Issue Nº349 – In Memoriam

Subir (Olivier Caracostea) passed away on 30 April of this year in Orleans (France) due to cancer. He was 68 years old.

Subir had a Romanian grandfather and came from a family linked to the Theosophical Society in Paris. On coming to India, he became a sannyasin and lived in a cave for one year. Afterwards, he went to the Theosophical Society in Chennai before coming to Pondicherry, where he met Mother and stayed for some time in the Ashram.

Subir joined Auroville in 1971. He worked on the Matrimandir and cycled all over Auroville, delivering mail to various communities. In 1975 he left, returning after a few years to start Djaima with friends like Jean Legrand, Jean Pougault, Diane, Joy, Gilles Guigan and Goupi. Joy recalls that he and Goupi were always ready for fun and laughter and made the community kitchen a lively place.

From 1981 to 1989 he lived in Fraternity. During that time, he managed the Boutique d’Auroville in Pondicherry where his imposing kurta-clad figure, leaning against the railings and engaging people in deep conversation, became one of the sights of Nehru Street.

In 1989 he married Neeta from Mumbai. They moved to Lucknow where he worked for Mira Aditi, the publisher of books by Sri Aurobindo, The Mother and Satprem, and opened a boutique. Shortly after that, the couple moved to Paris, where their daughter Saatchi was born and where Subir started a traditional French pancake restaurant in, of course, Pondicherry Street.

Some years later, he divorced and came back to Auroville on his own. He lived in Invocation from 2001 to 2004 and worked at Freeland Bookshop and La Boutique d’Auroville at the Visitors’ Centre. After this he started working for Mira Aditi in Mysore, where he moved in 2007. For many years he did a lot of touring all over India for Mira Aditi until poor health caused him to stop.

Around this time his mother died and he went back to his family house in France. He stayed there till his passing.

Subir had a wonderfully kind and warm nature, allied to very deep devotion. As Michel from Darkali puts it, “Subir will be remembered as a very dear friend to so many of the older generation of Aurovilians, someone who was very sincere and on whom you could rely fully, and who had a great sense of humour. His devotion to the Mother was entire and very sincere.”

Ross A. Elliott left his body on June 23rd in PIMS at the age of 73, after a struggle with bladder cancer that took him through several hospitals since March this year. His close friends were with him.

Australian Ross joined Auroville in December 1995 and has been active ever since, widely and lightly sharing his communication skills with Auroville and its residents.

Starting at Matrimandir where he gave introduction talks to visitors, he soon entered the world of newcomers and students to Auroville whom he guided around in a light-hearted, animated and highly informative way. Also his improvisation theatre sessions were much appreciated.

Ross’s body was buried at the Adventure’s burial ground on June 27th.

On June 14 Sakthivel passed away at AUM Hospital. He was just 41 years old. Hailing from Kottakarai, Sakthivel came to work in Auroville in 1996 and officially joined in 2003. Having first worked at Solar Service, he soon started working as technician at the Solar Kitchen, taking care of the building’s machinery. His pleasant nature and willingness to help out, even though every other day he had to undergo a kidney dialysis treatment, made him a much appreciated and loved member of the Solar Kitchen team. Sakthivel’s body was buried in Auroville’s burial ground at Adventure.

In the early morning of 27 June, André Tardeil, founder and father of New Creation, left his body at his house in New Creation after an extended struggle with cancer. André had just turned 77.

André came to Pondicherry in 1972, having worked with the Auroville Association in Paris for two years before that. Recently, recalling his experience of the first darshan on 21st February, 1972 he said, “You know, you can never tire of the possibilities of seeing The Mother, you were transformed. She infused in everyone who was there the will for change”.

André spent five years in Pondicherry working at Auroshikha, the Ashram incense-making department. During that time he helped provide financial support to Auroville in its newly achieved economic independence from the SAS.

In 1977, he moved to Auroville where his prime focus has always been to create better conditions for the villagers and their children. As he put it, “We should stop considering our neighbours as a separate entity from Auroville. As soon as we consider them as part of Auroville’s future and give them all the support we can to help to manifest themselves as part of Auroville’s development, we will have all their reciprocal support. We have to build real fraternity, this is the primary work we have in front of us.”

To help manifest this vision, in 1978 he started a school in Fraternity for village children, which in 1983 shifted to New Creation. Over the years, supported by his wife, Babu, and a network of friends and funders abroad, New Creation grew to include schools, a boarding facility for disadvantaged children, vocational training workshops and small commercial units, for André always stressed the need for practical training rather than just book learning: as he put it, “children learn what they live”.

André’s main aim in all this was to help the students, as well as the villagers, become self-reliant individuals. “Through training programmes and through helping them create their own handicraft enterprises, these people have the chance to grow and reach their full potential.”

In this, he was very successful. As Alain Bernard put it, “His love for the local people translated into many lives being transformed, particularly those of young girls and boys, through education, a cause into which he poured his energy, endlessly creating classes and boarding facilities. Today, I am sure, so many would say that what they have been able to become owes a lot to André’s ceaseless efforts to sustain them.”

All this, however, was not achieved without considerable struggle and some controversy. André felt largely unsupported by the Auroville community, which did not always appreciate his independent financial ways, causing him to rely heavily upon friends and donors abroad, as well as the guest houses and businesses he had set up to sustain his many initiatives.

But his dedication to his work, to his children and to a transformed future for all was never in doubt. Last year he wrote, “In fact we should be ready, to search, to fight, to keep faith in spite of all and to rediscover, now in this life, this enchanting smile, containing the secret of life... Difficult surely, but one day we will leave this world and all we did will not exist. Only will follow that second of true luminous Self; like a small light guiding us towards Eternity.”

André’s remains were laid to rest in Adventure’s burial ground in the late afternoon of the 28th of June, with family and many of his friends attending.