Issue Nº368 – In Memoriam

Auroculture (Helga Ahy – born Pirk) left her body on 10 February at Marika Home. She was 86 and had suffered a major stroke in November 2014 which left her partly paralysed, with a weakened heart and hardly able to swallow. After this, various other strokes occurred, each leaving her more peaceful and ready. She eventually passed away due to aspiration pneumonia.

Auroculture, born in Vienna, Austria, came to the Ashram in 1971, having left her husband Jahan Ahy in New York. Ahy, an Iranian diplomat, was no stranger to the Ashram. He had visited Mother in 1969 who mentioned to him “I really like your wife” and inspired him to become instrumental in the first set-up of Auroville International. Hence Auroculture’s connection with AVI.

While living in the Ashram, she was in charge of the flowers on the Samadhi every morning and, during the years of turmoil, would bring some to the Aurovilians in order to support them in their struggle. This was not always appreciated by various parties, nor the fact that she kept planting trees in the Bharat Nivas area. Having a strong, independent and upbeat character, and totally devoted to Mother and Sri Aurobindo, Auroculture was used to do what she thought was right and was never bothered by criticism. It was M.P. Pandit who gave her the ‘Auroculture’ name.

During this time, Auroculture also started developing her educative ‘Aurogames’, puzzles and toy-like material designed to create mathematical understanding in youngsters. For some time she worked with them at Udavi School. Throughout the years the games have been refined in greater detail, and are presently being used and produced under the same name by TLC Maya and Paula of Transition through their Auroville ‘Kalvi’ unit.

In 1995, Auroculture made the step to come over to Auroville and became Aurovilian a year later. From then onwards she has been active as a green-finger worker and consultant in the Matrimandir gardens, endlessly picking up flowers there and elsewhere, to combine and blend them into a wonderful flower compost used for Matrimandir and many a other special occasions. Her meditative ‘flower mandalas’ became highly appreciated decorative entities in our ceremonies – a tradition that will live on in her name.

Auroculture started off in Aspiration, then moved to Inspiration, Arka and eventually Marika Home. Auroville will always associate her with greenery, flowers and gardens and an unwavering devotion to the Work. Her remains were buried at the Adventure cremation and burial grounds on February 14.

On February 1, 2020, Subash (M.S. Subash Chandra) passed away in the Mahalakshmi Home. He had just become 74 and had been battling Parkinson’s disease since several years.

Born in Madurai, and wishing to practice the integral yoga of Sri Aurobindo and Mother, Subash joined Auroville in 1994 after obtaining a B.E. (Electrical) at Madras University. The year before that he had been conducting a 4-months experiment with 12 kindergarten children of New Creation Bilingual School, using the Glenn Doman Word Flash Cards method in order to verify the authenticity and usefulness of the system. This was one of the first such efforts in Auroville. It proved successful and from there he became a much appreciated teacher at the School’s primary level, teaching math, social science, languages and story-telling for two years. There he came to know of many joyous and student-friendly educational approaches and used them for the students with impressive psychological and academic learning outcomes. At the same time he wrote a number of papers on these various systems, bringing them to the attention of many schools in Tamil Nadu. He also conducted ‘Consecration’ and other workshops, introducing young Aurovilians and residents in the bioregion to the teachings of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother.

In 1996 he became the coordinator of Isai Ambalam School, which became the love of his life. He continued studying and applying more alternative educational approaches, and trained the teachers to use them. Among them were the Glenn Doman Word Flash Cards Approach to impart reading skills to preschoolers, Primary Level Activity-Based Learning Cards Approach, Bilingual Audio with Language Games Approach for learning English, Education By Design Problem-Solving Approach, Thematic Projects Interdisciplinary Approach, Phonics Approach for Learning to Read English, and Basic Sentence Structure Approach using Regis’ English Sentence-Writing Formula. Also, the Thalir Thiran Thittam of the Aparajitha Foundation of Madurai was added, a system for imparting values-based psychological life-skills to the students. When, several years ago, the STEM Land Project (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) started in the school, its educational direction somewhat changed, while still endeavouring to integrate the use of all these effective innovative approaches for maximizing the learning of the students.

