this was India

Hey hey, we're out of India and back to bad english... Staying at a farm with many non-native speakers and Indians on top of that didn't really help improving our skills. But what else happened?

At last we got to travel a bit, first of all in trains, which was nice, not to say a lot better than what rumors say. Mostly, trains were on time, food and drinks were available almost all of the time and overnight travels were almost comfortable (we always took the lowest class). Only during the day it got so hot that just reading a book got us sweaty all over! No need to mention that it was a cheap way to get over huge distances...

Busses weren't as comfortable, local ones, I mean. The system is quite confusing, since vehicles sometimes don't have numbers and people only seem to know where the bus goes that takes them home... Next to the driver there's a helper who stands in the door, shouting the destination when the bus approaches, chasing people in and collecting the money. The A/C is ... open windows! But the bus to Hampi, for instance, stopped so often that it barely helped to sit next to the window. The seat must have been designed for people of slim built, students maybe, or Nepalese. The music shouting from the speakers is surely taken from some Bollywood movie, and despite not being beautiful, it's very appropriate in a way. So while we're given a good shake on this endless bus ride, we had enough time to think about the lessons this country has taught us...

So how does India appear to the traveller?
First of all, as a country of spicy food (lassi and not breathing through the mouth helps), chaotic traffic (a street has exactly x lanes, and x being the number needed at that time), hundreds of languages (hindi is only spoken by a fourth of all Indians), thousands of gods and last but not least millions of cows, everywhere. On the second glance we saw the beautiful sarees and punjabis of the women, which are (like snow-cristalls) never the same. We saw the curiosity and suspiciousness in the eyes of most Indians when they saw white people like us, and not only when it came to the multiple times higher prices for us, I had to think of racism. It's an annoying and tiring feeling to be always different, excluded in a way, to be stared at and looking at pointing fingers. But still, I'm grateful for that experience, showing us what it's like to be different. And of course we've also had many positive moments: people smiling at us, asking where we from and trying to help if we needed it or not, especially with busses. They seemed to be fascinated by Germany ("good country!"), and usually wanted to know what we work (or even how much we earn).
As you may have heard about India, PDA (kissing, hugging, even holding hands) is like a crime and you will never see even a married couple doing it. So you can imagine our surprise when we saw men of every age hugging, cuddling and holding hands! I'm not sure if girls do it, but two men walking hand in hand on the street is very common...

We won't spare you some of the dark side we saw in India, like the stray dogs, the litter lying around (globalization and plastics came here before the concept of recycling did) or being burned everywhere, and the poverty. There're many beggars walking around, and not only the slums of Mumbai were scary, because we saw them right next to the runway while driving in a bus on the airport. Anyway, even the poor ones have smartphones which really makes you wonder about priorities in life...

And now, after so many words, some pictures from our trip in India:

Chillout area at Lara's, Windarra Farm

visiting a worker's family, Tamil Nadu

rice harvest, Windarra Farm

those strange bugs, grown together on their butts

a normal swastika on our hut, Hampi

sunset at the monkey temple, Hampi

view from the monkey temple

temple in central Hampi

the temple elephant goes for it's morning bath, Hampi

the trains were really long...

chillin out in Palolem, Goa

those two crazy travellers!

paradise pain

Oh yeah! We've all been waiting for another cheesy blogt title that promises random news, spiced with hilarious thoughts and incredible insights into our life on Windarra farm in India.
No, not India ...Auroville! That's not the same. Let me conclude quickly what we've learned about Auroville so far (and why it's not really India):

It's a town for the whole humanity, created for everyone with "goodwill" to come, but "to live in Auroville, one must be a willing servitor of the Divine Consciousness" (http://www.auroville.org/). Basically that means there's lots of space for meditation. Also that means, no alcohol (or tabaco) is available in Auroville. The economy seems partially communistic, partially random (read: experimental), for example: every Aurovillian gets the same money for grocery shopping every month but the wages for the j. obs are different, depending on how long they've lived here, I think. Also, the house an Aurovillian lives in doesn't belong to them, you don't really possess anything. It all belongs to - guess it! - humanity! Ha. Sounds nice, but let me tell you this:
I think the experiment of what this community called Auroville tried has neither failed (as people from outside say) nor suceeded (as people from inside say). I like the different perspective on living with other people that you get here, that Aurovillians seem a little more relaxed, that there's almost no traffic, violence or environmental problems. Instead, they reforested a lot of the area, food comes from the local farms like Windarra and the community generally tries to live as ecofriendly as possible (that's why we have so many powercuts every day!).
On the other hand, it was all started on donations, the cafeteria, schools, retreat centers and not to forget the Matrimandir could only be built because of generous givers. That means so far, it wouldn't be possible to maintain Auroville without money from outside. The Matrimandir, by the way, is the spiritual center of the town, looks like a enormous golden golfball and is acutally very beautiful inside. A strange symbol which non-Aurovillians can only visit by appointment and by following strict rules like putting socks on inside, not touching the walls etc. But it's really worth it! Other strict rules: every guest has to register and pay a daily contribution of 150 Rupees (about 2€), so even if you live here and have friends staying overnight they would have to register and pay.

As far as I can say, people seem to be pretty relaxed and content, so it can't be worse then any average european city. But it can't be more fun, either...
Also, being that microcosmos that Auroville is, it's not really India. We don't get sick here so often, there's hardly any traffic and honking, no begging, no poverty, no suffering. It's more like a little Europe within Asia...

So why paradise? Why pain?
Well, everything above I wrote yesterday. This morning, I felt so happy and delighted by small things (more about the amazing details that is life here later) and continuously thoguht of Windarra as paradise. After lunch I got really upset because people were ignorant and hurt my privacy, so I cursed the community. Even in paradise people have to consider each other and communicate with each other, otherwise someone will suffer. Some say, you can have as much freedom as you want, as long as it does't disturb the freedom of others. That's fucking true!

by Lia

PS: Next time: more pictures, more animals.