Arrival in Auroville

I’m riding the bus back from town, Pondicherry. The driver deftly navigates the heavy traffic on the East Coast Road, a major highway. 

A merry dance of all kinds of transport happens noisily outside: pedestrians, handcarts, cycle rickshaws, autos, mopeds, motorcycles, taxis, private cars, trucks, buses and coaches. Cows, dogs and chickens take their chances too.

Inside, I feel snug and happy and safe. I turn to the open window and catch the breeze on my face, the air flows fast and cool. Closing my eyes I take in the familiar smells of India: vehicle fumes, jasmine flowers, street snacks frying in hot oil, cow dung, incense. 

It’s not a regular bus.  AUROVILLE proclaims the permanent lettering on the windscreen. Aurovillians and guests, such as myself can be conveniently shuttled into Pondy and back, a daily service with drop off points across the township. I boarded at the Solar Kitchen, which looked to be the most popular stop. 

I took the bus today out of curiosity, to spend a couple of hours in Pondicherry would be useful, sure, but mostly for the feeling of being on the Auroville bus. Last Saturday I was enjoying an early coconut at the busy crossroads by the State Bank of India ATM. The bus whooshed past with a loud parp!  I caught a glimpse of the travellers, cool and relaxed in colourful cotton separates, shopping baskets on knees, smiling and chattering. It looked enticing; I wanted to be on that bus!

The Matrimandir- iconic symbol of Auroville

It’s a typical Auroville experience: decades and now generations of ex-pat Europeans and Indians working together to provide a living experience that is clean, safe, comfortable and communal. 

Here in Auroville you can buy chic clothing from fair trade boutiques. Select your favourite blend of organic coffee beans and have them ground to order. Choose golden, buttery croissants as well as chappatis. 

Most days I get asked Are you working?  Auroville is a serious place, peopled by serious individuals with a serious collective agenda:

The purpose of Auroville is to realise human unity. Auroville wants to be a universal township where men and women of all countries are able to live in peace and progressive harmony.

To which end innumerable communities, projects, collaborations and businesses have been conceived and realised, spanning all realms of human endeavour: food and farming, transport, architecture, education, health, the arts, spiritual development. The scale and breadth of the vision is impressive and I like what I see. The sense of a structured, dynamic, international enterprise that takes its relationship with the local communities very seriously too.

It’s my second visit to Auroville, I spent a month here in 2007. A hot and humid March, a two hour daily session of ashtanga vinyasa yoga, supervised by Monica Marinoni and Chad Herst (who has since left to establish the Mission Ashtanga studio in San Francisco).  We practiced outside on a rooftop at Quiet, Auroville’s beach side natural therapy centre. Afterwards I would snooze in a hammock until lunchtime, enjoying the sound and movement of ocean air through coconut palms.

Guest capsules - Aspiration Community

Then I had little time or energy for anything outside the practice, Auroville was the final stage of my South Indian ashtanga yoga odyssey that had carried me from Mysore to Kerala to Goa. 

I couldn’t handle the climbing temperatures and spent most afternoons sprawled in a star shape under the whirling fan in my room at Gaia’s Garden guest house (extremely comfortable with a great communal kitchen). 

I had barely touched the surface of Auroville and knew that there was so much more to explore and hoped I would one day return. Through grace, this has been possible.

Two months into my current trip, I had settled in Gokarna but was feeling dissatisfied. One morning as I practised yoga on my verandah, overlooking a small farming plot I understood what was missing. I watched the villagers breaking the soil with heavy hand made tools, sweating under the sun. It was back breaking work, but they were engaged in something purposeful, which was what I needed. And I wanted to be in an environment where people had come together expressly to live and work together, a shared intention – a community.

Being early December, this was the start of the guest season at Auroville. It was likely that most guest houses would be fully booked. Nonetheless I logged onto my email with the intention of fielding some enquiries. I gasped, there blinking on the screen was a message from Aspiration Community, whom I had tentatively contacted back in September before leaving the UK.

Capsule interior

Incredibly, they were holding a place for me for and wanted to know if I was coming. Was I coming? Such a powerful synchroncity could not be ignored, I was coming! I made my way via the overnight train from Mangalore.

Since then I am exploring with delight some of the many activities on offer. I have membership of La Piscine and am enjoying daily dips. I have joined the Om Choir which I am finding profound and transformative. 

