I came to Auroville one month before my internship. It’s because I wanted to attend two courses on CSEB (Compressed Stabilized Earth Blocks) & AVD (Arches, Vaults and Domes) for the first month. It was really a good decision as from the first evening I started meeting people who had come here for the courses. It was so nice to meet people of different ages, different places and different professions. I met architects, civil engineers, mechanical engineers, contractors, masons, software engineers, bankers, politicians and……. They were from different parts of India and even different parts of the world too.
31st August was our first class. I confess, in that class I could not understand more than 70%. And the 30%, that I understood is only because of my previous knowledge from my school (BRAC University, Dhaka, Bangladesh). Satprem, our boss, has a very different and difficult accent of English. It took me sometime to understand him.
Our long classes were going on. We were doing theories and practicals. Generally Satprem was taking the theories and Ayappan was taking the practicals. We learnt about Earth Architecture, how to build with earth, we learnt about different techniques and machines, we produced blocks with Auram press (One type of CSEB producing machine. Be careful if you are working with this machine or if you are near the machine when someone else is working. It’s dangerous sometimes.) We built CSEB and rammed earth walls, arches, vaults and domes. We learnt how to calculate load for different arches. The classes were very knowledgeable but very lengthy too.
We were tired of either seating for long or doing practical works. But we were having fun in the evenings. We started going to the rainbow parties in Visitor’s Center and Well Studio Café. There are pizza parties on Youth Center on every Saturday and Wednesday. Sometime we had chanting sessions on La Terrace and Visitor’s Center. There are movies everyday at 8pm at Town Hall. Sometimes there are performances or movies in Bharat Nivas Auditorium. We were trying to enjoy as much as possible.
Not only these events. There are a lot of food shops and restaurants around Auroville. Especially at Koilapalayam. Swadista is one of my favorite shops for bhelpuri, samosa, kachori and cold coffee.
The chatni they serve……….muah! Coffee Bar has created a very nice environment in a small space. La terrace has beautiful terrace just to chill. But be careful if you want to go to Solar Kitchen or La Terrace (upper floor of Solar Kitchen). They don’t except cash. You need a guest card to buy food. For that you need to open an account in Town Hall. Town Hall is the place in Matrimandir compound that deals with all the administration of Auroville.
Now come to Matrimandir. This is the structure you cannot avoid anyway. If you are in Auroville and you say someone that you haven’t visited Matrimandir, they will make such a face that you have done some crime.
Yes, not only for the people, you should visit it for yourself too. It is worthy. But………….. again there is a “But”. You cannot just go and visit Matrimandir. If you are just a visitor, you have to go to visitor’s Center and make an appointment. After that, they will show you a documentary of 15 minutes on Matrimandir. And only then you will be allowed to get into the compound. Yes just the compound. Because again there are some “If”! If by any chance its raining or may be just drizzling, they will not allow you to enter the meditation chamber of Matrimandir. And to enter the Chamber you have to wear white socks. But don’t worry for that, if you don’t have, they will give it. (So kind….)
In spite of all these there are possibilities that you would not be able to enter the meditation chamber. And you will break your head for wasting you time in those formalities. It’s because sometime they do renovation and they will not say it before you reach the door of Matrimandir. It’s sad that it happened with my parents.
Another important thing is moped. You will not find any auto rickshaw or taxi stand in Auroville. So you need either bicycle or moped. And if you can drive you can hire a motor cycle too. A bicycle will cost 25rps/day, moped-40rps/day and motor bike 60rps/day.
To my full consciousness, I am saying, don’t hire a bike from Suresh, hire it from Lakshman. And please careful with your moped when you go out. Check it there enough petrol or not and specially where you are parking. I will explain the reason later.
But if you want to go to Pondi, there are buses from Town Hall or if you are confident enough, you can drive moped. But its difficult and dangerous. A lot of people get hurt at Pondi; people are crazy there. You have another option. If you are rich enough to pay 150rps to go to Pondi, you can call for a taxi. But for coming back you have to pay 150rps again.
Pondicheri or Puducheri, whatever you say (we call it Pondi), is the nearest town of Auroville. It’s a small town with lots of things. It has a beautiful sea edge. You can just go and chill there at any time at day or night. It’s really super. There are lots of restaurants you can try. Surguru is cheap but you can get very good vegetarian south Indian food. Oh! Vegetarian, I have to talk about this ……… later.
Richy Rich is good for ice creams. Nilgiris is a good super shop to buy things. But for things like rice, vegetable and even for clothes Goubert Market is the best option. There you will get dresses of latest Auroville fashion.
