“You have to keep going forward”: a portrait of Pashi

When Pashi was about ten years old, a swami came into the lives of his family. He was to have a big influence upon the young boy’s development. “He guided my young mind towards the biographies of great people, and towards the study of philosophy and religion. Under his guidance, I read both the Bible and the Koran. In other words, he was a very unusual kind of swami who introduced me to a way of thinking that was very different from the orthodox, to something beyond conventional religion.”

Much later, when Pashi was married and had a family, he went to a talk by J. Krishnamurti. He was impressed and thought about sending his three children to the Rishi Valley School, which is based upon Krishnamurti’s educational principles. In a quest for more information, in 1968 he got an appointment to meet Krishnamurti in Rishi valley.

At that time, Pashi was the senior manager of an engineering company in Calcutta. When he travelled south to meet Krishnamurti, a colleague who was a devotee of The Mother suggested that Pashi should also visit Pondicherry where another experiment in education was taking place.

“There I met Kireet Joshi, who at that time was the Registrar of the Ashram School, and told him I would like to understand this system of education. He said, ‘Go and see’ and waved me towards the classrooms. I walked into one classroom and sat at the back. Everybody was quietly reading. Suddenly, a student raised his hand and asked a question. The teacher paused, and then said, ‘I am sorry, I do not have the answer. Shall we go to the library and find out the answer together?’

“That really hit me: it was so different from the schooling I had experienced.”

Pashi immediately asked Kireet how he could get his children admitted, and what it would cost. Kireet said there was no fee. As to how the students were selected, he said The Mother decides, and he pointed to a large picture hanging behind him.

“I said, ‘Do you mean that old lady?’ and he smiled and said ‘yes’. So I asked if I could meet her. He said she only gives four darshans a year. I thought, ‘This is a madhouse’. So I told my friend I would not send my children to this place because it just didn’t sound rational enough.”

However, the friend persuaded Pashi to purchase The Life Divine in three volumes from the Ashram bookshop. That evening he had a few hours to spare while waiting for his train, and he started reading it. “And even in the first two chapters I found there was much rationality in the explanations given, and so much freedom given to the reader to make up their own mind”.

Pashi ended up reading all three volumes. Then he started looking for people in Calcutta who were associated with the Ashram and discovered a branch of the Sri Aurobindo Society in the city. He began going there. Finally, he asked somebody if he could help him meet The Mother, and he obliged.

Meeting The Mother

“It was July, 1968 and the time I was given to meet Mother was 7.13 in the morning. I still remember this because it was so damn specific!

“But at that time I was very reluctant to accept somebody as a guru, so when this friend gave me flowers to give to The Mother I said I don’t need these, I am just going for an interview.

“Finally I was called in, and she looked up. My eyes locked with hers. All I remember after that is that I had my head in her lap and she was stroking it. I don’t know how long I was there, but when I finally got up, I was shaking and crying. I walked down to the meditation hall and there I kept on crying.

“This was the moment that decided my life.”

After this, Pashi was introduced to Navajata, who talked about Auroville. “For me, there were no second thoughts; I fell in love with the concept of Auroville and immediately offered to work for it in any way I could.”

Pashi started visiting the Ashram regularly. In November, 1968 on his way back to Calcutta he met Roger for the first time at Chennai airport. Roger told him that the next time Pashi came to Pondicherry he should come and see him. It was the beginning of a deep friendship.

In 1970, Pashi suggested that the various Ashram-associated organizations around India could initiate karma yoga activities to benefit the society around them as well as contribute revenue for the Ashram and Auroville. He sent his proposal to The Mother. The Mother sent for him and asked him what it should be called. “I said, “Auroville service”. Then she took a large sheet and wrote on it, ‘Auroservice’.”

Organizing the activities of Auroservice became one of Pashi’s main jobs. After some time, he decided to franchise Auroservice so that centres in different States could have some independence. It was in this context that Auroservice d’Auroville became an Auroville unit and trust in the year 1974.

“From the early 1970s I started pestering The Mother to give me permission to come to live here. Finally on my birthday in 1973 – and I was very privileged because soon after that she stopped seeing people – I asked her again if I could come. She said, ‘Why do you insist? I’m with you all the time.’ I said, ‘Mother, being physically in your presence is very important for me’. And I don’t know why, but I added, ‘I want to stop doing what I’m doing now because it involves giving people bribes’.

“She looked at me and said, ‘So, you are a superior being.’ I came down and met Nolinida and mentioned to him what Mother had said. I asked him what she meant. Did it mean I could come? He told me to write a short note asking her for an explanation. He took the note and came back, gave me three flowers and said, ‘This is what she has given to you’. Explaining the significance of the flowers, he said her message to me is to have faith and perseverance. I took that as a positive answer and prepared to move my family here.”

Moving to Auroville

Pashi moved to Pondicherry in March 1974. Two months later, when a hut became vacant in Aspiration, the family finally moved to Auroville. “It all took much longer than I had originally planned, partly because my wife was not sure at first that she wanted to move from Calcutta. Looking back, I think Mother did not tell me I could come immediately because she understood my wife was not ready.”

Meanwhile, The Mother had passed away

At the time, Pashi was in Assam on Auroservice business. “Dr. Datta, who is now the Ashram doctor and trustee, was the medical officer there. In the morning of 18th November, 1973, he woke me up and said Mother had gone. I had to wait three days for a flight because of the weather conditions, and by the time I reached Pondicherry it was too late. She was already in the Samadhi.

