AUROVILLE, or the City of Dawn, is located on a low-lying plateau on the south-east coast of India, a few kilometres north of Pondicherry. Residents of this vast and amazing place are hard pressed for words when called upon to explain what exactly Auroville is all about. But the best way to describe it would be to call Auroville an emerging township of a few thousand people drawn from nearly 40 countries. When it was built by the French architect Roger Ongar and inaugurated by the Mother on February 28, 1968, young people representing 124 countries and all the Indian states placed a handful of earth from their homelands in a marble-clad urn near the centre of Auroville symbolising the creation of a city dedicated to human unity and international understanding. Based upon the work and vision of Aurobindo and the Mother, Auroville was intended as a site for the manifestation of an actual human unity in diversity. As such, 38 years later it offers itself as a testing ground and laboratory for the next step in human evolution.

The Mother�s Charter for Auroville even in 1968 was simple and clearly stated: Auroville belongs to nobody in particular, Auroville belongs to humanity as a whole, but to live in Auroville one must be a willing servitor of the Divine Consciousness; Auroville will be the place of unending education, of constant progress, and a youth that never ages; Auroville wants to be the bridge between the past and the future, taking advantage of all discoveries from without and from within, Auroville will boldly spring towards future realisations; Auroville will be a site of material and spiritual researches for a living embodiment of an actual Human Unity.

ITo further simplify her dream, the Mother said, �There should be somewhere upon earth a place that no nation could claim as its sole property, a place where all human beings of good will, sincere in their aspiration, could live freely as citizens of the world, obeying one single authority, that of the supreme Truth; a place of peace, concord, harmony, where all the fighting instincts of man would be used exclusively to conquer the causes of his suffering and misery, to surmount his weakness and ignorance, to triumph over his limitations and incapabilities; a place where the needs of the spirit and the care for progress would get precedence over the satisfaction of desires and passions, the seeking for pleasures and material enjoyment.

Auroville is everything it is called � the International Township of Harmony and more. Based on the concept of the Mother, it is an entirely independent multi-racial community, which works and lives in self-fashioned, wildly original homes. It consists of around 90 settlements of varying sizes, spread across 20 square kilometres, separated by village and temple lands. The activities of Auroville�s inhabitants (called Aurovillans) are multifarious and include afforestation, organic agriculture, educational research, health care, village development, appropriate technology and construction, small and medium-scale businesses, town planning, culture and municipal services. At the centre of Auroville stands a large, modern architectural marvel � the Matri Mandir or Soul of Auroville, a place for individual concentration. It houses a meditation room that holds the largest glass crystal in the world. Whatever you may do in Auroville, please do not treat the Matri Mandir as a tourist site, the Aurovillans will disapprove. Visiting time is between 4 and 4.45 p.m. for non-residents. A pass from the Visitors Centre will give you entry to the Inner Chamber where no photography is allowed and no offering of flowers or incense is permitted.

But to start at the beginning, if you are visiting Auroville then get started at the Visitors Centre. There is an AV Information Service (open from 9.30 a.m. to 5.30 p.m.), a photo exhibition, printed leaflets to be picked up, two boutiques displaying and selling a wide range of Auroville products, a cafeteria where snacks, cold drinks, tea and meals are available, and vehicle parking and toilet facilities. Visitors can also seek guidance on guests facilities at Auroville If you are thinking of coming to live in Auroville, then please do make a preliminary visit before making a final commitment to yourself and Auroville. But if you are on a day visit only, then here is what all you should look out for.

Start with Pour Tous, which is Auroville�s centralised and purchasing and distribution service which operates like a retail shop providing food and a wide variety of dry goods. It is open from Monday to Saturday, from 9 a.m. to 12.30 p.m. and from 3 to 5.30 p.m. Cash sales are not possible at Pour Tous. But guests/visitors staying for a week or more can open an account at the Financial Service office on deposit of an appropriate sum, enabling them to make use of the facility. All products produced in Auroville or promoted by Aurovillans, such as candles, stationary, soaps, organic food products, are placed in a special Aurovillan section. And for Aurovillans ordering on a regular or fixed basis, Pour Tous operates a basket delivery service that makes deliveries around Auroville around six times a week. Pour Tous also has a shopping service that handles purchase and delivery of almost anything from Pondicherry or elsewhere in India, even things like home appliances, furniture and motorcycles. This service also handles photo developing and printing, and provides a repair service for air-conditioners, washing machines and refrigerators, Pour Tous also has a gas service and a snack bar. You will find Aurovillans riding up on two-wheelers and taking away gas cylinder on the backs of their bikes. Business in and around Pour Tous is conducted in a quiet and systematic manner, almost like it was a big departmental store. Which it is, for the Aurovillans.