I have sung Earth songs by firelight under the full moon, discussed the metaphysical philosophies of Sri Aurobindo in French, cycled to the Solar Kitchen during a monsoon downpour and begun to read the works of the Mother, the spiritual creatrix who birthed Auroville as a model of social evolution.

My excitement and enthusiasm for Auroville sits alongside a growing sense of homesickness which is difficult to ignore, I am missing Glastonbury, my friends, my cat, my home and my community.

So as the days and weeks unfold I look forward to an active participation, journeying deeper into the Auroville experience, whilst holding loved ones in the UK in my heart, knowing that I will be with them again soon.

Blessings of light from the City of the Dawn

Jennifer

www.auroville.org

Gokarna highlights

Flower sellers outside the Mahaganapati temple

Leading bhajans at a friend's housewarming gathering, with an all Indian school girl percussion section.

A new sari: choosing in Metro Fashions, being measured for the blouse by a lady tailor with a treadle Singer sewing machine, being dressed by three Indian women, wearing it and feeling amazing; demure, exotic and very feminine.

One of two enormous wooden chariots

Being lulled to sleep nightly by the luscious, rythmic mantra of ocean waves rolling onto the shore, yards from my room.

Witnessing brahmin priests, Indian tourists, school children and amassed others taking a morning bath in the sea as the sun rises red on Gokarna main beach. Cows, dogs and crows joining in.

Mud hut for rent on Kudle beach

Yoga self-practice on my concrete verandah, overlooking fields. Cool, shady and undisturbed and exactly the right amount of space for my mat.

Spending time with Kate, a hardy New Zealander, travelling India for the first time. Straight talking and practical; also tender and compassionate.

Bathing tank at Shree Ramana temple

Cycling -  everywhere! Especially enjoying the dusty, bumpy village back roads as local children wave from their homes or run behind calling School pen!

Taking the long walk from town to Kudle beach and onwards to Om beach and back again as the sun sets, bathing the landscape in mellow light.

Light fades on the path from Kudle to Gokarna

Walking past the homes of priests and hearing the vedas read aloud. Glimpsing inside temples to see young scholars prostrating before statues of hindu deities whilst agni hotra sacred fire ceremonies are performed.

Taking a daily young green coconut, costing only fifteen rupees from stall all over town. First the delicious, nourishing water through a straw, then the husk is hacked open with a machete, scooping the tender white flesh into my mouth.

Bicycles are widely available

Playing with a family of young, sandy coloured puppies at the side of the road. Feeding them biscuits as they, wriggle, chew my toes and try to climb inside my trousers.

Collecting mineral rich, high vibrational spring water which gushes in abundance from the Shree Ramana temple.

Lord Hanuman depicted at Namaste Yoga Farm

Blessings

Jennifer

Custard and kindness

Typical music stall Gokarna town

My much loved travel guitar had a broken tuning peg, the damage likely happened on the journey from Kerala to Goa. It was unplayable and needed attention.  

I took it to one of the music stalls in Gokarna town, where you can buy drums, assorted percussion and Indian made guitars of questionable quality at very high prices. 

The stallholder examined it at length. Turning it over in his hands, squinting at the damaged peg through one eye, strumming the strings. He then rummaged in a plastic bag of assorted fixings, produced a dodgy looking substitute and assured me that his brother could fix it, for a fee of sixteen hundred rupees. 

I got the impression that he had never undertaken such a repair before but was bold enough to attempt it and wanted to score a high fee. So despite the guy’s noisy blustering and indignation I walked away.

It didn’t take long to locate an alternative, a skilled guitar technician at Furtado’s Music Store in Margao, Goa’s second city. A two hour train ride from Gokarna - neat. I packed an overnight bag and took the early morning Konkan Express.

Furtado's music store

The staff at Furtado’s were polite, knowledgeable and reassuring. I sighed as I told the assistant that it had most probably got damaged during travel and that I had been thinking I needed a hard case.  He smiled warmly at me, there was kindness in his eyes,

 

This just happens you know, things get broken.

Wow, in a flash of insight I realised that I had coloured the situation with negativity and self-judgement. So insidious I couldn’t see it.

I was blaming myself for the damage, telling myself that it was preventable and I should have taken steps to prevent it. This gentle man’s generosity had enabled me to see it and I preferred his perspective: things break, it happens, it’s ok.
 