Auroville fashion – in a sense it is no fashion. You can wear anything you want, literally anything. Generally people wear very simple dresses and slipper or shoes. Even sometimes they walk bare foot too, but not hills. People are generally so careless about their getup that if you go outside in this way, you will feel like alien. But whatever you wear be careful about wearing white dresses and fancy shoes. All of them are gonna be spoiled. The red soil of Auroville makes everything orange.
I think the soil is red because of extreme iron in it. You can feel it in water too. The first disaster that happened to me is severe hair fall. The hard water, humid weather and extreme dust causes a very bad hair fall to almost everybody.
I think I am scaring you about Auroville. So let me tell you some good things. There is a place named Veritie, they offer yoga and meditation in the morning and dance and chanting in the evening. You can find a very interesting thing in Veritie office building. If you go there before 5pm, just at the entrance there is a rectangular water body. You can seat around it dipping your legs in the water and fishesh will come to eat dead cells from your feet- free fish pedicure……….. cool.
If you want to do some sports, you can go to Certitude and for swimming and gym you can go to New Creation. If you are a visitor, for swimming they are gonna charge you 150rps per entry. But if you are working as volunteers for more than 6 months, you can get a letter from your office that will make the fee 400rps per month.
There is a beautiful beach restaurant called Repos. You can go and chill there. There are two more beaches near Auroville. One is Auroville beach and another is Quiet. Auroville beach is the biggest one where people from surrounding villages and even from Pondi come and swim. But Quiet is basically a guest house or you can say community, where they have healing center. They have yoga, meditation, massage, water therapy and so on. The place is very nice and “quiet”. Infront of the place there is a small quiet beach. You can go there too.
But wherever you go, be careful about the sea. Somehow the beach or the ground of the sea is not leveled and so the waves come and bounce back to the sea. As a result you get force from either side. If you are not careful enough, the wave can throw you to the sand and you can severely get hurt. Camille was hurt in that way.
Now let me tell about the communities. But before that I think I should say about Auroville. I have already said a lot. But now I am gonna say about my own understanding and opinion, nothing else. It can be right or wrong. Its not bookish knowledge, its my opinion only. Informations are available on internet and books, but I didn’t read those.
I think there are three groups of people living in Auroville. First group is the Indian local people living like a shadow. They are in front of you, working. But its like you cannot see them, they are invisible. Second group is the foreigners and peoples from other parts of India, who has now become Aurovillians. They are the people who are in scene. And the third group is us, the students and the volunteers. We come, we work, we enjoy and we go. We are not really part of Auroville. We are the people in whom the first and especially the second group want to plant the seed of sustainable village or the seed of the dream they see. We are the people by whom they want to make some work to accelerate their journey towards their aim. We are the people who make Auroville full of life.
All of their aim may be same, but the way to reach that is very different. So they are doing different stuffs that results different communities. For example Revelation. This community is maintaining a calm, quiet forest. They are planting trees, making gardens, cultivating crops, but all are in organic way. They are trying to maintain an organic life. On the other hand, Satprem: he is trying to make sustainable buildings with environment friendly materials. Not only these two ways, there are many more communities and people working in very different ways to reach their aim.
Whenever we are entering a community, we like it or not, we should be respectful to them. Otherwise we can always leave one community and join another one we like.
Oh! I should tell about something very important. May be it is not relevant at this moment, but very important. First thing is, if you are driving alone and you are a girl; please try not to be late at night. I would say not to be alone after sunset, especially on Saturday-Sunday or if there is any party going on. Sometimes some crazy and drunk Indian boys come from surrounding villages and make mess. They will arrive suddenly on the street and will touch your body. You will have all the possibilities to lose your balance and have severe accident. Even there are record of rape and robbery too. So, one should follow the safety measures.
Another important thing is scorpion. Sometimes there are scorpions coming out. If you are living in the ground floor and you don’t have any water protection around your house or you don’t have a proper plinth, it can even climb into your room and bite you. By any chance if it bites, immediate go to doctor for treatment. These are poisonous. That’s why everybody should carry torch light at night.
I think now I should stop scaring you. Let me talk about some good points again. If you are gonna live at Auroville for quite a long time, you can start looking for house sitting. A lot of Aurovillians go to other places for work or vacation and they want somebody to keep their home safe and clean. They may also have plants and pets to take care. So if yu have contacts you may get the opportunity and you can save money :)
Oh! we went to a wedding too. It was the wedding ceremony of the son of one Amma of the office. Amma means the women who is cleaning the office, making tea and all. Generally we call boys anna means, brother, young girls akka, means sister and women amma, means mother. in Tamil appa means father, but people doesn't use it for calling a person. So in the wedding it was so intersting that the caterers come in one line and serve you; as if a train and they will serve you on banana leaf.... interesting.
