En Route to the City of Dawn
As I turned the handlebars to the left, I could sense this was the beginning of the end as I rode past the large, radiant temple with its shimmering gold exterior. I was making my way around the inner circle when from the corner of my eye, I spotted a couple on their bicycles riding up next to me in an effort to pass. We were going to have to navigate our distance and direction. The thought of a possible wipeout wedged itself between my focus and fear. I wanted to avoid running into them, but I also didn’t trust my bicycle tires to adequately grip the dusty floor of the path if I turned my wheel sharply. The next thing I knew, the back wheel lost traction, slipped out from underneath me, and I crashed hard into the red rocks and dirt on Dinesh Road.
Dinesh Road was one of the main roads within the utopian-designed village of Auroville in the southern state of Tamil Nadu, India. Most who come to stay in Auroville intentionally choose to exchange their creature comforts and familiar surroundings for a new set of standards and values. I sensed a collective energy pulsing through the village early into my stay. As found among literature promoting Auroville, peace and progressive harmony were central to the mission. It was made clear that the people who live here are part of an experiment. That experiment was first realized in the 1960s by Mirra Alfassa, also known as “the Mother.” It was she who conceptualized the idea in the 1930s. And with her spiritual partner, Sri Aurobindo, together they established a place to “realize human unity through diversity — free of politics, religion, or caste.”
I was traveling with a group from university, and we had arrived about two weeks earlier. Landing first in Chennai, we then took a 3-hour van ride to Pondicherry, most of which was on East Coast Road — a chaotic, main route running the length of the east coast of southern India. The 14-hour journey had been exhausting, resulting in me nodding off on the last leg of the journey. I was startled awake when our van suddenly stopped, bringing acute awareness to the stiffness in my neck. Cows! Cows were sleeping in the middle of the road. This was a first for my eyes, and I became intrigued. But really, the poor cows. I couldn’t imagine they appreciated being awakened with the van’s bright lights shining in their eyes. Our driver gingerly nudged them from the road, and we were back on our way. Ten minutes later, the van stopped again. This time, in the mud. Monsoon season had ended, and its remnants made the ground sticky and wet. Images from the news showing water levels rising to heights capable of reaching the bottoms of planes at the Chennai airport the week before we departed made me question the decision to even come to India. After maneuvering around cows and the remaining mud pools from last week’s rains, our nimble driver delivered us to our friendly house mom, Usha, who welcomed us to Mitra Guest House.
To live the vision of the village, the people of Auroville have embraced a charter of four main tenets to guide daily life: 1) Auroville belongs to no one particular. 2) Auroville will be a place of progress where youth never ages. 3) Auroville will be a bridge between the past and the future. 4) Auroville will be a place where research and the embodiment of human unity can be achieved. The giant golden temple in the center of Auroville, formally known as the Matrimandir, served as that physical reminder of Auroville’s mission to all its residents and visitors.
As I studied the map of my temporary home and learned more about the history of the community, culture, and the Matrimandir, I noticed the layout of the town replicated a symbol I had seen on a brochure. The symbol looked like a bicycle wheel with a circle around a dot and spokes connecting the inner and outer circle. The brochure described how the center dot represented human unity, and the inner circle represented creation. The spaces between what I had thought were spokes represented the power of expression and realization. The Mother intended to build a community where the physical space would allow for the manifestation of these actualizations. The Auroville brochure implied that the people of Auroville should be open to expressing themselves and therefore become a better version of themselves by that expression. The implication continues that because each individual is a better self, they collectively build a better community.
I had wanted to visit Auroville to embrace something different — to awaken a new way of thinking. On the second day, we were all provided access to what would become our primary mode of transportation: the bicycle. The last time I recalled riding a bike was when I was nine, with no hands, and my mom — unbeknownst to me — driving behind me. I heard a few choice words about my risky behavior that day. And perhaps that scared me because I don’t recall riding one since. Nonetheless, I was excited to get back on it.
