How Dec 31st nudges........

I've missed writing

And what's interesting to note is that oft times we can miss it..... want to do it.......know it's good for you.....know it's the right thing to do.....all of those...and yet not get there.

And this can only happen with the subtle, that which lends itself into the 'possible but not necessary' space........likely that which is 'important but not urgent'.

And that's where Dec 31st helps. It comes with that gentle nudge.

A day of transition.....one in which you can as much look back as look ahead, with a zoom lens.

I love spending the night with my diary (and a glass of wine :). ..... touch base with the year gone by...... the big and not so big, the happy and not so happy, the usual and not so usual ......relive the precious moments, feel that gratefulness, reiterate learnings......and create that one notch refreshed outlook and perspective for the times ahead.

And possibly (re)find those 'important things' that have fallen through the crack....like writing in here for me :)

A Very Happy New Years !!!

Responsibility = Ability to Respond

Friday, April 8, 2016

A couple days back a friends post had me thinking about 'Responsibility'. It was about the paradoxical concept of how 'Taking Responsibility grows Freedom'.

It completely resonated, not as paradox, but as a given.

Yet it had left questions in my mind on where the boundaries for this responsibility were, and how they overlap.

And right this evening, at the Isha Yoga course, this was the concept discussed. 

Responsibility s.t.r.e.t.c.h.e.d. Responsibility as equated to 'Ability to Respond'. It's what  you could (should) 'Feel' for everything. Like something you wear as an attitude.

Responsibility does not mean holding responsible or putting blame ........it basically means you care. And it does not mean you need to act and do for everything. Actionability has several dependencies.... situation, access, time, distance, capability, tools......and such.

Can you just 'feel'.

'Responsibility is what you are using to draw boundaries. Limited responsibility is the source of all evil on this planet. Why do we restrict our feeling of responsibility to just ourselves and our people....people who are attached to us. Excesses of any kind comes out of this. Why limit it.... you are restricting and suffocating yourself by limiting it.

If you want to be an unlimited human being, those boundaries will need to break.

You don't have unlimited capability. The action can get limited by capability, but the living needs to be in unlimited responsibility.

The sense of belonging and ease and joy you feel for the walls of your home, they come because you limit your responsibility within. If you can feel that outside the walls as well it would break down a lot of the boundaries. Can you not help the whole atmosphere by just taking responsibility and feeling at home anywhere. A joyless face is the worst crime on the planet. Can you create happiness wherever you are by just being joyous.'

In fact, he goes to the extent of saying that if you can drop these barriers and stretch that responsibility, people around you will become worshipful of you, it will unknowingly happen. He says that's what people like Jesus, Buddha, Krishna, Mahavira did. Just took responsibility for everything.

"And this is what enables total Freedom.....and Freedom is the highest goal "

Repost 3 - Levels of Communication

Wednesday, February 17, 2016

Five Levels of Communication

An incisive model of human interaction.

Richard Francisco, of the Stanford School of Business and a psychologist at San José University talks of  "ways in which we communicate"  by mapping out  " five levels" that represent increasing degrees of difficulty, risk, and potential learning in our interactions. 

Level 1: Ritual

We begin with the most basic and fleeting form of communication, the "ritual." In this context, a ritual is a simple interaction that "allows two people to acknowledge each other as human beings."

Most of our greetings and goodbyes, particularly in passing, take the form of ritual communication. They are heavily influenced by the setting and the respective roles , and they tend toward the predictable and formulaic.

Typical forms of ritual include acknowledging an employee or manager when we pass them in the office, or beginning the conversation with a client as we sit down, or making small talk with a barista as we wait for our coffee.

Level 2: Extended Ritual

Ritual communication can be extended in several ways. We can have an ongoing, iterative relationship with someone we see repeatedly, and the basic ritual form within that relationship can evolve over time, or we can have a longer, more comprehensive interaction, in which we exhaust the most basic ritual forms and begin to explore new territory, while still staying within certain conversational limits.

Typical forms of extended ritual include the more variegated interactions we have with colleagues we bump into regularly, or the longer conversations we have with a neighbor. It's still "small talk," but it changes from day to day  as we move through a range of unofficially sanctioned topics.

