Bodhi @ Auroville

By Vijaya Chamundeshwari In the bus and off on an edutainment tour –

Bus full of chatting n gleaming bonsai enthusiasts

Our Bodhi Bonsai Club outing was an ‘edutaining’ tour to Auroville. The Botanical Garden welcomed us with hibiscus juice and a very colourful and healthy combo of food. Uma our tour guide took us on a walkathon through a thicket. Between the sound of our feet rustling over dry leaves, she rattled away some botanical and local names with interesting anecdotes. Uma had to warn us jokingly about cameras in the cacti store house, as we impishly told her we might pocket a few if she doesn’t sell them to us. Few of us enjoyed posing from a tree house and enjoyed hitting dead ends in a maze. We saw interesting fire ant nests and tempting red berries that were sadly meant only for birds. With aching feet and no place to sit through out our trek, the sight of tables and chairs let out a sigh from most of us. We finished off with tea and kombucha as the preference went and headed to……

The wandering bird watchers

Into the Thicket

Cacti Store House

The Pondi Beach ofcourse! How can we not take a walk by the coast line! A bunch of us with aching legs competing with an ache for ice cream beat the chill breeze with special Pondi Kulfi. After the last lick we headed back to the bus. With eyes glaring at us for our delay we sheepishly sat in our respective seats.

On the rocks

Ice Ice Babes

Inn Pondiville – A home stay in the lap of Nature, was where we were lodged. We drove towards Auroville AND the sun went down, down and down to bed. The head lights of our bus ripped through the pitch-dark pathway. Our pupils dilated to its maximum until we reached the gates of Inn Pondiville. Each one of us carefully stepped down managing our stiff joints and eased into our rooms.

The Boys Band plonked until the ladies finished shopping

Its Party time and there is no excuse for low batteries. With a birthday boy amidst us we ‘cheer’fully sang to him as he cut brownies. We quenched our thirst amidst clinking glasses and filled our tummies with food served on banana leaves. We took a chill pill and said cheers to a well spent day.

Feeding the new born

Refreshed and up after a good night’s sleep, all our baggage got stuffed into the bus along with a few trinkets of plants. Breakfast was served and in-between two of us escaped into the wild cashew grove following the chirping of birds. Into the bus and off we went to the Idlers farm and lunch at their café. David welcomed us at the farm and took us on an ‘edutour’ after he introduced us to the rice and millet varieties he grew, chaffed and used in his café run by Anne- his life partner. We were enlightened by his 5layer and 3layer farming methods where the harvest was more and the land was less in the form of a mound. His team of members were all ladies from the village around, who have been trained by David. We saw some exquisite varieties of vegetables like the winged beans and the air potato. With no chemicals at all and just by mixing cow urine, jaggery, turmeric, asafoetida, ash and the likes he ferments them in a particular ratio and combo for both growth and pesticide. The manure pit was also explained where he got his mulch. We drove to the nearby Idlers Café where Anne and her daughter cheerfully served our hungry tummies with nutritious meals.

Winged beans and air potato

Nutritiously fed with love

After our signature group pic, it was Homeward Ho!

Happy faces of Bodhi family

February 6 th and 7 th 2026 will be memorable pages in the Bodhi Bonsai Diary.