We were all pre-assigned a bicycle number. Mine was Number 46. Along with a few others from my group, we headed out to the covered lot where our rides were locked and waiting for an adventure. However neatly arranged, I could see they’d seen their share of journeys. I noticed right away that the rubber on the right side of the handlebars had started unraveling, leaving a lot of extra material flapping and interfering with my grip. This undoing reminded me my anxiety and fear were not something I could escape. They symbolically greeted me again in a new and strange environment. Trying to look cool, I eased the bike out from the rack, hopped on the seat, and yet clumsily tried to catch my balance. I attempted to lift my feet from the ground to the pedals. Not long after, I was channeling my nine-year-old self out to explore a new world.
That feeling did not linger long. In addition to the heat and the increased number of mosquito bites, my body was still not adjusting to India. Although my stomach issues weren’t as terrible as I had expected, the constant need to run to the toilet was more than just an inconvenience. Upon arriving that first day, we were all strongly encouraged to drink bottled water, but the lesson I would learn later was to brush your teeth with it, too!
After five days enduring the monotony of pedaling, I had grown weary of the uphill climbs, the downhill slides, and the distance away from any bathroom. Everything was inconvenient. In some ways, I started to question why I was there. Maybe my friends back at university had been right. Adjusting to this way of life was hard. And Number 46, with the wonky handlebar, was not making things any easier. I began to fantasize about ditching it on the side of the road, hopping on the back of someone’s motorbike, and feeling the breeze blow my hair in the wind.
It would be another ten days before I would get my chance. After spending the afternoon writing at La Terrace Café, having been dropped off after a group outing, I was going to have to walk back to Mitra. Slinging my backpack over my shoulder, I began the trek. To distract myself from the journey, I thought about the okra dish served at dinner the night before, wondering when it might come back into rotation. Sautéed with masala, this was not the fried okra from back home. This okra was divine!
Waking me from my food fantasy, I hear someone call out in my direction.
“Hey, you,” says this guy pulling up on his moped. “Are you walking back to Mitra? Where’s your bicycle?”
“Have we met before,” I asked as I kept walking. For all its posturing as a utopian society, Auroville was not without crime.
“You’re with the group from the French university, right? I’m also staying at Mitra. I think I saw you at breakfast this morning.”
“Maybe,” I said. “Wait, you were part of the group playing ‘Mafia’ the other night. You were one of the werewolves who knocked my friend and me out of that last game! I had no clue as to what was going on, but it was a fun game nonetheless.”
Ishaan told me he was visiting Auroville as part of a recycling project and that he and his group would be staying at Mitra Guest House for about six months. Guest houses are part of the accommodation service for visitors in Auroville. The term “Guest House” implies a kind of comfortable sanctuary. A sanctuary Mitra was not. Its bones were bare: hard mattresses, non-western toilets — ones with basically a hole between two spaces for your feet, trash cans that could double as buckets to wash essential clothing when the main washer was out of service, rolling power outages, along with a few other fundamentals such as window screens to keep the bugs away at night and ceiling fans to keep the bugs away that made it through the screens. While I longed for something more relaxing, Mitra eventually evolved into my experiment in practicing radical acceptance.
Breakfast or evening activities were the only times Ishaan and I might have crossed paths, so I didn’t have hadn’t had much of an opportunity to get to know him or others in his group.
“Do you need a ride back,” he asked. “I’m going back there now if you want to hop on. There’s a handlebar here for you to hold on to,” and he pointed to underneath the back part of the seat.
“I don’t know, I don’t mind walking,” I replied before I remembered it was going to be a long journey on foot. “Are you sure?” I said with some hesitation, wondering how others might view this scenario — me on some stranger’s moped.
“It’s no trouble at all.”
Auroville was — as the brochure stated — “a place where the dawn breaks open a new consciousness, and we collectively strive toward human unity and progress.” So, I used this moment as an opportunity to put this motto to the test.
“Okay, let’s go!” After confirming I had grabbed the passenger handlebar, we were off — on our way toward enlightenment, or at least I was.