While there is more depth to the level of communication in extended ritual than in ritual, it is nevertheless a very safe level of communication.

Level 3: Content (or Surface)

This is the level on which most of our professional interactions take place. "These involve giving and receiving information, analyzing projects...problem-solving...sharing and talking about tasks, and sharing information about ourselves," albeit in limited and safe forms of self-disclosure.

The distinctions between trivial small talk and more meaningful content are relative, and they may change from one setting to the next.

What's clear is what's missing from these first three levels:  feelings.

Level 4: Feelings About Content

Not talking about our feelings doesn't mean we're not having feelings during those conversations--we're just not talking about them. And because emotions are essential inputs in our decision-making and reasoning processes, not talking about them means that many Level 3 conversations get stuck, with issues going unresolved or being resolved in only a superficial way.

Level 5: Feelings About Each Other

This is where it gets really challenging--these conversations involve how I feel about you, and how you feel about me, one of the most direct forms of interpersonal conversations.

These conversations are the most difficult--because they can be extremely stressful--and the riskiest--because we often lack the practice that's critical to develop the necessary skills at this level, leading to inevitable missteps and misunderstandings.

When we are able to disclose how we feel about the issue at hand but still find ourselves stuck and unable to reach resolution, it's often because we have feelings about the other people involved (and vice versa) that are not being expressed.

Moving beyond Level 4 and sharing our feelings about each other can allow us to break out of these seemingly endless loops and achieve a deeper sense of mutual trust and understanding. 

By their very nature, Level 5 conversations carry the risk of embarrassment or threat--so we tend to avoid them, and so we don't develop the skills necessary to have them effectively, and the cycle perpetuates itself. But, when something feels risky to say, that's because saying it carries a short-term cost--and NOT saying it carries a long-term cost that will inevitably grow over time. We need to confront the risk of embarrassment or threat--prudently, not rashly--and break the cycle that keeps us silent.

So when we find ourselves struggling to communicate effectively in a given relationship or interaction, we should ask... 

• What level are we communicating at right now? Are we stuck on a more superficial level and avoiding a deeper conversation? 

• If we're not communicating at the level that best suits our needs at the moment, how might we shift the conversation up or down? Are we able to move fluidly to different levels, or are there certain levels we never  employ? 

• Are we able to talk about our feelings in the framework that defines this relationship or group?  

Why?

Because these conversations are also among the most powerful we can have, with the greatest potential for learning and growth. 

Repost 2 - CANI

CANI – Constant and Never Ending Improvement. One of those mantras that I picked up in Google, one that stayed to become a part of life. While it came to me from Google, it's apparently a Japanese concept called 'Kaizen'. Sounds rather simplistic, but you imbibe it, and it can have a mind blowing impact on life. 

Saturday, January 3, 2015

CANI - In Greater Detail

This is for those who kind of got used to longer posts, and came back on CANI with…What was that?  Didn’t understand only….Need elucidation... so here it is.

                                       

                                          The picture's a sidetrack...more as a cute 'Can I?'

To go back to the CANI, Constant and Never Ending Improvement, I read somewhere this analogy of a Movie vs a Speech, which might fit here.

Producers spend crores or millions on a production, create a movie, then put it out, and then wait for public reaction, the outcome...be it success or failure. There's not much they can do once the movie's completed and out there. With a movie, you have one chance to get it right. You either make your money or you lose it.

A speaker, in contrast, gets ample opportunity to improve a speech. With each new speech, you get to try out new ideas or methods, watch the reaction, make changes, test them, and then repeat the process until you have a nicely finished product. In fact, that's not even true. With a speech, you never have a finished product. With each new delivery, you're provided one more opportunity to make improvements.

In life, we somehow seem to develop this life-is-a-movie attitude, maybe because of school. We work on our projects or exam papers, hand it in, and pray for a good grade. It’s about grades at every point, and then we’re moving onto the next project, the next class. There’s no time or opportunity to polish anything done.

Unfortunately, when it comes to producing a noteworthy product, polishing is everything. Just ask professional writers and they'll eagerly tell you, 'Writing is rewriting'

Now, Life is like a speech, not a movie. We're almost always given a chance to rework our projects. A chance to continuously improve on what we've learnt and what we do. It just takes the awareness and guts and humility to do so.

