Jothi’s journey: a conversation on life, challenges, and Auroville

Auroville Today: How did your path lead you to Auroville?

Jothi: My early schooling was in the local government school in Kuilapalayam. Our maths teacher used to cane us. One time, he called us up for making a mistake, and he went down the line hitting everyone. When it was my turn, I had to place my hand on the table. Just as he swung the cane down to hit, I pulled my hand away, and he missed. He was so angry that he punched me instead. I was about eight years old at the time. I went home that day, sick from the shock and pain, and I didn’t go back to school the next day. My parents must have spoken to the teacher because he came to check on me and apologised.

After that, I started avoiding school. The headmaster would send older students to search for us, but after the incident with the maths teacher, no search parties came for me and I enjoyed playing in the tamarind grove.

How did you first get involved with Auroville?

It was around the time I stopped going to school. In those days, Auroville was just starting to grow, and a new school was being set up in Aspiration. John’s cow shed – near where the bakery is now – was converted into a Montessori-style school and run by Narayan, Bhavana and a couple of others. As I was playing on a tree nearby, one day Narayan approached me with sweets.

At first, I refused. We were told not to accept anything from outsiders for fear of being kidnapped. But eventually the sweets were too tempting and I accepted. After a few days of this, I was taken into the school, and I liked it. There were sandboxes with toys for us to play with and tell stories.

Some months later, Varadharajan, who was entrusted by The Mother with the integration of local people into Auroville, took me and a few others to meet the Mother. She blessed us. That was a significant moment in my life. After that, I was enrolled in Auroville’s main school at Aspiration, and my journey with the community began.

We’d assemble at the Sanskrit School in the morning, chant shlokas and after the announcements, head out to our class at Last School or Pyramids. There were no grades or exams, learning was enjoyable. My favourite class at that time was the General Knowledge class run by Michael ‘redbeard’.

But after some time, conflicts arose in Auroville, and the schools were shut down. For about 10 years (1974 – 1984), there was no formal schooling and we had to find ways to continue learning on our own. During this time, I stayed in Aspiration with a group of other kids. We did a lot of activities together – playing sports, exploring the land, going to the beach and finding ways to keep ourselves engaged.

One day some of us Tamil kids went to explore the Toujours Mieux workshop managed by Jean. They had many different machines that fascinated us. We asked Jean if we could learn to work with the machines and he replied that we had to know maths first. I said, “Teach us maths.” He started right away, first on the floor, then on a blackboard. After a few days, Jean found us an abandoned hut at Utility where we continued our maths lessons.

Croquette was also teaching Sukhi’s (Martine) adopted Korean son, Dylan, at home. Rose, Martha and others were there too. I joined them for some time. In the afternoons we’d go to Ami where Gordon and Jeanne taught English.

As life was still difficult in Aspiration, some of us were taken into Aurelec where they had begun to make computers. We soldered the components onto the PCBs to make connecting cables for the computers. I was paid Rs. 300 as a monthly salary: I gave half to Aspiration community as my contribution. We asked Ulli to let us work in testing. He said we needed to know electronics for that. We asked him to teach us electronics and he engaged an engineer to teach us for an hour before work. At this time, the Sanskrit School was being run as a guest house to help the community. We asked Sam, who was managing it, to allow us to use the library room for an hour for our electronics lessons.

During one tea break at Aurelec, Fred came to talk to us about starting the school. We agreed, and invited kids and adults to join. About 50 children and 10 teachers showed up at Sanskrit School and our education system was gradually rebuilt.

You chose to move to Auroville at an early age. What was that experience like?

It was difficult. Around the age of 14, I was going back and forth between Auroville and my family in the village. My heart was in Aspiration, but with my family close by, they expected me to be involved in their family functions and support them. It was hard to balance both.

I remember one day, Renu – we were all young then in Aspiration – said something that stuck with me. She told me, “You eat here at Aspiration, and then you go back home to the village and eat there too. You have to decide if you want to be in Auroville or in the village.” I thought a lot about that. At that time, I wasn’t thinking about Auroville’s ideas or philosophy – I was just a kid. But eventually, I decided to commit fully to the Auroville community. I cut my connection with my family. Auroville became my home, and the people here became my brothers and sisters.

At some point when I was still very young, I had a strange and intense experience one morning that stayed with me for years. I’m not sure if it was a dream or something else, but it felt incredibly real. In this experience, I was standing in front of Sri Aurobindo, who had passed away long before I was born. I vividly saw him laid out on the ground floor next to a staircase, with a long white beard and hair, covered in a silvery or golden robe up to his chest. The experience was so real that it affected me deeply. I couldn’t understand how I could have seen someone from a time before I existed.

Later, I shared this experience with Kireet Joshi. His interpretation gave me some comfort. Over time, I accepted the experience for what it was – dream, memory, or something else.

After those early experiences, what path did your education take?

After Auroville’s school restarted, I continued for two years, then I had a chance to study in the US. Gordon and Jean, who were connected to Auroville, selected three of us for a project to study abroad. I attended Northfield Mount Hermon, a private prep school in Massachusetts.

How did you adjust?

It was a massive culture shock. When I first arrived in New York, I was overwhelmed by the crowds, the cars and how busy everything was. I had this idea of America as the Wild West, with cowboys and open land – I used to read a lot of westerns – but instead I found myself in the middle of a bustling city with skyscrapers. School was also different – everything was well-organised with students from all over the world. The academic system was more structured. I was a bit older than the other students in my grade, but I adjusted over time. I learned a lot during those two years.

