Juan (4th from right) giving group lessons at Kallialay to other surfers
Juan and Samai, the brothers who started the surf school in
Auroville, arrived in 1995 at the ages of 11 and 10 respectively. Within a
year’s time, they were introduced to the surfing world by the Auroville surfing
pioneers, André, Patrick, Jacky, and Andy. At that time, Repos Beach was a
lively Sunday afternoon destination where, in a self-made surf shack behind the
community kitchen, a dozen surfboards were contested by youngsters eager to get
to the waves.
Samai recalls those days: “Boards were very hard to come by,
one could only get a board through someone who travelled to a surfing
destination.” Originally, they had only one highly-coveted board that was
exchanged and used by many.
By the year 2000, the two brothers were fully hooked to the
sport and 14 members of the makeshift surf club raised some money to go on a
surf trip to Sri Lanka for 2 weeks. Upon their return, fuelled up by their...
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