with Sri Ganesh

Such an act was committed sometime in 1991: someone had entered the compound, forced the door to the temple and tried to cut away the large bronze bell from the ceiling. Kusum had established a steady friendship with the lady who was then our Accountant at Matrimandir, Vijayakumari. She related to Vijayakumari this latest disturbance, who offered to ask us to help her out. It was on this occasion that I went for the first time to visit the Ganesh temple and met Kusum; the understanding on our part was that she needed a welding job to be done on the ring fastening the bronze bell to the ceiling, so as to secure it from such attempts. I found this quiet, energetic, elderly lady all dressed in plain immaculate white khadi, full of simple dignity, all alone. We did the job. It was soon obvious that Kusum had indeed felt a little lonely for all these years, receiving hardly any support from Auroville and having too little contact with its general, collective atmosphere. She needed more help with the upkeep of the temple and the garden around it and she had cherished privately some dreams of improving upon it all, of making it more beautiful. By then she had realized a sort of calm, concrete intimacy with the presence of Sri Ganesh, within the protection of the Mother’s Grace, and she welcomed full-heartedly any good-willed contribution towards the flowering of this special place. Soon Kusum met all our team and she became interested in helping out at Matrimandir as well, where we welcomed her to be part of the reception of visitors to the Inner Chamber. She felt at home with us as we did with her and we soon became friends and team-mates. Her daily life changed accordingly, as she became more and more involved with the Matrimandir adventure and, in turn, we cared more and more for the Ganesh temple. It became my role then to find with her, step by step, how to upgrade the shrine and its compound. In this fashion, I organized the laying of marble slabs – left over from the cladding work at Matrimandir – inside the shrine; designed a little porch over its door; built a full stone wall on the two road sides to help insulate the compound from the increasing road traffic, and a main gate with its recessed porch; enlarged the garden area, with the agreement of the Aurovilians running the Farm; built a cactus garden,

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