Well, I predicted there would be more hiccups, but I certainly did not expect to see something like this again THAT soon. I suppose we're all taken by surprise once again! Mr. “Earthly Alien” has fired two rounds now, and both cannonballs hit the target full on!
The Aurovillagers can now really forget about quickly putting this to rest and trying to minimise the damage. The Aurovillage boat is sinking at lightning speed: they are helping by torpedoing themselves with their own stupidity. I hope they learned how to breathe under water.
It is the collapse of a 50-year old cult, this was always going to be a nasty affair. It was easy to predict that insanity collapsing under its own weight is not a pretty spectacle. But well, I must admit they're trying to somehow make an entertaining show out of it!
But oh yes, the wall is already painted over once again – it's going to end up being the whitest wall in Auroville! But the panic and anger in their camp must be going through the roof. Which can only bring about more insanity, more discord among them, and more cracks in their facade: they are united in SELFISHNESS, which means they have immense disagreements, not only on HOW they will achieve their goals, but obviously also on what the goal IS. They each want to keep their piece of the cake, or get more cake, or have a different cake altogether. “Unity in Diversity” for sure! “Unity in Frustration, Anger and Despair” probably much more.
Whatever they think they are doing: Aurovillage is dead. Anyone with half a functioning brain-cell left can see that there is no coming back from this. Court case all you like, media outcry yourself to smithereens: the material facts are that this is a dumpster fire that nobody can put out anymore.
Immediately after the first call to action was made public, Renu posted the following on Auronet:
« Looks to me that this tagging is a fake ... it looks like a set-up by someone who would like to see the Youth (further) vilified and to foment the narrative of unruly foreigners ... bad Aurovilians, zamindar, colonialists etc etc (yawn). So based on what you see posted on Auronet... the vociferous minority may well have been behind it. »
Through her wild accusation that she suspects “the vociferous minority” to be behind it, Renu herself obviously admits that this is very much helping the end of Aurovillage draw to a quick close.
But it is also interesting that, when reality is literally being smashed in their face, they STILL try to pretend that the neocolonialism and racism in Auroville is just (“yawn”) angry people's talk, false accusations and discrediting of their noble selves out of spite. What caused that spite then is anyone's guess, but well, we've already established that this is not the most rational gang in the world, haven't we.
How exactly they want to continue to defend their kingdom is a mystery. Their whole narrative is disintegrating in front of everybody's eyes. Both of their battles for survival, the legal campaign and the media campaign, depend on the credibility of what they claim. In a media campaign, you can just scream whatever you want and the further away people are, the easier it is to convince them: they can't judge anything for themselves. For people living abroad, it may be very hard not to have their heart-strings pulled by the sob-stories they are fed about these poor hard-working Westerners and the authoritarian government. That is why they rely so much on the financial and emotional support of their Aurovillage International Centres, most members of which have no real clue of what goes on here and simply blindly believe the beautiful fairy tales. But the first leg of their campaign, the legal battle, is fought in India itself. There's no fighting it elsewhere, unfortunately for them.
Unlike media campaigns, court cases come with proofs and facts, and no matter what emotional claims they include in their pleas, they will be under fire and scrutiny, and unless they can provide some credible proof that supports their arguments and statements, the emo-lies will be simply dismissed: the matter at hand is who has the legal power to take decisions in Auroville, and nothing else. The need to wrap it all up with an enormous emotional media balloon already shows how weak their arguments are. So how are they going to convince the judge in Chennai of their claims that we are a peaceful ecovillage full of peace-and-love flower-power dreamy harmonious spiritual goodhearted totally innocent do-gooders who are being tortured by an evil BJP monster “for no reason whatsoever”, when this kind of evidence is in the face of everyone around, up to Delhi? What is the court going to do? Defend Westerners who want to keep their little autonomous self-governed kingdom just for the sake of history and them being white??
Really, there is no conceivable win for them anywhere here. The Aurovillage feudal fiefdom is gone.
What remains of course is the very entertaining “whodunnit” part of the story. Having read almost all of Agatha Cristie's crime novels in my early teens, the grey cells are tingling with curiosity to see what we can deduct and if we can solve this.
There are many points that are to be taken into consideration in order to create the profile of the real person behind “Earthly Alien”.
The first is the insanity of the Aurovillagers. Delusional, no sense of reality, not aware of anything other than “it belongs to us and we do what we want”. In that way, it is very understandable that many cult members simply have no clue what the repercussions of such an act might be. They live in their own reality, in which Auroville has always floated far above the earth, in a nice little bubble in which only Aurovillage exists. They can't be bothered with seeing things from a different perspective, they are constantly confirmed by their fellow cult-members that the way they see reality is actually what IS: Auroville is not India. How many times have I heard this?
So there are plenty candidates fitting thàt criterion: too far gone, arrogant beyond sanity, not even aware of the fact that doing this might somehow have repercussions other than the actual independence of Auroville. So what other motive for being so undaunted could Mr. Earthly Alien have? Maybe this is someone who has nothing to lose anymore? If someone is planning to leave Auroville in the next days or weeks, this might be a fitting farewell, a last attempt to make a difference and a stand to save SOS Auroville Unity with whatever courage they have left? Someone who is giving a big fat middle finger to what they are spitefully leaving behind?
Look, just a few weeks ago, the Auroville Unity Standing comedians posted another sob-story about how they are the victim of barbaric evil for no other reason than being good eco-warriors, in which they gave the following interesting bit of info to the world: (I told you, they're trapped in a “damned if you do, damned if you don't” situation, and we can only be grateful that they painted themselves in such a tiny and painful corner.)
