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 When you are far away from home, you miss
certain things. Auroville, in the middle of the eastern world, is full
of people from the western world. As rice is the most common food in
Asia, Europeans and Americans hardly find their favourites: bread and
good cake. Fortunately Auroville is not a blank spot on the culinary
map, as it has the most delightful bakery in the whole area. Here your
cravings for all kinds of bread and pastry can be fulfilled; sweet
dreams come true. But how did it all start?
1981
When Otto came from Austria to Auroville in 1981,
two small bakeries already existed. One was situated in the Aspiration
community, the other - founded by American Larry and later run by
Tamilian Sundaram - was in the Kottakarai settlement, where a small oven
had been built. Wheat from government rations was used to bake the
bread. Unfortunately, the cheap quality of the grains did not lead to
top quality results, but it was a start. Otto joined the experiment,
although he had no experience in baking whatsoever. His background in
Vienna was banking, and besides that rational job he spent his free time
running a discotheque!
Excellent experience
"I always wanted to be independent, and in
Auroville I wanted to do something completely different than I did
before. In the beginning I thought of doing pottery, but the potters
asked for full committment for the week. In the bakery, they were even
happy if you would come for one day.. It was an excellent experience,
even if you swept the floor, it didn't matter. The work was very
physical and hard, quite taxing. We were a good team; no-one was the
boss", remembers Otto. There were no helpers to do the cleaning;
3-4 Aurovilians worked in 2-3 shifts per week; and no-one was paid. Some
local grains like ragi and varagu were tried out: the output was � loaf
of bread per person for 2 days.
Ganesh bakery
The learning process went on until 1985 when
Sundaram left to continue fulltime his social and mediation work in the
villages, which he had done before with Village Action. In 1994, he
started his own little Ganesh bakery, which still exists in Kottakarai.
One of the aims behind Ganesh bakery is to also function as a training
centre for young villagers and a research centre for use of local,
organic grains.
Auroville Bakery
Meanwhile,
in the main bakery, the first non-Aurovilian workers were employed. They
also had to learn from zero. The working circumstances were bad. One
oven under a keet roof, no walls, wooden fences, a frame for a second
oven, but the metal parts had to be shared. And, of course, termites and
rats. "Professionals shook their heads. We had to move the bread up
to 3 times from oven to oven, from here to there. A wonder it was
eatable", says Otto.
Together with Jean-Denis he kept the operation
going, and with the increasing income from cookies and biscuits plus a
loan from Aurelec they were able to build a new Auroville Bakery in
Douceur, where it is still situated.
Drawings from the Ashram
"We got the drawings for the oven from the
Ashram.. Jean-Denis was supervising, Pierre was the constructor, I
continued with the production. Later Jean-Denis quit, and I went to
Europe. When I returned the new bakery was completed", Otto
recalls.
He went on with his dream of independence, and joined the Pour Tous
experiment, where he founded the Central Fund for the Financial Service
in 1990.
International collaboration
Many Aurovilians have spent time in the bakery and
made their experiences with dough and sugar. Francis, Govinda, Judith,
Agnes from Darkali, Agnes from Hermitage, Maike and Katrin, to name just
a few, have all given their inputs, changed and improved working
circumstances and quality of the goodies, got up in the middle of the
night to start working, sweated at the ovens, kept their patience at the
counter during rush hours, and probably had a lot of fun, too.
New young crew
 In
the year 2000 the whole crew changed once more. Presently the Bakery is
run and managed mostly by young Aurovilians. Some of them are working
there already for quite some time, like Iyenar, an Aurovilian who grew
up in Kuilapalayam and joined the team in 1994, after his studies.
Iyenar has never baked himself: he was always responsible for the sales
and Pour Tous accounts. But he has seen all these people coming and
going. "That Fench baker came and showed Jackie how to make
croissants. This is our best selling item, so far."
Home-far-away-from-home
These pastries, that make western residents feel
home-far-away-from-home, are indeed incredibly good. Some people from
Pondy drive all the way to get their weekend supply. But not only the
French pastry is smashing, try the grand variety  of cakes like Tosca and
Mazariner, lemon- and chocolate cakes, fruit-filled tartlettes, creamy
puffs, brioches, cookies of all kinds. Not everything is sweet, there is
kn�ckebrot, pumpernickel, a whole range of healthy breads (wholewheat,
yeast, sourdough, samai, ragi). You name it, the Bakery sells it.
Small caf� in the back garden
Iyenar tells us that there had been plans to offer
coffee and tea together with the cakes, but different opinions never led
to a satisfying result. Now, finally, the new young management team have
made it happen, opening a small caf� in the back garden with colourful
wooden chairs and tables under shady trees, where you can munch your
just-bought sweets with a good cup of hot drink or juice. Inside,
Aurovilians Sita (German), Iyenar (Tamilian), EIumalai (Tamilian), Jackie
(French), Mathew (French), Sudha (Indian) and Tanja ( Ukranian) do their utmost to keep up the good standard,
and ensure that Auroville always has a full breakfast table.
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