“If everyone says no, who will say yes?

I had rebelled against the national system of education from the age of eight. I did not want to learn by rote and I thought there must be another way to learn – but I didn’t know what. I was growing up in a family that encouraged values based on humanism and rationalism. My ambition was to become a barrister-at-law. By this time, it had become quite difficult to be managed by my parents, and I asked to be sent to boarding school. I really wanted to leave home, not because I was not loved, but because I was looking for something else.

We had first visited Auroville and the Ashram when I was four. My mother had met Sisirda, who was then the Registrar of the Ashram school. She had asked if she could leave one of her children in the school, to which Sisirda had reportedly replied, “We will see when the time is right.” What I loved was the system of education. I had read On Education by The Mother when I was 14, and I thought, “This is where I want to be.” But my family said, “Finish your studies, then we will see.”

This is how things continued till I was 15. I would attend the playground meditations in the Ashram, and on one such day I got up from the meditation and told my mother that I was going to apply for the Ashram school. She was shocked, not knowing what to do. But she accompanied me to that fateful meeting with Parudi.

The next six months passed like a blur. I was sure I would be admitted, though everyone at home thought that was impossible – I was already in the 9th grade. But this is where decisions are made at a different level – intellectually and emotionally everything was fine, but there was something else I was looking for. Then we got the news that I was admitted. I was ecstatic! For my parents, it was very difficult to let go and my mother came to drop me to the school. I still remember 9th December, 1985, the day I arrived in the hostel, as the happiest day of my life.

The boarding school in the Ashram is like a family. So, my dream of going to boarding school was realised in a very particular context. It was a beautiful experience, but there were challenges. The biggest challenge was learning French, which I did not know at all. I am very grateful to all my teachers, especially Lata-di, who gave me their time and energy. I had nine hours of French every week, and within a year, I had come up to the level of my batchmates. All that training came to good use later because I majored in French, moved to France and wrote my post-graduate thesis in social psychology in French. When I look back, all this wouldn’t have been possible if I did not have the strong foundation that was laid by my teachers in school.

What the Ashram school gave me was a complete experience of education. We had physical education seven days a week, where we learned not how to compete, but how to increase our endurance, overcome physical difficulties and have a healthy body. I wasn’t a great sportswoman, but I enjoyed playing every sport. Academically, I majored in Sri Aurobindo’s philosophy and in languages. One of the most interesting things about my schooling was that I was one of the first girls in the Ashram school to join the mechanical workshop. I was very interested in repairing motorcycles and cars and worked long hours at the Atelier. It was a wonderful opportunity to integrate intellectualism and the practical aspects of life. I would be reading Essays on the Gita for two hours and then spend two hours under a tractor. This is one of the specificities of the Ashram school that I have not seen elsewhere.

When I graduated from the Ashram school I knew eight languages – English, French, Italian, Bengali, Hindi, Sanskrit, Tamil, and Gujrati. I had learned Indian classical music, and had performed in Bengali, French and English theatre. This was Integral Education at its best. It did not make me a master of any one thing, but it made me appreciate all the different facets of life.

After school, I wanted to stay back in the Ashram, but my parents thought that I should be financially independent. So, I joined Pondicherry University for a master’s degree in philosophy. One morning, in my second semester there, we had a discussion on Sri Aurobindo’s philosophy. I thought the Professor was not respectful of Sri Aurobindo, so I got up and left the university for good.

I took a two-month break in the Andaman Islands, came back to Pondicherry and took up various jobs, including teaching at the Franco-Indian Vocational Training Centre. These were very challenging years – I was young, and I was teaching a bunch of school dropouts between 18 and 30 years of age. I also traveled to France to get my teaching degree – my thesis was on vocational training for French nationals in India.

In 1997, I applied and was accepted for a master’s degree in philosophy at Sorbonne University in Paris. I didn’t have a scholarship, so life was very hard. I barely had enough to feed myself. It was also the typical university program where you sit in a lecture theatre and take notes. I dropped out. Luckily, I had many friends in Paris from my earlier work in vocational training and they encouraged me to find a job.

I went through a six-month professional course in bilingual (French and English) executive secretary skills. I did my practical training in an organization called the Nest Movement that worked in the area of human trafficking and prostitution. After my training I ended up working full-time for them. I became their Prevention Officer for human trafficking.

But before I could prevent it, I had to understand what I was preventing. I started my fieldwork by visiting the red-light areas of Paris. What I saw was horrendous. I came back with a headache and I gave myself two days to decide if I really wanted to do this work. At the end of those two days I said to myself, “If everyone says no, who will say yes?” For the next five years I not only worked at the French national level, but also became the Executive Secretary of the International Abolitionist Federation, which fights human trafficking internationally and at the United Nations in Geneva. I organised several congresses for the Federation and attended several policy conferences.