The compassion of others has become something of a theme on this trip. The acceptance of others opens the space for me to accept myself and their kindness a reminder to be tender and gentle with myself.

I sat in an air conditionned sound booth, surrounded by beautiful guitars from the finest international brands, Taylor, Martin, Gibson, Fender. From the showroom on the upper floor came the calming sound of piano music, a schoolgirl practising Chopin for her grade exam. 

In this refined, exquisite environment I felt safe and relaxed and marvelled at my good fortune that this place existed, it was exactly what was needed. 

The technician wanted to change all six tuning pegs. 

All of them? Only one is broken 

I felt wobbly and tearful. How much was this going to cost??
 

It’s a better set, higher quality. Cost will be nine hundred and seventy five rupees to supply and one hundred for the work. 

I gaped. My guitar would be getting an upgrade for around fifteen pounds. An absolute bargain and a totally positive outcome.  It would be ready the following day so I checked into a hotel, conveniently inside the shopping complex. Clean white sheets, plump pillows, room service and cable ­television: I was going to enjoy myself. A copy of Indian OK! magazine sat invitingly on the nightstand, my set of guilty pleasures was complete!

The next morning I attempted to order my preferred healthy breakfast: fruit salad. The telephone in the room didn’t work so I shuffled to reception in my bath robe. 

No madam, fruit salad not possible morning time. You take toast and butter or Indian breakfast. 

I love south Indian breakfasts, but they don’t agree with me. At Anandashram in Kerala I had eaten so many I began to resemble an idli : white, spongy and round. I needed my fruit!

I dressed, slipped out of the hotel and took a seat in a very good restaurant just around the corner. Fruit salad on the menu, as a dessert Yes!  I hoped that they could prepare it as a breakfast dish for me.

Fruit salad possible now? 

Yes, now is possible. With ice cream?

No ice cream. Fruit salad only. And one masala tea without sugar.

The waiter wrote my order on a pad and sent it to the kitchen. I was quite hungry and imagining how great my breakfast was going to taste, sweet chunks of pineapple, juicy papaya, creamy banana and maybe some grainy chickoo too...

Ten minutes later a small bowl was set in front of me. Cubes of fruit swimming in a pool of rich, creamy goo. I went in with my spoon. A very sweet, milky custard. Quelle horreur!

I gestured to the waiter.

I asked for fruit salad only, what is this?

Fruit salad, madam.

There is some custard also?

Yes, this is how it is coming.

I can’t eat this, it has sugar inside.

This is how it is coming.

He left to attend to other customers. I was fuming with indignation and self-righteousness - I was so clearly in the right and the waiter was at fault for misintepreting my order. I contemplated dropping a twenty rupee note for my tea and walking out. But at the same time, I knew there was another angle, a higher perspective. There was no right or wrong, it was a genuine, mutual misunderstanding, a culture clash.

To my western mind, fruit salad means fruit and nothing else. But Indians love the sweet taste and use sugar liberally. The fruit salad was listed as a dessert. I remembered that I was paying an extra five rupees to have my tea without sugar. 

Still hungry, and feeling more peaceful, I waved the waiter over again.

I cannot eat this, what to do?

He swiped the bowl away, clearly annoyed, but with a professional demeanour.

Next time you ask for plain.

Thank you. How very gracious of him, I thought.

He resubmitted my order to the kitchen, I could hear him discussing the matter with the other waiters, they were staring at me through the serving hatch. I felt vulnerable and a little embarrassed. 

Everything is ok I told myself If the waiter is annoyed that is his business and he has a right to feel as he feels, I can be present with his annoyance and still feel safe in myself. 

My second, tiny portion appeared, I ate it gratefully and left a generous tip.

Back at Furtado’s my guitar now looked magnificent! Furnished with a full set of gleaming gold tuning pegs. I felt pleased and satisfied that it was now partly Indian! I enthused my gratitude to the staff, who told me I must come back and visit them again. I would indeed, I had my eye on an electronic shruti box and a pair of reasonably priced ankle bells.

This morning, back in Gokarna, I breakfasted as usual at the MahaLaxmi cafe at the main beach. A large bowl arrived, containing boulders of fruit, some grated coconut and a sprinkling of raisins. Even more delicious than usual!  I felt an enhanced sense of appreciation that I can have this every day, just the way I like it.

Blessings

Jennifer

www.furtadosonline.com