Issue Nº426 – In Memoriam

Dr Federico Mayor Zaragoza, a former member of the Auroville International Advisory Council, passed away on 19 December.

A scientist and professor (biochemistry / pharmacy), Dr Mayor was Minister of Education during the first period of the current Spanish democracy and presided over UNESCO as Director-General for twelve years. A renowned writer and humanist, he was a fervent defender of gender equality. His deep commitment to human rights led him to be a critical voice against injustice, the power of money and war, defending the truth wherever he went. Till his passing, he presided over the Culture of Peace Foundation, which he founded in 2000.

Dr Mayor was a member of the Auroville International Advisory Council during his term in office at UNESCO, from where he wrote statements in favour of Auroville. He supported the work of Auroville and Auroville International Spain through several videos and with his presence at the General Assembly of Auroville International in Tortosa in 2013.

A short clip made of Dr Federico Mayor Zaragoza’s talk on the occasion of Auroville’s 50th anniversary in 2018 can be seen at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wnGDQxyAthc.

Victor Plotnikov was born in 1954 and grew up in Moscow, Russia. Since 1993 he had been living in Certitude, with his wife Galina. His son Nikita was born in 1998 in Auroville and all three lived as a family till his last day. He passed away on 27 November, 2024 at the age of seventy.

As a child he was very smart and inquisitive with varied interests, and he loved hiking and rafting through rocky rivers in the Ural region.

In his youth, Victor began to show great interest in Eastern practices, took up yoga and karate, attended thematic lectures, and became a vegetarian.

In the early 90s, friends brought Victor a clipping from the newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda, which told about the city-commune of Auroville. Since his friends had dreamed of building a similar city in their youth, Victor decided to go to India and see this inspiring vision for himself. From then on, a new stage in his life began.

In his thirties he visited Auroville a few times until he finally moved and settled here. He joined in 1993 and dedicated his entire life to Auroville, especially Matrimandir, which was very dear to his soul. He worked there as an engineer, leading a team of workers to manifest the soul of Auroville. From 2019, he worked inside Matrimandir, providing peace and guidance for people to meditate.

Victor was an adventurous soul who kept a smile on his face through any circumstances. He was an extremely dedicated, sincere and honest person, full of passion and joy towards life. He was a good husband and a great father who supported his loved ones through thick and thin. He was always ready to help others and supported them with unconditional love. He will be remembered as a person with goodwill, good heart, and an eternal smile that radiated positivity and love.

Victor’s remains were cremated on 3rd December 3rd at the Auroville Cremation Ground.

Karuna Periyaswamy, who was born in Kuilaypalayam, was only 14 years old when he joined Auroville. As a child, he had once met The Mother at the Ashram, as part of a school visit, and offered flowers to her. His grandfather was one of the village chiefs of Kuilaypalayam. He initially stayed in Fraternity, then in Aspiration for a while, and finally settled back in Fraternity with his family.

He was partly educated in Auroville (After School), and he became a keen kabaddi, volleyball and basketball player. He worked at Aurelec for some time, and later was part of the Solar Service team for a while.

He married Uma in 1991 and had two children, Vidhya and Kishore. He also had a four month old grandson, Vihaan, with whom he spent his last months.

At Fraternity, Karuna started a small workshop, producing handicrafts items and dolls. He started with one tailor and one lady assistant, and then, in 1993, this became Discovery,

This was a garments exporting unit with about sixty employees which offered a lot of job opportunities to the surrounding villages of Kuilaypalayam, Bommayapalayam, Edayanachavady and Alankuppam. The unit specialised in silk hand painted garments and accessories.

Karuna was very actively involved in Auroville life. He was the first Tamil to start a successful export unit in Auroville. Later he expanded the business by taking over the Lotus unit (hammocks). In recent years he was managing the Discovery Guest House. He founded Discovery trust and was a trustee of Aurosarjan, and served on the Entry Group, the Working Committee and the ABC support group. He was also helping and supporting youngsters. He financially supported a lot of sports activities and he contributed to Auroville schools. For some time he was one of the executives of NESS school and of the water maintenance service.

He will be remembered as a very straightforward, skilful, organised, and hardworking person, with great willpower, and as a strong and bold person. He loved to travel the world and had travelled to the USA, England, Germany, France, and Switzerland.

For the past six years Karuna had been suffering from chronic kidney disease and was in dialysis. He passed away on the 5 December, aged sixty. His cremation took place the next day at the Adventure Burial Ground.

Richard Pierre Pérez, who passed away on 17 December, was born in southwestern France and spent much of his life in Paris with his partner Marie Christine. They visited Auroville for the first time in 2008 and then returned every year for a short period of one month until their permanent settlement here in 2017. Richard had been working at the Botanical Garden since then, where his manual skills, generosity, and availability were fully expressed. His smile, his radiance, his simplicity, and his sincerity will remain in the hearts of all those who met him. Richard’s remains were cremated on 23 December at the Auroville Cremation Ground.

Navroz Mody, environmental activist, died in Pondicherry on 20 December 2024. He was 79. Born and raised in Bombay, Navroz was the only son of Kersasp and Rati Mody. He attended the Cathedral School, where he was a great sportsman, Head Boy in 1964, and Palmer House Captain. He was awarded the Macdonald Medal for Leadership in 1963. From 1965 to 1969, Navroz studied at Dartmouth College, New Hampshire, USA, under the mentorship of Hans Penner, noted scholar of comparative religion. Returning to India, he worked as Regional Editor for Oxford University Press from 1971-1980. Among his editorial projects were the late volumes of the Handbook of Birds of India and Pakistan by Salim Ali, the renowned ornithologist and natural historian. Their friendship inspired Navroz’s developing passion for environmental conservation. During the 1970s, with Shyam Chainani and others, Navroz became a founding member of the Bombay Environmental Action Group (BEAG). For decades, through speaking, writing, and legal advocacy, he worked with BEAG to impact policy and effect change. At his death, he remained Honorable Secretary.

