Hei, god dag,

A weekly update. This week I mostly spent time in the archives at Auroville. The most surprising find was about Sri Surendra Nath Jauhar, who after attending a session in Amritsar, joined the Congress and later the Arya Kumar Sabha, the youth wing of the Arya Samaj. After years of nonviolent resistance he turned to the Aurobindo Ashram in 1939 after traveling there with Indra Sen. His “supreme discovery” of the life-affirming ashram of Aurobindo and Mirra Alfassa felt so true that, in his mid-fifties, he started the Delhi Branch of the Aurobindo Ashram and later a separate outpost in Nainital. He started the one in Nainital because people could learn trekking, mountaineering and get educated by the grandeur of the mountains! Speaking about mountains, the Unity Pavilion at Auroville had a wonderful art exhibition on mountains called “Wie im Großen, so im Kleinen” by Birgitta Volz. She made these artworks while in Pedvale Art Park, Latvia, and used oil colour to create the relief of the mountains on delicate Chinese paper.


On my way out of the archives I found a very sweet artwork on the evolution of the earth. I especially adored the Sauropod that was flying towards an erupting volcano in the Permian, and have been thinking about Sauropods since… 
 For some time, I have been wanting to go to a gym in Auroville. So I was more than happy to find Dehashakti gym. The day before, on Monday, I had gone to check out Turiya gym, but this urbanized giant felt completely out of place, which is why I was even happier to hear that Auroville has its own gym called Dehashakti. It has good, home-made equipment, and they only ask for a small contribution to use it!

This week I changed from New Creation to Center Guest House (feel free to reach out in case you ever stay in Auroville, I can give tips!). Although I already miss some of the people from the previous place, especially Vijaya, I’ve met some wonderful people here through our communal breakfast and dinner. Yesterday I also had my first Tamil class at the Auroville Language Lab with teacher Ashok. In the afternoon I drew a small plant bouquet in my room.


This morning I visited the Matrimandir one more time (it had been a week!), and afterwards went to Solitude Farm with two friends to have lunch. At Solitude Farm we spoke with the legendary Krishna Mckenzie, who has been spearheading local farm initiatives around the area for decades after he came to Auroville at 19. It was wonderful to see how inspired he was by Manasobu Fukuoka, a Japanese thinker and farmer. Yesterday night we all went to the Svaram performance at the amphitheater next to the matrimandir, which was part of the bigger literature festival held in Auroville. The setting at the amphitheater was stunning: The sun was slowly setting leaving a pink hue behind the golden globe, and flying foxes were cruising above us. Three members of Svaram created a soundscape while reading the five “dreams” of Aurobindo broadcasted in 1947 on All India Radio. Though an echo in the microphone slightly broke the flow between music and speech, it was a wonderful music performance!