Auroville and the City of Puducherry

Today we drove south along the Bay of Bengal to Auroville. Auroville is an intentional community of several thousand inhabitants. The vast majority of the city's inhabitants are Indian. It was founded by a French woman and widow of an local guru. She is referred to as 'the mother'. Its overarching theme is one of unity. There are 12 qualities to aspire to that are listed in the second photo below. Being conscious is an aspiration and expectation. As is the subsumation of one's ego to the greater good of the Community. It is supposed to be a cashless society, but the adherents have paid cash for most of the buildings at the center of the old nearby French colonial city, Puducherry. The organization also accepts cash from novices and at their gift shop, cafe, and ice cream shop. One can find out more here: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auroville

At the center of the Community is a banyan tree. Next to the tree is a large circular structure designed to allow followers to reach full concentration. The first photo below depicts this structure. It is quite large. The scale of the structure kind of reminded me of the Atomium in Brussels or the Center of the World near Yuma.

Next we drove to the the city of Puducherry. It was once a charming French colonial town, but seems to have fallen on hard times since most of the colonists left. There is a smell of sewage emanating from the gutters around town. Also a dying rat fell from a second story balcony and landed on Sophie's Instagram feature. They have, however, taken some steps to freshen up their seafront with a traffic free prominade. Otherwise the place feels a lot like any other medium sized Indian city.

Our visit included a tour of a local weavery and a place where people make paper from discarded cotton clothing. Both are run by the Auroville people and accept cash. At the prominade we sited a statue of Gandhi on the march. The highlight was a visit to a temple of Ganesh in time for a ritual cleansing. The sights and sounds and smells were incredible. Nancy took some photos which I'll add later. In the evening Augie joined us for pizza.Read more