In 1980, Navroz moved to Pondicherry to start his own business, Southend Typographics, and in December 1983, he joined the Auroville community. He developed a grant-funded project to enhance water and crop management for small farmers in the Palani Hills watershed. He played an integral role in the Palani Hills Conservation Council and was instrumental in legal battles to protect the region, including the landmark victory over Pleasant Stay Hotel in 1995. During the 1990s, Navroz worked with the global organisation Greenpeace, helping to pursue legal action against the companies responsible for the gas leak disaster in Bhopal. In Kodaikanal, Navroz was instrumental in exposing mercury contamination and seeking justice for affected workers. In Auroville, he was known as a “fearless soldier” for environmental justice. Navroz was a member of the team that worked on the Auroville Master Plan. Based on his extensive experience in environmental issues, he focused on the co-development area (now called "outside the Master Plan") and the Auroville Greenbelt. Navroz showed that planning and natural growth in designing a Master Plan are not contradictory but complementary approaches. In 1999, he became a member of the official representative team for the Master Plan. In 2022, after the destruction of the Youth Center and Bliss forest, he was one of two Aurovilians who petitioned the National Green Tribunal Southern Bench to preserve Auroville’s forests and green spaces, uphold participatory planning and stress the need for obtaining environmental clearance for the Master Plan area.

Navroz was also an artist. And in recent times, he was instrumental in starting the Ecology Action Lab at Aurobrindavan to encourage citizen science in Auroville.

Navroz will be remembered for his fearlessness, kindness, passion, generosity, concern for others, and capacity to articulate issues. For his family and friends, his indelible spirit remains.

Navroz’s remains were cremated on 26 December at the Auroville cremation grounds.

Marco Feira passed away in his house in Sharnga community on 26 December at the age of 74. He had been suffering from cancer.

Marco joined Auroville almost 30 years ago. His was a full and varied life, initially shaped by his love for the arts, later by his love for the spiritual. While growing up in Turin, Italy, he started painting and joined the Arte Povera movement, using everyday materials to create a new pictorial language. In the late 1960s he travelled to Afghanistan, Pakistan and India where he fell in love with the arts and antiques. His focus expanded and he became one of the first Italian dealers in Asiatic art and antiquities, running, by the end of the 1970s, a business with more than 20 employees.

India touched him in other ways as well. He started studying Indian philosophy and the Vedas, with his first book being one by Sri Aurobindo which, he said later, he hadn't understood at all. Together with his wife Liliana, Marco discovered Auroville. After visiting Auroville for many years, in 1997 they joined and gave their antiquities business to the people who had been working with them. Marco and Liliana then started the fashion and jewellery unit Miniature – a name chosen as a living reminder to keep the business small.

Marco will be particularly remembered for his role in stimulating the arts in Auroville. Together with four other Aurovilians, he started the Auroville Art Service in 2010, aiming at supporting and developing the arts in Auroville. He was concerned that Auroville would be built by bureaucrats and politicians who didn't have any artistic ideas and didn’t care about art, because art doesn't produce money. He stressed the importance of art for Auroville and followed what The Mother had said about art:

“Art is nothing less in its fundamental truth than the aspect of beauty of the Divine manifestation. … like a Yogi an artist goes into deep contemplation to await and receive his inspiration. To create something truly beautiful, he has first to see it within, to realise it as a whole in his inner consciousness; only when so found, seen, held within, can he execute it outwardly; he creates according to this greater inner vision. This too is a kind of yogic discipline, for by it he enters into intimate communion with the inner worlds.”

For a brief period of time, the Auroville Art Service published the magazine MAgzAV, which focused on questions around what the new culture of Auroville would be, how art could contribute to the building of the city and inspire spiritual search, and how Auroville artists could become revealers and teachers of the divine beauty in life.

Marco also curated many art shows, amongst which the exhibition Transformation, which was part of The Auroville Festival – City for Transformation at the India International Center, New Delhi, in September 2012. The exhibition, which showed works of Auroville artists, was a great success and led Marco to dream about an Auroville Museum of Modern Art, which would host art that spoke directly to the viewer, who should experience 'something' and ask questions so deep that answers would have to be found at the spiritual level.

Cinema was another art form Marco loved. He created the Cinema Paradiso in Auroville’s Multi-Media Centre, showing films from different parts of the world, and started the bi-annual Auroville Film Festival, a platform for movies made by people from Auroville and elsewhere. The experience led to exchange programmes with film festivals in other parts of the world and to the decision to make film making part of the curriculum of Auroville’s schools.

His focus on art was supported by his focus on Tai Chi. When he was young, Marco had stayed some time in a Zen monastery in Japan learning breathing techniques, concentration and meditation, which became part of his daily routine. In Auroville he learned a form of Tai Chi called The Inner Way from master Vlady Stevanovitch. He studied this form intensively and became a teacher himself, ultimately training between 200 and 400 people a year for more than 20 years.

Marco’s remains were buried on 27 December at the Auroville Burial Grounds.