You can find utopia in India - if you're willing to close your eyes | Ian Jack

On a visit to the Auroville spiritual community, I found a world walled off from the crowds and consumerism outsideThe adjective "sleepy" is still sometimes applied to Pondicherry, the former French colony on the south-east coast of India, but of course this is nonsense. Nowhere in India is sleepy, and Pondicherry is about as sleepy as a bank holiday in Brighton. Thousands of families stroll up and down its promenade, the Avenue Goubert, on a Sunday evening, and the crowd is only a little sparser at dawn the following morning, when men and women of all shapes and ages take advantage of the coolest hours of daylight to walk purposefully - or even jog - beside the sea as the sun rises out of it. The chaat, pizza slices and corncobs of the night before have been replaced by water bottles as the consumables to be held in the hand. Purging has followed feasting; austerity has replaced indulgence; but the promenade is hardly less full. Related: Life of Pi: On location in Pondicherry, India - in pictures Continue reading...