Isn’t it a lot for one month? Actually its nothing. We did a lot, lot more fun. Coming up next friends……..
Our long classes were going on. We were doing theories and practicals. Generally Satprem was taking the theories and Ayappan was taking the practicals. We learnt about Earth Architecture, how to build with earth, we learnt about different techniques and machines, we produced blocks with Auram press (One type of CSEB producing machine. Be careful if you are working with this machine or if you are near the machine when someone else is working. It’s dangerous sometimes.) We built CSEB and rammed earth walls, arches, vaults and domes. We learnt how to calculate load for different arches. The classes were very knowledgeable but very lengthy too.
We were tired of either seating for long or doing practical works. But we were having fun in the evenings. We started going to the rainbow parties in Visitor’s Center and Well Studio Café. There are pizza parties on Youth Center on every Saturday and Wednesday. Sometime we had chanting sessions on La Terrace and Visitor’s Center. There are movies everyday at 8pm at Town Hall. Sometimes there are performances or movies in Bharat Nivas Auditorium. We were trying to enjoy as much as possible.
Not only these events. There are a lot of food shops and restaurants around Auroville. Especially at Koilapalayam. Swadista is one of my favorite shops for bhelpuri, samosa, kachori and cold coffee.
The chatni they serve……….muah! Coffee Bar has created a very nice environment in a small space. La terrace has beautiful terrace just to chill. But be careful if you want to go to Solar Kitchen or La Terrace (upper floor of Solar Kitchen). They don’t except cash. You need a guest card to buy food. For that you need to open an account in Town Hall. Town Hall is the place in Matrimandir compound that deals with all the administration of Auroville.
Now come to Matrimandir. This is the structure you cannot avoid anyway. If you are in Auroville and you say someone that you haven’t visited Matrimandir, they will make such a face that you have done some crime.
Yes, not only for the people, you should visit it for yourself too. It is worthy. But………….. again there is a “But”. You cannot just go and visit Matrimandir. If you are just a visitor, you have to go to visitor’s Center and make an appointment. After that, they will show you a documentary of 15 minutes on Matrimandir. And only then you will be allowed to get into the compound. Yes just the compound. Because again there are some “If”! If by any chance its raining or may be just drizzling, they will not allow you to enter the meditation chamber of Matrimandir. And to enter the Chamber you have to wear white socks. But don’t worry for that, if you don’t have, they will give it. (So kind….)
In spite of all these there are possibilities that you would not be able to enter the meditation chamber. And you will break your head for wasting you time in those formalities. It’s because sometime they do renovation and they will not say it before you reach the door of Matrimandir. It’s sad that it happened with my parents.
Another important thing is moped. You will not find any auto rickshaw or taxi stand in Auroville. So you need either bicycle or moped. And if you can drive you can hire a motor cycle too. A bicycle will cost 25rps/day, moped-40rps/day and motor bike 60rps/day.
To my full consciousness, I am saying, don’t hire a bike from Suresh, hire it from Lakshman. And please careful with your moped when you go out. Check it there enough petrol or not and specially where you are parking. I will explain the reason later.
But if you want to go to Pondi, there are buses from Town Hall or if you are confident enough, you can drive moped. But its difficult and dangerous. A lot of people get hurt at Pondi; people are crazy there. You have another option. If you are rich enough to pay 150rps to go to Pondi, you can call for a taxi. But for coming back you have to pay 150rps again.
Pondicheri or Puducheri, whatever you say (we call it Pondi), is the nearest town of Auroville. It’s a small town with lots of things. It has a beautiful sea edge. You can just go and chill there at any time at day or night. It’s really super. There are lots of restaurants you can try. Surguru is cheap but you can get very good vegetarian south Indian food. Oh! Vegetarian, I have to talk about this ……… later.
Richy Rich is good for ice creams. Nilgiris is a good super shop to buy things. But for things like rice, vegetable and even for clothes Goubert Market is the best option. There you will get dresses of latest Auroville fashion.
Auroville fashion – in a sense it is no fashion. You can wear anything you want, literally anything. Generally people wear very simple dresses and slipper or shoes. Even sometimes they walk bare foot too, but not hills. People are generally so careless about their getup that if you go outside in this way, you will feel like alien. But whatever you wear be careful about wearing white dresses and fancy shoes. All of them are gonna be spoiled. The red soil of Auroville makes everything orange.
