The conclusion of a detailed history of a home for adolescents that took shape through constant collaboration, experiments with new forms of living, and community involvement.
Related stories:
The Kailash story (part 1)
The City of the Past
Kailash no more
Originally published June-July 2025
A place that grew with us
We have recently been working on a documentary for Kailash’s 25th anniversary. This opened a door I hadn’t fully walked through before. It started on 28 February, the same date the foundation ceremony had taken place back in 2000. I was going through some old papers. Kailash is such a daily part of my life that I’m often engaged with something or other related to it, and it suddenly hit me: it’s been 25 years since we formally started the construction!
That realisation sparked something. I felt it was time to celebrate, to document what had happened over these two and a half decades. I imagined a video project, interviews with past residents, reflections from caretakers. It gave me a reason to go back into the archives. I opened the old box with files, diaries, and photos and started scanning documents.
What came from that process wasn’t just nostalgia, it was perspective. I began to see the full arc of the story, not only of Kailash, but also of Auroville’s evolution, especially in relation to youth. Because Kailash wasn’t created from an idea imposed from above. It came from a genuine, felt need. It came from the kids. We were just the instruments that helped bring it into form.
That raised the question: what created the need in the first place?
Looking back, I saw how it grew from the early structure of Auroville. In the beginning, everything was connected to the Ashram’s office in Pondicherry. The Bureau d’Auroville and other core functions were all housed there. There wasn’t a clear distinction between Pondicherry and Auroville in those days. Kids even came in by bus from Pondicherry to attend school here. But after The Mother left her body, the separation began. The Ashram and Auroville diverged. Financial support was cut off, schools were closed, and life on the Auroville plateau became purely about survival, planting, building, and pioneering.
Children were around, but no one was actively focused on them. They had no formal schooling. Most teenagers left Auroville for their studies because there was simply nothing here for them. That was the experience of my sister’s generation, those who were small when Auroville started or born in the early years.
For my generation (I was born in 1974), it will still be the same. When I reached my teenage years, the options were very limited. There were so few kids in my class at Last School, I ended up studying through correspondence. Then I went to the French Lycée in Pondicherry, and later to France, where I trained to become a social worker. I came back to Auroville at 24. Like so many in my age group, I had to leave in order to continue growing.
When I returned in 1998, the landscape was starting to shift. Kireet Joshi had become Chairman of the Governing Board and of the IAC. He was putting immense energy into education, especially into revitalising Last School and the principles of Free Progress. He brought momentum, attention, and a sense of structure. At the same time, Gateway funding helped launch Future School, offering Auroville its first proper internationally recognised high school setup allowing students to pass exams.
These developments created a foundation that could finally allow teenagers to stay in Auroville, not just as children but as youth preparing for adulthood. And yet, even then, there was a missing piece: a place to live.
Around the same time, the Youth Centre was also established. But the youth themselves were clear, they didn’t want just a place to hang out or do activities. They wanted a home. A space that was theirs. And so Kailash was born out of that space in Auroville’s timeline, at the intersection of social growth, educational development, and the desire to retain youth within the community.
It was a time of alignment. The city was ready, and the teenagers were ready too. And for the first time, Auroville had enough structure to raise children from infancy all the way to the end of high school, right here, without sending them away.
Then and now
Looking back over those 25 years, a lot has changed. And yet, the core principles of Kailash have stayed the same. The rules we laid out in the beginning, the balance of freedom and responsibility, the structure of daily life, are still in place.
But the social atmosphere around those rules has evolved. When Kailash started, Auroville itself was freer, more open. The environment was different. We had fewer phones, fewer screens, and no constant access to the digital world. So community life was more tangible, more physical and shared.
Residents of Kailash would do sports together, eat together, hang out, dance, go on outings. They listened to music in the same room, not just through headphones. There was more face-to-face connection, more shared presence. But over the years, especially with the rise of personal devices, that changed.
