Auroville, City of Dawn

{ March 12, 2008 }

Pondicherry (or Puducherry, for short, Pondy) is in southern India, an old French colony sitting on the Bay of Bengal, in the state of Tamil Nadu. The draw for foreigners to this place today, and for the last 30 years, is Auroville, an international township sitting north of Pondy. Auroville (meaning 'City of Dawn' -- and Dawn is my middle name, cosmic connection?) was conceptualized in the late 1960's and early 70's as a community dedicated to human unity, and built literally from scratch on a desert plain with the hands of early founders/volunteers and the help of the local Indian people. One of those early pairs of hands belongs to my friend Mali, who we are here to visit. Mali currently lives in Grenada, Spain, in a cave (seriously, and it's lovely), but spends time here each February-March for the annual celebration of the founding of Auroville. Mali's flat is in town, in the old French area of Pondy, and I can't wait to visit him and hear more of his stories. That will come soon, but for now we must get settled in here.

Belu, the driver, takes us to a guesthouse just a block off the main coastal road to Pondy, directly opposite the entrance road to Auroville. It has been raining, so the car is not able to make it down the muddy, flooded roads to our intended location, which we have heard is barely drivable even via motorbike. At the corner of the block is one of the bright blue, stepped pyramid type temples emblazoned with colorful, dramatized and scary-faced Hindu gods. An old man seems to give me the evil eye when I pass, as if playing the caretaker for these deities and saying to me -- there is more to it than the vibrant colors, my dear. The tidy peach-colored guesthouse is on a narrow paved road, and is a real "house" (to me) compared to those of most neighbors' homes on the street with no running water and roofs of grass, fronds, or metal. Behind a tall peach-colored wall across the street from the guesthouse there's a large field of palm trees, and the windows to our room face that direction. It was a hot and muggy afternoon, and after an early morning flight and 2.5 hour drive, my own street view was enough sightseeing and it was time for a very, very long nap.

At 8 or 9pm we ventured out to a pizza place close by in need of comfort food. The only street lights are on the main road, and walking down our little street that first night felt a little like one of those haunted house rides at a carnival, where your eyes are just darting around in the dark expecting something strange to appear in front of you. In this case the strange things were dogs, goats, and numerous mud puddles. At the restaurant, I saw what I expected -- Europeans are everywhere in and around Auroville. I caught French, German, and English from all the white faces at the six other busy tables.

On the walk home we stopped at one of the little necessities stands at the corner of the main road for bottled water, toilet paper, and packages of cookies. About the toilet paper, I'll go ahead and say this now, since it's critical to have an understanding of how this works early on in a trip to India. TP availability and usage is a personal choice. Otherwise, you go the Indian way by using a small cup (located by a water faucet close to the toilet), fill it up, pour on necessary parts and cleanse, with your left hand. I know, I know, it's strange to imagine. I can't want to. I choose paper, and all the wipes I brought filling up half of my suitcase (the other half being deet, body cleansing products, purell, and just-in-case medications! What an American...).  

Our room is just off of the entry hall at the front of the house. We have a large new bathroom, pretty in deep orange tile, with a shower, sink, and toilet, and in the main room is a bed and two side tables. Two really large windows look out to the street, and there is a small window high on the wall in the bathroom. While these allow for a breeze it is still very warm, so the ceiling fan runs on high constantly. That first night in the guesthouse it began to rain again. Rain apparently impacts the electricity often here, so some time during the night the power went out. So in the uncomfortable stillness and sleepiness of the darkness before dawn, I couldn't make out a gentle swoosh, swoosh, swoosh noise that seemed to be closer and then further away right outside on the street. My mind kept turning it over, I knew the sound but wasn't awake enough for it to register. Finally, I thought I could picture a woman in her sari stooping over at the waist, sweeping the street with her thin straw hand broom. I got up to take a look and try to confirm. I couldn't see her. Back in bed I fell asleep again, and the next arousal came as caw, caw, CAWWWW and I could swear those crows were sitting on my window sill telling the sun to come up. Next it was the noise of car and motorcycle horns from the main road a block away, the morning commute to Pondy. Voices in Hindi and Tamil began on the street around 6:30, and with them the scent of smoke, not heavy or irritating, just enough to let me know this day had begun.

  

Chennai to Pondicherry

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I was excited about this day and the 2.5 hour drive to our base city of Pondicherry, further south. Within a minute of leaving the airport in Chennai, I plunged into real India.

