Lockdown

Bob Zwicker has worked in the Sri Aurobindo Ashram Archives for 52 years, with particular responsibility for the Mother’s works. Recently, three new books have been published containing new material not published in the Centenary edition of The Mother’s Collected Works.

Auroville Today: What was your childhood like, how did your own musical journey begin? Shalini: My journey with music began very young. Singing was always central to my life, but never through formal education.

One year ago, people searching YouTube for videos about Auroville would have noticed that many of the items that first showed up were produced by people who had visited Auroville for only a few days.

While Tamil Nadu is in a second lockdown, Auroville entrepreneurs reflect on how they handled the first lockdown.

There is an old British World War II saying of some people ‘having a good war’. Without denying the widespread human suffering involved in Covid19, I have been wondering if some Aurovilians are ‘having a good Lockdown’, which could emerge from people stopping, taking an in-breath and potentially reconsidering their life direction.

As Auroville's forests have grown over the years, new wildlife corridors have evolved, which have brought new kinds of animals to the area. A large bear has reportedly been sighted in Pitchandikulam Forest in recent months.

Many view the disruption caused by the lockdown in Auroville as an opportunity to radically transform our economy, governance, food provision systems etc. and a number of proposals to achieve this have already been made.

How has the pandemic impacted our economy? How to make it more equitable and resilient in the future? These are just two of the questions explored in a recent discussion between people from different sectors of the community.

Marc’s Coffee responds to the challenges of a pandemic.

Lampshades were one of the first items produced by Auroville’s small handicraft units, which started up in the 1970s to provide an income for individuals and for the community.

Thanks to the Internet culture, Aurovilian teenagers are very connected to the world: they knew about the coronavirus when it had just started, long before it hit India.

On 18th March 2020 Deepam closed. Deepam is the day care centre in Kuilapalayam for children with special needs where I work as an occupational therapist (OT).

In ‘normal’ times, Aurovilians have a great deal of choice when it comes to dining in cafes and restaurants, or buying groceries to cook at home.

When the lockdown started across India in late March, economic activity ground to a halt in Auroville, and individuals, commercial units, and community services had to take a rigorous look at their expenses to see how they would survive.

In the last few months, the world has been turned upside-down. Half the world’s population has been in lockdown, the global economy has collapsed, millions have lost their jobs and thousands have died, all as a result of a new and very infectious corona virus: COVID-19.

The COVID Task Force, along with the Working Committee, has been the group that has been coordinating Auroville’s response to the lockdown. What has their work involved?

Despite the restrictions of quarantine, an innerly creative world was quietly emerging during the lockdown. For some Aurovilians, the halting of everyday busyness allowed their muse to take flight and for creativity to take form.

Even before India entered one of the strictest lockdowns in the world, among the first measures it took to stop the spread of COVID-19 was to shut down schools across the nation.

At the beginning of April, Koodam, the conflict resolution platform that offers personal and group conflict transformation services in Auroville, extended their support to anybody needing help in coping with the challenges presented by the lockdown and quarantine regulations.

The COVID-19 pandemic and lockdown have brought large scale unemployment, poverty and hunger to the rural villages and urban slums of India.