Our next stop was Auroville which was a cheap and quick tuk-tuk ride away from Pondicherry.... well, the main part of Auroville was a quick ride away, the guesthouse we were staying at was set so deep into the jungle that it might as well have been in the next village. As we found out, it was quicker to walk to the next village than to Auroville which was helpful but i'll return to this point later. Auroville was unlike any of our previous stops on this trip, from what we'd read the town was pretty much a cult and we wanted to see what all the fuss was about.
Auroville was set up by "The Mother" (Mirra Alfassa) in 1968. With her work in the Sri Aurobindo Ashrams complete - creating the Sri Aurobindo International Centre of Education after his passing in 1950 - she wanted to expand on their philosophies by setting up an experimental township. The aim was a new type of community that didn't focus on race, religion, politics or money but focused on art, creativity, learning, meditation and spirituality - "a place which no nation could claim as its own... a place of peace". Auroville was indeed a place which no nation could claim as it's own, that is until the Indian government took over the city's management in 1980, seven years after the mothers death.
The website has a section on how to become a "true" Aurovilian. "The Aurovilian should lose the sense of personal possession." The individual must work towards the communities needs - "Work, even manual work, is something indispensable for the inner discovery." and that "The fulfilment of one’s desires bars the way to the inner discovery...". In reality becoming an Aurovilian isn't just about upholding their ideals, there is a lengthy application process which begins with a year of volunteering - from people I've talked to since our visit to Auroville, this period can be easily up to 6 years - before finding Auroville members who are willing to write the applicant support letters to take to the council. If you make it this far, a news bulletin is spread round and the community gives you "feedback"; pretty much if people don't like you, you're not getting in. There's many more steps (if you want to know them all, click the link here) and if you're successful you have to stick around for another 12 -18 months before you're in. Once a Aurovilian, you sign over all your money - it's a "money-less" society so you obviously don't need it anymore, right?
Once a member of Auroville, unrestricted access to The Matrimandir ("the soul of the city") is given. The large golden sphere, built to look like it's rising from the earth, sits in the middle of a vast landscaped garden and although it's an impressive sight - it's what's on the inside that is special. The inner chamber of the Matrimandir is covered in white marble, white carpet and in the middle of the room is a "pure crystal-glass globe" which spreads sunlight around the room. The purpose of this place is meditation and a place to feel at peace. The site for the Matrimandir was chosen due to a banyan tree, not only because the tree is scared in India but because it was the only thing growing on the barren landscape which became Auroville.
Whatever Auroville was meant to be, we found it to be a strange place. There is a definite divide between the hustle and bustle of the visitors centre and the residential areas of the site. The visitors centre has a strong commercial vibe, with small cafes selling expensive snacks, boutique clothing stores and bookshops, all surrounding the very small exhibits detailing the lives of Sri Aurobino, The Mother and what Auroville stands for. The place was packed, people shopping, and exploring and getting their passes to see the pinnacle of Auroville, the Matrimandir. The residential areas seem too quiet in comparison, there just weren't any residents around and the few we did bump into wouldn't say hello, even when we said it first.
The real reason we wanted to go Auroville was to see inside The Matrimandir, unfortunately this wasn't meant to be. When we checked online prior to arriving the Auroville website stated that you have to apply for tickets in person and that you normally then gained access a few days later. When we arrived we was bluntly informed the wait was now a week and you had to book tickets online... it's funny how none of this was on their website and still isn't today. I can understand wanting to restrict access for the general public, but for us if we'd have known about the wait before hand, we probably wouldn't have gone! We could have gained entrance if we convinced an Aurovilian to take us in, but as they were hardly returning our "hellos", this seems like a long shot. We did however get tickets for the viewing platform, the site is impressive and you can see how they're continuing work on the gardens - but it just wasn't the same as getting inside. On a positive note, the banyan tree is still doing well 60 years later.