Apparently, before Woody Allen did his most popular stand up routine on TV,  he had put together ten jokes and tried them out at a local club. One joke survived. Then he tried out ten more and then another ten until he had the 'effortless' set he had before he did TV. Allen understood that he wasn't producing a movie, he was giving a speech—and a speech can be easily tested and improved until the finished product looks effortless.

Understanding this idea gives us perspective, and hope. It frees us from the frightening challenge of 'getting it right the first time', or for that matter even the second or the third. We learn that there's always scope to learn and improve.

In Google I've seen this done with everything, within the Org and also with products. A product is launched in beta version to faithful users for a good while and then built on, and even after launch, iteration and improvement is a constant. I learnt to do that even with regular presentations or project summaries. The first one would always go out as version 1, and from then on its about building on it.

Now this applies not just in what we do, but in how we are too.

We seem to have fairly rigid images of ourselves. Especially when we find ourselves in sticky situations, we like to justify it saying, well, that’s the way I am…Main Aisa Hi Hoon.  What we typically do is.....'that's how I'm made'.... 'that’s the way it is'..... 'that’s how everyone lives'.....Like finished product kinds. But is it?

I'll say it one more time: life is a speech, not a movie. 

Repost 1 - Mastani Mahal

I'm happy to start with this. Reason being, it is a post that shows up with a nice regularity on my 'read posts' list and what's more, is to date my maximum read post. And needless to say, one of my most dear experiences too. Also, through the comments, it has created connection with folks I know not, and with who I connected merely through fascination with 'mastani mahal'.

Wednesday, January 6, 2016

Mastani Mahal

While I didn't even know Mastani before I saw the movie Bajirao Mastani, since the movie, I think I totally love her.

The moment I knew I was going to Pune, visiting Mastani Mahal got added into my To Do's for the trip. Once the work part of trip was accomplished, we ( Sagari and me) set off to Shaniwar Wada, as I somehow presumed that Mastani Mahal was either within or close to Shaniwar Wada.

As we get there, we realize through talking to the cab driver that it wasn't in Shaniwar Wada. Well, we searched Google and we read on some site that it was in Kothrud, so we head there. And as we get close, we're still frantically reading because there is no specific location and Sagari's like, 'this is nuts, Kothrud is a big area, how are we going to find it' 

We split some sites between us and read on our phones and realize that the entire Mastani Mahal had been dismantled in the sixties and shifted to a museum called Kelkar museum.

Finding Kelkar museum again was tough because of so many one ways and the narrow streets of old Pune, but finally when it's almost closing time we get there. The guy at the counter is like...bandh hone wala hai. But we still buy our tickets and are finally in.

Within minutes, we're wondering......has the Mastani Mahal been converted into museum or is it 'in ' the Museum? So I'm back at the ticket counter and asking the ticket guy.... when there's this gentleman someway in behind the counter, with his back to me who turns and says...come in here at the back. Very mysterious. I go and tell Sagari that he's asked us to come peeche. And she's like, 'jeez, kya hua? Did we do something? What did you say? He said nicely or weirdly? '

We go in and find that he's the Director of the museum and when he realized we were really interested he took us to his office.......and he told us the story of Mastani Mahal. And was it fascinating. To him Mastani Mahal is real, part of life and he knows the story in real time. He hasn't even seen the movie, the only reference he made to the movie was to say that Sanjay Leela Bhansali had visited the Mastani Mahal.

And the wonderful part of it was that the story he told us was almost the same as the one from the movie, except maybe the first meeting which was dramatized, but the rest of the love story was as deep and as intense.

And then came the coup. He's like...the Mastani Mahal is under restoration, and not open to public. Would you still like to see? Imagine our joy...I was like, Yes please, if needed we can even come back tomorrow. He took us right then......and just the feeling of being there.

Here's the rest in pictures:

This is Rekha Hari Ranade

She is the daughter of Dr.Kelkar, who founded the Kelkar museum. Mr.Sudhanva Ranade Kelkar, the Director, was nice enough to not just show us Mastani Mahal, yet under restoration, but also introduce us to his mother.

He said, my grandfather who was an optician (Dr Kelkar) founded the museum, and he went about with such focus that people called him paagal aadmi (madman), and my grandmother and mother ( in picture) have devoted their entire lives to the museum.

