Written by Mike Roy

Dirt and bunds, acacias and bananas, humanure piles and compost pits.  Solar panels and 4.7 acres of thatch huts.  Not a single ham, Santa, or snowflake in sight.  Not exactly the Christmas landscape that many Sadhana volunteers are used to.  Nonetheless, with “a little bit of sense, little of discipline” (as Hugo sings in what has become known as the “Sadhana Song” – expect a video clip sooner or later…), we put together a three-day Christmas bonanza that none of us are likely to forget.

Wednesday the 23rd began just like any other day: with a morning circle, a bit of singing, and a flurry of activity in the forest, garden, and kitchen.  Over breakfast, volunteers wrote out their names, mixed them up, and chose their partners for the Christmas Even Secret Santa gift swap.  Our usual Thursday night out was moved up a day in anticipation of the special Christmas Eve group dinner, so most volunteers headed out to Koot Road for what was probably the cheapest (and spiciest) Christmas dinner of their lives, or into Auroville for a more traditional meal.

Those who stayed behind – mostly the long-term volunteers and the families who live here – gathered in Aviram, Yorit, Osher, and Shalev’s hut, where they listened to Chris explain an old Christmas tradition, shared a cup of grape juice, broke bread together, and were treated to an amazing homemade vegan Christmas dinner of hummus (a staple on special occasions at Sadhana) with garlic and mint chutney, roast rosemary potatoes, stuffing, pico de gallo, tapioca and jaggery cake, and banana-cocoa-peanut butter mouse.  As if that weren’t enough, the meal was supplemented with a delivery of vegan momos and innumerable vegan chocolate cakes from the Auroville bakery.  The hut rang loud with the chatter of friends, the smacking of lips, grunts of satisfaction, requests for seconds, thirds, and fourths, and poorly remembered, awkwardly sung Christmas carols.  The evening culminated with a group of exhausted volunteers/chefs falling asleep in Osher’s bedroom and spending the night like one big, giddy family.

Christmas eve day, too, began with a circle, some songs, and a good day’s work in the forest and in the community.  Thoughts weighed heavy, though, as volunteers pondered what sort of gifts they could prepare for their unknowing partners.  Possibility lurked in every leaf, coconut shell, sheet of paper, and discarded thingamajig.  As dinner approached, volunteers scrambled lovingly to find, assemble, decorate, and wrap the gifts, and as the gong rang the final gifts were set on the table for all to behold throughout the meal (a nice fresh salad with vegan Shepherd’s pie).  After the meal, the packages were distributed and volunteers were overjoyed to receive poems, drawings, packs of dates and figs, dreamcatchers, houses made of matchsticks, elephants made of cloves, Raja’s famous coconut jewelry, and other such treasures.  An impromptu circle formed in the main hut and volunteers sang and danced until the wee hours of the morning.

christmas

Most volunteers took the day off on Friday to head to the beach or just hang out and enjoy each other’s company.  A few, though – the watering, hygiene, and cooking teams – had to put in a few hours of work preparing for the weekly Friday night Eco Film Club, which was planning to show Examined Life (see the films section for more info).  A hundred or so guests from Auroville and the surrounding areas came to see us and the vegan meal and movie went off without a hitch.  The highlight of the night, though, was a special Sadhana Open Stage: a no-talent show (generally held on Wednesdays) in which volunteers perform whatever they want for a crowd of appreciative and supportive onlookers.  An aurovilian guest gave us a magic show; Tobin read a poem and did his (in)famous Banana Penguin routine; Theo and Matthieu played a jaw-harp duet; Ana and Tiago led everyone in some wonderful songs and chants from Burkina Faso; and Ben played a beautiful new song written for (and at) Sadhana, as well as a few others that got everyone on their feet.

What a merry couple of days!  Hope everyone else had an equally enjoyable holiday.