My main query for the ̶c̶u̶l̶t̶ experimental township is how do they get their groceries? Apart from the cafes at the visitor centre, and the Solar Kitchen they can grab food from on their special cards, there are no shops - and we didn't see any food being delivered in our 3 day stay. When we wanted to make food for ourselves in the shared kitchen we had to walk the 5km to the nearest village. With all the food they grow, plus the specialised products (cheese, honey, pressed juice, ect.) they produce, I thought they might have places In Auroville where you can actually buy it! Maybe i'm missing a trick, or this is something that's explained once you've jumped through all the hoops to become an Aurovilian... but I would have thought a money-less society might do better if you don't have to go to real world shops to buy your groceries.
After three days, we'd had enough. Our visit gave us no desire to volunteer, give over our worldly goods or drink the Kool Aid, we were safe from Auroville... and from what I'd seen they didn't seem to want more people anyway, at least not the poor backpacking ones. It was time to get to our very last Indian destination; Chennai.
The journey would take 2 hours by car, we could have gotten a bus but that required getting a tuk-tuk back to Pondicherry then the bus would have taken at least 4 hours, so we decided splash out on a Uber. What could go wrong?
Well the trip started on an odd note, the driver declared the Uber fee was wrong and that we'd need to pay for tolls and a permit on top of the quoted price, we replied that we'd be happy to pay the tolls but were in no way paying for a permit unless he (the driver) had proof that he'd paid for the permit to begin with... he ignored this and carried on driving.
We were then taken to a petrol station, he needed a fill up and we'd be footing the bill... he claimed to have no money on him what-so-ever, so we paid. We'd hardly get to Chennai in a broken down car. Next stop was the toll booth, we paid for this too - we had agreed after all. Then we stopped for tea, well he did. Somehow between the petrol station and here he had gained some money and treated himself to a snack, while leaving us in the car, without even saying where he was going. Who needs a tea break on a hour and a half journey anyway? Oh well, after being thoroughly refreshed he returned to do his job and drive us the rest of the way, breaking all the speed limits and swerving through all the lanes while he was at it.
Despite the random stops we did actually make it to Chennai in good time, unfortunately that was the only thing that was going well. Despite us saying that we wouldn't be paying for a permit he couldn't produce he was still insisting. This turned into a 10 minute stand-off with him pretending to ask his friends to look for the permit and us still refusing to pay him the extra money. He then tried to charge us for his time, although he did backtrack on that one when we pointed out his tea break. In the end he gave up and we somehow ended up paying less than the original quoted price - it was a win for us - and don't feel too bad for the guy, the hotel manager where we stayed informed us that if he had a permit he'd need to have it in the car and the amount he was trying to charge us was the monthly fee. What a great start.
Although our accommodation couldn't be classed as fancy, the building was impressive. Where we stayed was once the Portuguese embassy, and during our stay a Tamil film crew was using it as their set. At first we thought this was quite cool until we realised what a pain it was to come and go - trying to dodge round film equipment and production staff wasn't the easiest especially when we had our large backpacks on us. The other downside to our stay was the mosque next door, if it was just the usual "come to prayer" message it would have been fine, this was more of a karaoke session mixed with long periods of intense shouting... over speakers... from 10 o'clock till 1 in the morning. It was even more annoying when we went to the roof to see what was going on and it turned out it was just one man preaching to ten others- the sound system seemed slightly unnecessary.
Chennai was fine... we wandered around the city, visited a park, Saint George's cathedral and almost entered the fort untill we realised it was only 20 minutes until closing time. In reality we wasted our time in Chennai, we were just there to catch a flight and we were more looking forward to exploring our next destination than making the best time in our last Indian one. After almost five months we were ready to leave. Don't get me wrong, we had some amazing expierences in India and were glad that we'd came but we were ready for something new, perhaps something a bit easier. So after a couple of days in Chennai, and one day staying nearer to the airport (it also had a pool) we headed to the airport and to our next destination, Sri Lanka.
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