Issue Nº413 – In Memoriam

On October 30th, Klara Brogli, Aurovilian resident of Surya Nivas, left her body in her native country, Switzerland. She was 81. Due to a medical intervention which substantially reduced the quality of her existence, Klara chose to terminate her life for which in Switzerland officially recognised assistance is available.

Klara had been coming to Auroville since 2001 and joined in 2004 for good. She started volunteering with office work at the then Development Group and worked for years in the SEWA team where her care and support for the financially underprivileged became evident.

She was an open and curious woman, always ready to reach out and give a hand. With her background in investment banking and as a lawyer by profession, she displayed clear insight and was keen in choosing her projects. The Auroville Puncture Service was one of them, and she became its executive in due time.

Always eager to embrace new technology, Klara also had the courage to build a steel framed house in Auroville in which she lived the last 20 years, expressing her elegant and highly aesthetic sense in finely detailed elements of house and garden.

Klara was deeply interested in Auroville’s experimental organisation and collective processes. She cherished the Charter of Auroville, and had an enormous trust in Auroville’s succeeding.

A commemoration in honour of Klara was held at the Matrimandir Banyan on November 4th.

On October 13th, Colombian Lucas Posada arrived with his 10-year old son Salvador in Chennai to start his Newcomer year in Auroville. His wife Gloria and their 14-year old daughter Gaia would follow a month later. During the night journey to Auroville, their taxi collided with a trailer. They were taken to JIPMER hospital where Lucas was diagnosed with multiple injuries. The son was in shock but recovered when his mother arrived 24 hours later.

During two weeks in ICU, while inwardly working on himself and receiving good energies and prayers from many friends, Lucas seemed to make promising progress and was moved to a private room, flourishing in the care extended to him. But on the morning of October 31st, he suffered a cardiac arrest and passed away. He was 60 years old.

Lucas had been searching all his life, travelling the world as a teacher and artist. A few days before his passing, he mentioned in a voice message to those who had been supporting him in their prayers, “I want to send to all those people that have been

sending love and all those beautiful caring intentions…, I am so grateful, my family is so grateful…, this is precisely the reason that I always knew that I wanted to be in Auroville… I am very very grateful to everyone…”

Lucas’s remains were buried at the Auroville burial ground on November 5th. In his remembrance, an exhibition of his paintings was held at the Kala Kendra Art Gallery

One of Auroville’s young children, Tara Nayak, had a lethal fall from the roof of Sunship on November 7th. She was 12 years old.

Born in Delhi, Tara came to Auroville in 2019 at the age of 8 with her mother Fakeera, and studied at The Learning Community (TLC) and in later years at Deepanam school. Due to her sweet and outgoing nature she made many friends and was very much loved. Auroville’s young children were deeply saddened by the accident and two days later joined a ‘Prayers for Tara’ gathering, brought together in grief, chanting familiar mantras and prayers and lighting their candles for Tara. In the afternoon of the same day, Tara’s remains were cremated at the Auroville cremation ground, with many children from various Auroville schools attending, – mourning and chanting, lovingly carrying the space, and supporting Fakeera and each other.