Cyclone Thane

“Artisans cum aspirant artists,” says Luisa tentatively. “Players with paper,” suggests Hervé. They laugh, attempting to label the Aurovilians working at Auroville Papers – Christine, Jean-Jacques, Florent, Luisa and Hervé.

The doors are four meters high, each smoothly rotating on two ball bearings. The scene is the new Centre for Indian Culture at Bharat Nivas, the construction of which is in the finishing phases.

In 1995, Aurorachana (meaning ‘Auro Creation’) started giving a second lease of life to old and broken furniture – colonial English, Pondicherry-French and some of Chettinad style – mostly made of teak or rosewood.

The large hall on the ground floor of the Centre for Scientific Research, earlier used for researching ferro-cement technology, now houses one of the work spaces of Prakrit, the wood working unit created by Danish Aurovilian Torkil Dantzer a few years ago.

Due to the weather and the fact that the wood stocks from Cyclone Thane are slowly decreasing, there is not enough dry firewood available for various Auroville units like the Bakery, Tanto Pizzeria and the Visitors Centre.