Belu, our young, happy driver from Pondy, sped into the serpentine streets of the city. I did not have enough eyes to soak it all in. The city was like driving through a real life "Where's Waldo" cartoon but with Indians and more livestock. And without the vibrancy of color that I expected. Chennai, when I think of it now, was the color of sand. The roads, the buildings, even the bright saris, veiled by light brown sand. Like in Delhi, the acrid smell of smoke hit me, a certain scent which I now believe is burning cow dung. There are smells you come to associate with places, and this is one of them here. 

The streets are lined with every kind of specialty shop imaginable, each one about the size of a walk-in closet. They sell all the necessities of life by category -- a broom shop, a tire shop, a bathroom fixtures shop, with tea stalls intermittent to the fruit, lumber, clothing, kitchenware, mobile phone, and brick shops. It had been raining in town, and there were huge puddles on the dirt road for Belu to navigate -- puddles, along with goats, cows, people, children, bicycles, motorcycles, rickshaws, carrier trucks, and city buses. Driving is English-style, on the left (unless previously said objects are in your way, apparently), and it seems to me there are no absolute rules. Yet somehow, things flow without incident, I believe due to some complex language of constant horn-honking. With a symphony of octaves, they say -- on your left, on your right, go faster, get out of my way, don't hit me, I'm about to hit you, look out here comes a bus, and such. Usually I would be freaked by all this, but for some reason I really didn't care about the traffic. I was absorbed with the city and its humming, buzzing, honking life. 

Within 15 minutes, we were in the countryside, and I was loving it.

The road to Pondy is generally a mile or so from the water's edge, and both sides of it are lined with little villages. This coastal road reminded me very much of a drive down the western coast of Mexico from Acapulco to Huatulco, but with about 397 fewer road humps, more trash, and a lot lot more people. Plus here in India, there was nil likelihood of seeing a cow slaughtered at a roadside shop 15 feet from your vehicle, which is nice.  

Halfway into the drive the fauna became much greener and higher. Once in awhile the ocean came into view. We passed groves of eucalyptus trees, and their smell combined with the humid heat from the recent rain and the salty ocean air made for the second memorable scent of the trip. Eucalyptus and smoke, beauty and grime, chaotic noise and the peaceful countryside -- it was just the beginning of my story of India. 

Austin to Delhi, in Darkness

{ A year ago, in 2008, I spent a couple of months traveling in India. Not having a blog at the time, I wrote emails to family and friends. The entries of this trip are taken from those notes. Thank you to everyone who encouraged me to keep writing, and sharing. Love, A. }

Browsing the 4 inch thick India Lonely Planet guide, Charles and I had a fitting "goodbye" meal of breakfast tacos at the airport Salt Lick BBQ. 24 hours later, waiting at the luggage carousel in Delhi, I was already wondering... why did I not order the 3 meat platter instead?

The trip started with the first adventure. Much discussion and haggling was done with the hotel/taxi organizer person at the airport, until we were quite confident we had made the right choice in order to be back again at the airport early next morning. Hooray! First decision made. Problem was, the taxi driver did not agree and therefore chose to drive us 20 minutes farther away from the airport to his favorite hotel (meaning, his friend's hotel where he gets a finder's fee). A little frustrated yelling ensued, and he did manage to get us back closer to the airport, but still not at the hotel we had chosen. I had a very unhappy roommate. At this point it was 11pm, we were exhausted, price was mid-range, and we had to be awake in 7 hours. Done. 

Turning ON the hot water heater in the bathroom is an important thing I came to learn, and a lukewarm shower was welcome. Couldn't have been happier at my purchase of a whole package of pink earplugs for the trip (picture me, smugly smiling, very pleased with self), as the noise from our 2nd floor room required them. The sun was only barely lighting the sky as we headed to the airport, and I really got my first peek at Delhi. 

On an alley (was it a street? is it a street if it is partly dirt, partly paved, partly trash?) crowded with many 3-4 story mid-budget airport hotels, we loaded the taxi in the cool morning. The alley took us out to a road under a huge freeway overpass. There, family with 4 small children huddled around a big pot with a fire in it. A donkey, many, many dogs, and a few other people wandered around them. The air seemed foggy or thick, and smelled of smoke, fire, car fumes, and construction. It was a brief look, and I have no impression of Delhi, or of India yet. Onto Chennai, a 2.5 hour flight south.