And Laughter Fell From the Sky

by Jyotsna Sreenivasan

  “The Central Guest House,” Abhay said. “Do you know where it is?”

  “That way.” The man gestured vaguely down the road. “Three kilometers.”

  “I was told it was only half a kilometer.”

  “Three kilometers. I will take you. Only one hundred rupees.” The man pointed to an autorickshaw sitting outside the entrance gate.

  This man was not the guard, but an enterprising auto driver. Abhay had now been in India long enough to be outraged at this price. “A hundred rupees to go three kilometers?”

  “I come from Pondicherry. You will not find auto here.”

  Abhay stood there fuming. How could Auroville realize human unity if they wouldn’t even help people get into the place? He slipped his arms out of his backpack and thumped it to the ground.

  “Eighty rupees,” the man said. “I will take you.” He reached for the backpack.

  Abhay waved him away. “I’ll walk,” he declared, slung on his backpack again, and stepped out onto the dirt road. Probably if he kept walking, he’d come across a sign. His sneakers padded over the soft red dirt. The trees all looked alike, a tangled forest of thin trunks along the sides of the path, and it felt like he was just walking in place instead of proceeding to his goal. He could see no signs of any sort, and there was no one ahead of him to ask. Should he go back to the courtyard? At least there were people there. He might have a chance of getting some help, if he kept asking. Out here, he was all alone.

  He heard a motor puttering toward him, and turned in relief. Maybe the autorickshaw driver had followed him. He was now willing to consider paying whatever it took to get to his room.

  It wasn’t the autorickshaw, but a motor scooter. Instead of passing him, the scooter stopped. “Can I help you?” The driver was a plump, light-skinned Indian man, with a fringe of graying hair around his bald crown, wearing a dress shirt and sandals. He looked as if he might be traveling to his office.

  “I need to get to the Central Guest House.” Abhay tried not to appear too desperate. “Do you know where it is?”

  “Please sit,” the man offered, pointing to the back of his seat. Enormously relieved, Abhay perched behind him and clung to the bottom of the seat with both hands, trying not to topple over with his heavy backpack as the scooter buzzed and tilted along the road. Within a few minutes the man stopped amid a cluster of low buildings. “This is Central Guest House,” he said, and Abhay eased himself off the bike. The man motored away before Abhay could thank him.

  The next morning Abhay opened his eyes and gazed at the wood struts of the roof above him. Birds trilled and twittered outside. His room was small and clean, with a fan hung from the middle of the ceiling. The climate here was much more humid than in Bangalore, and during the night he’d felt chilled by the dampness and hadn’t slept well.

  He wondered what the day would bring. At the guesthouse office last evening, he’d been given a message from Kianga. He’d called her back from the phone outside the office, and she’d given him directions to reach her farm, called “Guidance,” this morning.

  Last night the manager of this guesthouse, Paloma, had given him a map and lent him her copy of an Auroville handbook, on the cover of which was a photo of the gold globe of the Matrimandir—the shrine or temple in the center of the community. It looked like some sort of extraterrestrial spaceship that had only temporarily landed on the red earth. Paloma had also given him detailed instructions as to how he could manage to gain entry into the Matrimandir grounds, as well as the temple itself. He wasn’t sure he would bother with the whole to-do, yet Paloma seemed to assume that the main purpose of his trip was to see the Matrimandir. He was starting to fear that religion, or spirituality, was far more important in Auroville than he had envisioned.

  Before going to bed he had pored over the Auroville handbook, attempting to absorb all the details of Auroville’s history and its hundreds of communities and businesses. He read about the health care services available to Aurovillians; libraries within the community; language classes; community schools. There was a whole section on alternative energy experiments. He discovered a list of about a dozen organic farms, including the one Kianga worked on. The information was overwhelming and exciting.

  He read far into the night, and now, in the morning, the booklet lay on the mattress next to him. He began to hear sounds of dishes clattering in the dining hall, so he got out of bed and bathed in the little adobe bathhouse, in which a large metal pot of water had been heated with a wood fire underneath, so the whole place was warm, toasty, and smoky-smelling. When he exited the bathhouse into the cool damp morning air, something hopped away from his foot. He startled, and then realized with relief that it was only a squat toad.

