It follows the philosophy of Sri Aurobindo, who believed that man was a transitional being.

It was established in the late 1960s by his French-Egyptian devotee, Mirra Alfassa, who assumed the humble moniker ‘The Mother’. The Mother intended Auroville to be a city of the world, a laboratory in which experiments could be undertaken of a social and technological nature to lay the foundations for a new age in the human story, and a new species fit for such an age.

Upon arriving, we were directed to park our motor scooter at the front gate and proceed to the visitor’s centre. There we had to endure a video explicating the town’s universalist philosophy before we were able to receive a visitor’s pass that would allow us to view the town’s centrepiece, a golden metallic sphere called Matrimandir.

It is, truly, an arresting sight. This large golden dome set in a vast plain catching on each of its myriad points the glaring summer sun above.

From what I understand, it is something of a spiritual power plant. The dome is internally lined with a set of mirrors and crystals which capture the sun’s energy and, I’m not quite sure, I suppose redirect it to the Aurovillian community.

There are myriad projects run out of Auroville. There is a vast Centre for Scientific Research, which runs a number of projects looking into sustainable energy. There is a food laboratory, experimental farming communities, arts and crafts circles, a number of experimental theatre groups and so on.

I was quite fascinated by the work they performed, particularly that to do with renewable energy, and an exhibition explained that a number of technologies developed by the Aurovillians to do with water recycling, solar power generation and so on had been exported to the outside world.

We took our motor scooter around in an attempt to see something of these projects. But it was Sunday, and there wasn’t a great number of people around, and most of the major buildings had security guards posted out the front.

Essentially, Auroville seemed to me to be something like a cross between Confest and the CSIRO. Large, looming research facilities with electric gates posted beside shacks selling vegetarian food and unfortunately naïve ‘hippy’ art.

The first major problem I had with Auroville is that, for an ideal community, I think that it was really unfortunately landscaped. It was ultra-low density, a bicycle or motor scooter is fundamental to drive from, say, ‘Certitude’, which was the name given to the local school, to the Solar Kitchen, and then home to snooze off the chappatis and korma.

The second critique belongs to Monique and to a German fellow I met at the Pondicherry market haggling over bananas: Its a bit cult like. When I was too busy being optimistic Monique was whining about the self-aggrandising nature of the place and of the role of The Mother. Why did she call herself The Mother? Why does a community need to have a central worshipped figure to orient itself around?

I am now very sceptical about people like The Mother and Sri Aurobindo who claim to have ascended to a higher level of reality. This seems to me to have many more tactical, rhetorical and instrumental dimensions to it than they and their followers are likely to acknowledge.

And as the German said, why hasn’t anyone heard of Auroville? In Germany, and in Australia also, Auroville may as well not exist. Why does this community choose to cut itself off from the outside world if it is so committed to experimenting with the forms that are supposed to save the outside world. I certainly got that impression while we were there, that the outside world was an encumbrance.

It is possible to do one-week volunteering sessions at a project in Auroville. But according to the German you get treated like a total outsider while you are there. You haven’t given yourself over to the Mother, you are not echt-Aurovillian.

I think that the isolation of the community is understated both as a draw for those who choose to devote their lives to the place and a drawback to those who idle through. There is something undeniably flat about the mood at Auroville. It has none of the dynamism that makes the city such a vibrant place to live and create.

An alternative form for an Auroville style community would be to redevelop some decrepit corner of a city into a similar place for research and experimentation into science and social forms.

In any case, Auroville has failed to foster meaningful ties with the world beyond and seems to be more than a little fascinated with owns universalist resplendence. For that reason it will always have the whiff of cult-compound, no matter how many solar panels it produces.