It felt like such an honor meeting her, as well as him. As he said himself, it was not just coincidence, he said it was intended, and it sure felt that way too.

Portraits of Dr.Kelkar and his wife that greet you at the entrance of the museum

 

Sudhanva Kelkar Ranade, Director of the Kelkar Museum, and Rekha Hari Ranade

Restoration work on in the Mastani Mahal

On the way back, we happened to pass the Shaniwar Wada, and though it was closed, I got off to get a nice picture of the Peshwa...... well, the statue of the Peshwa.

An interesting outcome of the long conversation with Sudhanva,......we're now working along with him on a project on the Mastani Mahal. Starting the evening not even knowing where Mastani Mahal was, to finding it..... and then ending the evening with a commitment to a project on it. Well, life does have it's ways.

A month of reposts

This was an idea that I picked up from one of my favourite newsletters......brainpickings by Maria Popova. It's a weekly newsletter, of just three articles, that I've been receiving for years now.

When Maria Popova got into the thick of writing a book, she chose to repost articles from her website archives to keep the momentum going.......and while I initially found myself disappointed......I grew to love the idea, as they were write ups I'd either missed, or even more significantly..... write ups that were worth rereading.

Hello, Smitha Devara! This is the Brain Pickings midweek pick-me-up: Once a week, I plunge into my 13-year archive and choose something worth resurfacing and resavoring as timeless nourishment for heart, mind, and spirit.

While I don't have a reason as lofty as 'writing a book', I do have a month ahead where I have enough on my plate, to make me concerned about not dropping the ball on any one of those pieces. And I'm going one up on it, I'm going to pick a post which has been picked by someone somewhere that day......after all six years of archives does give you a fairly nice treasure of posts.

For those not aware, blogger analytics shows you your top ten posts read each day, not the who or where, but just the post titles. And that's what I'm going to do for this next one month. Repost stuff that's worth a reread.

It's an interesting experiment, as it's yet one way of enabling one to stay connected to the blog......and likely with parts and facets of one that have gone by :)

Looks like the prelude was long enough....actual start tomorrow.

Short and Funny

From Seth

If we only forward the easy, short and funny things we read online, why are we surprised that our inbox is filled with nothing we’ll remember tomorrow?

What would happened if instead, we shared the most complex, useful and thoughtful things we discovered ?

From that day of nostalgia

Who'd think going through old files can ever be so exciting.

But then, when it becomes trigger to a repertoire of wonderful memories, it sure can.

Especially when the children are now young adults, each on their own trip, stuff from their journey in school comes like a whiff of that something special ..... evoking emotions of tenderness, nostalgia, pride, joy....... it's like pulling stuff out of a magicians hat (read as files here :).

Sounds exaggerated?!?

Well....it was an exaggerated experience, the kind I simply love :)

And I think it evoked  that deep sense of gratitude to the school too.

This was year 2002...DPS had just come to Hyd and had only till class III. We'd just moved from Bangalore, and Dhruva was in class III.

Dhruva was chosen first head boy of the school.

The speech on the school inauguration, likely one that got him the position of the head boy.

I recall his shock when soon after admission the principal asked him to give a speech on the inaugural day...... and when he said 'what should I talk about?', She said "tell us what you would like from your school....what you'd like from your teachers"

And I remember this line from his speech "I'd like the teachers to be kind".  And even today what he said in another discussion "what humans are capable of is empathy, but look at what we're doing as a race" (he has extremely strong opinions on climate change and environmental issues)

His first sports day as Head Boy

Another speech

Off that fairly nice stack of certificates, this one caught my attention.

Who would have thought they had a certificate 'for reading maximum number of library books' . I was even more amazed as I thought I had done all the buying of books, and to think he'd used the library that much :)

A random picture....just found his expression real cute (first in that queue)

This was again total surprise. A newsletter, with a story from Diksha (written by her in class I ) . And what's more, the same sheet had a little write up from me too, neither of which I remembered.