  Relaxed, he made his way under the trees to the dining hall. Ferns and other plants grew alongside the bricked paths. A black stone bowl, filled with water, displayed floating red and orange chrysanthemum blossoms. Decorative shaded lanterns graced the outdoor seating area. Near the reception hut was a small statue of dancing Shiva, in front of which someone had lit a stick of incense that perfumed the morning air.

  The line for breakfast snaked out the dining hall door. Abhay glanced at the bulletin board covering the outside wall of the dining hall. In the middle of the board was a poem:

  Light, my light, the world-filling light, the eye-kissing light, heart-sweetening light!

  Ah, the light dances, my darling, at the centre of my life; the light strikes, my darling, the chords of my love; the sky opens, the wind runs wild, laughter passes over the earth.

  The butterflies spread their sails on the sea of light. Lilies and jasmines surge up on the crest of the waves of light.

  The light is shattered into gold on every cloud, my darling, and it scatters gems in profusion.

  Mirth spreads from leaf to leaf, my darling, and gladness without measure. The heaven’s river has drowned its banks and the flood of joy is abroad.

  Abhay didn’t normally pay much attention to poetry yet found himself scanning the words over and over again.

  “You like the poem?” It was Paloma, the office manager, standing in front of him. “Every week I put a different poem on the bulletin board.”

  “Who wrote it?’

  “This is from the Gitanjali, by Rabindranath Tagore. You must be familiar with his work.”

  Abhay was familiar with the name of the famous Bengali poet but had never read any of his poems. He liked this one. It was full of joy and seemed to fit so well in the calm beauty of the morning. Before he stepped into the door of the dining hall, Abhay read the lines one last time.

  After he’d filled his plate with buttered bread and fruits, Abhay took his plate and cup of tea to a table and sat down. At the next table, also alone, was seated the plump, balding, middle-aged Indian man who had given him a motor scooter ride the day before. Abhay stepped over and held out his hand. “I’m Abhay. I didn’t have a chance to thank you for the ride.”

  The man held out a small, delicate-fingered hand. “Nandan,” he said. “Please, sit down,”

  Abhay transferred his plate and cup to Nandan’s table.

  “How do you like Auroville?” Nandan asked.

  “So far, so good.”

  “I have been coming here annually for years,” Nandan said. “I am a physician in Chennai. My life is full of stress, noise, crowds.” He spoke slowly, reclining comfortably in his chair. “I come to Auroville for a rest. It is so peaceful here. My wife and my children find it dull, but I love the quiet.”

  Abhay was surprised. Didn’t Nandan realize that Auroville was not some sort of retreat or resort? But maybe to Nandan, Auroville was just a place with a lot of trees and fresh air.

  “Tell me about yourself,” Nandan invited. “Where are you from? How did you decide to visit Auroville?” He leaned forward and clasped his hands on the table, looking expectantly at Abhay, as though his only concern in the world was Abhay’s life.

  There was something so calm and friendly
about his eyes that Abhay started talking, and soon he was telling him everything—growing up in Ohio, his parents’ expectations of him, his time at Rising Star, his move to Portland, and now the visit to Auroville.

  “I just want to find a place to fit in.” Abhay frowned up at the blue sky through the leaves above his head.

  “And you see that every place has its faults.”

  “I’m not expecting perfection.”

  “You want to belong someplace, and you find yourself always an outsider. You are like an oyster.”

  “An oyster?”

  Nandan curved his hands into two closed shells. “You have a pearl inside, but you do not know it. You are searching everywhere for something that you already have, but you do not want to open up.”

  Abhay had no idea what Nandan was talking about. He wasn’t reluctant to open up. He was trying everything. Nandan was apparently like so many Indians—eager to give advice to strangers.

