From Istanbul to Auroville

Auroville Today: Can you tell me about your early life?

Cansu: I was born in Istanbul in 1989, into a family with a profound history of social mobility and a diverse ancestry connecting lands that today include Albania, Lebanon, Armenia, Greece and Turkey. My grandparents on both sides were uneducated villagers from Anatolia who migrated to Istanbul, seeking a better life. They were never wealthy, but they worked hard and made sure their children – my parents – had opportunities they never dreamed of.

My mom’s story is particularly inspiring. She grew up during a tumultuous time in Turkey, marked by military coups and widespread political unrest. Back then, universities were often unsafe, with clashes between left and right-wing factions creating an atmosphere of fear. Despite all of this, she managed to graduate, and that changed everything for our family. She became financially independent, something incredibly rare for women at that time, and her experiences shaped my future aspirations. She envisioned even greater possibilities for me and pushed me to seize opportunities that weren’t available to her.

This led to one of the biggest turning points in my life: attending a French-language high school in Istanbul. It wasn’t my decision – she made the choice herself and informed me only when she handed me the school uniform. She said, “This might as well change your life.” At the time, I didn’t fully understand what she meant.

Was that a drastic change?

It was a shock to my system. These Francophone high schools have a lingering orientalist culture. It felt like I was being uprooted. But my mom was insistent. She knew this school would open doors I couldn’t even imagine. And she was right. That school gave me access to higher education in France, where I could find opportunities that weren’t readily available to me in Turkey.

At 18, I moved to Paris. It was my first time living outside Istanbul, and my second time ever leaving the country. It was incredibly challenging, as I had to juggle my studies with waitressing, babysitting, and working as a salesperson and translator. Even though I had studied French in high school, it wasn’t enough to keep up with academic courses. The education systems in Turkey and France were completely different. In Turkey, everything was about memorisation – dates, events, and formulas. In France, it was all about critical thinking and constructing arguments.

I remember one of my first essays in university – a 20-point assignment where I scored half a point. It was humbling, to say the least.

How did you manage to adapt?

At first, I struggled to fit into the culture. I felt like an alien, constantly trying to break free from the stereotypes others had of me. But I couldn’t imagine leaving empty-handed after all the sacrifices my family had made. So I worked really hard and learned to speak French like a native, and without realizing it, began shaping my identity, the way I navigate the world, and even the way I connect with those who alienated me.

After my bachelor’s degree at the University Sorbonne Nouvelle, I felt lost. I didn’t know what to do next: whether to go back or stay. This was also a frightening time for Turkey, when civic freedoms began to regress due to escalating state violence. By sheer chance, I learned about a master's scholarship for women from developing countries, focusing on topics like sustainability, journalism, or international relations. On a whim, I applied and I initially got rejected. But I got a call the day before classes started, offering me a spot after all. Little did I know, that spot would eventually bring me to Auroville.

Really? How did that connection come about?

At the American University of Paris, Tanya, who is a child of Auroville, was my professor. She organised annual trips for students to explore practical issues related to sustainable development through the lens of social theory. Thanks to my scholarship, I had the opportunity to join one of those trips to Auroville.

When I first arrived in Auroville, I expected it to be a research hub, but it was so much more. There was this narrative of East meeting West, of spirituality integrated into everyday life. That felt familiar to me – it reflected the identity of my home town, Istanbul, and really resonated with my Sufi upbringing

Sufism is a subculture within Islam, a mystical tradition that emphasises transcendence over literal interpretations of the Qur'an. My home in Istanbul was often a gathering place for Sufi students and practitioners. We’d read poetry, play music, debate philosophy, and explore ideas about self-transformation and love for the divine.

So while many of my classmates struggled to connect with Auroville’s spiritual ethos, to me, it felt like a discovery mirroring my own spiritual and cultural heritage. But more importantly, it marked the beginning of my training in qualitative research methodologies, which eventually led me to pursue a PhD in Sociology at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales.

It sounds like Auroville struck a chord with you in a way that it didn’t for others. How did your relationship with the place evolve from your first visit to your PhD journey?

That first trip planted a seed. Auroville stayed in my mind as a place worth exploring. But I first wanted to deepen my training as a researcher, which led me to work in the development sector.

One of my first projects was on gender and reforestation at a global, non-profit research organisation based in Delhi. Later, I worked on tribal rights issues with the local NGOs and civil society organisations serving the Irula communities near Mahabalipuram. These experiences were eye-opening but also disillusioning. At the large organisation in Delhi, I realised how much research was influenced by corporate and political interests. Critical findings were often omitted, and the entire process felt compromised.

Within the smaller organisations I worked with, the issue was different. They had genuine on-the-ground intentions but lacked resources and political leverage. It felt like no matter how much effort we put in, nothing ever really changed for the communities we were trying to serve.

In contrast, Auroville offered something unique. It wasn’t perfect, but it was a living experiment – a space where I could explore the intersection of social and environmental questions in depth. It became my base for thinking about how different cultures and systems of thought can coexist in a dynamic tension.

You learned Tamil fluently during this time. How did that come about, and what impact did it have on your understanding of Auroville?

Learning Tamil was transformative for me. Prior to that, I felt completely disconnected from the local culture in Auroville.

