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Five hundred and forty children imagine
the future city
 
Imagine an Auroville in time to come. A city
with a body, heart, and soul, perhaps tempered in fire and gold.
A river-fed island of rich green in a blue sea, anchored by a
white buoy. Where zebras run across the golden beaches in the
light of the rising sun. Where penguins and reindeer brave the
tropical sun with equal tranquility. A city with a free canteen,
and a grocery store in the shape of an apple. A place where a
giant rotating ferris wheel functions as a school (and play area).
Where skiers glide down snow-clad Matrimandir slopes. Where rocket-powered
humans with diaphanous grasshopper wings soar overhead on meditative
journeys.
 
Hard to imagine? Not so for the 540 children
who enthusiastically participated in the recent drawing contest
"How do our children see the future of the city?" Organised
by the Land for Auroville team, the contest was open to three
age-groups: 7-9 years old; 10-11 years old; and 12-14 years old.
Of diverse economic, social, and cultural backgrounds, the children
belonged to schools in Auroville and the surrounding villages
that are coordinated by the Sri Aurobindo International Institute
of Educational Research (SAIIER). Selection of winning entries
was a difficult task considering differences in quality of facilities
and equipment that were available for students. But an effort
was made to spread the prizes over as many participating schools
as possible. The nine winning entries were by: Ludovico (Transition),
Arun (Udavi), Tamilzarasi (New Creation School), Chandra (Last
School), Valentine (Home schooling), Satish (Transition), Rajappan
(Udavi), Dhanalaxmi (Kuilapalayam Trust), and Sridhar (Ambeth
Nagar Night School). All nine winners were offered a plane ride
over Auroville.
Made on plain white poster paper with crayons,
sketch pens, and water colours, the drawings display literal,
and sometimes outrageous representations, of what Auroville is
or should be. While most submissions were untitled, a few ambitiously
futuristic ones came with headings. "Pour Tous 4422";
Matrimandir 3000 A.D"; "Auroville Stadium 2052 World
Cup" are worth a mention. Objects commonly associated with
the Auroville landscape such as coconut palms, the banyan tree,
the sun, windmills, the beach, and keet-roofed huts populate more
than a few drawings. The Matrimandir, not surprisingly, was the
single most represented object in the contest. While most children
drew their inspiration from the existing significance of the building,
a few daring ones took liberties one can hardly imagine. "Future
Zoo", for example, depicts a long shot of a giraffe and its
young playing ball inside the dome. Another shows a rotund snowman,
atop the Matrimandir, wearing a Charlie Chaplin hat. A Matrimandir
spaceship lookalike about to take off for an unknown destination
is another visual that stalls the viewer.
Roughly speaking, the drawings could be divided
into three categories. Idyllic scenes of the village, imaginary
lakes encircling the Matrimandir, and views of the greenbelt,
and the beach, focus on the city's natural richness and the coexistence
of its urban and rural way of life. Animals with human characteristics,
and those not native to the region also fall under this category.
A drawing with igloos nestled in the Auroville greenbelt, while
animals socialize with food and drink not too far away is one
of the fun representations that is easy to catch a person's fancy.
The spiritual centre of Auroville - the Matrimandir and the Banyan
Tree - was, as I have already mentioned, the most popular subject
among the contestants. It was also the most creative category.
A sunflower with a small Matrimandir as its centre growing in
the shade of the Banyan is one example of this unconventional
perceptivity. Another showed the Matrimandir dome sprouting flowering
trees from its outer surface. Snowflakes falling on the golden
sphere with its red and green base the colour of Christmas is
yet another eye-catcher. The third category was the unabashedly
futuristic one, more adventurous than the other two, which represented
Auroville in a fiery rocket-powered age when everything - humans,
trees, and buildings - would be in harmonious motion, propelled
by their own energy dynamic. Two winning drawings, by Satish (9)
and Ludovico (10) of Transition School, belong to this category.
Snowflakes, igloos, lakes, pyramids, golden
sands, fire, rocket technology - one wonders what these elemental
depictions of water, fire, and ice finally represent? While it
would be a hard exercise to ask all five hundred and forty children
how they set about translating their inner visions onto paper,
here is a brief look at what some of the winners had to say about
their specific drawings. Valentine (12) of Home schooling, and
Chandra (13), of Last School, both drew composite views of Auroville.
Valentine focused on the urban map of Auroville, with the Matrimandir
at the centre surrounded by a huge lake, and the rest of the cityscape
comprising of an apple-shaped grocery store, a school built like
an open book, and an "alien" airport. The inspiration
for the lake came from the exhibition at Aurofuture where such
a lake idea is currently under discussion. "I think it's
a great idea. It would solve the water problem and it would be
fun to reach the Matrimandir by boat instead of on foot,"
she says with remarkable candour. What about the alien airport?
What does it mean? "It means that in the future alien spaceships
would need a place to land. And Auroville would be the only place
where it could happen!"
Chandra's drawing was inspired, she says,
by an aerial view of Auroville she had seen in a photo. Focusing
only on the natural landscape of the city she also drew the lake
around the Matrimandir with the rising sun behind it, and lots
of trees and windmills, with village settlements in between. "Of
course Auroville will be the greenest city on earth so trees must
be abundant. Will rivers make the land more fertile?" she
reflects.
Fertility, abundance, and respect for nature
is a concern that speaks out from more than a few drawings. A
student of Udavi School, Arun (9) envisions Auroville as a city
where the village, with its natural modes of living, contributes
to the greater good. A smiling sun peeping over treetops that
overlook the Matrimandir and a little girl fondling a calf beside
a river, is how one would describe his beautiful sketch. In similarity
to Arun's very life-like depiction of Auroville, Dhanalaxmi (14)
of Kuilayapalayam Trust School has drawn the Auroville bonfire
celebration, an actual event that brings the resident community
together three or four times a year. Of remarkable precision,
depth, clarity, this painting captures the spirit of Auroville
regardless of time. Shy and reticent, Dhanalaxmi said she decided
to make this drawing after coming to know that for her family
and other people in her village, the bonfire is the one event
that they truly appreciate about Auroville. An occasion for silent
prayer, togetherness, and remembrance, the bonfire is and always
will be a part of the Aurovilian ethos.
The children's drawings were a visual and
conceptual delight that far surpassed the expectations of the
organizers, and the rest of the community who got the chance to
view the exhibition, first at the Tibetan Pavilion, and later
at the Centre of Indian Culture where it was on until May 25th.
Warmly appreciated by everyone, the exhibition is an example of
how the visions and dreams of children in Auroville are as important
as those of adults. And perhaps how they can sometimes revitalize
the forgotten dreams of adults caught in the mundane circle of
day-to-day life. Who knows, some of these dreams drawn in wax
crayons and water colours may one day translate into a more tangible
reality or bring the community closer together in the future planning
of the city.
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