<?xml version='1.0' encoding='UTF-8'?><?xml-stylesheet href="http://www.blogger.com/styles/atom.css" type="text/css"?><feed xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom' xmlns:openSearch='http://a9.com/-/spec/opensearchrss/1.0/' xmlns:georss='http://www.georss.org/georss' xmlns:gd='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005' xmlns:thr='http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0'><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8840974713849142747</id><updated>2012-02-16T03:29:55.130-08:00</updated><category term='green work'/><category term='Online shopping'/><category term='sustainable development'/><category term='Auroville'/><category term='Asia'/><category term='handicraft'/><category term='Matrimandir'/><category term='ecofriendly products'/><category term='fashion'/><category term='India'/><category term='organic'/><title type='text'>My Auroville Diary</title><subtitle type='html'></subtitle><link rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#feed' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://myaurovillediary.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/8840974713849142747/posts/default?max-results=100'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://myaurovillediary.blogspot.com/'/><link rel='hub' href='http://pubsubhubbub.appspot.com/'/><author><name>Abhi</name><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='26' height='32' src='http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-KXYgfXes9lc/TWjAew6hHjI/AAAAAAAAAaQ/ey_QhzLmuyM/s220/Image3.jpg'/></author><generator version='7.00' uri='http://www.blogger.com'>Blogger</generator><openSearch:totalResults>1</openSearch:totalResults><openSearch:startIndex>1</openSearch:startIndex><openSearch:itemsPerPage>100</openSearch:itemsPerPage><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8840974713849142747.post-7917185605131096589</id><published>2010-01-23T04:10:00.000-08:00</published><updated>2010-01-23T20:18:28.253-08:00</updated><category scheme='http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#' term='India'/><category scheme='http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#' term='Auroville'/><category scheme='http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#' term='ecofriendly products'/><category scheme='http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#' term='sustainable development'/><category scheme='http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#' term='Matrimandir'/><category scheme='http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#' term='Asia'/><category scheme='http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#' term='Online shopping'/><category scheme='http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#' term='green work'/><category scheme='http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#' term='handicraft'/><category scheme='http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#' term='fashion'/><category scheme='http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#' term='organic'/><title type='text'>Coming to the Village</title><content type='html'>&lt;div style="text-align: justify; font-family: arial;"&gt;&lt;div style="text-align: left;"&gt;&lt;div style="float: left;"&gt;&lt;param name="movie" value="http://stream.ez-tracks.com/player_compact.swf?songid=2227&amp;amp;uid=15619907|727713555&amp;amp;t=1"&gt;&lt;param name="wmode" value="transparent"&gt;&lt;embed src="http://stream.ez-tracks.com/player_compact.swf?songid=2227&amp;amp;uid=15619907%7C727713555&amp;amp;t=1" quality="high" wmode="transparent" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" bgcolor="FFFFFF" width="27" height="34"&gt;&lt;/embed&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style="text-align: justify;"&gt;&lt;span style="text-decoration: none;"&gt;It was in the last  quarter of ’94  when  I first visited&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="text-decoration: none; font-style: italic;"&gt; &lt;/span&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.auroville.org/"&gt;Auroville&lt;/a&gt;.   This was also my first  entry into South India and the immediate reaction   was that I have  landed in no-mans land. I had got off a bus on a   roadside, wanting to  do the last leg to &lt;a href="http://auroville.com/"&gt;Auroville&lt;/a&gt; and  no one could   understand what I wanted. Getting directions was like  playing dumb   charades.