In Memorium - Roma Hira

The true inspiration for my coming to Auroville was my mother. Not The Mother, though you can argue she had a hand in it but my own physical mother. She and my father used to visit the Sri Aurobindo Ashram every alternate year and had darshans from The Mother. In February 1968, my mother attended the founding ceremony of Auroville. She came back glowing, with the absolute conviction that this was my place and that I should go there. But in my mind I had a picture of an ashram as a walled-in institution and I asked her why on earth I would do that? I wanted to enjoy life, and perhaps, on my retirement, go to Auroville. My mother insisted that Auroville was my place. I thought ‘aaghh’ and left it at that. 

Then came 1975. My father had passed away, my mother had developed some mental problem and I had to bring her to the Ashram. And then something strange happened: the moment I entered the main Ashram building, I knew I was home – and I knew I would come back. I stayed in Pondicherry for ten days, and met Prem Malik. He brought me to Auroville on June 2nd, 1975, now almost 41 years ago. That day in Auroville was another epiphany: it was like a second birth. 

After six weeks, I had to bring my mother back to Calcutta. But 1975 had become a turning point in my life. From that year till 1986, I would visit the Ashram and Auroville four, five or even ten times a year, sometimes for a day, sometimes for a week. And Aurovilians started visiting me in Calcutta: Prem Malik, Roger Anger, Roger Toll, Deepti, and small Patrice to name but a few. Roger Toll came to distribute Satprem’s trilogy, small Patrice to work on Mother’s Agenda. And soon, one room in my house became ‘the room of books’. And in 1980, when there was an Auroville exhibition in Calcutta, eight or nine Aurovilians would come and stay with me.

But was Auroville my place? I met a man from Mysore who claimed to have the ability to make an astrological chart from one’s thumb impression. He gave me an inkpad, asked me to put my thumb impression, and drew a chart. He then started telling me of my past, in which I was not interested – I wanted to know about the future! I pressed him for some insights. He answered that at the age of 39 I would go to live in a foreign country, at the seaside, among foreign people. I replied, ‘Not possible, I’ll never leave my country’. But he was right: at the age of 39 I came to live at the seaside among white people – but not in a foreign country but in Auroville in India! 

On September 11, 1986, the night of my birthday, I made the decision to join Auroville. I decided to follow the rules and met with the Entry Group, with Fabian, Prem Malik, and Annemarie who were some of its members. One of them looked at me and asked, ‘What are you doing here? Aren’t you Aurovilian already?’ For my face had become quite familiar. But, of course, I had to go through the process. Perhaps coincidentally, I became Aurovilian on June 2nd 1987, the date I had first come to Auroville 12 years earlier. When I wrote to my mother that I had decided to stay in Auroville, she wrote back that it was the best decision I’d ever made. 

Flavours and fragrances

Two things have always been strong in my life: food and perfumes. I was born in Calcutta during the 1947 riots. As they couldn’t take my mother to a hospital, the doctor came home and used our dining table to deliver me. I still have that table.

That dining table was a focus of our house, for my mother was the perfect cook. If I could achieve 50% of her art of cooking, I would consider myself very good. Our immediate neighbour were a Parsi couple who were caterers. They catered in bulk, cooking in huge copper pots, and I, as a one-year old, used to clamber in and out of their pots. So there are the origins of my food fascination.

The perfume side came from my father. He and his brothers were amongst the first importers of fine French perfumes in India. One of my favourites was Soir de Paris (Evening in Paris), a fragrance by Bourjois, in a cobalt blue bottle with a white cap. It still exists. As a child, I would fill up the bathtub, empty a bottle of perfume in it, add some blocks of ice and then soak in it for hours. The fascination with fragrances never left me: today my favourite is Dune from Dior. 

My father also imported bath salts, and, as an aside, laxatives from an English company called Westminster Laboratories. One looked like chewing gum, the other, called Bonamint, like a piece of chocolate. As a child, I could, of course, not resist the temptation to freely distribute them to people I didn’t like.

After I finished high school in Calcutta, I began to work for a batik company, travelling, like my father, the length and breadth of the country by bus and train, with a bag full of samples. My father also taught me the rudiments of storekeeping – if I pestered him too much, he would send me packing to the store, where I learned storekeeping and billing. 

