After a long, long time, I awoke at 6:00 AM in the morning. To ride the hired decathlon bicycle and explore Auroville 1, and all it has to offer. It’s huge! There are so many places and things to do. Some of the things I want to do are, visit the Mantri Mandir and visit the Dojo they have here.
At 6 AM, nothing is open. Almost, no one around. It’s quiet and pristine. While roaming around and taking in the sights, I saw a peacock, while on the bicycle trail here. I stopped and just gawked at it. It’s been a while, since I last saw a peacock. It was majestic. Nothing like a bicycle ride, in the morning; on fresh and empty streets, with the sun just coming up over the horizon, to jump start your creativity.
There’s a Solar kitchen. Yep, they cook the food using the Sun’s energy. And, food in huge quantities. It’s so awesome. This one’s on the list for tomorrow.
Day two of the Tango festival kicked off today, in full swing. Post the registrations in the morning, there have been three classes. Learned tons of refinements.
A close friend, was placed in the beginners class, with me. Where as the entire group she’s been dancing with, for over a year now, has been included in the intermediate level. That was a bummer. Her entire “tango” mood fell. We couldn’t get her shifted over to the intermediate level.
Some of my teachers / maestros include, Caterina & Pinto, Marianna and Vaggelis, Gladys, and others. They are here, to teach Tango, from all across the world.
There's a video, of Caterina & Pinto, doing the Tango, at the bottom of the previous day's post. It's the opening ceremony, the day before the classes start.
Another highlight of the day was, renting a moped 2. Then getting duped, by the person I rented it from. At the end of the Tango classes, everyone in the dance group, decided to get some dinner, before the Milonga. The moped was parked right outside the visitor center here. Which is brightly lit, and has a huge parking lot. Most, here don’t lock their rented vehicles. But, being an Indian and sadly, knowing how this country works. I did lock mine.
Done with dinner, I headed to get the moped out, go back the guest house to freshen up, then sit and write this post. But the moped was gone. For over 30 minutes, I was searching. I remembered the spot I parked it at. I am not a forgetful guy, especially when and where it concerns someone else’s property. Initially, I hought that someone else, wanting to take their bike/cycle out, would have moved it. But this wasn’t the case. So I called the guy, I rented it from. He showed up in under two minutes, even though I had to wait on him, for over 30 minutes, to show up with the moped the first time. He tells me, that I’ve had parked it at a different location. Shows me a completely different moped, different make and color and expects me to buy that lie. I simply asked for a refund and told him he can have it back as long as what I paid him, was given back to me.
In short, it has been a long day. Filled with tons of events. The next four days look packed (my schedule, shown below). But, I may go ahead and take some time out, to explore the Auroville 1 settlement.
The white and pinks are mine, to attend.
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Auroville (City of Dawn) is an experimental township in Viluppuram district in the state of Tamil Nadu, India, near Puducherry in South India. ↩ ↩2
