How a city person can feel completely at home in the great outdoors.
I always thought I was a city girl. But that changed in the summer of 2013. Over a fortnight, I learned to love the forest the hard way— carrying pails of water, raking leaves for mulching, plucking and juicing for anti-pest spray for saplings. It was my first solo trip, and my first time working with my hands in the earth. It was also my first attempt at living a ‘simpler’ life: that is, in a vegan, teetotaller community, with minimal electricity and no running water.
Sadhana Forest, in Auroville’s outer green belt, began in 2003 as 70 acres of arid land. When Aviram and Yorit Rozin moved from Israel to join the experimental township of Auroville in 2002, they decided to bring back the indigenous tropical dry evergreen forest. With the help of volunteers, they probed where the water was draining out. They dug trenches, built bunds and earth dams and removed invasive species of flora to plant native saplings. After four years, the groundwater level rose by six metres.
The forest was off the national power and water grid, so for a bath, we would hand-pump water and lug the pail to the bathroom. Want a banana smoothie? Pedal a bicycle-powered blender. Meals were cooked on rocket stoves, dishes scrubbed with ash. In the bathroom, I had to remember to do short and longer jobs in separate units so it would compost properly.
Esta historia es de la edición August - September 2018 de Condé Nast Traveller India.
Comience su prueba gratuita de Magzter GOLD de 7 días para acceder a miles de historias premium seleccionadas y a más de 9,000 revistas y periódicos.
Ya eres suscriptor ? Conectar
Esta historia es de la edición August - September 2018 de Condé Nast Traveller India.
Comience su prueba gratuita de Magzter GOLD de 7 días para acceder a miles de historias premium seleccionadas y a más de 9,000 revistas y periódicos.
Ya eres suscriptor? Conectar
THE 2024 HOT LIST
Our pick of the best new hotels in the world
SHOPPING IN ABU DHABI
From a barbershop café to Emirati gems, home-grown brands offer a fresh counterpoint to the UAE capital's glitzy malls and designer labels.
LOS ANGELES PLAYS ITSELF
No place delights in retelling its own tale quite like the city of angels. Now, a wave of chefs, hoteliers, and entrepreneurs is remixing the classics to usher in a new golden age.
LOVE & TRAVEL - DECOUPLING
Ona long trip through Spain, Sophie Yun Mancini bids a tender goodbye to an old love
LOVE & TRAVEL - REFLECTIONS
For writer and translator Sara Rai, Banaras has her heart and is everywhere all at once. On a trip to Palermo, she wraps her way around the two cities in one breathless sentence
LOVE & TRAVEL - DEPARTURES
Chef Manu Chandra looks back on a time that brought home the power of love and travel
LOVE & TRAVEL - SUMMER
Travelling in a wheelchair, author Jarred McGinnis makes the most of a chance solo parenting trip
LOVE & TRAVEL - PERFUME
Author Divrina Dhingra distils the varied fragrances of the many places she has called home
CARNIVOROUS IN COIMBATORE
A Texan vegetarian fell for Kongunadu cooking, quail and all.
WHERE TO STAY - THE FIFTH AVENUE HOTEL USA
An eclectic palette and worldly flourishes fill this 19thcentury mansion turned hotel in New York.