Note to self.

02.03.2016 / after having spent twenty four beautiful days at Auroville:

I woke up today, without the sound of nature or Ruchit’s flute; pulled my towel off the clothes line, without having to wait for an army of ants to pass by; and walked to a wash-room, without the feel of sand under my feet.

In November 2008, Cyclone Nisha was exercising it’s might along India’s eastern coastline and Mumbai burned as fanatical ideology sailed in from the western coastline. In this midst, suited in a translucent raincoat, I and some friends cycled 19kms from Pondicherry to Auroville.

Google wasn't really at our finger tips then, and we peddled along, asking humans for directions and on our instincts. Drenched to the bone, we explored a school campus where we couldn't tell its walls from roofs; meandered along muddy paths and found ourselves starting at a ‘golden sphere’, awestruck and confused.

Armed with shameless curiosity inherent in architecture students, we trespassed into people’s homes not having realised (or cared) where the threshold of public and private domain was and watched a peacock dance in a landscape scattered with igloo sized ferro-cement domes.

The serenity and bizarreness of Auroville I didn’t quite understand then, but made a note-to-self: Must visit again.

Best ‘note-to-self’ ever.