Diksha's story is so cute, I had to put it in separately :)

What's more...I straight off send her a picture of the story,

and I receive "wish my grammar had been better then, even if I was six"
I'm like "I thought that was good on grammar, in fact I don't think there's an error"
And I get back "lol...that's why you need an editor"

Diksha, likely in IV, compering a program

This picture I put in to also capture background. DPS was then the only building there, surrounded by hills and paddy fields....... nice and inspiring. They even had horse riding back then. (That's Dhruva to the extreme right holding the school flag). Well yes, bragging rights retained :)

What a lovely journey...... through the years......and through those files :)

An unusual Diwali Message

I received this from Diksha this morning, saying "can you please circulate ma, if possible even through your blog".

And to my total surprise, she says "I've done this every Diwali since I can remember"

Then realized I oughtn't to be surprised, for two reasons:

One, because I do remember how scared dogs get on Diwali, how many accidents happen....... and second, that it's from Diksha :)

Happy Deepawali !!

Two wonderful hours of nostalgia

Dhruva was fishing out some old certificates for his masters application, and it so happened that I walked in at the exact same time. Those couple hours lent themselves to some "omg, look at this one" "how cute you look in this" "this is what likely made you head boy" "how much was Diksha in the papers"  kind of moments.

In fact, half way in, I found myself going beserk with my ooh's and aah's.

With Halloween round the corner, this one deserves first mention. 

Diksha had a little halloween party at home, way back then, when halloween hadn't even come into India.... to the extent that it got reported in the paper :)

She must have been ten or eleven years old, and the title reads 'dhayyala panduga jerupukunna chinnarulu'. Plus an inset of the cake which reads "happy spooky halloween" :)

It brought back such memories. Dhruva was like "I remember I didn't want to go, and the reporter calling me also for the picture".

I think it was one of the parents of her friends who said "this is so fascinating....it's trend setting, let me see if I can get a reporter". We didn't think she meant it until the guy actually showed up as the party was on.

Going through that bunch of papers brought back so much memory of how she'd do so many things completely on her own. I remember also in her 5th class, she was the only girl who signed up for football, and the coach didn't know what to do, but she stayed put. 

And not just this and halloween....but the plays, the MUNs, the Comicons. This comicon I remember how she disappeared into her room for hours and came out looking like this, did it all on her own. Found that paper as well. 

Deech, must say it made me so proud to see how much you did on your own initiative, right from when  so little. 

Way to go girl, and Happy Spooky Halloween again !!

Tour avec Veronique - Final day at Auroville

I chanced upon this pin up in my guest house notice board.... and that's how I met Veronique.

While I went with no idea of what to expect, like I told her later 'it was ten x beyond anything I could have expected'.  She's been living in Auroville for twenty years now, and it was like listening to it all first hand.... like from someone who understands it as an insider. 

It was a very thoughtfully planned and warmly and humorously delivered tour. I'll do this one through the pictures, as I don't feel equipped to reproduce a lot of what she said, much as I would have loved to.

We met at the visitors center at 9 in the morning, and set off from there.

Madhavi from Kolkata on extreme right and Fernanda from Mexico on extreme left, and Veronique and me in center.  My bike's sadly not in the picture :)

Laboratory of evolution, a library which houses a lot of what auroville is about.

Veronique showing us some publications..... starting us off right from planning stage

right from blue print kinds

one funny picture :)

Some girls learning bharatanatyam, we heard the taalam as we were walking and stopped to see...what an absolutely pretty outdoor auditorium

Savitri bhavan, another very interesting building which houses their philosophy, conference rooms and a meditation room

that's Savitri bhavan, with Aurobindo's statue on the outside

the conference cum meditation room

behind Savitri Bhavan

Savi - it's the go to place for anything to do with housing.... residents or guests

Another picture in Savi

What an interesting table...it kind of overwhelms you soon as you walk in.

It's called the peace table.

It is one of six magnificent tables created by master woodworker George Nakashima, placed in chosen sites on each of the continents of the world.

The table for Asia was presented to the Indian Govt who found Auroville to be the appropriate place for the table. Weekly meditations take place around the table.

Some contextual info on the tables:

"These trees had grown into extraordinary natural phenomena in the state of New York, something that, he said, "occurs perhaps only once in the history of a nation". They were about 1.5 metres in diameter at the small end, 2.1 metres at the flare, and 3.6 metres long. Their majesty called for a symbiosis of nature and man in the deepest spiritual sense, and Nakashima felt the ultimate creative concept of their presence: "The only true destiny of these noble trees, favoured to grow as none of their peers were able to, is to be used in their full length and width." 

