Eat at Auroville

Auroville has a number of places to eat. Some accept cash and all of them accept the aurocard.

Solar Kitchen
offers good lunch and dinner. Mostly vegetarian South Indian cuisine with a few side dishes from other parts of the world. Can easily be turned into a vegan meal too. Accepts aurocard only.

La Terrace
A nice restaurant on top of solar kitchen. Good coffee, ice cream and pastries. Can hang out in the shade of large trees. WiFi hot spot. Accepts auro card only.

Tanto
Italian pizzeria in Kuilapalayam. Very good food cozy atmosphere. Mosquitos can ruin the experience, so remember to put on bug repellents.

Satchidananda
Vegan raw food restaurant near Ganesh Bakery. The carrot pie is delicious. Green smoothie is no less awesome. Accepts cash.

Farm Fresh
small neat restaurant near Auroville Bakery. Sells good keffir. Also pastires, cookies, pickels, nuts etc. WiFi hotspot. Accepts cash.

Auoville Bakery
Makes really good bread and pastires. Nice to have freshly baked bread. Accepts cash.

Ganesh bakery
not very good food. But accepts cash.

Dinesh bakery
On the way from Solar Kitchen to Kuilapalayam. Not very good food, but cheap. Accepts cash.

Transport from Auroville to Puducherry

Interior of the bus to Puducherry

Easiest way to reach Puducherry ( Pondicherry ) from Auoville is by bus. Bus from ECR near Auroville to the station at Puducherry costs 5.00 Rs. The last stop of this bus is the bus station at Puducherry.

On the way back from Puducherry to Auroville, one can get on a bus from the station. However, there are two different routes going towards Chennai and both pass through Auroville. One drops you off at the Kuilapalayam (intersection of EC Road) and the other one drops off at Morattandi. Make sure to ride the right bus. Be aware of the rush hour crowd in the bus. The Indian crowd can be very intense.

Next in order of convenience would be autorikshaws. They usually charge around 200.00 Rs from the Auroville to Puducherry or the other way round. Sometimes there is room for bargaining.

Another viable option is to ride a moped or motorbike. But driving a vehicle without a licence is not advisable. The police in Puducherry sometimes flags down tourists driving a moped or motor bike to check their licence. Tamil Nadu police is a bit relaxed in that regard.

Pedaling your way to Puducherry is also possible. It's only 5 kilometers from Auroville after all. This is also a healthy and environmentally friendly option.

Auroville Beaches

Quiet beach in Auroville

A few auroville communities are located on the sea and have their own beaches. I've been to two of those, the Repos beach and the Quiet beach. Repos beach was found crowded throughout the week specially during the weekends. The quiet beach on the other hand was much less crowded. Both beaches were found to be used by local fishermen. Quiet was found to be cleaner than Repos. The only shortcoming of Quiet is that it was about a kilometer to the south from Repos beach sitting only 100 meters from the Quilapalayam intersection on EC Road. The quiet beach is preferred after considering all these factors.

Finding accommodation near the beach can be a bit challenging during the high season i.e. December - February. Most of the hotels are cheap or mid range. Downside of it is that the rooms will often have poor ventilation and lighting. A good alternative is a beach hut. But they usually cost more than the rooms and are in high demand.

Sadhana Banana

Sadhana Forest provides in theory unlimited supply of bananas for volunteers. On most days this is true in practice as well. After working for a few days I realized the virtue of bananas. Sadhana volunteers powered by bananas work in their first seva. The work includes but not limited to :

• Carrying water buckets
• Planting trees
• Collecting leaves for mulching
• Collecting top soil
• Scooping up compost
• Mixing top soil and compost
• Have fun

Bananas pack lot more energy than I previously thought.

Bees & Termites (2)

Working in the bees & termites team involves climbing

Preventing unwelcome advances from the termites is mostly ground work. But dealing with the carpenter bees is a different paradigm altogether. It involves plenty of climbing - sometimes quite high and in challenging corners - on the huts' main structure. This calls for physical and fitness and decent level of dexterity.

Two parts of the epoxy compound

Epoxy is being mixed

Epoxy mix is ready to be used

A hole in hardwood pole

The hole after patching with epoxy

The instructions are simple. Find a bee hole, climb to reach it, then seal it with an epoxy sealant which you or a fellow volunteer mixed for you a few minutes ago. Oh, and be careful not to lose your grip.

The sealant is obtained from the local market as a two part epoxy compound. Its soft and pliable like putty during and soon after mixing. Becomes stiff like plastic in about 10 minutes. Very convenient. But also expensive and probably not very good for the environment. I saw room for improvement here. Experimenting with alternative materials - environmentally friendly and cheap ones, of course - seemed to be an effort worth undertaking.

Bees & Termites (1)

Jacob, a sadhana forest volunteer in bees & termites team

Protecting the huts from ever active termites and carpenter bees is a daily challenge in Sadhana Forest. Bees & Termites team bravely accepts this challenge as a regular maintenance job in Sadhana.

Carpenter bees like to drill hole to make nests in the hardwood poles of the huts' main structure. If not prevented, the bees can hollow out an entire pole to bring the hut down. While bees attack from air, termites have a ground up approach towards the huts. But the end results are pretty much the same.