But while you are at Auroville, the other places you must definitely call upon are La Ferme Cheese, which makes fresh and seasoned cheese and also yogurt and ice-cream; the Auroville Boulangerie, started in 1989 and run by an �executive� by the name of G. Elumalai who with 15 locals from neighbouring Tamil villages and eight Aurovillans makes 15 different kinds of bread (including yeast, sour dough and sesame), 100 different cakes, croissants with chocolate and apple centres, 20 kinds of biscuits, pizzas, rolls, sandwiches, tarts with mushrooms and onion, buns, baguettes, and pastries, all in a two woodfire ovens; Naturellement, makers of jams, jellies and marmalades; Solar Kitchen, which seats 380, but also provides a tiffin service to about a thousand in Auroville; and Roma�s Kitchen, the finest restaurant in the township.

Roma Hira (after whom the kitchen is named) is a lovely, roly-poly, happy-go-lucky Sindhi lady who has been feeding discerning Aurovillans for the last seven years through her simple restaurant. �I treat the place like it is mine but it belongs to the Auroville Foundation,� says Roma. None of the few people working there are trained at what they do! �But cooking is like a therapy. I like to appreciate people and I thank them for what they do through food,� explains Roma. She considers it a privilege to be an Aurovillan and to run the restaurant. �Auroville is my central point, it put my fragmented life together, now I can�t think of living anywhere else. It�s just me and Garfield the cat. And this is not about running a restaurant along, it is about learning about myself. Roma�s Kitchen is an open kind of restaurant in a large, rambling house that seats 60. It has plastic chairs and wooden tables. The menu is multi-cuisine, split down the middle into French and Indian, because �the locals want French cuisine and the Aurovillans want Indian�. �For Aurovillans, Pondicherry is India, and my menu has been this way forever,� she admits. It is a happy menu of soups, salads, pastas, Chicken Cordon Bleu and Tandoori Chicken, Fish Brochette and Fish Tikka, Epinard a la Creme and Vegetable Jhal Farezie, Caramel Custard and Kulfi. Most of the produce is picked up from Pour Tous, and Roma goes into Pondicherry for the chicken and to Chennai for the mutton. Roma is assisted in the cooking a staff of three, Sultan, Sarjit and Kamsala, who manage the tandoor and curry sections. �I fool around in the kitchen sometimes myself,� she says with a laugh, admitting that while she is having fun and serving Auroville, she has introduced a brand with Roma�s Kitchen that all of Pondicherry appreciates.

�Food is an integral part of my life,� says Roma, �I love food, I love to eat, and I am happy serving people.� It is a basic restaurant that is still managing to do big things. Roma�s Kitchen in the heart of Auroville shows what one person with a belief in herself, who is firm of conviction, and is spiritual from within can achieve. Her staff includes Shriram and a Frenchman by the name of Mathew who looks after an Auroville guesthouse, acts as a foot reflexologist, and rest of the time spends at Roma�s Kitchen taking orders and serving food to other Frenchmen!

Naturellement, on the other hand, is a Swedish-Indian company that began in Auroville in 1991. Its Swedish founder, Martina Ljungquist � an Aurovillan, brought with her a wide knowledge of traditional European recipes, Swedish know-how in management and their high standard of hygiene, and with an expertly trained Indian workforce of confectionary and culinary artisans, started Naturellement.

Naturellement produces a wide range of high quality gourmet food. Its specialities are jams, jellies, marmalades, fruit and nut butters. Its product line is completely free from additives such as artificial colours, flavours and preservatives. Choosing only high quality raw material, sorted and processed under strict hygienic conditions, Martina is determined that Naturellement never has to compromise on its high quality.

�For our jams, jellies and marmalades, orchard fresh fruit is used, never preprocessed fruit pulp or industrial made pectin,� says Marie-Anne Cavaille of France who looks after Naturellement for Martina along with another Indian Aurovillan by the name of Prabha. �All the cooking is done in small batches using traditional open pans to create that special home-made flavour. All nuts used for for our nut butters are laboratory tested for aflotoxin.� Prabha adds, �Naturellement creates fine food products of an outstanding quality by which we successfully compete with the best imported jams and marmalades on the Indian market. We are today selling our products in prime shops and supermarkets all over South India and in other major Indian cities.�

The idea behind Naturellement is not just to provide these high quality food products for Indian and international customers, but to give self-empowering work to local women and to support organic farming by using organically grown raw material wherever possible.

