Towards (Actual) Human Unity

Lori remembers during her first trip meeting a number of foreign Aurovillians whom had never learned to speak the local Tamil language, despite living in the townfor decades. Is this is how you go about becoming a “living embodiment of an actual Human Unity”? Meanwhile, in a few short months of 2002, Lori and other students befriended some of the masons and other locals whom they worked with side by side each day in the red dirt of Auroville. Now it's time to go surprise Saktivel (SAK-thee-vel) and his family, in the adjacent village of Amalkulpam.

But in a small Auroville parking lot , we find it's much harder to haggle with the rickshaw driver who takes us there. He wants 80 rupees ($2) for a five-minute drive! As we all know, that's a total rip-off. Yet the reliable big-city tactic of walking away and approaching another driver doesn't work, as it requires there to be multiple rickshaws. Instead of a dozen guys sitting around there are two. Before we can even try to walk away, the other driver approaches us to say, “Whatever price this man tells you, you pay.” Doh! Are there anti-trust laws in this Utopian community?

We make it to the village, ask directions about forty times, and finally find his house. Saktivel, who spoke ok English in 2002, is not home. But his wife walks out and recognizes Lori! As before, she does not speak English and we don't speak Tamil. But their two kids have grown quite a bit and their English is very good. Chakarapani (CHAK-ra-pah-ni), age 13 and his sister Saranya (SAH-ran-ya), 11, are super-cool kids, and they take us on a tour of the village as we wait for their dad to return. Of course I can't help but compare them to my niece and nephew, Sean and Delia. I think the four of them would get along quite well...

Saktival is completely amazed when we get back. He says his wife tried to tell him that Lori, the American student who was here eight years ago, is walking around the village with his kids! How absurd! She must be joking. But soon they're catching up on old times. We learn that he stopped being a mason long ago, and in recent years has become somewhat of a holy man, to the point of creating a small "temple" for the Hindu god Hanuman in his house! As best we can understand, he has become a bit of a healer, and one very grateful villager gave him not one but two cows out of gratitude. Both are pregnant, and the more we talk inside their 10' x 15' home, the more it sinks in just how big a deal this is. A nearby piece of land platted for development includes a parcel for their new house. Once they build it, their old home will become a template full-time. Saktival and his family are moving up in the world!

He and the kids join us in our cab back to the guest house. As we drive through the night back into Auroville, I can't help but think about “human unity”. Our evening with the family, despite difficult communication and limited understanding, is still one of the best nights I've had in India so far. The kids are super-smart, engaging, and the whole family went out of their way to welcome us. They were so genuine and real and we were having so much fun, I hardly noticed just how “poor” they might seem compared to a middle-class US lifestyle. We were getting to know a great family and they were learning more about us. Is that not “human unity”, as basic as it can be?