Our driver has been sleeping in the car although we have told him to come on the roof and make himself feel at home. We just ask him to take us back to Tiruvannamalai, there are no complications. We haven’t talked much to the Dutch owner of our guesthouse and his great dam project in the region, safeguarding Auroville’s drinking water. A little bit though, and what I get is “traveling? O yes I have done that when I was young too. It took me two years to get to Thailand and…” Traveling is very personal.
We arrive back in Auroville early in the afternoon and meet Malia, who has had a great time in Tiruvannamalai. We show her around the orphan home – she will write an article about it for Auroville’s magazine – and the children perform a dance show! It is brilliant and I really enjoy it. The smallest kids step left and right, clap and smile to a juicy rhythm, then the high school kids, and Gladys and Martin, Nehru and Ruby’s teenager son and daughter, finish up with a wild south American dance.