The continuing chronicle of a diverse passage from Australia to the Mother, meeting Aurovilians, building houses, and settling in.

Previously published 30 April 2026 A “significant sampling” of questions submitted to the Working Committee of the Foundation office, on 23.4.2026. Listed NOT in order of importance! Annapurna farm, ecology and food security: Considering the disastrous ecological consequences of the secretively concluded deal with IIT [Indian Institute of Technology] Madras, and the acute threat it poses to farming and food security of the whole of Auroville — an element given primary importance by the Mother! — and in the absence of any reasonable benefit to Auroville, can you please share what is being done to prevent the planned destruction of Auroville’s biggest and most productive farm? Land exchanges: As you will be aware, there are widespread, grave concerns about the exchange of Auroville lands, many of them purchased or donated with Mother’s approval and blessings, and the massive loss of value that Auroville has incurred through these opaque deals that do not follow established procedures. Kindly share with us the results of the enquiry ordered when the land deals were questioned in Lok Sabha [Lower House of Parliament]. Please give updates on how the Foundation’s Working Groups intend protecting Auroville against further dismembering of its physical body and massive, irreversible loss of land, value and assets, and whether the land donors (through the fundraising campaigns) are informed that their donations enable these land exchanges by providing the registration fees? PKS case: Can you please update the community of the status of the legal appeal by the Auroville Foundation to regain the possession of the lands grabbed by PKS in Evergreen? Visa issues, disruption of human lives, and loss of Auroville’s international character: The community remains extremely concerned about numerous visas pending, and some denied, as a result of the Secretary’s delay in signing the recommendation letters, or of negative remarks added by her. This has resulted in acute hardship for many families, separating children from their parents, uprooting life-long devoted members of Auroville, and generated generalised insecurity among the community. We observe a shrinking of Auroville’s non-Indian population, and hesitancy among potential newcomers, skewing the demographics away from Auroville’s purpose of being an international township devoted to unity in diversity. Please shed some light on these recent changes, and how you see the trend developing in the foreseeable future? Can you please share if and how these concerns are being addressed? RoR accessibility: Kindly inform how community members can access the list of Aurovilians as per the RoR [Registry of Residents]. To our knowledge, maintaining an updated RoR is the one responsibility of the Secretary of the Auroville Foundation defined by the Auroville Foundation Act. Having access to a current list of its members is a natural requirement of any community. Incidentally, a new Auroville phone and email directory would be timely and welcome. Loss of Auroville enterprises; state of economy: Many units and activities have been forcibly closed over the last 4 years, while others have had their founders or long-serving executives replaced. Kindly provide an update on how these changes have affected Auroville? Maintenance cuts and Silver Fund: Kindly provide some details regarding the number of maintenances (including students and children) that have been cut since 2021, in which fields of activity, whether reasons were provided and alternative means of sustenance offered? Please also update on the status of the Silver Fund, how many elderly Aurovilians are affected by the non-availability of this community prosperity scheme? Membership of the GB/Secretary-appointed various Working Groups: Kindly update the community on who are the current members of the various Working Groups appointed by the GB/Secretary? RoR and Working Group selection: During the last meeting we were given to understand that the updating of the RoR has been pretty much completed. This — if we understood correctly — was the major obstacle to initiate the process as laid down in the Auroville Act of selecting a seven member Working Committee. Please confirm that the completion of the RoR validates the recent Selection Process for Auroville’s working groups, or if there is any concern, how it is to be resolved. Parallel Working Groups and ATR: Recently the Secretary of the AF has remarked that the existence of parallel Working Groups is not desirable. Presently the Foundation-appointed ATR has taken over the Entry process of aspiring Aurovilians, and even Aurovilians who had completed their Entry process in early 2025 have been forced to restart the process. Since the Auroville Foundation Act clearly stipulates that the power to admit and terminate names from the RoR is the exclusive domain of the Residents’ Assembly, can you give an indication as to when this will be duly returned to the RA? “’Competent Authority”’: The Auroville Community and its members have recently received a number of written directives and office orders “‘issued with the approval of the Competent Authority”’ but without any name associated with it. This non-transparent and disempowering practice is detrimental to the spirit of openness and collaboration expressed in invitations to community meetings. Can the community please be informed who is the “‘competent authority”’ responsible for the respective decisions? Violence by members of Foundation office Working Groups: Members of GB-selected WGs [Working Groups] have been reported to have had an active role in incidents of physical violence behaviour during the attempted destruction of the Youth Centre on 20 March, which has resulted in FIRs [First Information Report] being issued against them. Kindly inform the community whether the persons involved are currently under investigation by the Foundation Office, whether those associated with the Foundation office working groups will step back from their roles while inquiries are ongoing, and what measures are being taken to ensure accountability and aiming at building basic trust. Youth Centre: Auroville’s Youth Centre has been subjected to prolonged and extreme pressure from FO-appointed working groups, even after the buildings that had stood in the way of the Crown Road were demolished and the road built! These pressure tactics include cutting off basic supplies like water and electricity, closing their financial accounts