Two adjoining slabs opened to match to make the most expensive pieces of furniture ever, Tables for Peace measuring 3.6 by 3.6 metres, one for every continent on earth, was the answer.

Moving on......

This was at this fascinating store called Swaram. Not just a store, but like an outdoor park of musical instruments.....plus the workshop where they make the instruments. There were so many I'd never even seen before, like this one...you rub it and it makes this amazing sound

some outdoor instruments

Four hours in, we were ready to do lunch.

Naturellement, a cute cafe, also serving vegan food.... where we decided to do lunch.

During lunch. Veronique seems quite the clown :)

Fernanda is on a six month solo trip across Asia, and it was wonderful to hear how when she was in Vietnam, she met somebody who told her about Auroville, and she took an impromptu decision to detour. So inspiring. 

One final one with Veronique....behind is a bamboo music instrument that you actually walk through

all set to take off for home...... end of one super fascinating trip

Until I'm there again :)

Day 3 at Auroville - Matri Mandir

The Matri Mandir is considered the 'soul of Auroville'.

It's an absolutely mind blowing structure. Not just visually or architecturally....but even experientially.

It is an edifice of spiritual significance. I read somewhere that a visit to the matri mandir is a 'compelling and memorable architectural encounter', and I can vouch for this, as my earlier visit from twenty five years back is yet etched in memory. And it happened yet again.

We're told in advance that it is no tourist sight, and is a space meant for individual silent concentration.

It's in fact not easy to get in, they have a slot system. For same day you get a pass to a view point, but to go in, you get a slot in a day or two. To my total disappointment they slots for my three days were booked out.

But then, the guy must have seen the disappointment quite evident on my face, cause he said "if it's fine with you, just come in the morning, and if there are any cancellations I'll take you in". He wouldn't even give me a wait list number, even that was full. But I diligently went......and yes, I lucked out.

The experience was even deeper than last times.

About the structure itself......it was built between 1971 and 2008, actually took 37 years to build. And I read this beautiful line somewhere 'the matri mandir was built with time and not money'. Says so so much.

It's entirely white inside, white pillars, white walls, white carpets, white socks........and the golden leafs on the outside lend the inner walls a kind of bronze glow. We're not allowed cameras in, the inner pictures are courtesy google.

As you enter you see a large chamber with gentle streams of water cascading down its white marble walls. Spiral ramps on all sides leading to an utterly silent meditation hall — a cocoon of peace and quietude that is believed to have first appeared in several visions to the Mother.

At its heart is a specially-designed crystal sphere from Germany (the largest optically-perfect glass globe in the world) that catches almost a single sunbeam entering from the top of the dome..........and it's reflection off the crystal is what lights the dome. 

The whole experience is almost surreal....and so experiential, that I guess I would say it's a once in a life time worthwhile experience.

Day 2 at Auroville

A day of random exploration.

Arka guest house, where I stayed served coffee, with breakfast, from 8 in the morning. Not early enough for me. My morning cup of coffee was motivation enough to start my exploration early.

Took the bike and set off at 6. Nothing was open, forget the fancier cafes like Neem Tree and Dreamer's Cafe (which later became hang out places), but even Dinesh hotel a cute little dhabha within auroville wasn't open. I ended up on the highway, and found a chai shop.

What was nice was that I got to know a couple of interesting folks even there. Kunal who runs a back packer's hostel in one of the communes in Auroville, and Mayura who is exploring possibilities of joining him as business partner.

That was nice early morning chat over a couple of coffees. And what's more, they invited me over to see the place, and that's how the days exploration started.

With the little bike I spent a significant part of the morning, and evening, just on the roads inside Auroville.

Pretty much taking which ever turning took my fancy..... there's no boards or names of roads in Auroville......you slowly learn to recognize shapes of trees, odd stones, and colour of mud kinds :)

Occasionally you'll see little boards indicating the names of the communes..... like citadine, aspiration, arati, la ferme, swayam, gaia.....with the houses themselves deeply hidden in the foliage. Each commune a different style, size, interaction level between residents and such. That said there is a strong homogeneity among aurovillians.

