Friday the 16th of April 2010 the Auditorium in the Bharat Nivas Complex was packed. Parents and children took the sits at 6.30 PM in order to enjoy the cultural program organized by What Can We Do For Auroville's group. Most of the dance and singing schools of Auroville presented their performances. At the event were present the Governor of Puducherry Mr. Iqbal Singh along with the Secretary of the Auroville Foundation, Mr. Ramaswamy. Many people sits on the Auditorium's stairs since the participation was great. This was the last event celebrating the 100th anniversary of the arrival of Sri Aurobindo in Pondicherry.

On on 15th August local villages around Auroville joyfully celebrated Indian independence day, an anniversary which fell on Sri Arobindo's 137th birth anniversary. One of the neighboring villages located very close to Auroville's greenbelt, called Kottakarai, participated enthusiastically in this unique celebration. Accordingly, women's groups from the village in conjunction with school students organized sports and other activities to encourage people from the village to get involved. Sudhakar interviewed some Tamil participants who were involved in these events, and AurovilleRadio has happily uploaded this program for everyone to hear.

Without doubt Ganesh is one of the most popular deities in India, and all over the world. Either for his kindness and qualities of a god who's beneficiary in many cases or because of his interesting and cuddly figure of full belly being with elephant head and four arms... however, Lord Shree Ganesh is a god of knowledge and the remover of obstacles. He is worshiped or at least remembered in the beginning of any auspicious performance for blessings and auspiciousness. He has four hands, elephant's head and a big belly. His vehicle is a tiny mouse. A unique combination of his elephant like head and a quick moving tiny mouse vehicle represents tremendous wisdom, intelligence and presence of mind.

“My name is Swamynathan. I studied in Kanchipuram, but I came to the village of Irumbai to work in the temple there, which is actually our family temple. I have been working there for the past four years performing puja. Irumbai temple is a very ancient one. It is said that long ago Thirunanna Sambanther came to this temple, singing a song regarding Kaduvali. In front of the temple there's a Banyan tree, where he had sat in meditation, as for the past year there had been no rain. During that time his only food was the leaves of the Banyan tree.”

Golus last day is saraswathy pooja. 9 days we pray to ambal. By praying to God this way we get sakthi in ourselves. On the 10 day it is iyida pooja which is for iyadam (weapons). Only in indian culture we pray with weapons, and cows. We thank the cows and weapons because we use them for our uses. We make Golu a interesting day for kids by tell stories and placing dolls shaped like god on shelves. We give prasadam to people.

Puja is an ancient Indian habitual practice  that people from villages  surrounding Auroville still continue in their daily lives. One can learn with two local Indian women, Zerina and Harini, from  Life Education Center (located in Kotakarai) how  people here in Tamil Nadul perform their consecrations, which day is dedicated to each god, and the annual rhythm of the pujas. One can dip into this village custom by asking for a CD copy.  You can also listen to the beginning of the interview (just click the logo play).

Here is part of the story of the Siva Temple in Irumbai, according to the people's knowledge: It was built approximately 1400 years ago and people have been worshipping at this Siva Temple for the last eight generations. One of the many stories about how this temple came to be; once there was a Maharishi who meditated for many years and suddenly the land became dry, many animals died. The village people wondered what had happened. They discovered that through the Maharishi's meditation, drought had come to the land.

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