Portrait of Jacques, an Aurovilian La Lettre Bleue: Hello Jacques, you are one of those Aurovilians who arrived in the 1980s during the years when Auroville was being built. Today you are just as enthusiastic as ever. Can you tell us about your journey? Jacques: Let me introduce myself — Jacques, French, who settled permanently in Auroville in 1981 after several stays of a few months. India has always been the country of my heart. At age seven, I had a premonition with the word “INDIA” that stood out in my mind. I discovered Auroville in 1969 at an exhibition in Avignon, standing before a photograph of people meditating in front of the excavation of the Matrimandir at sunrise — it touched me in an extraordinary way. Later, in Berlin, I came across a brochure with the Galaxy and the Charter, and I knew in an instant that this was where I wanted to live — but it took me eight years before I actually came to Auroville. I left France hitchhiking from the Mont-Blanc tunnel on December 5th, 1976, heading East for good — with no time limit in my mind. Despite a dream life in France, there was always “something” missing. So I sold my dental practice and cut all ties in order to be completely free to live the experience in India without time constraints, following the path of my heart — at the age of 35. LB: When you arrived in Auroville, did you think of resuming dentistry? Jacques: I came for the Auroville experience, not for dentistry — but as a stateless human being, to stick my fingers into a 220-volt socket (the symbolic image I visualized at the time), to dive headfirst into the experience and live that extraordinary  human unity. But before arriving in Auroville, I searched elsewhere (the Himalayas, darshan with Ma Anandamayi, etc.) because I was afraid of getting stuck in something, always keeping a way out. When I returned to Auroville for good, with a one-way ticket, I decided to be “the dentist of Auroville” because there was a real need. Eight days after my arrival, an Aurovilian gave me a small building at the community of Protection, which I gradually transformed into a clinic for Aurovilians, while continuing to treat villagers at the Health Centre. LB: At what point did you become more involved in dental care in the surrounding villages? Jacques: Fundamentally, dentistry was not my goal but my means of expression. I naturally became interested in schools, beginning checkups at André Tardeil’s school for village children, then continuing progressively at other schools. Having only two hands, I had to train hygienists. Everything I did, I did without a plan, responding to needs in the moment as they arose, through intuition.  And everything came to fruition despite very limited means — through the Grace of the Mother, like a miracle — with outside help in terms of equipment and human resources, with my fellow Aurovilians as the priority. LB: When you walk into your practice, there is one striking feature: flat equipment — patients lie down! Jacques: One of the turning points in my life came from unbearable back pain lasting 18 years due to poor posture — persevering through physiotherapy until that day in March 1986 when I wanted to either give up my profession or find another method. That led me to Japan in 1991, where I discovered a new universal concept with equipment adapted to our physiology, allowing one to maintain a natural posture behind a reclining patient — a revolution in the profession (and a revelation) — which made me happy to continue for another 10 years, and to introduce it with short training sessions for my assistants and colleagues in particular, since they had all been trained to work in contorted positions over a conventional dental chair. There is powerful resistance across the world of dental healthcare, due to habits and preconceptions — even refusing to accept a paradigm shift. I had the good fortune and privilege of conducting my experiments in complete freedom in Auroville, in India, which would have been impossible elsewhere. LB: Has Auroville always been fertile ground for what is possible for you? Jacques: Another important moment in my life came when I clashed with the community trying in vain to integrate dental care and prosthetics into a global economy. I suffered for twenty years from this lack of understanding, until it brought on a devastating crisis lasting eight days — after which I finally accepted that the community is me, and I am the community. I came to Auroville to grow in consciousness and to give to Auroville; otherwise I would have left long ago. I have been well molded, and it continues nonstop, through the daily grind, but the small difference is that, despite everything, I generally face this battle in the physical and human realm with more humor and good cheer — like a one-man band. LB: How do you see the future? Jacques: I would need an engineer to relieve me of equipment maintenance and other tasks, which would free up time for me to pass on the best of what I have learned — to be a catalyst for sharing knowledge and instilling a somewhat rebellious spirit, to offer a different perspective in this very conventional and hard-to-change world of healthcare. Practicing dentistry differently by offering quality service to everyone without money changing hands is my most heartfelt wish, but I remain obliged to make compromises while waiting for a collective will to change our economy. For the surrounding rural region, I have trained village women as hygienists under the Zero Concept, who continue our program in schools with prevention, manual scaling, and minor treatments on simple tables — even without electricity or running water. A genuine solution for the 90% of rural India without dentists, and recommended by the WHO in developing countries. I would now like to spread this Zero Concept