Issue Nº383-384 – In Memoriam

Aurovilian A. Jothi passed away at JIPMER hospital on May 28th due to COVID.

Jothi joined Auroville in 2005 after marrying Ganesh. A happy spirit, she worked at Farm Fresh for five years, then at PTDC for five years, where she was known as “one of the sweetest people we have ever met,” and for the past one and a half years at Sunship. Since 2018 she had been suffering from an auto-immune disease. She contracted COVID-19 and was admitted to JIPMER. Her body was cremated on the 29th in Karuvadikuppam.

During the afternoon of May 17, long-term Dutch Aurovilian Nolly Senden passed away at the JIPMER hospital due to a stroke. She was 85.

Nolly was temporarily residing at the Mahalakshmi Home to recover from a leg injury when she became unwell and started experiencing COVID symptoms. After testing positive for COVID-19, she was brought back to her house in Samasti, where she was supported by a medical team and volunteers. On May 15th, when her condition worsened, she was taken to JIPMER hospital where she received oxygen and medication. However, two days later she expired. Nolly had not taken any vaccination.

At the end of the eighties, Nolly frequently came to Pune, India, to be trained as a qualified Iyengar hatha yoga teacher, and started visiting Auroville at the same time. Having completed the study, in 1992 she came for good, and financed a Yoga Hall for the the new Pitanga building. She also built a Pitanga caretaker house where she lived for several years.

From the moment the hall was ready, she taught hatha yoga to increasingly large groups of eager residents, at times gaining the nickname of ‘General’ for her no-nonsense, commanding approach. Also, in her work as executive of Auroville’s Small Employees Welfare Association, SEWA, as well as in her dealing with the many workers who worked with her during the years, she would show her sternness, dedication and, at the same time, empathy and compassion. After suffering a mild stroke, Nolly stopped teaching yoga and moved to Sri Ma for five years and then built another house on the outskirts of Samasti.

In accordance with government protocols for deaths due to COVID, Nolly’s remains were cremated at the Karuvadikupam crematorium in Pondicherry on June 21st.

Kailas Jhavery passed away on May 10th, 2021 at the age of 94. Kailash had become a member of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram in 1964, after studying and working for more than ten years in New York, USA. In 1966 the Mother appointed her as “Secretary-in-charge, UNESCO section” of the Sri Aurobindo Society, a post for which she was eminently suitable having interacted for two years with the United Nations. In that period Kailas wrote several compilations, the most notable of which were The Reshaping of Humanity, The Aim and Action of a True Spiritual Culture and Culture and International Co-operation and Peace. Some other noteworthy compilations made by her on Auroville were: Religion and Spirituality, Auroville and the Ideal of Human Unity, The Aim of Auroville, Matrimandir: The Sanctuary of Truth, Auroville and Education, Cultural Pavilions and Sri Aurobindo and the Future.

Kailas shared a special bond of friendship with Dr. Adiseshiah, the former Deputy Director-General of UNESCO. On the basis of the conversation she had with him, she had told the Mother that since Auroville was to be an international township, it was necessary to work for this project through UNESCO and that the Sri Aurobindo Society should be affiliated with UNESCO as a non-governmental organization. The Mother appreciated Kailas’s idea. Kailas prepared a paper on Religion and Spirituality, pointing out the differences between the two in the light of Sri Aurobindo’s vision and emphasized how Auroville, whose objective was to realize human unity, covered life in entirety as well as its activities and relationships on the basis of spirituality. On the basis of this paper, the Sri Aurobindo Society was admitted to the ‘C’ category of relationship of UNESCO, meaning an exchange of information of their mutual activities. In 1966, Kailas also went to New Delhi and contacted a few embassies representing the six continents. Together with Salah-El-Din Tewfik, UNESCO’s representative in New Delhi, she worked out a resolution for Auroville to be proposed by the Indian Government for UNESCO’s General Conference in Paris. This resolution was unanimously passed in November 1966 by the General Conference of UNESCO.

When Kailas came to know of the rift between Auroville and Sri Aurobindo Society, she volunteered to help in resolving it. Though she tried her best, she failed to persuade both the parties to reconcile. When the matter went to court, she stopped her work for Auroville as she felt that such an action was against the declared objective of Auroville which was to realize unity through progressive universal harmony.

Unreservedly surrendering to the Mother, accepting no intimidation, Kailas had a fiery personality. Her autobiography in two volumes, “I am with you” (a message she received from the Mother in support of her UNESCO battle) is a most exalted text of guru-bhakti. Kailas was the symbol of unquestionable faith in the Mother and in the true Auroville.

An extensive obituary by Anurag Bannerjee has been published at the website of the Overman Foundation, http://overmanfoundation.org/.

On May 3rd, German Aurovilian Werner Stoff left his body in his house in Prayatna, at the age of 81, after a struggle with cancer.

Werner was an architect and a Freemason. He lived for a while in Bali and married a Balinese woman before the couple moved to Germany. He became a renowned architect of residential villas and office buildings ‘without corners’. He was also the designer of the iconic Stoff Nagel candlestick holder in the 1960s.

After the death of his wife, in 2001 Werner came to Auroville and became an Aurovilian three years later. In Auroville he was known for his daring project of transforming the community of Prayatna into one of the most densely populated communities of the city, with plans agreed on by Roger Anger for up to 250 people. It would be a ‘Gesammtkunstwerk’ or ‘total art concept’, where the inhabitants agreed to live in the architectural art work “in exchange for interactions with the designer in order to fashion their living space according to their needs, but always in line with the overall design language and style of the total project”.

As it was not easy to find people who were willing to adhere to the concept, eventually only the main building consisting of an office-cum-demo space, as well as two spaces for the homeopathic clinic and twelve living spaces were built in his design language.

At the same time, Werner also designed abstract sculptures, and many new objects for his AuroDesign unit as well as various structures around Auroville, such as housing in Aranya, a temple in Jawadhi hills and Kallallipattu, a design for the new Svaram campus and the cremation space at Auroville’s cremation grounds near Adventure. His remains were cremated there on the afternoon of May 6th. To celebrate Werner Stoff's legacy, a retrospective exhibition will be organised in the expo space at Prayatna.

On Sunday May 16, Italian Aurovilian Renzo Pezzato left his body at the age of 67 at JIPMER hospital where he had been brought because of serious COVID symptoms. He had been in JIPMER’s intensive care unit since May 12th, where he received oxygen and medication. However, his condition worsened and he passed away a few days later.

Renzo came from Treviso, Italy, where he worked for years as Head of one of Italy’s Electrical Departments, after which he became quite proficient in glassblowing. In 2019 he came to Auroville and was accepted as an Aurovilian the year after. Initially he worked in the Matrimandir gardens, but being a very technical person, he gravitated towards AuroService, where he took up the drip irrigation arrangement for the city center.

He lived in Vikas and people who worked with him knew him as a gentle, kind person with a strong sense of service, particularly for people in need.

In accordance with government protocols for COVID-related deaths, Renzo’s remains were cremated at the Karuvadikupam crematorium, Pondichery, on May 24th.