Encens d’Auroville, Aurelec and Hidesign

My relationship with Encens d’Auroville, Auroville’s first agarbatti industry, started in 1977 during one of my visits. Small Patrice, Paul Pinthon, Claude Arpi, Mark André, Alain Monnier, Alain Antoine ... they all started off there. I remember going in there and something caught my heart, and it hasn’t left till now. There was an immediate and intense connection. At the time, they only made incense and candles for use by Auroville. During one of my first visits, I told Paul he should go commercial. He gave me a very nasty look, because ‘commerce’ was a dirty word those days. [Paul has become one of Auroville’s most succesful businessmen since, eds.] 

But it would take years before I would join Encens, now known as Maroma. When I joined Auroville in 1986, I first started a little kitchen inside the old Pour Tous building in Aspiration, selling lunches for Rs 5. Pour Tous, in those days, was run by Jean Pougault and Ann, and Jean Legrand. Those were the days that everybody had to get their groceries from Pondicherry. 

I suggested they try to get the groceries on consignment basis from B.N. Sons, the shop in Nehru Street opposite the back gate of the Raj Nivas, where today you find Surguru Spot. I approached B.N. Sons. They agreed. And a small 2 x 2 metre corner was transformed into Auroville’s first grocery shop. Surbhi and Claire had long before received The Mother’s consent for the name Pour Tous and the ensuing envelope system, but this was the first time a groceries store came up in Auroville.

In those days I was house-sitting in many places. One was in Auromodèle, in Alain Bernard and Christine’s house. One day, during a very heavy monsoon downpour, Ulli from Aurelec phoned and asked if he could come to talk to me. He came, dripped on Christine’s cushions – I remember I got nervous thinking about how Christine might respond – and offered me a job as purchase officer at Aurelec, Auroville’s computer company. I didn’t know the first thing about computer parts but that was no issue, he said. 

I would receive training from Nini. The offer was very attractive. I was running a kitchen getting Rs 400 maintenance a month, and here suddenly I would receive substantially more. I accepted and started working for Aurelec in close collaboration with Nini, who became one of my closest friends. My work soon included taking the responsibility for Aurelec’s canteen. 

Another close friend, this one from the olden days, was Rita. Her family in Calcutta had become my second family. She had come to Pondy and was working for Dilip Kapoor’s Hidesign. The link was soon made, and after four years I left Aurelec and joined Hidesign, running its domestic division which then consisted of two shops: the boutique in Nehru Street in Pondicherry and a shop in Bangalore. Soon more shops were opened all over India. I worked closely with Dilip, one of the most market-savvy people I’ve ever met.

Hidesign also marketed its bags in Auroville’s Kalki Boutique in Pondicherry. One day there was an incident and Dilip told me to go solve it. Once again I interacted with Paul. And in the middle of that difficult discussion, I realised how much I wanted to come back to Auroville and I told him I wanted to work for Maroma. It was one of those times you blurt something out without thinking it through. But it clicked. I resigned from Hidesign, and in May 1994 I joined Maroma, and never left, except for a small period in which I started Roma’s Kitchen.

Roma’s Kitchen

Running my own restaurant, Roma’s Kitchen, was an old dream, which finally came through when the Auromodèle community agreed that I could get the community space built for Auromodèle by a Japanese-French couple. It’s running well, but it’s not highly profitable as a lot of competition has come up in recent years. To attract more business, I put up a sign board, but after some disgruntled comments from Aurovilians, it disappeared. Today, Roma’s Kitchen runs on its good reputation only. But I never made it to the level of my mother. Before she passed away, she would regularly visit Pondicherry and Auroville. When she came, she cooked, and that was a food festival. She was also a professional critic. One day she ate some chapattis I had made. “Almost as good as mine,” she commented. I, with my great reputation in Auroville, was deflated. She’d just punctured my ego.

But there have been days where our cooking was unsurpassed. One such day was when Dior launched the perfume Escale à Pondichéry. They brought a whole team for the launch and asked us to make them dinner. It was the best dinner I’ve ever made. We reached a height we’ve never reached before and may probably never be able to reach again. 

So I am doing two jobs, working for Maroma in the perfume business and running Roma’s Kitchen. Food and fragrances have remained the mainstays of my life. 

I have often been asked for my views on Auroville’s future. I must admit I have been a bit selfish, concentrating on my own development because there so much to work on. So I can’t judge the development of Auroville. But if I look at my fellow Aurovilians, I know that what we are trying to do here is something unbelievable. We may be in a situation of two steps forward and one or more steps back, but I’ve come to truly believe in everybody’s aspiration. I feel that everybody has been given a thread, and as long as you follow that thread, it will be ok.

So this is my story. On reflection, I believe that at some time in my life I must have done something correct to land up in Auroville. For I feel very privileged to be here. No, I’m not anxious about my future. The Mother has looked after me so long that I am no longer worried.