Auroville is an international township, a few kilometers from Pondicherry in the south of India. Warmed throughout the year by an unrelenting Tamilian sun, it is, to paraphrase its charter, a seat of never-ending education and a laboratory of continuous experimentation and growth at all levels in preparation of the ‘neo-man’.
“It belongs to nobody in particular but to humanity as a whole,” adds the charter. In a place of such spiritual significance, music is a core happening. Its agenda is superhuman: to create the man of the super-mind. If music is a tool in this mammoth soul constructing exercise, it must, quite naturally, have ennobling credentials.
Auroville is not a profit centre in pecuniary terms: il is supported by the United Nations, philanthropists and by the sale of its products. Nobody goes to Auroville, like they do to Mumbai or New York, to rough up the pavements made of gold and get a smattering of gold dust. The agenda of Auroville is as pure as can be. It is the City of Dawn calling people from all over the world to create a self-sustaining agenda for the human race.
Despite the heat and the hardship, the Mother’s call is clear, “Let your highest aspiration organize your life.” Music here, in all its dimensions, is an integral part of the curriculum of the call.
Auroville is over three decades old now. What was once bare, red earth in the dry, arid wilderness of Tamil Nadu and the cradle of the Mother’s dream, it is now home to over 50,000 varieties of plants, boasts a green belt, hosts a variety of exotic flora and fauna, houses the Matri Mandir, touted as the next Wonder of the World, and is a lung of beauty, joy, hope, life, oxygen and many new dreams.
Stefano, one of Auroville’s musicians, gives his impressions on the music dimension of the township. “If architecture is frozen music, then music is architecture in movement. I see a city of sound that keeps transforming itself. A city in which we live and which we keep building, everyday anew,” Stefano says.
Stefano stays in Aurodam, one of the settlements, and does vowel chanting. He gives occasional classes to guests, but “that’s it”.
For many Auroville musicians, the practice of their instrument has become a way of finding themselves after a full day’s work. It has become a sort of active meditation, a way to get in touch with their inner levels, their emotions and creativity. That’s probably one of the reasons why there are so many musicians in Auroville, and such a wide spectrum of musical expression.
I have lived in Auroville many times during its life and been privy to the unique relationship Auroville has to music. There are a million sounds everywhere emerging simultaneously: from the trees, from under the carpet, from the sea, from the villagers, from the birds and animals everywhere, from the hissing of rattlesnakes to the cry of the koel, and even from the most sophisticated music systems from around the world.
The collection of music is as immense as it is eclectic, as music is used like an auspicious beckoning, applause or conclusion for almost every occasion, however mundane or elevating it may be.
“I use the Hare Krishna music,” says Prabhadevipuri, an Italian who lives in Quiet, a settlement on the fringes of Auroville. “I use it heal myself with the right foods and the right vibrations. It has helped.” Prabhadevi was recommended surgery for a health problem many years ago but as a Reiki master and yoga instructor, she understood the significance of holistic healing. “I used the right chants, the right foods and listened to the body and I was cured,” she says. “Of course, music is miraculous and a healing tool.”
“Music in Auroville starts – and here all of Auroville’s musicians agree – with the sound of birds,” Stefano continues. “Music in Auroville is also the blasting sound from the surrounding villages that at times wakes us up at 4 o’clock in the morning, sometimes lasting all day long, regardless of decibel limits. But that very same blasting ‘music’ is sometimes very graceful too and, on occasion, intense. I remember one early morning when the sound of birds was merging with some distant Muslim chanting, and it felt as if there was gold in the air.”
There are live concerts performed in the township all year long. Quite regularly, there are concerts and recitals of western classical music. These are either played by Aurovilians, by invited artists, or artists just passing by. Indian classical music is more frequently performed, in all its diversity: Carnatic, Hindustani, Dhrupad, Baul, sometimes given by internationally known musicians.
There is also a Sunday night Jazz Cafe which provides a space for people to meet and for musicians to play and improvise. Actors occasionally join in and sketches emerge1 out of sheer inventiveness and joy.
As Auroville counts many individuals of different nationalities, backgrounds and depth, it is interesting to note that the general tendency is to play original compositions. Hence a vast display of previously unheard music is one of the main characteristics of Auroville.
From acoustic to amplified, a rich variety of music has been made and performed within the community. Such performances have included intimate chamber music recitals, concerts for choir and orchestra, classical singing, jazz and bossa nova concerts, rock shows for dancing audiences, informal jazz cafe evenings and private healing sessions.
Auroville’s attraction to the offbeat, itinerant musician is best exemplified by Nadaka. Born in Quebec, Canada, Nadaka discovered Sri Aurobindo at 16 and trekked through Afghanistan and Pakistan to reach Amritsar and then Pondicherry.
As everyone knows, the early years in Auroville were tough. “There was no electricity, no tape recorder, only live village music. I changed my original name to Nadaka just like that. Only seven years later did I realise its meaning. It is the sound of OM. It means the one who carries sound,” he reveals.
Nadaka met with many well-known musicians but the greatest influence was from Nemat Daman, a Sufi musician from Iran. “He taught me that music was about silence. He would play for eight hours in silence and magic would happen from the space around him. I was beginning to feel the necessity to go into the source of sound.” Music had the influence of healing and Nadaka had found it. Like so many others who come to Auroville.
We have long known of the power of sound and music to affect our emotions and moods and ultimately our physical bodies. Tribal music, ceremonial music, devotional music and spiritual chanting are a few well-known examples of how sound can be used to create change. Intense use of ritual chanting can create altered states so powerful that people are known to become impervious to pain during such periods.
Prisoners of war have endured incredible situations such as starvation, isolation and physical punishment by humming and singing whenever possible to maintain their sense of self and ultimately keep themselves alive.
Sound has long been used as a communication tool since the beginning of time. Native Americans sent messages by drumbeats. They developed ritual songs and dances for rain, war, hunting, good harvest, marriages and so on.
“Can music help reconfigure the brain?” asks Stefano. “It may be strange to think of rappers and rockers as masters of modern therapy – but current research indicates that time spent listening to music is often time well spent. Music and sound have great potential.”