Maybe, or most likely, many diaspories share the same sentiment as me when watching an Indian on TV while being in the West. No matter how insignificant his or hers appearance is I always tend to jump up call my mother and point as loony as possible to my ‘bloodbrothers and sisters’ whenever they appear on the idiotbox.
Indjuns, South Asians, the places where I lived orhave some sort of relationship with. Whenever they appear on the screen I want to roar: I’ve been there and tell everybody what’s it like, what’s it really like .
(Of course no soul could possibly tell anything real about anything but that should not stop any of us.)
Visheshur (I want to fly too) asked me some weeks ago what’s Auroville like. If it wasn’t for a briljant article about Auroville from one of the correspondents of the BBC I would probably never have answered his question the way I wanted too. When I read this article last night I had my ‘Hey Auroville in the news’ moment and decided to have my say on what I think Auroville is like.
“Some call it the giant golden golf ball, and the description is just right. The Matrimandir – literally the temple of the Mother – is a huge eight-sided almost-spherical building.”
I think it looks more like a spaceship. Some of the other visitors thought it was peculiar that while so much of poverty is in the near vincinty of Auroville a building consisting out of gold plates could be erected. Perhaps it’s the same ‘Ambani could have just bought her a few dresses instead of a plane logic’ but it still seems odd. As many other views on helping seems odd over here.
“It is surrounded by carefully manicured lawns, something of an achievement in arid southern India, and visitors are allowed in only by special appointment.”
It’s one of the things that makes the matrimandir defenitly worth a visit. The lawns around the matrimandir are absolutely lovely. Just sitting there watching that weird old golden globe does have it’s effects on you. It’s nice peacefull and quiet, at a distance.
“The mother was a French woman called Mirra Alfassa, who lived in nearby Pondicherry, a former French colony.”
This is probably one of the most irritating things of Auroville. No matter where you go you’ll see a picture of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother. Everywhere!
Smiling, sighing faces when almost whispering the words: ‘The Mother’. Seriously folks it freaks the jeebies out of me! They have some sort of god status here and next to a picture of Jesus or the usual Hindu deities it’s quite common to find a picture of a big smiling Mother or a bored looking Aurobindo.
“I asked my French guide whether he thought the ideals of the mother had been realised. “For an ideal society,” he replied, “you have to have ideal people, and we don’t have ideal people.”
I mean like duh. Who listens to his mother anyways. (Sleeping with my eyes open tonight mom)
“The locals think it is not fair. They are the ones who work full-time, and often for less than the Aurovillians get in maintenance grants. I feel like a slave,” one of them told me. “Of course they do provide us with jobs,” he said, “but it’s very difficult for us local Tamils to become members.” “It’s like being back in the days of the British Raj,” said another.”
One of the residents here told me about what growing up here was like. The division, the treatment, the anger. I don’t know enough to make a judgement it’s the fair part what troubles me. They need the jobs they need the money but when is it slavery/exploitations and when is it providing jobs. One women who works in one of the homes I stayed previously earned 75 roepie for cleaning the apartment, the dishes and the laundry. I was told that I was helping her by letting her clean my apartment but how on earth could a person be helped with a wage that low. The more you stay in India and the more you find out how much people actually earn the more it just seems absurd that they manage to survive.
“They are allowed to get away with whatever they like, including paying our children to have sex with them, and we are powerless to complain.”
It’s strange to see this one actually written in black (red) and white. I heard the stories but thought they were from a ‘oeeeh things that cannot see the daylight happen in that horrible horrible Auroville over there’. One of the boys here kept bragging about the fact that the foreign girls just love Tamilian boys when I inquired about his girlfriend(s). I kept thinking about a movie made some years ago about elder women having a blast in sunny Ghana with the local boys from Ghana. I still wonder if it would be right or wrong to tell him it’s nothing to brag about.
The author of the article has a more clear picture of what is written on the fence. It says: Access to the beach for Aurovillians and their guests only.
Somewhat giddish, people call it the white peoples beach (most often white people themselves.) Which is what it is, a white peoples beach. The Indians have to take another (rather dirty – keep your stuff with you guys, gosh!!!) road to get to the beach. It felt and feels strange going to that beach with my white friends, my foreign appearence and my Indian genes. Somehow it just doesn’t feel right. The beach is absolutely lovely though…
To be fair Auroville does do a great deal for the local community; it employs 4000 people, runs schools for local children and has reforested an enormous area that was once a barren landscape.
For my work I have to drive all the way to Kottakarai, a village situated in the outer ring of Auroville. I experience it as a true blessing to have the opportunity to take that road to my work (even-though I fell down several times). The nature is so breathtakingly beautiful. To drive past the rice fields, the waving palm trees, the forests, the temples it’s really a feeling I will never forget.
The roads are maintained very well, just like may other Auroville projects. I was literally shocked when I saw a school for children (blog about that one later) nearby the Matri Mandir. The ecofriendly projects are really really exciting as well as some of the architecture. Auroville is worth a visit in many ways but do keep your sceptical hat on. At distance things are not always what they seem.
Hope I answered your question Visheshur.
Make Idli Not War 
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