journal d'une transition

331

… We have arranged to wait for the cart at the turn into Auroville, in case it is stopped at the Check-Post – obtaining cement has become a gamble! It starts raining; we take shelter near a tea-shop on the roadside. Two SAS guys are loitering there, one of them quite drunk, who begins to tease G.M… The bullock-cart is approaching; as it is about to turn, the bullock, exhausted, drops on the side of the dirt road – 25 bags of cement is too heavy a weight for a single bullock: we have to go and get a second cart and divide the load. G.M wants to go, but the drunken fellow provokes him by standing in the middle of the road, blocking his way; G.M rushes past, but then he thinks of me staying alone, brakes and turns back, into another scene: it is like a magnet, energies get lowered… I pull him out. Then the two SAS guys move towards the village intending to rouse a mob against us… I decide to go myself to “Jaïma” and get another cart and ask our people there to stand watch in the village and see both carts through… Everyone responds at once, and Diane goes immediately to “Aspiration” to call more people. We soon load up the second cart. The others insist that G.M and I must ride back the other way, via Bommayarpalayam and the Green Belt; it is getting dark; Gupi comes with us… All the others escort both carts across the village. Rain starts again. We leave half of the cement at “Jaïma”; the two of us drive slowly along G.M’s cart the rest of the way; in the dark and the pelting rain, the bullock falls twice more; in some places it is a torrent of mud… We make it, drenched, frozen and tired, and the cement has stayed dry under the plastic sheet…! *22-7-1980, Auroville: There is a fastidious meeting, all morning, about the allocation and distribution of a grant. This afternoon, after exchanging the Agenda tapes at “Swagatam”, I bring Su, holding her infant daughter Savitri, to the special meeting on the Visas work. Diane, Myrtle, Tineke, Joster, P.G and Daniel have come… Everyone seems to take it for granted that I will continue with the work; Diane is planning to go to Delhi with P.G; they seem to be doing well together… … This evening P.V comes to tell me what has just happened to him: he’s just had a fight with Joster, actually punched him to the ground! (I can sympathise: Joster can make one’s teeth grind! Yet these things are not supposed to happen among us!)… … I ask Barbara this evening to type up copies of the new, revised “Master-List”… *23-7-1980, Auroville: Annappa and I spend the morning at “Dana” cementing the first coat of the roofs of the new house. Jacq and Kiran, Bill S, John H and Pas have also come to help, along with Godendan and G.M’s masons and we all do a good job of it, happily… It is becoming a beautiful place, very simple but original, unique… … I have made up my mind regarding Annappa’s future house: it must not be in bamboo and keet; I want to experiment with a new method, a domed roof made of… ferro-lime! If it works, it will be very valuable for others as well…!

*24-7-1980, Auroville: