{"id":3333,"date":"2021-05-15T10:22:47","date_gmt":"2021-05-15T05:52:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/adventure.auroville.com\/?p=3333"},"modified":"2022-05-06T13:11:54","modified_gmt":"2022-05-06T08:41:54","slug":"being-part-of-the-experiment-ashwin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/adventure.auroville.com\/index.php\/2021\/05\/15\/being-part-of-the-experiment-ashwin\/","title":{"rendered":"Being Part of the Experiment: Ashwin"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

If there isn\u2019t the aspect of a kick-in-the-butt, then you\u2019re not moving forward.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMy parents were the ones that moved here. My father was from one of the neighbouring villages, Sanjeevi Nagar to be precise. He moved to Auroville when he was 17 years old and started working around Auroville. This was during the 70\u2019s. Then he got married to my mom and soon I was born.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I grew up in the Bharat Nivas campus (The Indian Pavilion). My father used to work there. One of my earlier memories from my childhood is of my brother and I playing around the area which had this big banyan tree. It was very free, we had so much time to just explore nature and climb trees. There were no real restrictions and people working in the campus were friendly and welcoming, nobody would tell us \u2018Hey don\u2019t do this, don\u2019t do that.\u2019 One time I was teaching my brother how to cycle down this slope, when he was five years old. My brother was doing it without practice wheels for the first time. He said \u2018Don\u2019t let go,\u2019 and of course after holding on for a while, I let him go and he didn\u2019t know to stop. He managed to slow down without getting too hurt [laughs<\/em>]. But we were very much just left to our own devices, our parents had this trust that nothing bad was going to happen. So we could keep discovering and figuring things out without anyone monitoring us and telling us what to do. I think that is still very much the reality for most kids growing up in Auroville.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During my schooling, I used to do a lot of sports and we used to have this event called the Aurolympics.\u00a0 It was a challenging sports competition but there was this team aspect that I really enjoyed. And it wasn\u2019t really like a competition where you put the other one down, we were supporting each other. You\u2019re trying to get the best out of yourself, using the team to help as well. I learned from that a lot. As I was getting older, I was also given the opportunity to start teaching sports. Whatever I learned, I tried to share with the younger ones. That was my first exposure to teaching, which I still do to this day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the time, Future School, the high school of Auroville that provides exams, hadn\u2019t been fully established yet. But when it was time for me to do my secondary schooling, they started offering that possibility for youngsters, who otherwise would have to leave if they wanted a high school certificate. So now I had a choice. I could stay, instead of having to leave to get a \u2018certified\u2019 education.<\/p>\n\n\n\n