After returning to Auroville, how did your life evolve?

After coming back, Diane approached me, asking if I wanted to manage Auropress, a printing press that had been taken over from Barun. I told her I did not know anything about printing or management. She took me to Auropress, introduced the workers to me and explained briefly how things functioned. The same evening, she handed me the keys to Auropress saying that I needed to open it in the morning by 8 am and then she was gone. I think it was a few days earlier when, overnight, all the books and tapes of the Mother’s Agenda were taken away from Auroville to an undisclosed place and many people (especially French) left Auroville disappointed that the Mother’s Agendas were no more in Auroville.

It was not easy to deal with the few workers at Auropress. Their needs were always increasing, but the income was not. So, after a year and half, I handed the responsibility over to Claude Arpi and took a break to travel to North India.

Coming back to Auroville I realised I still wanted to continue my education, but I wasn’t sure how to proceed at first. Eventually, I came across a newspaper ad from Annamalai University, offering a distance learning programme, and I decided to go for it. I enrolled in psychology, which fascinated me because it connected with my interest in understanding people and human behaviour. I studied for three years while also starting to work in Aurofuture at Bharat Nivas. At Aurofuture, I learned drafting, model-making, and computer-aided design. I also got involved in digitising the land records and survey drawings and doing 3D modelling, and worked on some projects with Roger and Luigi. Those were exciting times as Auroville was developing, and we were contributing to the vision of what the community could become.

How did your health issues begin, and how have they affected your life?

My health challenges started in the summer of 1988, when I was living in Saylam. I developed kidney problems. I was very active, spending hours playing basketball and other sports and I was not drinking enough water because the slow-dripping candle water filter was always empty by the time I got back home.

One day, during a basketball match in Pondy, I started having a severe headache. The next day I went to the Health Centre. The doctor asked me to give urine and blood samples. The result showed I had kidney problems. After four months of medication and tests, I finally ended up in the East Coast Hospital dialysis centre for a week. I was very unhappy there. Then Luigi took me to Chennai, where I ended up having a kidney transplant.

Two and half years later, the graft failed and I began dialysis. This has continued for the past 22 years. It hasn’t been easy, but I didn’t let it stop me. I kept working, contributing to Auroville, and coaching basketball. Whenever I travelled for the National tournaments, I pre-arranged my dialysis sessions so I wouldn’t miss coaching.

How did you get into coaching?

During the years when school sports was at Certitude, there was a need for trained coaches to help run the programme. I opted to get trained as a basketball coach in the NIS program under SAI.

The first time I was engaged to coach the Puducherry State basketball team was in 1996 when the Youth National Championship was being held in Pondy for the first time. Thereafter, I coached the state teams regularly for the National and South Zone Championships in various categories until 2016. Every time I saw a child I coached improve, not just as an athlete but as an individual, it was very rewarding, and reinforced my belief that I was still capable of contributing positively.

Managing a chronic health condition must be challenging. How did it affect you on a personal level?

When I first began dealing with my kidney issues and the subsequent need for dialysis, it was overwhelming. There were days when the treatments left me physically drained, and the uncertainty of my condition weighed heavily on my mind. I often felt isolated, especially since I couldn’t participate in activities as freely as I once did. It was hard when some friends treated me differently after I got sick. They didn’t know how to act around me, and some distanced themselves. It hurt, but over time, I learned to accept it and not take it personally. I found strength in those who stayed by my side.

In the year 2000, I felt very unhappy and unhealthy, both emotionally and psychologically, because I was told by my doctor not to continue playing basketball as I may accidentally get hit on the graft. Being home, unable to do anything was suffocating. One day, a small group of friends came to my place to do something to improve my situation. That’s when I thought of becoming a sports organiser and we started the Auroville sports coordination team. This led to the creation of AVSRC in 2007 and I got actively involved in its management and organising sports and cultural activities in Auroville and the villages around. I also resumed coaching basketball and improving the sports infrastructure at the New Creation sports ground. Staying active, especially with coaching basketball that I’m very passionate about, really helped. It gave me something to focus on and a way to stay connected with the community. A year ago, I had heart trouble and ended up with three stents. That slowed me down a lot. I had to stop coaching, and I’m not sure how much I can handle now. Over the years, I’ve also had road accidents. This limits my physical activity and movements, but I still try to stay engaged in other ways.

You’ve been part of Auroville for so long. How has the community changed over the years, and how have you contributed to its growth?

In the early days, we were focused on building infrastructure and a sense of community. I took on various roles. I was part of the first Working Committee, then the Auroville Council and, later, the Entry Group. But after some time, I realised that politics wasn’t for me. It was draining and emotionally exhausting, so I decided to step back.

Have the present conflicts affected your relationships?

Unfortunately, yes. Some close friends and I have grown apart over disagreements. It’s hard to see people you’ve known for years become distant over differences in opinion. That’s another reason I stay away from politics.

How do you envision Auroville’s future?

Auroville’s future lies with the younger generation. They’ll take the foundation we’ve built and hopefully, shape it according to Their Vision. However, the core values of unity, diversity, and collaboration should remain at the forefront. So, I’m optimistic The Mother’s dream will come to be.

For me, Auroville has been a lifelong commitment. I chose this community over my traditional village ties because I believed in what it stands for. Auroville has given me so much – a sense of belonging, a purpose, and a community that stands for something greater. Auroville is more than just a place to live; it’s a commitment to a vision. And I’m proud to be part of this journey.