Fraternity’s land in 1972 when we started – with just two palmyras, deep sand,
and the beginning of our house that would become Auroville’s Algae Kitchen.
I remember the Auroville land offered to us in 1972 after the Mother agreed that we begin a handicraft training center for local Tamil villagers near Kuilapalayam. She named it ‘Fraternity’ and wrote it on a paper with the date of its inauguration “2-2-1972” and Shyam Sundar gave us the message from the Mother.
But where would it be? We still had to find the land where it could evolve, and February 2 was only a couple of weeks away! Shyam Sundar, who said he might accept us as Aurovilians with the Mother’s approval, told us to go to Roger Anger, the head architect of Auroville. Roger pulled out some maps of the area, and said “Here is a plot of about an acre, and here is another one of two acres.” And we thought, well okay…. but then he saw a large one of 15 acres just beyond the tamarind trees north of the village. Our ‘Yes’ was immediate! Land, land for a new project that the Mother named and wanted to happen!
Roger took us there, and it was a shock – 15 acres of sand with hard red clay below it and only two palmyra trees! Some scrubby grass greened a bit here and there, until the goats nibbled it up. The best part was that it had a view of the Coromandel Coast and the blue ocean far beyond. Anyway, we began on the assigned date with a ceremony and a Blessings Packet placed beneath a corner stone and cemented in place by a young French girl Rose, and a young Tamil boy Selvaraj. A bamboo-and-thatch building was slowly erected in the next days and we began planting trees, and building fences around just part of the acres to keep out the goats and cows. We began a temporary house at a northern edge of this land, and eventually the rest of the 15 acres was developed with thousands of new trees and quickly grew into the Fraternity Community. Little did we know then that we would lose our view of the ocean because of the trees we planted!
Fraternity flourished in the next many years, with Poppo adding new permanent handicraft buildings, a kindergarten for workers’ and village children, and an overhead tank for fresh water – for both us and Kuilapalayam villagers too.
We hope that new lands purchased by gifts to Acres For Auroville can be nurtured and thrive as did this!
Bryan Walton, 2019
And yes, it took continued courage – see these photos from 1978 – 1979:
There were many roads in the Greenbelt like this one toward Utility
Road toward Pitchandikulam near Kuilapalayam tank after a rain
Rainwater drained off into the canyons, further eroding the land
The first dam & spillway at Aurodam (Ed.: Bryan was one of the main workers!)
Water for the trees we first planted came by bullock cart, barrel by barrel
A rare shot of one of the then frequent mid-day dust storms at Fraternity!