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style="text-align: justify;"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;span style="font-family:arial;"&gt;&lt;div style="text-align: center;"&gt;&lt;div style="text-align: center;"&gt;&lt;object width="400" height="333" class="BLOG_video_class" id="BLOG_video-5dea1cd40d50da13" classid="clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000" codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=6,0,40,0"&gt;&lt;param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/get_player"&gt;&lt;param name="bgcolor" value="#FFFFFF"&gt;&lt;param name="allowfullscreen" value="true"&gt;&lt;param name="flashvars" value="flvurl=http://v24.nonxt1.googlevideo.com/videoplayback?id%3D5dea1cd40d50da13%26itag%3D5%26app%3Dblogger%26ip%3D0.0.0.0%26ipbits%3D0%26expire%3D1331613649%26sparams%3Did,itag,ip,ipbits,expire%26signature%3D1032104B943B8F2E7F1FAA1C172CD3C203DDFA.24DFA71F4859B98DBB7B6DC6C795CABFA33133FF%26key%3Dck1&amp;amp;iurl=http://video.google.com/ThumbnailServer2?app%3Dblogger%26contentid%3D5dea1cd40d50da13%26offsetms%3D5000%26itag%3Dw160%26sigh%3DfGSq10TdEig3vICz7qGhHgNyqEc&amp;amp;autoplay=0&amp;amp;ps=blogger"&gt;&lt;embed src="http://www.youtube.com/get_player" type="application/x-shockwave-flash"width="400" height="333" bgcolor="#FFFFFF"flashvars="flvurl=http://v24.nonxt1.googlevideo.com/videoplayback?id%3D5dea1cd40d50da13%26itag%3D5%26app%3Dblogger%26ip%3D0.0.0.0%26ipbits%3D0%26expire%3D1331613649%26sparams%3Did,itag,ip,ipbits,expire%26signature%3D1032104B943B8F2E7F1FAA1C172CD3C203DDFA.24DFA71F4859B98DBB7B6DC6C795CABFA33133FF%26key%3Dck1&amp;iurl=http://video.google.com/ThumbnailServer2?app%3Dblogger%26contentid%3D5dea1cd40d50da13%26offsetms%3D5000%26itag%3Dw160%26sigh%3DfGSq10TdEig3vICz7qGhHgNyqEc&amp;autoplay=0&amp;ps=blogger"allowFullScreen="true" /&gt;&lt;/object&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style="text-align: justify;"&gt;&lt;a onblur="try   {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_vSTcGPEgyfM/SzQxP2G17sI/AAAAAAAABOA/o3HaszHx0T8/s1600-h/thXMas-Carols.gif"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;span style="font-family:arial;"&gt;It took a good long day to gear-up the nerves and get   comfortable with the idea of going for a communication adventure in the   jungle. The immediate agenda was to get a hold on the languages – any -   with which I could communicate my most basic needs. Trying to  understand  or speak Tamil was about the most difficult of the  adventure.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;div style="text-align: center;"&gt;&lt;span style="font-family:arial;"&gt; &lt;/span&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.auroville.com/"&gt;&lt;span&gt;&lt;span style="font-family:arial;"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;span&gt;&lt;span style="font-family:arial;"&gt;&lt;a target="_blank"&gt;&lt;img src="http://www.auroville.com/images/affiliate_banner_1.gif" alt="Auroville.com - Made with Love in Auroville" border="0" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;span style="font-family:arial;"&gt;Despite  the language issue, I still managed to make friends –  national and  international and there was a strong undercurrent of an  aura of  freshness. In a few days, &lt;a href="http://www.shamadalvi.com/"&gt;Auroville&lt;/a&gt;,  I could sense, was a place where  concept and reality were not running  entirely in tune with each other&lt;span style="text-decoration: underline;"&gt;.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span&gt;&lt;span style="font-family:arial;"&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.auroville.com/index.php?ref=9&amp;amp;affiliate_banner_id=2" target="_blank"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/8840974713849142747-7917185605131096589?l=myaurovillediary.blogspot.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://myaurovillediary.blogspot.com/feeds/7917185605131096589/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=8840974713849142747&amp;postID=7917185605131096589' title='12 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/8840974713849142747/posts/default/7917185605131096589'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/8840974713849142747/posts/default/7917185605131096589'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://myaurovillediary.blogspot.com/2009/12/coming-to-village.html' title='Coming to the Village'/><author><name>Abhi</name><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='26' height='32' src='http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-KXYgfXes9lc/TWjAew6hHjI/AAAAAAAAAaQ/ey_QhzLmuyM/s220/Image3.jpg'/></author><thr:total>12</thr:total></entry></feed>
