike or cycle and zipping over to the more elaborate café and eatery sections of Puducherry. If you’re adventurous enough do take a ride in the local bus because this is where you would experience the truth of this part of incredible India.
Have I missed anything vital?
Yes… I had almost forgotten to tell you not to miss collecting every possible pamphlet or booklet that has information on Auroville and doesn’t cost anything… this is how one can fill in the blanks of memory lapses while writing a long piece on a place. You see, I just realized that one of these pamphlets mentioned the original vision when Auroville was being planned. This insignificant looking piece of printed paper told me that the basic plan was about four zones radiating from the centre. This is why even though conventional roads don’t exist inside Auroville, everyone knows the general direction of the ‘residential’, ‘industrial’, ‘cultural’, and and ‘international’ zones. On the periphery is a green belt with a lot of forests, farms, botanical gardens, water catchment bunds, a seed bank, and areas for growing medicinal and herbal plants.
I have also not mentioned that Kalki Kochelin was born in a big house near Auroville near Repos beach and that almost every old Tamilian house in the area is photogenic.
Auroville, the experimental ‘universal township’ that had delegates from 124 nations during its inauguration ceremony 0n 28 February 1968, is here to help humanity move towards ‘its splendid future by bringing together people of goodwill and aspiration for a better world’. The concept of Auroville as a centre for spiritual excellence would not have been possible had Aurobindo not met Vishnu Bhaskar Lele in 1908. The two discovered their first spiritual experience together by sitting in meditation and not thinking. According to Aurobindo one needs to throw thoughts away from the mind until it is capable of complete silence and he writes:
‘I flung them away before they could enter and take hold of the brain and in three days I was free. From that moment, in principle, the mental being in me became a free intelligence, a universal mind…‘ As I stood there inside Savitri Bhavan reading this text, I knew that a visit to Auroville is one way of finding the truth of existence. Auroville enlightens.
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Note: This travel article was first published in Travel Links – Nov/Dec 2020.
More pictures clicked during this trip…
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Arvind Passey
Written in October 2020