Local knowledge says that termites don't like walking on granite surface. So granite columns are used as base for the huts. Vegetation around the huts are also cleared regularly to prevent alternative path for termites to reach any part of a hut from ground.

Aurocard

An aurocard issued from Mitra guest house

Auroville, in my understandings, is supposed to be a city where money does not dominate life. Reducing  monetary exchange within the community is seen as a steps towards this. A scheme similar to using debit cards is implemented in support. This card is called Aurocard.

The Aurocard is connected to one's Auroville account. This account can be opened at the town hall. Every aurovillian has one, guests staying in Auroville can also have one. Money can be deposited in this account and spent later at various restaurants and other commercial units of Auroville.

I am not sure how this debit card like scheme facilitates the realization of money-less society. Being able to use an aurocard in Auroville persists a practice which most of today's materialistic world is familiar with already.

Going to Sadhana Forest

Sadhana Forest main hut

After volunteering in Blue Light ( the de-facto IT department) for a few days, I felt that the human connection, supposedly abundant in Auroville, was missing. I decided to try out other options. Sadhana Forest have always intrigued me; its a reforestation project with the goal of reviving tropical dry evergreen forest of Tamil Nadu. Besides working on the forest, they also have a living community people practicing vegan life style. They offer tours and show environmentally conscious movies on Fridays. I decided to try it out.

So, on the first Friday of January, I went to Sadhana forest. The tour gave ample exposure to the project, their ideals and practices. Discussing with long term volunteers at the project and the founder, Aviram, helped more. By the end of the dinner, I was convinced that this project offers a nice blend of spirituality, connections, learning and collaborative work environment.

I joined Sadhana Forest on the next Monday, 7th January.

Blue Light at Auroville

Blue Light is Auroville's de-facto IT department. Installing and maintaining software for automating the offices in Auroville is their job. For doing so, they focus on open source software. Open source, being a community driven software development paradigm, fits just right in Auroville. Besides providing software support, they engage in design and implementation electronic systems once in a while.

I volunteered in Blue Light for a week, right after arriving at Auroville. We worked on automating a water pumping system. By the end of the week, we had the devices assembled and working. It doesn't take long when people want to get something done. Doing the same thing in a corporate or academic setting would have taken a lot of time and effort.

Mitra

Mitra youth hostel in Auroville

I stayed for about a week in Mitra Youth Hostel, Auroville. The place is right next to Auroville town hall; very close to the Matrimandir. It's a clean good looking piece of architecture. Usha, the lady running the place, was also found to be friendly and helpful. Besides that, the hostel provides breakfast in weekdays. One can also enjoy a good view of the Matrimandir from the roof top. Only upsetting aspect of my experience in Mitra is frequent and long power cuts.

Wheels in Auroville

The Auroville settlements are spread out within a 60 square kilometers area. Better get some wheels to navigate in Auroville. Wheels come in three versions there: bicycle, motorbikes and mopeds.

Bicycles can be rented from one of the few bicycle kiosks. There is one behind the public washroom at the Visitors' Centre. Rent for a bicycle is 50.00Rs per day. Another kiosk is located near the Solar Kitchen. This one provides free pumping and maintenance.

Another alternative is hiring a Moped, a common mean of transportation in Auroville. Its basically a low power motorcycles. Originally designed with bicycle like pedals to allow pedaling once fuel runs out. But pedals were missing on the ones found in Auroville. Hiring a moped is simple, call or meet the guy who rents them to people and book it for your desired length of time. They usually ask for some advance payment or a security money and the rest is to be paid when you give the moped back. There is shop on the main road going to Auroville from East Coast road. He charged 60.00 Rupees per day for a week. The fuel is also on you. They use a mixture of petrol and some other kind of oil. Most of the grocery shops sell it. A liter of that fuel costs 100.00 Rupees.

I did not look into hiring a motorbike, but the procedure should be similar except that it costs more. Have fun getting in and around Auroville.

Roads in Auroville

The road network of Auroville was designed as part of the city's master plan. The main roads in the master plan look like spiraling arcs coming out of a centre point, resembling a galaxy. Some of the main roads are there, most are yet to be constructed. Many roads or walkways have also been made not necessarily in accordance with the master plan. People solved their problems spontaneously instead of waiting for the master plan to be implemnted. This group of rodes are more organic in shape.

Whatever the case might be, there is hardly any straight line in the Auroville road network. Therefore, to go straight actually means to stay on the path no matter how dramatic the bends are.

Chennai to Auroville

I'm in Auroville right now. Going from Chennai airport to Auroville turned out to be a relatively simple task. As easy as 1-2-3:

1. There are prepaid taxi services in front of the airport. Took a taxi to Koyambedu Bus Terminus. Price 250.00Rs.
2. At the terminus, had to go to the mofussil section. The buses have electronic display on them showing Tamil and English. Had to get on a bus that says "ECR" (east coast road). These buses go all the way to Pondicherry. So I had to ask the helper man to drop me off near Auroville instead of at Pondi. 190.00Rs.
3. From the drop off point, there were yellow autorikshaws. I took an auto to the visitors center in Auroville. 150.00Rs.