I think the soil is red because of extreme iron in it. You can feel it in water too. The first disaster that happened to me is severe hair fall. The hard water, humid weather and extreme dust causes a very bad hair fall to almost everybody.
I think I am scaring you about Auroville. So let me tell you some good things. There is a place named Veritie, they offer yoga and meditation in the morning and dance and chanting in the evening. You can find a very interesting thing in Veritie office building. If you go there before 5pm, just at the entrance there is a rectangular water body. You can seat around it dipping your legs in the water and fishesh will come to eat dead cells from your feet- free fish pedicure……….. cool.
If you want to do some sports, you can go to Certitude and for swimming and gym you can go to New Creation. If you are a visitor, for swimming they are gonna charge you 150rps per entry. But if you are working as volunteers for more than 6 months, you can get a letter from your office that will make the fee 400rps per month.
There is a beautiful beach restaurant called Repos. You can go and chill there. There are two more beaches near Auroville. One is Auroville beach and another is Quiet. Auroville beach is the biggest one where people from surrounding villages and even from Pondi come and swim. But Quiet is basically a guest house or you can say community, where they have healing center. They have yoga, meditation, massage, water therapy and so on. The place is very nice and “quiet”. Infront of the place there is a small quiet beach. You can go there too.
But wherever you go, be careful about the sea. Somehow the beach or the ground of the sea is not leveled and so the waves come and bounce back to the sea. As a result you get force from either side. If you are not careful enough, the wave can throw you to the sand and you can severely get hurt. Camille was hurt in that way.
Now let me tell about the communities. But before that I think I should say about Auroville. I have already said a lot. But now I am gonna say about my own understanding and opinion, nothing else. It can be right or wrong. Its not bookish knowledge, its my opinion only. Informations are available on internet and books, but I didn’t read those.
I think there are three groups of people living in Auroville. First group is the Indian local people living like a shadow. They are in front of you, working. But its like you cannot see them, they are invisible. Second group is the foreigners and peoples from other parts of India, who has now become Aurovillians. They are the people who are in scene. And the third group is us, the students and the volunteers. We come, we work, we enjoy and we go. We are not really part of Auroville. We are the people in whom the first and especially the second group want to plant the seed of sustainable village or the seed of the dream they see. We are the people by whom they want to make some work to accelerate their journey towards their aim. We are the people who make Auroville full of life.
All of their aim may be same, but the way to reach that is very different. So they are doing different stuffs that results different communities. For example Revelation. This community is maintaining a calm, quiet forest. They are planting trees, making gardens, cultivating crops, but all are in organic way. They are trying to maintain an organic life. On the other hand, Satprem: he is trying to make sustainable buildings with environment friendly materials. Not only these two ways, there are many more communities and people working in very different ways to reach their aim.
Whenever we are entering a community, we like it or not, we should be respectful to them. Otherwise we can always leave one community and join another one we like.
Oh! I should tell about something very important. May be it is not relevant at this moment, but very important. First thing is, if you are driving alone and you are a girl; please try not to be late at night. I would say not to be alone after sunset, especially on Saturday-Sunday or if there is any party going on. Sometimes some crazy and drunk Indian boys come from surrounding villages and make mess. They will arrive suddenly on the street and will touch your body. You will have all the possibilities to lose your balance and have severe accident. Even there are record of rape and robbery too. So, one should follow the safety measures.
Another important thing is scorpion. Sometimes there are scorpions coming out. If you are living in the ground floor and you don’t have any water protection around your house or you don’t have a proper plinth, it can even climb into your room and bite you. By any chance if it bites, immediate go to doctor for treatment. These are poisonous. That’s why everybody should carry torch light at night.
I think now I should stop scaring you. Let me talk about some good points again. If you are gonna live at Auroville for quite a long time, you can start looking for house sitting. A lot of Aurovillians go to other places for work or vacation and they want somebody to keep their home safe and clean. They may also have plants and pets to take care. So if yu have contacts you may get the opportunity and you can save money :)
Oh! we went to a wedding too. It was the wedding ceremony of the son of one Amma of the office. Amma means the women who is cleaning the office, making tea and all. Generally we call boys anna means, brother, young girls akka, means sister and women amma, means mother. in Tamil appa means father, but people doesn't use it for calling a person. So in the wedding it was so intersting that the caterers come in one line and serve you; as if a train and they will serve you on banana leaf.... interesting.
Isn’t it a lot for one month? Actually its nothing. We did a lot, lot more fun. Coming up next friends……..
Hey! Would you possibly have Suresh or lakshmans number? It's kind of urgent!
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