« Several Aurovilians, including families with young children, are now faced with imminent uncertainty regarding their residence. Omid, a teacher in one of Auroville’s schools and an active and valuable member of the community who has been an Aurovilian since 2019 (living in Auroville since 2016), requested an extension for his one year visa in November 2021. After signing the declaration form, he was given a three month visa recommendation letter on February 10th, with the extension expiring on April 17th. Since the visa was officially issued on January 18th, Omid could not stay longer than only 2 months without technically overstaying his visa, and receiving a black mark on his visa record. As with the other 3-month recommendation letters, it was not processed by the RRO due to the unprecedented nature of the short visa. He is now faced with extreme uncertainty and he is leaving Auroville without knowing if he will be able to return to his home here. He has had no further clarification on the matter from the AVFoundation Office despite the WC and his place of work sending letters of appeal on his behalf. »
Would a “valuable member of the Aurovillage community” in a situation like Omid feel angry and vengeful enough to drop a few bombs before leaving? Even if it is not really helpful, but only damaging? It is quite possible, because the vast majority of Aurovillagers do not care one bit about Auroville. Meaning: the Auroville that the Mother wanted and started, the project that would be an extension of the Ashram, an enlargement of the laboratory she was running in Pondy. The Aurovillagers don't give two hoots about the Ashram and such a project: they care with all their passion about the Aurovillage that THEY have created.
THAT is what Auroville is to them, and anything else is simply a “non-Auroville” or an “anti-Auroville” or something else that isn't worthy of the name. Many of them would never want to live in such a place. They need to be treated like kings and queens, have their egos flattered and their comfort zones pampered, have their indoctrinations confirmed and be gloriously celebrated as the valiant colonial saviours. Any other “Auroville” is not worth looking into, let alone be part of. What other information do we have to identify this mysterious Mr. Earthly Alien? Well, it seems he knows his way around the ACUR building (called “Town Hall” because it's been – oh how surprising – hijacked and put to another use than it was built and paid for). There appear to be several CCTV cameras to monitor the area (as this is the main administrative complex of Auroville), and Mr. Alien has managed to escape being caught on any of them. At least, that's what they are telling us. Reality seems to be – how surprising again – a tiny bit different. It's the ACUR team, closely interlinked with Auronet (and its censorship), who put out that news. First it was: “there's no camera pointed at that location!”. But then of course, people can't magically appear out of nowhere on that spot-without-camera-coverage. Whoever it was, they must have somehow walked to that spot-without-camera-coverage, and should therefore be caught on the other cameras. Still the message was: “there's nobody to be seen in the videos!” It made it all even more strange: who knows the scope of the cameras so well that they have figured out a pathway-without-camera-coverage to get to the spot-without-camera-coverage? Then Angela, who more or less lives in the ACUR building since it was built, comments on Auronet that as far as she knows, there's a camera pointing EXACTLY at that location including the now famous wall. Which is true: there IS a camera pointing straight at the wall. So now the explanation is: “it was just now re-pointed, it had always been pointed at Le Morgan [the little French restaurant in the ACUR complex] ABOVE the wall”. But in the meantime, Angela's comment is conveniently removed by the Auronet/ACUR people. I'm sure there are very normal and plausible explanations for all of this nonsense. But until we get those, we're stuck with a very intriguing, thick plot, aren't we? Let's hope the Foundation Office has better eyes and less fear of discovering uncomfortable truths when they go through it all.
But then, apart from the cameras, there's also a night-watch, who claims not to have noticed anything. Which does not come as a surprise, mostly nothing ever happens and most watchmen sleep at night just like everybody else – ready to wake up when an emergency occurs. And they generally rely on the warnings of the dogs. Because there are quite a few dogs around the ACUR building. Dogs bark when people move around at night, don't they? So here's the conundrum: how can someone get to that wall in the middle of the night without being caught on camera and without having the dogs bark and wake up the watchman? Seems Mr. Earthly Alien is someone who knows this location quite intimately.
What else do we have? Obviously, the messages themselves, and the hand-writing.
With every action taken, the perpetrator gives another clue, as always. So it will probably end here. Today's message also seems a kind of goodbye: I've done my share, this is where my part ends. What is obvious is the difference in how the message LOOKS. The first seemed scribbled very hastily, not well centred on the wall, with two words in capitals, in quite unsteady letters, and had no signature. Is this the “practice makes perfect” effect? I can imagine that the first time, nerves must have gone all over the place. Was there really no camera visibility for the whole path and location? Was the watchman really sleeping? Would one of the dogs not bark? Better make this a very quick paint-and-go mission. And then, when the anxiety of the next day turns into the euphoria of the victory, the plan is born to do it again, and this time, with the confidence of experience. Much calmer, it's easier to take a bit more time and do it right, fill the wall in the correct way and have a more steady handwriting. And by now, the nagging feeling of not getting the credit for pulling off this stunt starts to creep in, so: a signature! Not able to put the real name, but still: the ego wants credit where credit is due.
That could be the explanation, it's quite understandable. Or could it be that we have two different people here? Wouldn't that be interesting? Someone copying someone else's “crime” and running away with it... But that is too far-fetched, unless these CCTV cameras are really not doing a thing and anyone can walk around there without being recorded. Very unlikely. It looks extremely likely that the same spray-cans were used, and it would be more plausible that two people are doing this together. Which is also a possibility. It remains all very mysterious up till now.
Now whoever Mr. Earthly Alien is, if he or they have the guts they want us to believe they have: I have a humble request: do something for the Governing Board meeting on Tuesday. The Aurovillagers had no problems whatsoever with publicly booing Srimoyi and Madam Secretary, and it seems the time has come to show the whole Governing Board what Aurovillage thinks of them. Earthly Alien and co, this is your moment: go for it, let it all out, let this City finally put itself at the Service of Truth!
Comments