Then came COVID
The impact of the pandemic on teenagers was enormous. During the lockdowns, with schools closed and movement restricted, young people in Kailash were stuck in the building. Fourteen teenagers in one space, day after day, unable to follow their usual rhythms, that had a huge psychological and social impact.
During that time, Jean-François and I were in France. The caretakers then, Inge and Fabien, were holding the space. They navigated that intense period with incredible presence. But it shifted something, not only in Kailash, but in the whole generation.
Many of their social interactions moved online. A lot of real-world social muscles stopped being used. We’ve had many conversations since about the lingering effect of that period. It made the contrast between earlier generations and current ones more visible.
Still, through all that, the spirit of Kailash held.
A living, adapting place
Over the years, Kailash evolved along with us, its caretakers. Jean-François and I had two children. There were periods when we travelled or stepped back for personal reasons, but we always remained connected. Each time we returned, we rejoined the rhythm of Kailash, not trying to pick up where we left off, but meeting the space where it had grown to.
Twice, we reached a point where it looked like Kailash might have outlived its purpose. The number of residents dropped dramatically, and we began to wonder if the building should be repurposed, maybe handed over to someone else, or used for a different kind of youth project.
But each time that idea was voiced, word spread like wildfire.
Suddenly, youth from across Auroville, those who were too young to move in yet, or just old enough, started showing up, calling, messaging. They made it clear: this place still mattered. They wanted to move in. They wanted us to keep it alive.
It was a powerful reminder that the need hadn’t gone away. The younger generation still saw Kailash as theirs.
Life, love and loss
Living in community means embracing the full spectrum of life. Over the years, we’ve experienced so much within these walls.
One resident passed away. That was a devastating moment for all of us.
There was one instance of aggression, which was difficult to navigate but not defining of the community. It became part of the collective learning.
On the brighter side, we’ve also seen love blossom. Two residents who met in Kailash went on to build a life together and now have three children. Another couple who lived here later wrote to us from abroad, sharing that they had a baby too.
In that way, Kailash doesn’t end at its walls. Its story carries on in new families, in people who’ve learned how to live together, how to care for each other, and how to take ownership of their lives.
We’ve also been challenged, not so much by external threats, but by assumptions. When the Crown Road was built, and people started speeding along it, any teenager seen riding fast was assumed to be from Kailash. It didn’t matter whether they were or not. The label stuck easily. It became an easy place to project fear or blame.
But Kailash has never been a place of chaos. It’s been a place of structure, responsibility, and community, one that always held strong.
The end of a chapter
After 25 years of growth, Kailash suddenly found itself in the middle of what we understand as a political storm and a plan for centralising and restructuring Auroville’s assets and activities.
It began with a single ground-floor room. Funds had been tight during the original construction, and Arlet, who ran a reflexology school, needed space. In exchange for using the room to teach her final-year course, she financed its completion. This sparked an idea: the room could serve as an incubator for educational projects.
Over the years, it housed various initiatives, from a children’s library to a clinic. While not all were strictly educational, they served community needs. After the Clinic, Koodam, the conflict-resolution group, used that space. As Auroville’s internal tensions grew, one faction of the Working Committee, excluded from Town Hall, joined in using the space in 2022.
On the 5th of May 2025 the FAMC issued an ultimatum: vacate the office in days, the entire building by month’s end. No conversation. No notice. Just a directive addressed to “the residents of Kailash” on the Kailash email ID.
A project without a voice
The email wasn’t copied to SAIIER, under whose educational umbrella Kailash has always existed. SAIIER objected, citing its mandate and funding. As a response, the asset was transferred to Housing.
No one contacted us caretakers directly, as executives, or as people who’ve birthed, parented, held, breathed and lived this project for over 25 years.
The youth living here were told to vacate by 31 May. It was exam season, 15 April to 16 June, and they studied under the weight of uncertainty, with no transition plan, no support.
An extension was then granted till 16 June, not because of any real discussion, but simply because there was no prior thinking nor planning for the repurposing of the building.
Now, we’re in direct contact with Housing about a handover. But it’s not a dialogue. It’s a conclusion. Kailash is no more and it will be repurposed.