Riding on the back of Ishaan’s bike was something different indeed! The acceleration was exhilarating. We seemed to be flying, moving so swiftly over the red clay path. The trees no longer served as mile markers, and the green leaves no longer had time to come into focus. Each tree blurred into the next one along the path. At this moment, I felt freedom. The heat’s sticky sweater peeled off my back as the wind blew the sweat and dirt from my face. We had gotten there so quickly I didn’t even realize until I hopped off at Mitra that my thighs weren’t stinging, providing one more reason not to get back on Number 46.
As we stopped at the parking lot in front of Mitra, I thanked Ishaan for the ride. Number 46 was tucked away where I had left it the day before; I tried not to look at it as I didn’t think I could ever get back on it. Instead, I began plotting my ride to freedom. Even though I was instructed not to rent motorbikes — my program likely didn’t want to be liable — I knew a few folks who already had. Clandestinely asking for details, I scored a business card for a rental place in a nearby village. I dialed the number, and a man named Bakul answered, saying he’d have a moped available the next day I could rent.
I hopped in a taxi in the morning and headed out to Kuilapalayam. When I arrived at the rental shop, I paid the 300 rupees to the taxi driver, stepped out of the taxi into a corner of India that looked a bit deserted. The taxi gone, I stood before a shuttered school on my right and a shed on my left. I didn’t know if I had arrived where I should be, and no one was around. Wandering and wondering what to do, I yelled out “Vanakkam,” meaning hello in Tamil. Shortly after that, I heard a response to my call. Bakul had appeared from behind the partition.
“Hi, I called yesterday about renting a moped,” I said.
“What’s a western girl like you doing wanting a moped,” he asked with an undertone of judgment. “Isn’t it scary!?”
Not knowing how to respond, I kept the focus on the transaction.
“You said you had one available for me to rent for Rs 1,400 or rupees a week,” I reminded him of our phone call, hoping he would stop judging and continue with the transaction.
“And have you driven one before,” he asked.
“I’ve ridden on one and I’m a quick learner,” I replied in my typical anxious yet eager tone.
Grumbling about something as he shuffled papers, he handed over a pen for me to sign and asked for my initial payment. I handed over my two-week rental payment in Rs 2,800 or approximately $30 in cash and walked over to the scooter. Like renting a car, we walked around it, and Bakul gave me a tour of the gas tank, ignition, speedometer, accelerator, and brake levers. There wasn’t much more training than that. After the highly brief overview and with my hands firmly gripping the handlebars, I straddled the seat, both feet still on the ground. I kicked up the kickstand, then Bakul showed me how to set the key to the “On” position. Squeezing the brake lever with my left hand, I pressed the start button with my right.
I could feel the engine rev beneath me. To accelerate, I needed to twist the right handlebar toward me. For anyone considering renting a motorbike or moped, please do not follow my lead. At this moment, I didn’t think about a helmet. No one wore helmets. I didn’t think about closed-toe shoes. Everyone wore flip-flops. As I twisted the handlebar to accelerate, I slightly overdid it, quickly finding myself on a bucking bronco as the moped jerked forward.
Embarrassed, I now wanted to escape and figure out how to gently pull away without Bakul over me, watching in judgment. I twisted the accelerator more while turning toward the main road, kicking up clouds of dust. From the corner of my eye, I see Bakul wiping his face. Whoops!
“Sorry,” I yelled as I drove around the bend. Finally out of sight, I caught my breath and processed what just happened. This was certainly new!
After a few days with my moped, I started to get the hang of things. I was enjoying the freedom. I could travel much farther and without much effort. Whether I wanted to grab a morning brew at Marc’s Coffee, take lunch at the organic Naturellement Cafe, visit Savitri Bhavan to sing in the Ohm choir on Tuesday evenings, exploring all parts of Auroville was much easier. Whatever my destination became, I now had new things to capture my attention and focus.
Making my way onto a new path one day, a bright, yellow sign with an illustration of a porcupine screamed at me saying “puncture area.” Odd as it was, I took that to mean a warning that rocks may damage tires, so move cautiously. Signs like this dotted the sides of the roads throughout Auroville. A local resident informed me that this was a deliberate response to a requirement enforced by the Indian government to have some form of road signs available for safety reasons. I have no idea if that was true but in any case, they caught my attention.
