BIOPHILE 16 — JUNE/JULY 2007 R25 - Biophile Magazine

A TOUCH OF MADNESS...and matter. Depression gets deeper.Breakdowns increase and not breakthroughsfrom the cul-de-sac of lifelessliving. Life wrapped up in colourfulwraps of material living, urban living – atouch of madness, afflicted by modernitysyndrome. Those afflicted by thisdis-ease return to the villages, like myfather, eager to make their simple villagedwelling into a small urban shanty– sad testimony that urban developmentis addictive, it hooks simple folks formvillage with all the pomp and glitz onlyto slowly leach the simple living in harmonywith nature spiced with commonsense a thing of the past.My mother passed away last year.Watching the villagers pour in I realizedhow the local village communicationsystem is so self organizing, no ADSL,broadband, telecommunication glitchholding news… news just travels. Peopleflock by. Nothing is done for money.It just is the custom. She was crematedon the land. The tree from the land waschopped down. A tamarind tree. Usuallythe best. It burns even when it isjust cut. The best tree always used forcremation. Our local custom does notallow the body to be kept after the sunset…here in this part of the tropics,everything is taken care of according tothe law of nature…rules and rituals arecreated to follow the rhythms of nature.With no refrigeration and modern,cooling system body will rot in no time.Cremation is the best way to disposeof the dead. Ofcourse wood has to bechopped. But almost every householdmaintains trees, especially tamarind…for the dead…no one has to be told togrow trees…It is a different story when the developerscome, the rich new moniedclass want terrace buildings, concreteapartments, bulldozing the entire ecosystemto grow concrete jungles. Andthen the bickering starts, sustainablearchitecture…sustainable urban dwellings,and spatial development.How sustainable is this approach?We are witnessing this trend globally.Where is this taking us? This kind ofdisplacement of the old for the newthat has no sustainability other than tosustain the newly emerging sustainableindustry – of developers, architects,planners, agri-business you name it…all making the old look really redundantand yet, taking the new to an unsustainablelevel, uprooting and distorting theold. At the same time bottling convenientremnants of the old in new packageswith new labels to be traded assustainable development with a liberalgarnish of modernist technology.Auroville:a Blueprintfor Livingby Stacy FriedlanderIs there really a place on earth wherehuman beings from all nations andways of life, have come together ina melting pot with a singular visionof human unity, world peace andnatural living? Could it be true? Werewe dreaming when our taxi arrived inthe midst of the Indian winter in whatseemed to be a very uncanny forestright in the middle of the open coastalplains of Tamil Nadu, Southern India?We stopped to have a tea and somejuice at the Auroville visitor’s centre, abeautiful structure made of compressedraw clay earth and renowned by architectsworld wide for being one of themost elegant naturally built communitybuildings today. Our first glimpse wasthe communal watering system whichboasted ‘Dyanamised Water’ – couldthis be true? A city where the citizenseven care about the essential qualityand energy of the drinking water of itsinhabitants?Some may have heard of Aurovillein the recent African outreach thattook place in SA last year, or smelt itssweet fragrances from the Auro-incensethat is always sold out in Kalk Bay, orhypothesised its existence with friendsover a cup of steaming chai.Growing up in a torn apart SouthAfrica we are one of those many soulswho have yearned for ubuntu in a moremanifest way in our nation throughintentional and conscious communities.Why should South Africa, such aprosperous and advanced nation, so upthere in technology and science, lackso direly an expression of communalliving and human unity? Yes, we have itin the media, in the rainbow nation, inthe “One South Africa” movement, butis it really there on the ground wherewe need it? Communities serve a deeppurpose of bringing a healing heart totheir surroundings and their countriesas we were to witness on our journey toAuroville.Auroville, “The City of Dawn”, was inauguratedon the 28th of February 1968,when people representing 124 countriesand all the Indian states symbolicallyplaced a handful of earth from theirhome lands in a marble clad vessel nearthe centre of Auroville, then a piece ofdry desert earth, symbolising the crea-26Biophile Issue 16