with Sri Ganesh

She gradually told me of her life, her travels, her family, her time with her husband; she had gone abroad several times, and had broken free of any narrow-mindedness, but never compromised her discernment and her inner standards. Sometimes one of her two sons would visit with her here and I met each a number of times. Their connections were very strong, and they would communicate often and regularly on the phone; each of them had become fairly wealthy and could afford either to invite her or to support her here whenever she needed to spend over what she herself had saved; they showed great appreciation for the fact of my presence in her life, and perhaps a measure of relief, as they could rely on me to care for her. It was only later that I discovered how jealous they had also felt. Her chronic ailments were disturbing to her, but she was forbearing; In 2001 it was me who got operated on – some unexplained infection of the entire abdomen had suddenly occurred and necessitated emergency surgery; it took me weeks to regain my physical balance. After this, she began to feel that her time to leave was perhaps approaching, and to try and talk to me about my replacing her near Sri Ganesh; I would refuse such notions and tease her away from it, and she would keep quiet. Nonetheless she managed once to make me co-sign with her some small Bank Fixed Deposits, where she had placed money meant for Sri Ganesh. October 2003 came, and my life changed abruptly: I had spent practically every single day of the past 30 years working at Matrimandir, and I was suddenly “free”… It was in some inner aspect of what was taking place in Auroville a kind of murder: in other times, I would have been lynched by the mob. Now it was all “peaceful” and everything was done in the name of harmony, but the actual psychological value of the act of replacing us amounted to a killing. And it really gave me the experience over the following months of a life having ended and gone. However, there were other forces and aspects at work, and the Grace was concrete; I took up some pending gardening work at “Sincerity”, some writing I had not had the time for, and I could also take more care of the temple and its garden.

Kusum tried bravely to remain cheerful and oriented; but, out of solidarity, she had also immediately chosen to quit her duties at

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