I began to understand the difficulties of victims of trafficking, conflict, and rape. It was trying, and my way of moving forward was by writing. I wrote a diary almost every night after I came back from the field, which later became the material for my thesis. I traveled all over Europe and met many victims of trafficking and prostitution. Sometimes I spent Christmas with them because they had no one to be with. My view is that prostitution is never a choice. The solution does not lie in legalising, but in education and prevention. And I think I have given my best. I have also received a lot from these victims, who are often very humane, sensitive and loving.

After some years, I was approached by a professor at the Sorbonne asking if I would like to do a master’s degree on human trafficking and prostitution because there wasn’t much research in that area. I accepted. This three-year course was very innovative in its approach. In the first year we were asked to write an autobiography detailing all the events that had led to our present work. This was therapeutic for me. I had come to this work not by chance, but because of my sense of justice and wanting to work for a cause. It was the result of the values that had been inculcated in me by my parents and the result of my education in the Ashram school, which had made me fearless.

During this time, I also started training social workers to deal with human trafficking. This expanded to working with victims of domestic violence – there seems to be a link between domestic violence and prostitution.

I had met my fiancé in France, married and was about to have my child. I wanted, very consciously, to have my son in India. I came back to Pondicherry to be near the Ashram, and I visited Auroville every week. My son was born in 2004, and after four months I returned to France. In 2005, I started work with an organization called Metanoya, which helped create a network among social workers, the police and the judiciary. The purpose was to be more effective in receiving and helping victims of trafficking and sexual crimes. I completed my thesis and became a professional social psychologist. My approach blends social psychology and criminology. I learned international law, not to be a lawyer, but to use it as a tool in dealing with victims and former perpetrators. It was very interesting for me to work with the latter group, because they are not just perpetrators, but also human beings.

In 2008, someone very close to me passed away in very difficult circumstances as a victim of domestic violence. This was an uncle (yes, men can be victims too) who in many ways had brought me up. He was the one who had really understood me, how different I was from other children. He would always tell me, “Go to Auroville.” I would visit Auroville every time I came to India. My main reason was Matrimandir – I am very attached to it, just like I am attached to the Ashram. When I came to Auroville after my uncle passed away, it was very different and very special. I went to Matrimandir one day and came out with a clear decision – “I am coming back home.” It was not easy for my family in France to understand my decision, but they finally relented. My son got admission in the Auroville Kindergarten and I started the next phase of my life.

Living in Auroville was a big change from Paris. Earlier, I had visited Auroville mostly during the day, and living in Adventure was literally an adventure. It was also very beautiful. I had come from a work life which was full of conflict and violence. Here was a place that was peaceful and quiet. I was grateful for the work I was given as the Project Holder for the R&D section of the Centre for Scientific Research (CSR). I did not have very heavy responsibilities, so I could really breathe in the atmosphere of Auroville. It was also wonderful for my son – we lived in a keet hut and he grew up surrounded by nature.

I started to work in Matrimandir in the Access Team. After about a year and half, Barbara asked me to take up the work at the Offerings Desk. I worked for three intense months with her before she passed away. From 2012 onwards I worked full time at the Offerings Desk – fundraising for Matrimandir, receiving donors when they visited, and giving information to people on how to make offerings. There is one thing that is very particular about this work: like Barbara, I enjoy sending handwritten notes to donors all over the world.

All this while, I had not talked to too many people about my background in working with victims of trafficking and violence, but slowly Aurovilians came to know about me. Then requests started coming in for me to provide counseling in situations of domestic conflict.

In France I had worked with The European Union Agency for Law Enforcement Cooperation (Europol) and with Interpol. I had enjoyed this collaboration with police and judges, and somehow, I had a knack for understanding international law. In fact, when I was teaching social workers, one of my focus areas was making the law accessible to victims. In Auroville, on several occasions I accompanied people to the police station – very informally, just as an Aurovilian. Over time I developed a rapport with the police.

In 2011, I was called by the French Consulate in Pondicherry, who knew about my background, to train all police officers in Pondicherry to deal with human trafficking and prostitution. In 2015, some of us sent to the Working Committee a set of recommendations on how to improve the security situation in Auroville. We met the Working Committee, and in April 2016 the new team of Auroville Safety and Security was set up. I now have the specific responsibility of police liaison.

There are many challenges in our work – Indian police are not easy to work with. You must be very strong and firm, yet polite. Also, the stations are not very well equipped. My approach is always to have them participate and collaborate with us. I always say that we are here to help you help us. Today the local and district police are cooperating. From our side we need to show appreciation, not just blame them. However, what we lack today is a liaison with the judiciary.

Another challenge is that we have many different nationalities, and people have very different ideas about what to expect in a police station. I try to sensitize them to local realities and I also try to focus on what is improving. That’s what keeps me going – the small steps. For example, just the introduction of the walkie-talkies, jackets and torches for the security team have prevented a lot of incidents.

I see my role evolving into the role of a facilitator who ensures that everyone in the team is heard. We are looking at setting up a legal cell and will perhaps start liaising with the judiciary. But more than anything else, I can feel the presence of The Mother very strongly.

I am here to participate in realising Her Dream.