I took six months of intensive classes with Prof. S. Arokianathan in Pondicherry, who focused on teaching the spoken form of Tamil, which is very different from the literary form. It was challenging but rewarding. Tamil is such a poetic and playful language largely because it is suffixal, allowing words to be modified and expanded with suffixes to convey nuanced meanings. This adds a depth to the linguistic world, further enriching expression and imagination. Even simple phrases carry layers of meaning. For example, when you say goodbye in Tamil, you don’t say, “I’m going”; you say, “I’m going and coming.” This is because saying "I’m going" can imply a permanent departure, even death. It reflects a sense of continuity, cyclical in nature, that's deeply ingrained in the culture.

Learning the language also shifted my understanding of Auroville. It opened doors to conversations and observations that wouldn’t have been possible otherwise. It’s one thing to live in a place; it’s another to truly connect with its people and culture.

Did this change how you view Auroville?

In many ways. Living with my partner’s Tamil family in Pondicherry also immersed me in the local culture, with all the everyday rituals and practices rooted in care and reverence for nature, such as offering food to crows before eating. These seemingly small acts are symbolic and reflective of a people deeply connected to the land.

This experience also made me more critical of Auroville’s sustainability culture. Coming from an urban background, I was initially in awe of initiatives like reforestation, permaculture, solar energy and upcycling. However, my partner, Kishore, a snake rescuer and wildlife conservationist, offered a different perspective. When I took him to a reforestation project I thought would impress him, he dismissed it as “gardening” and asked: “Are the people of the land truly benefitting from this?” His critique opened my eyes to the inseparability of environmental and social justice.

Kishore works with tribal communities and has helped declare large areas between Tamil Nadu and Pondicherry as protected wildlife zones. He doesn’t label himself; he just sees it as a natural responsibility to the land and its people. In Auroville, sustainability is often framed in a way that focuses on the individual – everyone is a pioneer, an innovator, or an entrepreneur. But, in many of the same projects, the people of this land are reduced to mere beneficiaries or labourers.

These realisations also brought into focus how disconnected most Aurovilians are from the local people and culture, and even from the land beyond the green insularity that Auroville offers. Understanding this helped me see Auroville in a more nuanced manner.

How did these insights influence your PhD work?

It made me more conscious of the relationships between Auroville and the local Tamil communities.

As I switched between different volunteering roles at Eco Femme, Wellpaper, Mohanam, and so on, it helped me make better sense of the complexities I was observing in the field. Auroville undoubtedly has unspoken hierarchies that have lingered even after decades of “working together”. It made me realise how important it is to engage respectfully and with full humility with the people and culture of this land, rather than assuming that "spiritual" intentions alone are enough.

Which other Auroville projects did you get involved in?

Another project was called Prosperity. The name carries a lot of philosophical weight in Auroville because it’s tied to the Mother’s original vision of an economy that provides space for spiritual growth. But over time, the term has become controversial, as people debate what it really means and how it should be implemented – much like any other concept that has been part of the community's history.

The Prosperity Team I had joined was a small, self-organised team of Aurovilians – with people like Jocelyn, Anandi, Danny and Pashi Ji – may he rest in peace. The team aimed to create a roadmap for Auroville’s economy, aligning it with short and long-term visions closer to the original concept of Prosperity. We held weekly meetings, presented ideas to key decision-making bodies like the BCC and FAMC, and worked to map out concrete steps involving both service and commercial units, as well as individual Aurovilians. It was an intense but rewarding process, and it taught me a lot about how politics and economics actually function in Auroville.

Your involvement in Auroville has been both practical and personally philosophical. How does this tie into your background in Sufism and your exposure to other spiritual traditions?

That connection is very personal for me. My Sufi upbringing and familiarity with concepts like universal love as the feminine principle were reflected in Sri Aurobindo's Integral Yoga and the Mother's teachings. Without that connection, I’m sure I would have seen Auroville in a very different light. Sufism teaches about removing the veil of ego and surrendering to the Divine. It also teaches about ethics, cultivating an inner law that guides how we breathe and move through this world, where we are all sentient particles of the same source, yet we often only see each other through our differences. So, I try to do my best to carry myself in line with those principles that all mystic traditions share, and the same goes for any involvement – even academic.

It sounds like you’ve always been drawn to this interplay between philosophy and practice. How does that influence the way you see your future?

My partner and I often talk about creating a life that bridges different worlds. We dream of doing research and community projects together, connecting land, people, and cultures between India and Turkey, and possibly even Europe, depending on where the funding for our projects comes from. It’s an ambitious dream, but it feels grounded in what we both value. But I also try to cultivate a sense of detachment from any possible futures awaiting me, so who knows, maybe it will be something completely unimagined.

And does family play a role in that vision?

Yes, family is really important to both of us. For me, my mom plays a huge role in how I imagine the future. She’s an old-school, no-machinery ceramist, and she’s getting older now, so I feel this urgency to learn from her and preserve the ancestral knowledge she has to offer. The same goes for Kishore. His mom practices all sorts of natural remedies at home, and she repurposes everything from old jars to food scraps; her kitchen is like a laboratory. We picture a future where we can honor both these traditions, passing them down to the next generations.

What’s the biggest lesson you’ve learned from your journey so far?

The biggest lesson is that everything is interconnected – whether it’s language, culture, land, human and non-human relations, creative expressions or spiritual and philosophical traditions. I’ve also learned that ancestry shapes everything; you can’t just invent or create with an eye on future realisations without understanding the past.

It’s a humbling process, but it’s also incredibly rewarding. Every step of the journey has taught me more about myself, the world, and the beautiful, messy complexity of trying to make a difference.