Krishna (left) and Mail fixing the name board of Utilité signed by The Mother with her blessing on their keet hut.(1971)
In
the Indian satirical film PK, a humanoid alien comes to study planet
earth. Something of an idiot savant, he naively questions the customs
and dogmas of the human race (located firmly in India, in this case).
He also queries languages and names. What’s in a name? Well, plenty
actually. While Shakespeare argued that the name of a thing is not
important because its essence remains the same, can the names of
Auroville’s communities be dismissed so lightly? Imagine how an
alien anthropologist parachuted into Auroville might perceive things.
Armed with no foreknowledge, the anthropologist moves around this
strange place dubbed the ‘city of dawn’, coming across signposts
and names stuck to gates: what would the anthropologist make of these
names?
The
alien anthropologist (who is strangely able to understand all
languages encountered on planet earth) notes the...
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