Today I started my ride really early – I was out the door at 7:30am. Condisering I went out last night, I was happy with the start. The road was awesome and scenary so pleasant that I reached chidamrabm at 11:30am clokcing 70km in about 3:15 hours! Wish all days are like that!! I really enjoyed being on the bike and stopped only for a quick breakfast.

After reaching Chidambaram i directly went to the Nataraja temple. This is the largest Shiva temple in the south and believers flock here for homage and ceremonies. Its lives up to the typical south Indian temple standard — awesome Gopuram, wide ornate Madhup and a small diety temple. I got witness lot of ritual and vedic chanting.

Pic 1. Gopuram of Shiva / Nataraja temple – Chidambaram.

I had my train at 2:50 from Chidambaram to Madurai — so i spent the next two hours having a lavish lunch. Well actually my train was at 2:50 am (I know my family will be laughing hysterically now, but i’m just me…). Well that me in to a tough spot, and my Madurai dream where at risk. The ticket guy suggested i go to the nearby Vidyachalam.

I took a bus to Vidyachalam which was 50 km and convinced the conductor to put my bike on top. I was a bit nervous hoping that the bike will stay there. Finally I reached Vidyachalam station at 4:30pm and the ticket guys told me that I can get on the midnight Madurai train, by 5:45 i even got a confirmed reservation. So well a great day didn’t end that bad . Infact I met a couple travelling from Israel ahnd had a dinner with then and shared a lotof tit bits about inida. We dicussed how annoying the horns of Indian vheicles are and how people love to honk!! I wish we can curtail the horn noise..

Well i’m currently Madurai bound hopefully I will get there by morning to check out the Mennaski temple and continue the ride to join Tulika and Rahul who are already 55 km from Madurai! Madurai and rendevous time!!

Today was a short day. I ended up biking 15km, but had lots of interesting experiences.

It was raining all night until about 7:30am in Auroville, so I decided for a late start instead of 8am start. However that became 9:30 and on the way out of Auroville i ran in to my old room mate — Adrienne. It was such a coincidence we met after 7 years, so i decided to havebreakfast with her. It was almost noon when i heaad out to Pondicherry and then i had lunch with Rishi’s uncle and grandma. Looking at the conditions and given that Pondicherry seemed such an awesome place, I decided to call it a day.  Rishi’s family has been very hosiptable to me, Kalaben has been feeding me day long . Being a bicycle traveller is such an awesome thing, an easy mode of transport gives you immense flexibility and extemporeness.

Since mid-afternoon I have spent time cycling around pondi, visting aurobindo ashram and hanging out with people! Now I’m looking forward to some dinner, drink and may be a bit of dancing in Asian House!

Joys of travel!!  Wish life was like that everyday .

Pic 1. Pondi beach.

Tomorrow I head to Chidambaram and with a slight twiset of plans I’m able to get to Madurai from there (via Train).  So my wish to see Madurai might fulfill, without losing a cycling day!!

Today was my first long day clocking about 100km. I started the ride at 8:30am with some bananas and awesome kafi.

Pic 1.  Breakfast South Indian style with a belly, missing the moustache

It was an amazing day, the ride was scenic and as the locals call it – ECR (East Coast Road) was a great road to ride on. Some pictures to whet your appetite.

Pic 2.  Scenic Road!

At about 10:30am I had an awesome breakfast #2 at a local street side shop

Pic 3. Breakfast #2.

I called Rishi’s father (Rod) at about noon to let him know that I’m about 20km from Auroville at Markalam. After making my way in to Pondicherry at about 2:15pm and a short break for some Lemon juice I reached the Auroville visitor center at about 3pm.

Pic 4. Entering Pondicherry and place (Mango Resort) where I relaxed with Lemon juice.

Now on to the main topic of this post:

Auroville

Auroville is utopian concept very well implemented in my opinion. This ashram intends to create a new way of life inclusive of all nationalities of the world.

Auroville’s make a plethora of things –

Pic 6. Auroville-an Art

This ashram was setup by the Mother in co-ordination with Aurobindo ashram, with big help from government of India (Imagine visa’s for folks from 50+ countries and permission for them to work and keep the identity of Ashram intact).

Pic 7.  Founder of Auroville and her deep study of flowers.

Auroville wants to create a place where nation can show their identity through pavilions and invite their citizens to join in the Auroville experiment.

Pic 8. Unity Pavilion

Last but not the least the they have an amazing meditation hall called the “Matri-Mandir”. This gold plated dome with italian marble is 50m in diameter and create an amazing sense of peace! It’s a feat and a must see primarily because of its serenity!

Pic 9. Center of Auroville – Matrimandir and the banyan tree.

Sri Aurobindo’s Philosophy

Thanks to discussion with Rishi’s father – Rod, I was introduced to works of Sri Aurobindo esp. Savitri and The Life Divine. He infact has written a short book which introduces these two.