  After breakfast, Abhay rented a bicycle at the shed near the reception hut to go see Kianga. The bicycle turned out to be a rusty, one-speed vehicle. It was better than nothing. He hopped on and started out slowly over the earth road.

  Immediately, he was lost. He hadn’t remembered such a plenitude of red roads the night before. According to his map, he was to connect up with the main road and circle around to the other side of the Matrimandir grounds, where he’d pick up another path to Kianga’s farm. He had no idea how to reach the main road. There were paths meandering everywhere through the trees, with no road signs anywhere. He struck out along one track and encountered no one at all for several minutes. He was already sweating in the humidity. He saw someone walking along—a dark Indian man bent under a load of sticks on his back—and he shouted, “How do I get to the main road?”

  The man looked at him quizzically. Maybe he didn’t speak English.

  “Matrimandir,” Abhay tried.

  The man pointed back the way Abhay had come, so Abhay turned around and tried again. After a few more false starts, he reached the main road and saw the shining gold globe of the Matrimandir in the distance. He kept this on his right and pedaled around the road surrounding the walled grounds of the temple. At the next crossroads he saw a series of road signs. Abhay followed the arrow for “Guidance” and kept pedaling and pedaling among the trees. He didn’t see any more signs, nor the landmarks Kianga had mentioned. He approached a hut along the side of the road, with a rooster tied by the leg to one of the support poles. A woman in a sari sat in the doorway of the hut with a baby on her lap. He wondered if these were Aurovillians, or a village enclave in the middle of Auroville.

  “Guidance?” he asked.

  The woman inclined her head in the direction he was going, so he continued. In this way, by pedaling into the unknown and asking anyone he came across, he rode into a clearing with a brown barnlike structure and a wide brick-sided well. He pushed down the kickstand of his bike and looked for Kianga. No one was around. In a field nearby were a cow and two calves. Auroville was so different from the rest of India. There were so few people, and many of the people who were here were Europeans. The place was not exactly desolate. Not lonely. Full of solitude, maybe.

  As he stood there, wondering how he might find Kianga, she appeared along a path under some small trees with umbrellalike leaves. She was tanned and muscled, wearing a pair of shorts and a faded tank top. Her hair was pulled back into a ponytail, and one of her calves was smeared with mud.

  She walked over to him silently and gave him a hug and kiss. She smelled musky with sweat, and felt warm and firm.

  “How do you like Auroville?” She spoke quietly, stepping back and observing him.

  “I’m not sure yet. It’s so much bigger than I thought it would be. How do you like it?”

  “Wonderful.” She passed her gaze over the landscape. “It’s a magical place. People are really committed to experimenting in all sorts of ways.” She headed closer to the well, and he followed. Water glimmered far down the brick sides. “This fills up after the monsoon, and we use the water all year for irrigation.”

  “There aren’t too many people here,” Abhay remarked. “I thought a farm would be full of workers.”

  “It’s Sunday morning,” Kianga reminded him. “Tomorrow it’ll be a lot busier.”

  They walked between rows of papaya trees—those were the ones with the umbrellalike leaves—and small banana trees with their huge rectangular leaves. The earth here was dark, amended with compost, probably. “We interplant the trees with crops.” She pointed out rows of low plants. “Right now we have lettuce, basil, and pineapples.” He had always thought pineapples grew on tall palm trees. Here he saw low circular structures of spiky leaves, like a yucca or cactus, in the centers of which appeared small reddish pineapples.

  They walked slowly in single file. He was behind her, and he gazed at the symmetrical, delicate tattoo draped over her shoulders and upper back. The air was still and warm. Black and green butterflies flitted past. Abhay and Kianga stopped to watch, holding still, trying to see if the insects would land so they could get a better look at their beauty.

  Another field was filled with cream-colored flowers with a dark red center. “This is a kind of hibiscus,” Kianga explained. “We make a jam out of the fruit.” She plucked what looked like an orange bud, pulled off a fleshy petal, and gave him one. It tasted sour and fruity. He started to feel a calmness seeping into him, from the dark earth and the penetrating heat of the sun.