By then I was fully immersed in daily life working alongside community health specialists at a local clinic. My job was studying how they share basic, preventive health practices throughout rural parts of the region. As a part of this work, I traveled to and from neighboring Kuilapalayam, frequently requiring me to take Auroville Road — the main road in and out of town. From my observations, it was also the busiest with the most diverse types of traffic, second to the forbidden and chaotic East Coast Road. Not only were there standard cars and motorbikes, there were also large trucks, small tuk-tuks, and herds of cows in constant motion. Adding to the need to navigate around all of these, I had to do it while driving on the left side of the road!
During my usual route one morning, a man in his late 20s or early 30s scooted up next to me, catching me off guard and distracting me from the road. He was trying to say something but, with the truck noise from the opposing traffic, I couldn’t quite make out what he said.
“What,” I yelled back over the blaring traffic.
“Hi! You’re pretty. What’s your number?”
Seriously?! Do guys really ask for phone numbers while traveling at 30 mph? This was uncomfortable. I was getting anxious which opened the flood gates to my imagination. Immediately flashing in my mind were the stories I had heard happening to other women throughout India. Very bad stories. As he kept persisting, the road I had taken so frequently felt brand new. The chaos was escalating. The horns rang louder, the red brake lights of the truck in front of me were brighter. The air smelled like cow dung mixed with petrol fumes from the other vehicles. I could read his speedometer and that was too close for comfort! Unlike the protection of a car, on my moped there was no physical barrier to separate me from him. Go away! He was an arms-length away. He could grab my hand or even my handlebars! I told myself to breathe and keep moving forward as I focused on counting each tree I passed. One, two, three, four, and so on.
“Where are you going?”
“Work,” I replied, hoping to shake him with the thought other workers might be waiting for me.
Traffic was too congested to break away. He gave up yelling over the traffic noise and just rode alongside me until we reached the clinic. Unlike when I became distracted by the couple and crashed on Dinesh Road, I was learning how to remain focused despite who or what was around me. My goal shifted from being reactionary to responding with intention. When I arrived, I ingratiated myself to him long enough to keep things from escalating.
“Well, I’m here,” I said. “Thank you for the company but I must go inside.”
“So, no number? No date?”
“Probably not a good idea.” I was not going to be the one to tell him he needs to work on his approach.
Once inside the clinic, I felt a sense of relief wash over me. After a couple of deep breaths, I was already in calmer spirits. I saw Ms. Suryagandhi checking in a patient. Ms. Suryagandhi was the lead health nurse working at the clinic since 1986. She aimed to improve access to health care across several rural villages. She was teaching me how India was working to deliver health care and preventive care to reach the last mile, where there is often little access to communication and services. For most of that day, she and I worked on preparations for an upcoming health care fundamentals training session for local women in a nearby village.
Leaving the clinic, I was grateful to not see my riding companion lingering nearby. While I didn’t let Ms. Suryagandhi know about my anxiety, my day had been peppered with thoughts of all the things that could have gone wrong. How he could have toppled my moped had he grabbed my handlebar. How he could have run me off the road. How he could have done whatever my mind would create. None of those things happened. I was future-tripping — stockpiling false stories as they wormed their way into my thoughts. What was I doing? Be here. Be now.
I hopped on my moped and headed back to Mitra. As I turned back on Dinesh Road, I watched the sun kiss the horizon, illuminating the landscape with a burnt orange glow. I thought about how quickly the sun would soon disappear. Every evening at six o’clock sharp, the village of Auroville became wrapped in darkness. Without a trusty headlamp or other artificial light, it became difficult even to see your hand in front of your face. I was grateful to make it back just before the last bit of sunlight tucked itself beneath the earth’s covers for the night.
As I prepared myself for bed, I brushed my teeth, now only with bottled water. I reflected on how life demands active participation and requires a lot of trial and error. Crashing Number 46 had enabled me to conceive a different truth. Auroville allowed for a revelation to emerge. I sought out new resources, explored the far edges of my comfort zone, and realized my own capabilities. In the morning, I would see the sun rise over Auroville. The new dawn would beckon the need to try something different, to be bold enough to meet adventure, and endeavor to embrace the challenge laid bare.