Each of the commune names apparently has a psychological significance, in fact it's said that the names were chosen by sensing the spirit of the place.

What strikes at even first glance is the architecture, especially of the older houses, each building seems different, at one time eco-friendly and futuristic, likely also built to represent ideals it stands for. Especially the schools. It's like there's art everywhere.

Auroville also has the highest concentration of alternative energy systems in India, including solar, wind and biogas. A large number of homes and offices operate entirely or mostly on solar power. Apart from solar energy, the auroville community is said to be a world leader in compressed earth building techniques.

Anything I write about Auroville starts to sound abstract and ideological, and that's when you start to appreciate what they've achieved in reality. And not to miss the fact that you start to see how life can actually be lived at those subtler levels, it's like living an alternate dimension of life.

For instance this: "it's a concept which understands biophysical reality as an evolutionary unfoldment of the spirit"....... and the pioneers began with revitalizing the land.

Three million trees later it is said to be one of the few places on earth where biodiversity is actually increasing.

Isn't that such a wow.

Looks like I can keep writing... the more I process, the more I read......the feelings are shifting from intrigued to fascinated to enthralled almost. Will stop for pictures now:

Arka guest house, where I stayed.

Another picture of the same place

Peacocks seem usual visitors

My room...very basic, and very comfortable

The terrace outside my room

They had this lovely library, with a brilliant collection of books. And again, look at the architecture....it's like the shelves are walls and open to nature outside. I could have spent much longer there than I did. Next time :)

Where I got my bike. Though it's an electric bike it was really easy in Auroville as several spaces have charging points, including my guest house.

That's 'Neem Tree' my regular dinner place, where I again met some lovely people.

One was Raj... an ex corporate honcho turned bamboo farmer. He insisted I note his name in my contacts as 'Raj Farmer':) Listening to him talk you feel he almost talks to his bamboo trees.

Another was Stenna, a full on happy energy theatre artist from Norway. She said when she first came to auroville, she was like 'no way'. And she came again and again, and now she says 'she hasn't been happier in life'. Another wow !

The picture was the three of them who I had dinner with.

The arm on the right is the third, another super interesting guy who's visiting.... who wouldn't reveal anything about himself, not name, place, phone number, what he does....nothing. But was happy to have intense conversations late into the night, in the 'here and now' only he said :)

Some pictures from driving through the commune

While we mostly see scooters and bikes, there are some paths like this which allow only cycles

One space which had some sign boards, and they were so cutely and artistically done

A random house I came across. Photographed it as most other houses don't even give this much access

Loved this picture. I could pause anywhere and take a picture, and all I'd see where trees and birds and mud roads......and the occassional people walking or riding around, mostly on cycles or bikes. I've never seen as many women on mobikes as I have in auroville.

A bamboo farm within

What a way to say 'don't litter' :)

Another cute sign board

With Deepa who had a mini adventure. We kind of got talking one day, she'd come to auroville to play a frisbee match. And next day she calls saying she had a snake in her room. That conversation ended such that she came and stayed over with me, and we found ourselves chatting late into the night. Another solo traveller and so happy to have met her.

Raj, listening to you talk, about anything and everything...and most of all about bamboo was just fascinating.

Stenna, your enthu and joy was wonderful to see, especially your instant fanning.....so cute and so inspiring.

And anon, was as lovely meeting you...and inshallah, another time, another day :)

Deepa, glad for that snake in your room, what else can I say :)

Even as I was writing this, I got a call from an old friend, Kusuma, saying she's now inspired to go to auroville. First off I was happy to see her still reading the blog, and second off that even before I'd finished my series on Auroville, it was having such immediate impact.

The place does that to you.....if you have the calling :)

An add on : Raj is looking for volunteers on his farm. He just sent me an audio clip which reads like this:

"I am looking for a volunteer who can farm with me, and if I can find one or two people, I'll be really happy....maybe your article can help me find one.....volunteers for six months.... and they will do yoga and meditation before they start farming.... yoga and meditation starts by 6.30, finishes by like 7.30.....and then they can do farming with me till about 11.30, which is a yoga also no.....it'll be nice" Raj - 7708712512