What happens to the spirit?
We meet with the residents regularly. Recently, there was a beautiful meeting, honest, raw, and moving. They spoke about the spirit of Kailash, and how those who’ve lived here carry it forward with them.
But it’s hard. It’s painful. Because the way this is happening, without conversation, without care, it reflects something deeper. It says something about the Auroville of today.
Just as the founding of Kailash reflected a community that was open to need, the abrupt closure reflects a community where that space seems to have shrunk. It’s not necessarily forever. But it is what is right now.
What hurts most is the lack of acknowledgement. The lack of understanding of what this space has been, for individuals, for families, for the collective, and how it covered a need.
Over the years, more than 170 youth have lived in Kailash. They’ve written to us since this news broke. Former residents, parents, people who still feel the imprint of this place. I asked people to write and share what Kailash meant to them, hoping that those letters might help the decision-makers understand.
Instead, the response was that this was “nostalgia”. That people who had left Auroville were clinging to old memories. That those letters were backward-facing, and that Auroville needed to leap into the future.
They said if one day, in the future, we still feel the need for Kailash, we can fundraise, get permissions, and build it again.
As if Kailash didn’t already exist. As if exactly all of that had not already been done because of a real need. As if it weren’t full of life and thriving, today, now.
All the residents have been told to leave. Some have already gone. Others are packing, or waiting to see if anything changes. But the sense is clear, this is the end of this Kailash.
The Foundation wants to centralise everything under a pyramidal structure. Decisions now move through narrow channels. Housing says they can’t decide anything unless the FAMC approves it. And the FAMC isn’t speaking to us directly.
A celebration, and a farewell
With the 16 June extension in hand, we’ve begun to plan a final celebration of Kailash, something meaningful, inside the building itself, before it changes form.
It’s hard to say what will happen next. But the feeling among the residents is clear. This is the end of something. The end of a time. The end of a space that was never just bricks and rooms, but a lived experience. A bridge between childhood and adulthood. A painting made by many hands.
Maybe, someday, it will return in another form. Maybe in this building. Maybe somewhere else.
But right now, we are witnessing the close of a chapter, not just for Kailash, but for a version of Auroville itself.
And that deserves to be honored.
Carrying the spirit forward
The discussions with the residents gave me a sliver of hope. Not in the structure, but in the spirit. They said something I will carry with me for a long time:
“The spirit of Kailash lives in us. Every resident of Kailash is its continuation.”
That’s true. Even if the building changes, even if the sign comes down, what they’ve lived will travel with them. It will shape how they relate to others, how they build community wherever they go. Maybe it will guide the spaces they create one day.
Still, it’s painful. Painful to see a place that once represented Auroville’s openness to youth now feels like an afterthought. A structure to be “reallocated” by those who don’t even ask what it meant. Who haven’t walked its corridors. Who haven’t known the smell of the kitchen on cooking night or the sound of a Monday meeting slowly becoming something deeper than logistics.
But I also know this: Kailash didn’t fail.
It didn’t end because it broke. It ended because the space around it changed.
That change may one day shift again. Maybe Kailash, or something like it, will return. Maybe the children of today’s residents will find a home under its name. Maybe the spirit will find new walls.
Letting go, with love
I’ve cried a lot these past weeks. Been angry. Had headaches. Felt crushed by the weight of it all. But I’ve also found a still place inside me. A place of trust. I know that when something real is built with sincerity and service, it leaves a trace that can’t be erased, not entirely.
And maybe this is what life in Auroville has always been. A cycle of building and letting go. Of answering a call, holding it for as long as it’s needed, and then stepping back when the time comes.
Kailash was never mine. It was always ours. And its story now belongs to those who lived it, and to those who might dream of it again.
So as we prepare our farewell, we celebrate.
Not just the place, but the time it represents. The Auroville that said yes to something beautiful, bold, and quietly revolutionary.
And perhaps, in that celebration, we plant a seed for whatever comes next.
Originally published in Auroville Today No. 431-32 June-July 2025