"Auroville is a part of something so much larger. If you come here for the city only, you're deceived."

Since 1995, Emanuele (known in Auroville as Lele) has been embellishing various Auroville publications (and this website) with his delightful observations and illustrations. Born in Milano in 1966, Lele found himself drawing greeting cards at the age of sixteen, which his father would sell to printers all over Europe connected to his publishing company. Lele's artistic streak may well have been inherited from his grandmother, Judy, who among other things designed props for the Scala di Milano, and who may also have transferred to young Lele her love for the Mother and Sri Aurobindo and what they stand for.

Being basically self-taught, Emanuele went through stages of mere copying, studying art and getting into nature. His natural talent emerged so easily and so swiftly that it's clear that, as he muses, he "may have worked a lot on art in a previous life."

It's only during the last 4 to 5 years that his more humouristic side came out into the open. "I don't know how it happened; I never really did it before," he says in his quiet, dreamy way. "Sometimes I read or hear a word or sentence and a complete image opens up which I then put down on paper." However, Emanuele is not content with these sort of illustrations, and considers them too immature. He appreciates the work of cartoonists like Quino, Sempe, Cavazzano and Moebius, but doesn't see himself as a cartoonist at all. "I illustrate, I describe... I call these sketches 'frail draughts of love'.."

Lele has been associated with Auroville throughout his life, but there have been times that he wasn't too inspired by it. It was only when some external circumstances brought him here that he took a really good look and.. stayed! Presently Emanuele is fully settled in Auroville, with partner and child, and has created around him the atmosphere needed for him to let things flow: by illustrating, by painting delicate little miniatures with inks, acrylics and tempera, and by discovering a new way of expression - painting the rough surfaces of granite slabs or other natural stones and marble, - liberating their hidden dimensions and bringing them to life.