Hippies of the Urban Village, Auroville

by Tulika Upadhyay (India)

Making a local connection India

Anyone who has travelled to South India agrees that Indian Railways has done a fine job in creating the East Coast Route. As we woke up to the second morning of our journey, we knew we were getting close to Chennai, the capital of Tamil Nadu. The state receives winter showers between November and January, increasing humidity in the area. After arriving at Chennai, we took a quick bus ride to Pondicherry that is around fifteen kilometers from the village, Auroville. We were a group of six architecture students who had come to learn from the sustainable leap occurring at Auroville. Pondicherry has developed as a town for tourists and we chose to stay here and explore the mixed culture of French and Tamil. That day, we visited the Promenade (rock) Beach that calmed our tired bodies. We enjoyed the roadside delicacies, roamed the streets of white town and observed parade at the Gandhi memorial. The next day, we hired three Vespa and began our journey to Auroville along the East Coast. It was a quick and smooth ride to the village. We could see the local people vagabonding carelessly through daily routine. They carried certain aura that was driven by the purity of the place. Upon reaching the visitors’ center, we quickly headed to the infamous Matrimandir. The path was installed with local creations and intelligent use of recycled and waste products such that it took us an extra hour to reach the view point. Upon reaching, we finally witnessed the massive ball of gold plates that stood sturdy against the clear blue sky. As we discussed the possible loads on its columns, we realized that the entire structure floats in air and is supported by four circular columns. We kept pointing to intriguing elements until it was late and time to leave. The beauty and history had taken upon our minds and we returned to visitors’ center very quietly. Everyone wished to see the shrine from the inside but time failed us. We interacted with our college graduate who now belonged to one of the communities in Auroville. He helped us understand the vision of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother and how Auroville has been sustained by the indivduals who followed their ideology. We learned that one needs to identify center in his life and only then can one find the path that will lead him to it. We later visited food and gift shops that were manufactured and curated by communities themselves but what drew us the most were the simple structures built for shops out of adobe and sheets. The structures were easy to build, deploy, low cost and made out of local materials making them SUSTAINABLE. After interacting with few other locals and with the setting sun, we left Auroville. We visited the Art and Craft Village in Pondicherry (a local art exhibit) and later tried Cashew Uttappam for dinner. At night, we walked into the streets of old town observing the colorful houses with remains of beautiful rangoli that Tamils make daily at the doorstep as a ritual to feed rice powder to tiny ants. We also came across a temple in every street that had intricately decorated shikharas with figures of mythical creatures and gods. On our last but early morning, we headed to Paradise beach, often confused for an island. We had dressed up light and wore turbans as the weather was humid and realized we looked like hippies from Auroville. We had some breakfast at the beach and went to Sri Aurobindo Ashram. The house of spiritual salvation was once a place of solidarity for Sri Aurobindo, who after his years in politics took upon complete meditation and writing. It consists of a central courtyard where the Samadhi of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother lies. The books are available at the ashram book shop in different languages for the readers. We lastly headed to Auroville to visit the cultural center, Savitri Bhavan and Unity Pavilion that are built of passive technology and balanced the carbon footprint which shows that the villagers understand the need for minimalism and is the reason that Auroville is capable of such sustainable and spiritual leap.