#9 To Receive You must give

When was the last time someone didn’t care about who you were but simply welcomed you in their home? When was the last time someone gave you your space in his own physical space? When was the last time someone said, “Tell me more” and got all excited about your new idea? When was the last time someone said everyone is invited and actually meant it?

Seed Snehal

If you haven’t experienced any of this in a long time, you haven’t met Snehal yet. Snehal is a man who identifies himself with dreams, his or others that’s why he calls his abode – ‘Sapney farm’. A breathing ground for dreams that the world claims it doesn’t need his farm is the oasis of freshness, an asylum to protect the ‘new’, in a world where the usual and the obvious have banished the new and unusual.

But of course, I wasn’t aware of this. All I remembered about Snehal was a man who is the owner of the Kofibar in Auroville. There is something unacceptably commercial about ventures claiming to be non-commercial and for the good of all that keeps me away from them therefore, the idea of staying in a commune on a permaculture farm with people from “who knows where” for a week somehow did not appeal to me. We arrived in Auroville after 10 days of Vipassana in Chennai. We headed straight for our favourite glass of cold coffee at Kofi Bar and met with Snehal and his friends there. The evening ran into night and as we returned after a late dinner, it was already pitch dark at the farm. Unable to see a thing, we held each other’s hand and were led to our hut.

The two level bamboo hut was a dream come true. It was the first time I felt I had come where I belong to after quitting my job and the money race. But I was still apprehensive about living in a place where I could not go to the bathroom alone at night (because you see trees scare the shit out of me). Moreover, I had never in my life stayed in a place with shared bathrooms, shared kitchen, bamboo huts, trees with snakes tad poles lurking around. The next morning I woke up not knowing what to do. I discovered the farm in the light of the day – the other beautiful huts, the small nursery, the path ways to the medicine garden, and quietude with hammocks and swings, yes; I was walking in a dream. We went to the gazebo where a bunch of people were talking like college kids hanging around with a cup of chai except they had more than a cup of chai. They had their green smoothies, special coffees or whatever their belief system, nationality or habit allowed them.

We have traveled for a year since and to this date, we haven’t met a more quirky, varied and diverse group of people. To put it simply, they were the coolest people we have ever met in our lives. Men who wanted to not be a part of the system that curbs their individuality, college kids who were taking gap year to learn the way of the world, marine engineers who found it more rewarding to make awesome hummus for unknown group of friends, woman who was bringing up a child in her womb away from the daily grind. These were simple people with great ideas and I found myself small for cringing at the thought of shared bathrooms.

For the next two weeks the hut was our home. It took me a while to find my way around – to locate the bathrooms, to understand that it is okay to eat food other people cooked for me without feeling torn down by gratitude and realised it is just as much fun to get together with them and cook a meal of rajma chawal and daal alloo baingan with and for them. Vikram &I celebrated our first anniversary here with people who were complete strangers but total friends with a vegan banana cake from Kofibar.

Soon, it was time for the upcoming Permaculture course. People were arriving from all around the world to Sapney doorsteps. It was an exciting time full of positive energy. “We will all huddle up. There is enough space for all of us.” Snehal said in his buddy style. But we decided to move out to make space for the participants who had booked in. But were we ready to pull ourselves from the farm, our friends and Snehal? No, we convinced ourselves that Vikram needs to do the PDC course because I am too lazy to do anything and Vikram agreed. The person who had arrived with doubt and cynicism left teary eyed from the farm. But thanks to our move, we made friends with aunty, Snehal’s motherwho lived one street away from our new guest house.

For another 28 days we were in Auroville spending most of our time in Sapney farm. While Vikram was learning about soil and making global friends, I was disrupting the work of volunteers in the kitchen. And when we got done, we went to aunty’s place for a cup of homemade chai.

I still find it hard to believe that someone who barely knew me gave me the best spot in his home, opening his kitchen, his friends, his family and his ideas to me. He is not just a person, he is a landmark. Thousands of people have visited him on his little piece of land and shared his home like their own with him for days, weeks and months and I hope you will get a chance to discover this landmark for yourself someday.

Turning a piece of Barren Land into a beautiful organic farm and a thriving community of people where travelers with ideas or sometimes nothing arrive and set ablaze the place with their energy and turn it into a spectacle you will be grateful to witness, he teaches us the most important lesson of our life that “To Receive, You Must Give.”

Read more on 1 year of travel, 10 lessons of a lifetime