Pondicherry and Auroville the Grand Duo

Grandfather & Granddaughter travelling to explore Pondicherry and Auroville.  What more of a grand duo can you get than that? ❤

I had been away from home for three months and to my delight my granddad, the man who I believe passed the travel bug onto me (we are also both the year of the tiger and tigers do love to fiercely explore) came to visit.

I mean he had just been trekking in Nepal, something he regularly does, still it nice to come the extra miles and take a trip with me.

He arrived into Bangalore and came to the community I was living in, I was really happy he could see the community first hand and get more of an understanding about the work I was doing there. I had slight anxiety about him coming but he was an asset to the community while he was there and everyone was happy to meet him. So all was groovy and the two of us packed a bag, took a very bumpy sleeper bus and made our way to Pondicherry.

 

Now for those of you who aren’t familiar with Pondicherry, it is a sleepy beach town…in India, just off the bay of Bengal.

The streets are very European in comparison to the rest of the country and there’s almost no litter lined roadsides (amazing!!!) This is because of the post-colonial French influence. The beach reminds me a little bit of a sad costal town in the UK. You just kind of stand on the less than average promenade and look at rocks and water ( which you can’t access, at least not from anywhere I was ) But other than the beach it’s a really nice place and I defiantly recommend it to Indians who want to get a glimpse at what Europe is like but don’t want to travel so far.

The post-colonial French influence makes for many pretty pictures

We chose to visit Pondicherry so that we could go to Auroville. So upon early morning arrival into Pondicherry we took a rickshaw to Auroville visitors centre (should cost u about 300 rupees)…we got there way before anything in this section opened but this was good as it gave us a chance to read all the information boards and  get a bit of background information to the Auroville concept.

 

“Auroville wants to be a universal town where men and women of all countries are able to live in peace and progressive harmony, above all creeds, all politics and all nationalities. The purpose of Auroville is to realise human unity.”

— Mirra Alfassa

 

The above quote was said by Mirra Alfassa, a lady known as ‘The Mother’

The Mother and Sri Aurobindo started this town and an ashram in Pondicherry with the central theme of their vision to evolve human life into a life divine.

Now when you first hear about Auroville it seems like such an odd place, especially if you’ve grown up in the western world. In my opinion it is an odd place but also it has some really beautiful ideas and is worth exploring, even if just to know that there are many ways of living outside the main society’s grip.

There are now around 2,500 permanent residents of Auroville. The estimated number for 2017 was 10,000 so I guess it’s not doing as well as wanted however according to a 1982 Indian Supreme Court ruling, Auroville is in “conformity with India’s highest ideals and aspirations.”

The Indian government donates more than $200,000 to Auroville every year, and UNESCO has protected the township since its birth in 1968. So besides the lack of residents (it could house up to 50,000 people) it is still a place looked to with enthusiasm for growth.

When the visitors centre finally opened we were advised to book our slot at the Matrimandir straight away (slots are booked for the next day, so it was lucky we planned to spend the night) We were nearly first in line at the hall where booking takes place, the line behind us was massive by the time the doors opened. We got our tickets and went to the viewing point…we may not have been allowed inside today but we could look from the outside. At this point I still had no clue what this giant golden round building was, to me it looked like some kind of fancy space ship.

The Matrimandir from the viewing point

Gdad and I booked ourselves into some accommodation nearest the visitors centre (it wasn’t very cheap, it was really nice though and food was included) after having a nap we researched about the Matrimandir, took a walk and made friends with some people over dinner. A lady we met had been an Aurovillian for 15 years, I asked her what made her stay and she said it was probably just comfort, she said Auroville was much different before and is now focusing a lot on tourism, but still she found home there. One of the guys we made friends with was in the application process for becoming a permanent resident of Auroville, it’s a very tedious process and requires a lot of time and money. I didn’t like the fact money was required and started to feel like maybe Auroville was some elite club or even a cult??

Auroville accomodation

The following morning after breakfast we packed our bags and made our way to the Matrimandir, I’m going to have to write about it in another post otherwise this will be way too long! (I’ll post at the same time)

I ate the most delicious gluten free chocolate cake I have ever eaten in the whole entire world!!! It was from the bakery café next to the visitors centre.

Gdad and I left Auroville after a very peaceful morning and made our way back to Pondi, this is when we explored the town, “Sister sister please take a photo with us” was what I was greeted with at the rocky beach from a group of ladies all in the same sari, we went around the markets (very cheap, even for India) and ate a good old south Indian meal before again taking a bumpy night bus back to Bangalore.

Now before this trip I’d spent my time around Indians, which ofcourse is expected being in India but at Auroville I felt so strange because there were other white people everywhere I looked. I didn’t get any stares…because I wasn’t unusual. That for me was strange!

 

 

I persoanlly didn’t find any special deep connection to Auroville which I think a lot of the people who visit are looking for, maybe it’s because of the community I was already living in, maybe it’s because of the fact I didn’t have time to experience it all. Who knows.  But heres a list of things I found cool;

• There’s no money ( visitors still pay for their cake…but residents live without a money concept )
• There’s no religion or class. (I did however feel like Sri and The Mother were worshipped so much that it may well have been a religion in it’s own right)
• They have many amazing schemes that get local women to learn skills and join groups of empowerment
• The Matrimandir was, to me, a spaceship

 

Love love love, Chloe

Xo

 

P.S: Here is a photo of my awesome granddad.

 

My Grandad