“I cried my heart out because I couldn’t see her one more time. Nolini came by and asked why I was crying and I said I could not have Mother’s last darshan. He said, ‘Don’t you see Mother is always with you?’. He put his hand on my head, I closed my eyes and since that moment I’ve never felt away from her. It’s amazing.”

After meeting Roger, Pashi became a regular visitor to the Aurofuture office in Pondicherry. “My relationship with Roger was immediately very close. When he wanted to think out loud about something, he would turn to a small group including me, and we would do the same for him. I had tremendous affection and respect for him. Mother had chosen him to be an instrument for her work, and, in spite of opposition from others, she had consistent faith in him. She saw something in him which we could not see. I think he was a very sincere instrument and I believe that through working with The Mother he became a yogi.”

The crisis

When the crisis erupted between the Sri Aurobindo Society and Auroville in the mid 1970s, Auroservice d’Auroville supported Aurofuture because the Society cut off funding and Auroville had no financial resources of its own.

This was the time when Aurofuture took work outside Auroville for the first time. The projects included planning Salem Steel Town (interestingly, for a population of 50,000), an iron ore township, a coastal development for Orissa and a concept plan for Haryana’s new capital among many others.

“All this was successful in bringing in money,” says Pashi, “but it created a conflict in Auroville because, at a certain point, the Pour Tous group decided they wanted control of all the incoming monies of Auroservice. I disagreed. I said Auroservice will keep providing for the upkeep of the people working there, but please don’t touch the source as, from a business point of view, Aurofuture needed the freedom to make decisions concerning this income. In response, some Aurovilians started an agitation saying that Auroservice d’Auroville was not an Aurovilian activity.

“Finally, I was asked to resign by Pour Tous. I said I would do so, provided it was accepted as an Aurovilian activity. This was agreed upon. But after this, steps were taken to shift Auroservice d’Auroville to Pondicherry.”

At this point, Roger and Pashi decided to leave Auroville for some time. “Roger felt disappointed with the developments as he felt unable to continue L’avenir d’ Auroville, and I had managed to become persona non grata for both the Society and the Aurovilians. I had annoyed Navajata by an attempt to resolve the crisis between Auroville and the Society, and I annoyed the Aurovilians because I didn’t agree with their idea to set up an Auroville Association as a separate legal entity from the Sri Aurobindo Society. As a consequence, my food basket was stopped and I was not allowed to eat in the Aspiration kitchen. And my daughter, who was very young at that time, was even boycotted by her former friends. Finally, I moved to Pondicherry so I could put my children through a proper education.”

A French friend offered Pashi a job in an international marketing company, for which he became the Indian representative. “This started a new journey for me which took almost 20 years. But now my whole attitude to business had changed. I was no longer bothered if I was ‘successful’ or not. I took little commission and sometimes I would even recommend our competitors’ products.

“People could not understand why I was doing this, what was guiding me, and they started coming to Pondicherry and Auroville to see the places that were breeding this idiot!”

The challenges today

Pashi returned to Auroville on 1st January, 2000. “By that time Roger had also returned and he asked me to come back.” Since then, he has helped to raise funds for Matrimandir and worked on tax-exemption issues, but his main concern has been finding ways to secure the land so that at least the urban aspect of the city can be built. “We have not been able to do this so far because of lack of funds and because we have neglected to do certain things. For example, land issues are dealt with by the Tamil Nadu Government, but we have missed many opportunities to get them on board.”

Pashi thinks that the New Town Development Authority initiative [see Auroville Today 309, April, 2015] may be the answer to Auroville acquiring control over the land. “We are engaged in a conversation with the relevant authorities at the moment, trying to find a possible answer to our problems. They recognise it will require some out-of-the-box thinking, and I am very happy with that.”

Another source of support which Pashi feels Auroville has failed to tap is the international community. “Mother waited to inaugurate Auroville until UNESCO had passed two resolutions supporting the project. It was not the money that would come from UNESCO that was important for her; it was the internationalisation of the project. Later, UNESCO passed further resolutions of support, the Secretary-General even came here, but we have continued to ignore this dimension, even though we only got the Auroville Foundation Act because it was seen that Auroville had this international support and dimension.”

Pashi believes we now have another chance because UNESCO is ready to recognise Auroville as a Heritage of the Future project. “If UNESCO and the Government of India supports this, it could be an additional shield for our protection.

“I hope that before I finally close my eyes I will see the fruition of this work.”

Pashi admits that his Auroville journey has not been a smooth one. “For some people, I’ve been a controversial figure from day one, and I’ve had to put up with all kinds of jealousies and animosities. But I would willingly go through it all again because it has only made me stronger.

“Above all, my faith in Auroville has never been shaken. I have an absolute faith in The Dream, in the Charter and in The Mother’s vision. It has to come because it is what the world needs.

“For me, the most important thing, the underlying principle, is that to live in Auroville one must be a willing servitor of the Divine Consciousness. We are not here to question her, even though some people say she would have changed her mind concerning certain things. But she would never have changed her mind regarding the essentials.

“I’m afraid that what we are doing at present is trying to build Auroville based upon our incapacities, our limited minds, rather than her vision. To constantly carry an urge towards the future is not easy. Sometimes, mentally and physically, we get tired and then we want to settle down, to revert to old patterns of thinking and living.

“Mother was a realist: she knew the difficulties and she knew it would take time. This is why she wanted to create a special ambience that would support the work; it is why, for example, she wanted the Matrimandir to be built first and insisted on realizing the township in a particular time scale.

“Finally, without a spirit of adventure and a sense of humour you cannot last here. You have to learn not to take everything to heart, and to keep going forward..”