In memoriam - André Tardeil

In the early morning of 27 June, André Tardeil, founder and father of New Creation, left his body at his house in New Creation after an extended struggle with cancer. André had just turned 77.

André came to Pondicherry in 1972, having worked with the Auroville Association in Paris for two years before that. Recently, recalling his experience of the first darshan on 21st February, 1972 he said, “You know, you can never tire of the possibilities of seeing The Mother, you were transformed. She infused in everyone who was there the will for change”.

André spent five years in Pondicherry working at Auroshikha, the Ashram incense-making department. During that time he helped provide financial support to Auroville in its newly achieved economic independence from the SAS.

In 1977, he moved to Auroville where his prime focus has always been to create better conditions for the villagers and their children. As he put it, “We should stop considering our neighbours as a separate entity from Auroville. As soon as we consider them as part of Auroville’s future and give them all the support we can to help to manifest themselves as part of Auroville’s development, we will have all their reciprocal support. We have to build real fraternity, this is the primary work we have in front of us.”

To help manifest this vision, in 1978 he started a school in Fraternity for village children, which in 1983 shifted to New Creation. Over the years, supported by his wife, Babu, and a network of friends and funders abroad, New Creation grew to include schools, a boarding facility for disadvantaged children, vocational training workshops and small commercial units, for André always stressed the need for practical training rather than just book learning: as he put it, “children learn what they live”.

André’s main aim in all this was to help the students, as well as the villagers, become self-reliant individuals. “Through training programmes and through helping them create their own handicraft enterprises, these people have the chance to grow and reach their full potential.”

In this, he was very successful. As Alain Bernard put it, “His love for the local people translated into many lives being transformed, particularly those of young girls and boys, through education, a cause into which he poured his energy, endlessly creating classes and boarding facilities. Today, I am sure, so many would say that what they have been able to become owes a lot to André’s ceaseless efforts to sustain them.”

All this, however, was not achieved without considerable struggle and some controversy. André felt largely unsupported by the Auroville community, which did not always appreciate his independent financial ways, causing him to rely heavily upon friends and donors abroad, as well as the guest houses and businesses he had set up to sustain his many initiatives.

But his dedication to his work, to his children and to a transformed future for all was never in doubt. Last year he wrote, “In fact we should be ready, to search, to fight, to keep faith in spite of all and to rediscover, now in this life, this enchanting smile, containing the secret of life... Difficult surely, but one day we will leave this world and all we did will not exist. Only will follow that second of true luminous Self; like a small light guiding us towards Eternity.”

André’s remains were laid to rest in Adventure’s burial ground in the late afternoon of the 28th of June, with family and many of his friends attending.