From My Notebooks In 1976: Pondicherry and Auroville

It’s the end of September 1976 and I’m in Pondicherry on the East coast of India, but for some reason I wrote nothing about that week. I came to Pondicherry principally to visit Auroville. I can’t remember now how I heard about Auroville, but it was already well-known to anyone taking an interest in Indian philosophy or culture. It is situated in the part of India which once belonged to France – then called Pondicherry – on the coast south of Madras, now Chennai. It was inspired by an Indian Sage, Sri Aurobindo early in the last century and finally put into practice in 1968 by his disciple, known as The Mother. When I visited it eight years later there were several hundred people, rich and poor, of all nationalities, living on a substantial piece of farmland. They were free to build homes of any style which made it architecturally fascinating and were in the process of building the central feature, a meditation centre that was literally global, called the Matrimandir. I was welcomed and spent almost a week there. I was much impressed but apparently wrote nothing about it in my notebook. India’s President at the time was Indira Ghandi, who gave it her protection.

Today the Matrimandir has long been completed. There are now more than three thousand inhabitants and it appears to be a remarkable success. I can only refer you to Wikipedia for more information.

Here’s a picture of the Matrimandir in the process of creation.

Some well-to-do French members built to their own designs.

I stayed for a whlle in this shelter, built from poles and reeds. The magnificent looking man, as I recall, was called Tlalloc and came from Hawaii.

The girl may have been his daughter, but I’m not sure.

1st October, From Pondicherry

To Kumbakonam. [Further south on the way to Thanjavur temple] After riding around for miles I could not find a single place to eat, or a hotel. At last, in comic despair, I stopped outside an orange stall. A man pointed to a doorway nearby. “Meals.” I looked up the stone steps and thought it was a secondhand furniture shop. He insisted. I walked up. A cavern opened before me. Men were eating, in pairs, off banana leaves. Two elderly men in white dhotis with bristle and betelnut tongues said, “Come on,” and “Sit down”, like uncles, very familiar. Food was satisfying and I used my right hand with ease.

While riding along and feeling good, sensing respect among those I passed, I toyed with the notion of becoming a god. After all there were so many already, why shouldn’t I be another, riding into their lives, erect and proud on my remarkable vehicle, condescending benignly. Round the very next bend, a beggar in unusually colourful rags, sneered at me and spat deliberately in my path. This has never happened before, in three years.

[I was on my way to Thanjavur where was another famous temple, Brihadishvara. Sometimes called “The drawing room of India. ”Red granite.]

My guide was B. Ravi. s/o V. Balasubramanian. Accountant, Pandyan Automobiles, Tirunelveli – 2, S.India

He was 14, and very sharp. He says being a guide is his hobby. One could almost believe. He comes to Trichy [Tiruchirappalli, a nearby city.] for holidays, and he does have some real knowledge. Afterwards, we walked with his brother and friends to buy juice and oranges. No hint of profit. Sometimes even a joke, to expose my suspicion. (Carrying seven oranges about? “Not so difficult. Carry one, eat one.”)

Thanjavur

Then there was Gopal at Thanjavur. He found me in a quiet moment and by thrashing the water all around me energetically he managed to guide me to his home, where his friends came one after another to see what he had caught.

“Does it not bother you that you have not made your name?”

“Would you know if I had?”

“I would certainly know if you were an important journalist or writer for I am reading always anything I can get my hands on.” (This before he even knows my name. Meanwhile Ted Simon swam through my brain. Who is he anyway? Who has heard of him?)

“What do you think of this inflation? What about the Israeli hi-jack? (He meant Entebbe. He was pro-Amin at first.) What about Ireland? Are the British being fair to Irish Catholics?”

He wants a godfather. All his show of intransigeance and opinion melts in the warmth of a single breath. Not one fixed point that I could see.

“Then your idol must be Gunther.” Who?

2nd October

Riding from Trichy to Dundigal. Reflecting on news of sterling’s further collapse. (£1.66 to the dollar.) and once again began to wonder if I might have some role to play. The notion recurs like a fever. Is it halucination? Found with the questions of Gopal yesterday I had scarcely an opinion to offer. Yet I imagine myself offering an alternative to 60 million people – reappearing like a prophet from the wilderness to rescue the British from their political paralysis. Compared with my last return to Europe it would really have to be different. I would have to initiate a great deal of the interest myself. Probably from a distance. And in person to generate immense conviction and charisma. What evidence is there for this as a possibility? A certain warm regard from a few friends and an easy way of meeting people.

In my dreams tonight I was losing my friends – they were running off regardless that I had been delayed fumbling with something and couldn’t catch them up. Later there was a cat whose affection I was eager to arouse, but with no success. I asked whether it couldn’t be content to live with me. It looked at me and judged me. I felt its appraisal.

“Comme ci, comme ca,” it said. I felt worthless.

3rd, October, from Madurai

Strange beginning. Dropped bike once. Followed wrong directions for a mile out of Madurai, then back. Felt effect of night’s searching dreams. Then outside Madurai on the Rameswaram road saw thatched roof smoking. High brick kiln, like house. Others all around. A village of brick kilns. Two oldish men approached smiling and gesturing. Had they built it? Did they own it? (Hardly). I escaped smiling instead of finding out.

In this humidity you can’t put your hand in your pocket without pulling out the lining.

Goats passing on the asphalt sound like a light spring shower. The soil everywhere looks like sand. I see no clay, yet brick kilns grow like mushrooms. Large areas are washed out and goats graze on the sand for every blade that rises. A rain cloud forms and falls on me, because today for the first time I didn’t leave the leather bag under the blue waterproof – because at Auroville the fat brown ants made their nest on it, leaving strange glutinous white substances on the inside. The umbrella was not big enough for all of us. Leather black and stiff. Straps broken. The brown ants were a phenomenon. They nested in my boots, inside the leather bag, among the waterproofs, in great masses. It’s a shock to find them, difficult to shake them out. But they are harmless.

Eventually the Rameswaram road becomes a single straight ribbon. Erosion and dune formation evident on both sides. Goats everywhere. Some attempts to plant grasses, casuarinas, To Matapam, and to my amazement the road stops. How do I ride to Rameswaram? You don’t. You go on the train. 8.50 rupees plus 10 for labour. I get to ride in the goods van. Train takes one and a half hours to go 12 miles, partly over a bridge and causeway. At R. another 6 rupees, then to Rest House. See Murray hanging over balcony with a double room to share. Spend hours reading detective stories.