Auroville und Mahabalapuram

On the next day I want­ed to dri­ve to Auroville. This place was found­ed in 1968 by Sri Aurobindo and „the Moth­er“. You can read more about these 2 in the texts I took pic­tures of in Auroville.

For­tu­nate­ly the wait­er in the café where I enjoyed a nice break­fast want­ed to go to Autoville, too. He spend his lunch break for dri­ving with me on his motor­bike to Auroville. After a while we reached the neigh­bour­hoods which were announc­ing already Auroville. Hon­est­ly I was a bit shocked because of the trash lying ever­where around. My expec­ta­tions were a bit dif­fer­ent. First I watched the gallery which gave more infor­ma­tion about the idea as well as the idea and the founders of Auroville. Over there I got to know 2 physic pro­fes­sors from India. We talked quite long about the par­al­lels betwenn nature laws and Non-Dual­ism. Excit­ed and inspired by the dis­cus­sion I moved onward – danc­ing – lit­er­al­ly tot he Matro­mandir which ist he med­i­ta­tion cen­tre of Auroville. Unfor­tu­nate­ly it´s only ope­nend on Mon­days for tourists who want to med­i­tate there. You can get a tick­et in advance on which a cer­tain time for you for Mon­day med­i­ta­tion is not­ed. My plan on this thurs­day after­noon was to go to Maha­bal­a­pu­ram in the evening. So I changed my med­i­ta­tion in Matra­mandir on my next Auroville vis­it; next I´ll def­i­nite­ly stay longer! Lat­er I still bought some food and a fan­cy drink in one of the cafés (which I high­ly rec­om­mend) and took a Tuk­Tuk for 150 rupees to the next bussta­tion. I missed the bus to Pondicher­ry, which didn´t go at 5:15 pm as announced on the home­page but at 4 pm.

Back in Pondicher­ry I picked up my washed clothes from laun­dry and took a local bus for only 91 rupees to Maha­bal­a­pu­ram. Rahul, the friend of my surf teacher in Agon­da in Goa was already wait­ing for my call. Maha­bal­a­pu­ram was not on my list if not Mumu, the surf teacher from Agon­da, told me to go there (his home­town). „Why not?“ ich said to myself. Lat­er I found out that this is one of the old­est cities in India locat­ing the old­est tem­ples in India (from the 7th cen­tu­ry). Before fly­ing to Andaman Islands I want­ed to get into the chill mood, so I stayed in this lit­tle fish­er town for 3 nights doing not so much. I vis­it­ed nice tem­ples, made new friend­ships with Nam from Mum­bai, Rahul from Maha­bal­a­pu­ram and Fil­lipo from Italy. It was the per­fect lay-over on the way to the air­port in Chen­nai (Ola taxi in the ear­ly morn­ing tot he air­port was 958 rupees plus 42 rupees tip). With its colour­ful hous­es, nar­row streets, friend­ly peo­ple and relax­ing atmos­phere invites you to stay longer in this town! Although it´s not nice for hav­ing a bath it´s an amz­ing surf­ing spot. Nev­er­the­less I enjpyed the time over a lot! And I felt in love with 2 paint­ings which I dis­cov­ered by acci­dent in the gallery of the painter and artist Masi. The hap­pi­ness oft he cho­sen colours and the motifs catched my atten­tion imme­di­alt­ly so I had no oth­er chance to buy these paint­ings. I sent them (280 rupees) to Del­hi where I stored some oth­er stuff already. By the way: if you´re into the ger­man artist scene and if you are want­i­ng to help: It´s Masis dream to have an exhi­bi­tion in Ger­many! If you see a pos­si­bil­i­ty you can write me or Masi direct­ly! The paint­ings mir­ror India in my eyes: Mag­ic of colours, spir­i­tu­al­i­ty and authenticity!