Martina was used to making jams at home in Sweden. �We used to get all these fruits and berries and make jam from them,� she recalls. �Even today, I have not eaten marmalade as good as the one my mother used to make.� Martina was a teacher by profession but when she came to Auroville, it was natural for her to start making jam at home as a hobby and treat for the people in the community. �But I soon accepted that making jam was what I was supposed to do in Auroville,� Martina concedes. She started with grape jam and then marmalades using the local citrus fruits. She has produced some outstanding flavours that are all available for sale at Naturellement (over the counter, for cash!) including orange, orange-ginger, pomelo, kumquat, pineapple-orange and narthanga � a local citrus fruit. She is happy that Naturellement competes with the best imported jams and marmalades available in the Indian markets.

Martina believes that Naturellement�s products would be best suited for boutique properties and exclusive restaurants in the hospitality industry. �Usually hotels demand products in bulk, but at Naturellement, we do not believe in adding preservatives. So if hotels are particular about catering to their guests� preferences, they should not compromise on quality�. In Auroville, Martina Ljungquist and Naturellement can be contacted on 0091 413 2622034 or [email protected]

Another prime attraction of Auroville is the Matri Mandir, a globe shaped 30m high structure that looks inadvertently like a Ferrer Rocher chocolate! Dedicated to goddesses Mahalakshmi, Mahasaraswati, Mehesh-wari and Mahakali, French architect Roza Andhdra erected the unique Matri Mandir under a Banyan tree of 120 years. A slanting pathway leads to the circular shaped Meditation Hall. Sunlight sparkles off the world�s largest crystal of 600 kg brought from Germany. There is no electricity in the temple. The devotees sit for meditation in the hall. Maintaining hundreds of norms, only 100 visitors are allowed to visit the Matri Mandir from 2 to 5 p.m, daily. No ticket system is there but it requires permission.

The Visitors Centre is where more externally-oriented shops in Auroville are located. These include the AV Boutique, Mira Boutique and Kiosk. They sell everything that is manufactured within the community from clothing and fashion accessories made by such houses as Aurokriya, Auromics, Auromode, Aurorachna, Discovery, Bijou, Hidesign and Memories from th e Future of Light, there are handicrafts from Aditi, Aladin, Aureate, Auromirayan, Bommaiyur Carpentry, Flame and Ganesh Beads, pottery, soaps, candles, hand-made paper and its products.

There is no fixed hierarchal structure in the internal organisation of Auroville. All are necessarily equal. Day to day running of the community is mostly handled by a number of working groups covering areas like land management, afforestation, finance, farms, health, education, entry into Auroville, outreach/public relations, and general community coordination, who operate with considerable autonomy. Majority community decisions are usually taken at, or endorsed by, meetings open to all residents wherein the preferred mode of decision making is by consensus or consent. The Residents Assembly selects a body � the Auroville Council (usually comprising 15 people), from its members to look after the day-to-day affairs of the community. However, as per the guidance of the Mother, Auroville has consciously tried to avoid establishing fixed rules and regulations for the township and its inhabitants, though occasional guidelines are formulated to facilitate the functioning of the community. Indian laws, meanwhile, apply to all residents, Indian and foreign, just as elsewhere in the country. Aurovillans are also expected to lead a spiritually based and motivated life, though this does not mean that they put it into practise in any overt or obvious way, like collective meditations and bhajans. It is an inner discipline, pursued by each individual, according to their personal understanding, capacity and commitment. But most Aurovillans do their work in a spirit of Karma Yoga.

Over the past decades, Auroville has received support from a considerable number of governmental and non-governmental agencies, foundations, corporate donors and private well-wishers in India and abroad. And in recognition of the exemplary work carried out by Aurovillans in several fields of activity, the township has received many national and international awards

The main season to visit Auroville is from December to March, when the climate in Pondicherry is pleasant. A second, shorter season runs from July to September. Anyone wishing to stay in one of the many Auroville guest houses, is advised to book in advance. Auroville is a working community, and the basic infrastructure is still in places being created. So the quality of accommodation and service for guests may be very simple in comparison with, say, a good hotel outside.