Visit to AuroVille & Aurobeach

  Pondicherry, India
Sunday, October 7, 2007

We woke up lazily next day only to find out that we had missed the bus to Auroville. Not a bit unfazed, we picked up our bag and went to a rent-a-bike shop. In 10 minutes flat we had with us a booming bike with us. It set us lighter by Rs. 150 though.

Auroville
Auroville is a small township some thirty minutes away from Pondicherry. It was founded by The Mother, a disciple of Sri Aurobindo. In the bosom of the township is a golden-golf-ball like structure called the Maitri Mandir (Maitri = Friendship, Mandir = Temple). They gave us tickets to the MM after making us sit through a video clip extolling the idea behind MM and the township. I don't really remember much about the video except a spinning earth and pictures of MM, but was glad to sit inside the well-aerated room, just to escape the October Heat.

They didn't let us inside the MM so we had to be contend with what we got on our hands - we clicked a couple of pictures of the glistening globe and trotted back. I believe it was a kind of large meditation hall just like the Lotus Temple in New Delhi. Glasses of neembu pani (lemon juice) at a shop on the way back did a lot of good to our parched throats.

La Cuisine
Restaurant near the information center served French food delights with "dynamised water". They made water listen to Bach, Mozart or a Shinto priest's incantations to give it healing powers. I gulped down a bottleful of water to ensure that I healed myself. Secretly glad that they reserve this treatment for water and not extend it to visitors (for I was hungry, tired and limp) we ate spinach balls, lasagna and salad.

While the order was being serviced, I managed to sneek inside a book-store just a dozen of steps away. I came out with a couple of books tucked under my arm. One of them was particularly good - "The Invasion That Never Was" by Michel Danino & Sujata Nahar. It gives a rebuttal to the Aryan invasion theory and proposes its own linkup. Interesting read!

Aurobeach
After having stuffed ourselves we boomed to the Aurobeach. They had put security patrol on the beach to seperate the Firangs from the Desis. That got me fuming but I took the easier way out and just jumped into the sea. The sea was rough and shallow unlike the beaches on west coast of India. Waves as high as 10 feet appeared from nowhere and during next hour I managed to gulp quite a bit of water.

The strike
We had planned to leave next day to Mahabalipuram and then on to Kanchipuram but it was not to be. A mistimed state-wide strike called by a prominent political party left us straned in Podicherry. We spent the day by visiting the Botanical Garden and then dozing off in a cinema theatre. Late evening, the bus services resumed and we left for Mahabalipuram.