Am I Not Aurovilian?

According to the Entry Service in Auroville, I do not exist in Auroville. I am neither “Aurovilian'', “Newcomer” nor “Friend”. I have hesitated for years to comment on my apparent non-status in Auroville. My discomfort with writing this piece stems from a desire to not be misunderstood or perceived as ungrateful or grasping. Finally the words started to form as I spoke to Sunaura, aka Sunny, who is also a child of Auroville from the early 1970s. As she shared her current sense of disenfranchisement from Auroville, I realised what I wanted to say, which is that there needs to be an official category for children of Auroville in the entry process. This category needs to be expanded beyond its current function, which is only for when we want to return permanently to Auroville. Instead, the category should be a permanent status so that we can easily come back and serve at any time.

I am the same age as Auroville. I came to Auroville when I was under one-year-old. When I arrived, the school in Aspiration was founded because the children of Auroville were a priority for Mother. I was reminded of this era as I watched a video from the 1970s posted on Facebook by Auroma, which contains a clip with 2 or 3-year-old me sitting on Norman Dosset’s lap (he was one of the people Mother put in charge of our first school). In it he says, “The children here who are growing up are entering into a new consciousness, into a new world”, such was the deep reverence that we were treated with in that school. There was only a handful of us then, and there are even fewer of us left from that era now. Whenever I see my childhood friends, I feel their eyes light up and a spark flies between us of understanding. This is why it is so jarring to come back to Auroville and be told that I am not an “Aurovilian'', not a “Newcomer”, and not a "Friend ". By the way, when was I ever not a friend of Auroville? I see my childhood friends cringe every time people ask me what I am or who I am and it happens a lot. Rather than giving long explanations, I have taken to replying, “nobody” or a “visitor”, which visibly upsets those who do know me.

I was there when the beautiful bubble of a school Mother had mandated for us was torn to shreds by a rabid dichotomy in our community that ripped beloved teachers and friends from us. In a matter of days, the first generation went from being the future manifestation of a new consciousness to being vagabonds in Auroville. During that time I rode my little red bicycle all over the Green Belt, sleeping and eating in almost every community. There were always kind mentors and friends who seemed to hold the spark of kindness that Mother had wanted for the children of Auroville. I was in the first group of kids at the new Kindergarten near the Center that still exists today. The children of Auroville regrouped where we could at the time, receiving kindness from those adults not distracted by dissension. We ate wherever we could find food in those lean days, and we played all over Auroville. As we became pre-teens, we spent a lot of time at Fertile where Johnny always seemed to be able to put us to work until he formed a school for us as we turned into teens who needed focus.

Along the way we participated in concretings as the Matrimandir emerged from the ground, and we planted so many trees. As we grew into adults in this uncertain landscape, we got our sense of continuity and stability from each other. There were so few of us back then that we knew all too intimately each other’s weaknesses and mistakes, as well as our strengths and beauty, and we all shared in an echo of a dream.

Whenever and wherever I meet these early youth, there is so much understanding that comes from being molded in the early, hot, dusty, bare years of Auroville. Unfortunately, that understanding doesn’t always seem to extend from Auroville to us. We were all brought together by forces beyond our control, and we found each other at the beginning of the dream. I know that I am a much richer and more contemplative person because of the gifts I received from Auroville… and yet I wonder that Auroville hasn’t created a simple path back home so it can benefit from the wisdom it wrought? If indeed we youths of Auroville have actually received any spark of the “new consciousness” it hoped to awaken in us, wouldn’t we be a valuable asset for Auroville’s future? I wonder when I come back as a “nobody” to the red land that forever stains my heart and I pass trees I remember as saplings – “Do you remember me?” If yes, then let me know.

Video for reference: 

http://auromaa.org/auroville-1972-early-documentary/