Subash was determined in getting education to whomever needed it. He started out in a small house in New Creation, from where he moved to Isaiambalam, then Creativity, and recently moved to the Mahalakshmi Home. Many of his students, whose minds he has opened, will dearly miss him.

Subash’s remains were buried on Sunday 2 February, at the Adventure cremation and burial grounds.

Mani (G Gnanamani) of Foodlink passed away on the morning of 20 February succumbing to injuries suffered by a car accident on ECR road the day before. His remains were cremated on 21st in Chinnamudaliyarchavadi. He was 38 years old.

Although he never officially joined Auroville, Mani was known to many who frequented FoodLink, where he was a steady and responsible presence since February 2012. Most of the FoodLink clients may know him from the FoodLink desk, registering their selected items in a friendly and totally concentrated way; his colleagues describe him as a very honest and straightforward person, always serious but also great fun to be with. He will be sorely missed.

On February 2, Martin Sobieroj passed away in his room at Arka. He was 76 and had been suffering from pancreatic cancer. Martin was ready to go and had opted to stay away from heavy treatment and follow the natural course of the disease, a choice which he – admirably – adhered to apart from accepting some pain plasters at the very end.

Being a searcher from a young age onwards, Martin first came to Auroville in 1977 but it became clear that for him it was not the right time, or possibly not the right motivation. When he returned 15 years later with the sincere intent to further his spiritual development here, he very soon got in contact with Gangalakshmi with whom he started working at L’Agenda de Mère in Aspiration and he became Aurovilian in ‘94. When the House of Mother’s Agenda (HOMA) moved to Savitri Bhavan in 2006, he continued his non-stop research and information work such as answering questions from Aurovilians pertaining to Sri Aurobindo’s and Mother’s work, making indexes and compilations of their texts whenever needed, preparing with Gangalakshmi the HOMA pages for News and Notes etc., always in a spirit of collaboration and giving.

Apart from writing several texts on Auroville’s Integral Yoga and context, and regularly participating in discussions on Auronet, Martin also wrote the published book ‘Der Stern des Abgrundes: das Medium Adolf Hitler im Lichte Sri Aurobindo und Der Mutter’ (‘The star of the abyss: the medium Adolf Hitler in the light of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother’), a collection of statements from the Mother and Sri Aurobindo on the mediumistic nature of Hitler for which Martin, by widely researching German literature of the time, documented convincing confirmations. The book gives a fine overview of the occult Hitler phenomenon which is largely ignored by historians.

Martin’s remains were buried at Adventure cremation and burial grounds on February 5th. An overview of his life, in his own words, has been published on https://youtu.be/taQYIowP6tY

Navoditte (Norman Thomas) came to the Sri Aurobindo Ashram in 1967 with his wife, Alice, and in February, 1968 attended the inauguration of Auroville. He moved to Aspiration in 1971 where he was part of the group that met Mother a number of times, conversations subsequently recorded in ‘Aspiration Talks’.

Later he moved to the Eco-House in Certitude where he was the weatherman, taking daily records of sun and wind. During the 1980s he worked for some time as the librarian at Aurelec.

Above all, he was a fine writer. His best work navigates a delicate line between quicksilver humour and profundity, reflecting both his wry, self-deprecating take on life (he once wrote that the most marvellous phrase in the English language was “I don’t know”) as well as his deep philosophical introspection and quiet undogmatic devotion to The Mother.

What he wrote about the ancient Chinese poet, Tao Yuang-Ming, could well have been written about himself: “He was quiet, even taciturn, had no desire for riches or fame. He amused himself with books, but never to such an extent that he would trouble himself with exact interpretations…He amused himself by writing occasion poems, wherein his aspirations are revealed, having no interest in worldly success or failure. And so his life passed to its end.”

Navoditte, like Yuang-Ming, loved laughter. Typically, he wrote his own funeral poem. It begins “You won’t need a coffin / To carry me off in / But a sheet / Would be rather neat” and ends “No music. No heavy breathing. No words / Just - if you’re lucky - the sound of birds / And then, with the rising smoke / Let some-in-the-crowd bloke / Give a vote of thanks on my behalf, / And then you all can laugh and laugh and laugh and laugh”.

Navoditte passed away on 1st February at the age of 93. He was buried in the Adventure cremation and burial grounds three days later.

His quiet, twinkle-eyed presence will be sorely missed.