Pic 10. Rod’s book – Mantra, Metrics and Meaning.

The short of the long I learnt from our discussion is – Sri Aurobindo had a very non-traditional take on Hinduism. His point in Life divine is to enrich your life through creativity and not through extreme penance. One should give up low feeling like – pride and ego but a higher level will flow in. Creativity can be expressed in power, love and numerous other forms like Krishna did. This is deemed to be the true vedantic version of Hinduism.

Thanks to my gracious host today (Rod & Kirti Hemsell)

Pic 11 .Rod and Kirti

I’ll make a brief stop at Pondicherry tommorrow then head onward to Tanjavur from Chidambaram tomorrow (slight change of plans here)

I landed at 1:30 am at Chennai airport. I decided to start the tour right from the airport except I had to wait at the airport until 7am, when my bike was scheduled to be picked up for delivery to goa. I slept royally (literally) at the baggage pickup area, woke up at 6:30am and then called the baggage guy to make sure his man was coming, well he said he will be there at 8. I took the opportunity to get ready, assemble the bike and saddle up.

Pic 1. Assembled bike at the Chennai airport departures (my home for the early am)

So my baggage guy, turned out to be flaky and it was 9:30am and he didn’t show up and kept saying “20 minute sir”. So I decided to ditch him and called a new service through amazing JustDial and the guy told me he will be there by 10:00am and eventually showed up at 11:30am. But I sort of liked the guy he was honest.

Pic 2. Shipping box to Goa from Chennai

Well, turned out that this this guy needs a bigger car to take the box and he offered me a ride until East coast ride so that I can start my tour easily. Well there was another hour of waiting for the car by the time the car showed up it started to rain and I had to take shelter.

Pic 3. Welcome at the airport with a torrential downpour and subsequent use of a shelter

I had already started to work because it was 12:30am and I hadnt started the 40 km journey to Mahabalipuram. Well another glitch happened when the guy with car showed up, he has no place for by cycle. So I immediately decided to take an auto to East coast road, this auto dude was linger around us when we were standing waiting for the vehicle. Infact a bunch of auto folks came and were checking out my bike and had all sorts of questions for the bike and the tour. Well this auto-walla wanted to take me to Mahabalipuram and was forcing his way, he made me pay Rs. 500 at the gas station and would take rest when I get to Mahabalipuram. I got really upset, I called the Traffic poilce hotline and  had him drop me at the east coast road. Infact we has a cop settle our dispute for Rs. 350.

Pic 4. Starting at East Coast Road

Well that was a rough start .  But as soon as I got on the road all the hassles seemed worth it. The ride to Mahabalipuram was just amazing, with great views and a good road! I couldn’t ask any better now that the rain had stopped .

Pic 5. Amazing views on east coast road.

In two hours I reach Mahabalipuram (arbout 35kms), and I checked in my hotel around 3:30pm! Well rest of the day I have been enjoying great food, and the famous Mahabalipuram sculputures.

Pic 6. South India Meal!

Pic 7. Five Rathas

Pic 8. Arjuna’s Penance

Mahabalipuram (Or Mamallapuram as its renamed) is a small tourist town with a lot of western tourist. Folks here indulge in sculpture, with very good sculpting schools.

Pic 9. Sculpting is big in Mamallapuram

I wish I could get more of the town, it seems a great hang out place with lots of friendly locals and tourist. But hey tomorrow its 100km to to Auroville (correction: Auroville is before Pondicherry), where I stay with Rishi’s parents.

Onward, I must say!

Today I got an opppurtunity to see first hand how Teach for India’s classes work. I went to visit Milind’s Superstar class. It was great to see a group of 40+ 2 grade kids churning their ways from un-fortune towards a bright future through education.

It was interesting to see a Teach for India’s approach to learning work. Milind was doing a great job engaging and teach the kids, at the same time his set of volunteers were making sure that the kids got more 1:1 teacher time. I was also reminded of how important the superstar rules are, and we has grown ups also needs to read and follow them regularly.

Pic1. Superstar class, Rules of the Class,

Pic 2. Milind and Volunteers teaching in the class.

I have a very good video of Milind teaching vowels to the 2nd graders. I’ll upload it and put a link here as soon as I get better internet connection.

One interesting twist in this experience was that Milind offered me to try and teach “Action words” to a small group of 5 kids. I thoroughly enjoyed the experience and was first hand grappled with the problem of keeping 7-8 year olds engaged in the learning process. I was also touched by the fact that the kids offered touching handshakes and wanted Vaibhav-Bhaiyya to come back!

Pic 3. Group of super stars learning who learn a bit of “action words” from me.

I start my tour (http://www.vitraag.com/tourofsouthindia ) tomorrow to help raise fundraise for Milind’s cause. Infact you can get to the action right from here .

Pic 4. Pledge for Milind’s superstar class and Teach For India.