In memoriam - Prema (Adelina Intanno)

She had been flying from Mexico City to Paris when a lady approached her. “What are you doing in life?” she asked. “I’m searching,” Prema replied. “And what are you searching for?” “I don’t know, but I will know it if I find it.” Then the lady said, “I know what you are searching for, you are searching for your place. And your place is Auroville.” This lady gave her the address of AVI France. There Prema found the book, The Mother by Sri Aurobindo. As soon as she read the first sentence,

There are two powers that alone can effect in their conjunction the great and difficult thing which is the aim of our endeavour; a fixed and unfailing aspiration that calls from below and a supreme grace from above that answers.

in Prema’s words “my world turned completely round. I continued reading and all the answers to the questions that I couldn’t even formulate before were there in this small book. Finally I understood what I had been searching for”.

Her first work was helping Narad in the Matrimandir Nursery, later she worked on the Matrimandir construction. Prema had been trained in fashion design and in the early 1980s she decided to open a garment unit. “It was a deep need to express myself on a material plane.”

Auromode, which specialised in hand-painted silk garments, became one of Auroville’s most successful commercial units, employing over 100 people and becoming one of the most important contributors to Auroville’s economy. “I have come to consider money as a manifestation of Beauty on the material plane,” she explained, “of welfare and progress in matter itself”.

In recent years, due to the global recession, Auromode struggled to remain profitable. But she wouldn’t consider laying off her workers. “They are wonderful – for 30 years they have taken care of me and I take care of them.”

She was not blind to the present deficiencies in the community and she was clear about what has to change. “For me, it’s very simple. Once and for all we have to transcend the very ordinary consciousness in which we are drowning. It is the only solution both for us and for the planet. Huge forces are acting to prevent the Dream being realized. In spite of all this, I remain optimistic about the future of Auroville and of the world. After all, Mother said Auroville is already there…”

We will remember her for her indomitable spirit of idealism and for the beauty she brought into our lives.

On 21st a meditation for Prema was held at the Banyan Tree. She was buried in Adventure on Monday, 22nd December.