I write from New York - having just roared up the east coast in an aluminium snake of a train from Washington to stay here with some old friends from another hemisphere. The summer is well and truly Indian in the big apple, and the smell downtown is not unlike Delhi either. Despite the sticky subways, I’ve been enjoying vegan cuisine, Brooklyn community life and scintillating conversation. My friends, like me, have been recently introduced into the wonderful world of parenting and, naturally much conversation blossomed around this topic.

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Auroville is an experimental city, under development in south India. It is intended to be a model township - an international and universal place for personal, spiritual growth and social advancement.

Auroville exists for nothing less than to hasten the evolution of the human species - to develop the mind from its animal instincts to sublime intuition, and to manifest the inspiration of the Divine in the material world. Read more…

It’s election time in south India and the propaganda is overspilling onto the streets.

Is it just coincidence that so many members of the Gandhi/Nehru family have been in power in this country?

Or that George Bush Junior followed in the footsteps of his father?
Could there be another reason? Read more…

VEGETARIANISM & CONSCIOUSNESS
I consider the degree to which vegetarianism has been embraced by a culture to be an excellent indicator of the extent of its evolution. Refusing to kill animals for food demonstrates the ethical progress and humanity of a civilisation.

In India, vegetarian food is widely considered to be the best - a mark of the great advance of consciousness that took place here many centuries ago. Read more…

The Taj Mahal was built 350 years ago by the Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan as a place to bury his deceased wife. In Agra, India, it is proudly hailed as a great monument to the power of love. However, my personal reaction was a little mixed… Read more…