  As they wandered among the plants on the brown paths, he didn’t see anyone else on the farm at all. It was like a Garden of Eden, with the blue sky, the rich earth, the green plants. It was so strange to be in this Indian place, in this humid, tropical climate, without the culture of Indians around him—no aunties and grandmothers cajoling him to eat more, no uncles disapproving of his lack of career, no pushy crowds, no noisy temple rituals.

  “We have about eighteen acres here,” Kianga said. “We keep cows for the milk and manure. In the corporate farming structure, animals are raised miles away from crops. On the animal farms, no one knows what to do with the manure, and on the cropland, they have to use artificial fertilizers for the soil.”

  In the next field, past a gnarled, spreading tamarind tree, she dug up, with her bare fingers, the root of some plant. “This is jicama, from Mexico.” She held up the bulbous tan root. “Devi, the manager of the farm, likes to try different plants from around the world, to see what’ll do well here. The plant produces a kind of bean, and we use those for a natural pesticide.” She brushed the soil off the tuber, pulled a penknife out of her pocket, and peeled and sliced off a section of white root for him.

  “So, you think you’ll stay here?” He chewed the fresh, juicy jicama. “Seems like you feel really at home already.”

  Kianga squatted down next to some low plants with heart-shaped leaves. “I do feel at home. These are sweet potatoes.” She reached under the spreading dark-green leaves and pulled out a few weeds. “I only heard about Auroville a few months ago, but I felt so pulled to visit.” She stood up and gazed over the green and brown fields. “Now I love it here.”

  “Have you finished your degree?” He tossed the rest of his jicama root onto the soil and slid his hands into the pockets of his shorts.

  “I haven’t graduated, if that’s what you’re asking. But I’m realizing how limited that training was. There’s so much more to health than the physical. I can learn about holistic health right here.”

  “Sounds like you would like to stay here.”

  “I have to get the logistics worked out. If I want to live here, I’d have to be able to pay for a year’s stay, and find my own housing. That’s the rule for newcomers. I could probably keep staying here. I’m living in a hut with Nick. A year’s worth of expenses would only be about fifteen hundred dollars. I’m sure my folks would send that to me, if I asked them.”

  “Is Nick—he’s your boyfriend?”

  “Not really. There’
s a housing shortage, and Nick said I could stay with him. We dated in high school, and then we had a stupid fight. He was jealous because I paid attention to his friend. So we broke up. When he e-mailed me about Auroville that was the first I’d heard from him in years. We’ve both matured a lot. He understands that I need to be able to love anyone I choose.”

  Under the umbrella of a papaya tree, she slid an arm around him. He put his arm around her waist, feeling the motion of her hip under his hand as they walked. He tried to imagine himself living in Auroville near Kianga. Immediately, he thought of Rasika. What would she think of a place like this? Would her curiosity allow her to appreciate it?

  When they reached the well, where Abhay had left his bike, Kianga led him past it to a little shelter—it looked like an outdoor kitchen—where she filled a tall glass of water for him. “It’s filtered,” she reassured him. He drained the glass and set it into the sink. She sliced open a yellowish green papaya to reveal its orange flesh and cache of black, glistening seeds. She handed him a spear. They consumed the sweet, juicy, slightly bitter flesh, and threw the peels to the cows.

  “Do you have your pass for the Matrimandir?” she asked.

  He shook his head. “I don’t know if I want to bother with that.”

  “You should. It’s the soul of the community. You can’t understand Auroville if you don’t visit the Matrimandir.”

  “I read in the guidebook that there are no ceremonies there. No one is required to visit the temple, or meditate, or do anything.”

  Kianga wiped the counter. “The Mother didn’t want the Auroville experiment to become a religion. There are no rituals in the Matrimandir, no flowers, no incense. The Matrimandir is not a temple; it’s a shrine to the universe’s feminine energy. It’s a place you can use to help raise your consciousness. It’s about each person’s own inner enlightenment and transformation, not about any of the other stuff that usually goes along with religion.”