Breach

We headed off towards Auroville, which is about 10-12 km from the town. It is an Utopian community of around 2000 people from as many as 43 countries living in harmony, the Indian and French population being the largest. It is not a religious congregation, it welcomes people of all religions but follows none. Its idea is about discovering the Divine within yourself through work, It sounds like a great idea to me, but unless one lives there for a while it is really hard to really understand the place. It would have been great if we had a chance to visit the meditation centre (which is a large golden sphere designed like a honeycomb), but it was completely booked till the 4th of January.

For lunch we ended up at a Pizzeria inside Auroville run by an Italian for some pizza baked right in front of your eyes. There was a curly haired little kid in a bright blue T-shirt running around. He kept on picking up individual blades of grass and running along with them before dropping them into a water body nearby, watching what happens with great excitement. He seemed immersed and persisted with this activity until he spotted a small kitten, after which he picked up the cat and tried running around with it. And then he took off his shorts! The moment his mother got him one more pair, he took them off too and ran around in joy! Finally his mother brought a few more pairs for him to choose from but he ran away again in carefree abandon. By then, we were done and proceeded towards the Auro beach. I am quite curious to know how the mother got the kid to wear his pants again.

At the beach one becomes young again. We fought the waves to collect sea-shells as we used to. Searching for that little interval before one wave retreats and the next arrives, so that you can dip your hands into the water to pick up some fine specimens. It was joy at its purest. When I look back at our trip, these are the kind of moments the mind will bring back again and again. It was sad to finally come out of the water. Time could have stood at a standstill or raced ahead and I wouldn't even know. There were several bathers, volleyball players, onlookers and even a couple of ladies strumming on a nylon string guitar and singing ballads. All of which created a wonderful atmosphere as we watched the sun go down.

We went out in the evening without any concrete plans. Taking yet another different route to the sea, we ended up at a Church. It was about 7 in the evening and the vast hall with its high ceiling was absolutely empty except for the Carol singers. They were practicing their hymns and the empty space resonated with their music. The young boy at the piano played disguised variations of the major chords which made it all the more subtle and beautiful.

Going to one of the New Year Parties is too much of a cliché so we decided to be random. The evening before, we had spotted a couple who, having ordered some pizza takeaway were enjoying it by the beach. We thought it was a great idea, and something like that would be ideal. But alas, we had failed to anticipate the "enthusiasm" for the 31st. After dinner at a diner on the beach, we found loads of people, especially young men from neighbouring villages crowding the beach, looking for opportunities to gawk at the women passing by. It was far from tranquil and so we had to make our way back before midnight. The number of drunks on the street were already on the rise. In retrospect, perhaps a conventional party would have been a better choice!