{"id":3207,"date":"2016-04-08T04:44:12","date_gmt":"2016-04-07T23:14:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/13.201.39.237\/?p=3207"},"modified":"2016-04-08T04:44:12","modified_gmt":"2016-04-07T23:14:12","slug":"auroville-spirituality-forest-rave-party-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/13.207.105.184\/?p=3207","title":{"rendered":"In Auroville, My Search for Spirituality Ended at a Forest Rave Party"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

O<\/span>n a late Friday evening, I found myself in a state of severe distress caused by a massive workload, a negative balance<\/p>, and an alarming number of empty coffee mugs on my desk. I had the sudden urge to call Hickey, an old friend from college.<\/span>\n\nHickey was one of the smartest people I knew \u2013 one of those guys who would party until 8 am, when everyone else had passed out with their mouths open, but still constantly get good grades. He was an all-rounder, and all of us assumed he\u2019d grow up to be super successful. So it came as a surprise when Hickey told us one day that he\u2019d give up everything and move to Auroville, a <\/span>spiritual <\/span><\/a>township 10 km from Pondicherry, because he wanted to connect with nature through meditation.<\/span>\n\nIt took me almost a year, but on that Friday, I did sort of understand his sentiment. Connecting with nature through <\/span>meditation <\/span><\/a>did sound a hell of a lot better than sitting at a desk for 8 hours. Besides, I hadn\u2019t heard from Hickey since he left the city. So I booked my tickets, flew down to Chennai, and took a cab to Auroville. <\/span>\n\nMy guide through this \u201cEat, Pray, Love\u201d trip, Hickey, met me at the airport. \u201cIf you want to have a proper spiritual experience,\u201d he told us with the confidence of the Dalai Lama himself, \u201cYou must do exactly as I say.\u201d<\/span>\n\nIt turns out the first path to enlightenment involved meditating and chanting around Matri Mandir with a number of serious firangs, which I can honestly attest was one of the most boring experiences of my life. Seriously, I\u2019d rather go back to school for ten years. The next step was looking on in awe at the locals attempt a self-sustainable lifestyle with a number of <\/span>KFC <\/span><\/a>executives standing in the shadows, waiting for the moment they can conquer all of Tamil Nadu. The third step involved spending an entire afternoon in a broken-down all-vegan caf\u00e9, where cheese is frowned upon but Hickey\u2019s joints are welcome. I can confidently say I\u2019d found no enlightenment thus far. <\/span>\n

There were loosely two kinds of people in attendance \u2013 the first kind experienced said bursts of energy from an array of questionably colourful pills, and the second from mild foreplay with trees covered in glow paint.<\/blockquote>\nAt the caf\u00e9, we met Daniel, a stoner from Germany. None of us had ever eaten vegan food, let alone paid for it, so Daniel was helping us interpret the menu, despite having learnt English very recently. And so, over several <\/span>coconut milk lattes <\/span><\/a>(who even?), Daniel told us about a rave that he was heading down to later that night. \u201cIn forest, full power spiritual,\u201d he told us. \u201cWhere,\u201d we asked. \u201cFollow the beats,\u201d he replied. Cool then. <\/span>\n\nOver the previous couple of days or so, Hickey had taken us through a laundry list of introspective experiences. We\u2019d lived in huts, made good friends with trees, and shat <\/span>vegan <\/span><\/a>food in compost pits. And yet, the trip overall was feeling like a big let-down and this fast-tracking to \u201cfinding\u201d myself was just not working. So, after a prolonged discussion on who would carry the pepper spray, we agreed that we\u2019d go to the rave.<\/span>\n\nA few hours later, I lay on a rock surrounded by barefooted, enlightened firangs dancing to a very loud piece of music coming from behind a tree. We knew the <\/span>DJ <\/span><\/a>was there because every five minutes or so, someone would yell \u201cfeel the music\u201d from the corner and the dancing firangs would experience a sudden burst of energy that could only be caused by a number of third eyes opening.<\/span>\n\nThere were loosely two kinds of people in attendance \u2013 the first kind experienced said bursts of energy from an array of questionably colourful pills, and the second from mild foreplay with trees covered in <\/span>glow <\/span><\/a>paint. A number of people had learnt only one line of English \u2013 \u201cYou crush\u2026 I roll.\u201d At one point, I struck up a conversation with Daniel, Skylar, Zachariah, who despite their grand names, offered me no spiritual salvation. Instead they left our conversation mid-way because the DJ was playing a sick beat.<\/span>\n\nThe Tree Huggers, meanwhile, didn\u2019t speak much, or apparently have much idea of how science works. Their idea of spirituality involved forgetting they were humans and rolling around on the ground in an attempt to imbibe the sand, trees, the air, and everything else Mother Nature offered. They did this for hours, although to be fair, for them, \u201ctime is just a construct, dude\u201d. \u00a0<\/span>\n\nA couple of hours into the night it seemed like I\u2019d accidentally stumbled onto the human equivalent of a quote generator website. A <\/span>blonde<\/span><\/a>\u00a0lady named Zee looked me dead in the eye and said, \u201cInside every person you know, there is a person you don\u2019t know.\u201d Well thanks for that information, Zee, I truly have no idea who you are.<\/span>\n\nIn between this crowd of raging ascetics, a number of peddlers (you can tell by how their vests glow in the dark) attempted to sell adulterated drugs. \u201cHey kid, do you want some molly?\u201d they\u2019d whisper in your ear before showing you a packet of India\u2019s finest talcum powder. They were, I assume, responsible for the number of people attaining nirvana by throwing up sada <\/span>dosas <\/span><\/a>in a bush. One might wonder if dosa is the ideal rave food, but apparently you can fry a crispy one at 3 am and suddenly firangs gather around you like someone\u2019s shooting <\/span>Slumdog Millionaire 2<\/span><\/i>. <\/span>\n\nSadly the smell of dosa-puke remained my last memory of Auroville as I boarded a plane back to <\/span>Mumbai <\/span><\/a>the next morning. I bid goodbye to Hickey, who for now, would have to continue to have his insightful out-of-body experiences by himself. I wasn\u2019t sure what I was getting into when I\u2019d decided to make the trip, but one forest rave and five enlightened firangs later, I know why some people choose therapy instead.<\/span>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Following a rough patch, I went to Auroville to connect more closely with nature. Three days later, surrounded by raving firangs and vegan pizza, I realised this brand of spirituality was not for me.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":205,"featured_media":3208,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[3754,6245,3392,480,6246,6247,6248,5932,696,6249,5937,6250],"class_list":["post-3207","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-first-person","tag-alcohol","tag-auroville","tag-cafes","tag-drugs","tag-firangs","tag-foreigners","tag-forest-party","tag-hipster","tag-meditation","tag-rave","tag-spirituality","tag-vegan-food"],"yoast_head":"\nIn Auroville, My Search for Spirituality Ended at a Forest Rave Party<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Following a rough patch, I went to Auroville to connect more closely with nature. 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