Snakes, crocodiles and other nasty neighbours

Written on January 13th

We woke to scuffling and raised voices. Indians tend to become loud when they are passionate about something so I didn't register the commotion at first, until the sound of somebody striking the front door reached me all the way back in the bunker loo.

Apparently the raised voices were not a matter of too much excitement. A young Indian guy had apparently come that morning asking for work and/or money, and being denied it had simply gone over the edge and kind of lost it. After much discussing with the neighbours and the police that eventually showed up after nearly half an hour, the matter was resolved in some fashion and our peaceful Aurodam home left silent save for the soft rustling of leafs in the surrounding forest.

The unemployment problems in Auroville smack you in the face sometimes. David's Tamil workers backed away from the whole scene with something like embarassment playing on their faces. I wonder if they were ashamed of having good work and good wages when there are so many that suffer and can only scrape off other people in order to survive.

It's not even just an Indian matter. The Aurovillians that have moved in from outside India are also struggling with lacking funds, struggling with rations and feeding their own families. Auroville is not a city of rich people, but a community of workers. If you can't work then go somewhere else.

We went to the CrocBank yesterday, which opposed to my Steve Irwin fantasies proved to be just a crocodile zoo at a first glance, but as we were briskly taken around by one of Rom's female co-workers from Mumbai, it became all the more interesting.

Crocodiles and snakes are becoming a bigger and bigger issue in India. As human the population continues to increase, cities are expanding more and more, pushing further into jungle areas and reptile habitat. Rom ran a very successful breeding program for India's 3 endangered crocodile species for a very long time, breeding and reintroducing them into the wild until the Indian government made reintroduction illegal due to an increase in human - reptile confrontations and deadly attacks. The CrocBank suffers over-population right now and most eggs have to be destroyed in order to keep the number of crocodiles somewhat manageable. We proceeded from there to a long journey, trying to find our way in the hopelessly labyrinth-like roads of the countryside. After some 3 hours we finally arrived at Rom's place and enjoyed an evening of treeplanting conversation, Steiner and reptiles, lounging next to Rom and J's huge, beautiful Banyon tree.

Now it's Pongal and most volunteer work has paused during the celebrations. Nino and I worked hard to sort out her VISA and journey back to Sweden -issues. Hopefully I'll work at the Solitude farm next week.