Auroville celebrates its birth anniversary on Friday with traditional meditation by the bonfire ceremony at the Amphitheatre near the Matrimandir, a conversation on urban planning and a music session.
‘A Body for the Soul’/City The Earth Needs’ is the theme of an exhibition and dialogue at the Unity Pavilion at 4 p.m.
The city conversations will feature Karan Singh, Auroville chairman, B.V. Doshi, former Governing Board member and Pritzker Architecture Prize winner 2018, and others.
The discussion comes against the backdrop of grim forecasts for the planet’s survival if the urban agglomeration continues unmitigated.
Exponential increase in the urban population has doubled cars, congestion, pollution, aggression, anxiety, poverty and alienation through ever-sprawling cities and junk clutter. And, by 2050, about 75 per cent of the planet’s estimated 9 billion is projected to be settled in urban spaces.
Roger Anger, the French architect who designed the galaxy model for the universal township conceptualised by Auroville founder Mirra Alfassa, spiritual associate of Sri Aurobindo — The Mother to her followers — had proposed that Aurovilians reclaim and recreate the freedom of ancient urban settlements “before the disease of ill-understood urbanism imposes its laws”.
Celebrations
Later, Aurelio and Nadaka will offer music. The ceremonies at the Matrimandir Amphitheatre begin with the dawn fire at 5 a.m. According to Auroville, the bonfire meditation “is an opportunity for individuals to experience inner silence in a unique collective setting” and has issued an advisory for visitors on do’s and don’ts.