Remembering Roger Anger!

The name of Roger Anger was (and is) intimately woven with
Auroville. During the early years of Auroville, every introductory
pamphlet or article would mention him as the Chief Architect of the
“new international town”. Personally, for me, it was one of the joys
and blessings of life to have come in touch with him, however
briefly. I recall a few memories.

The year 1993!

Auroville 25!
An article of mine “Consciously Cultivating a Dream” was published
in Auroville Today, though anonymously as per my then wish! The
article starts from the words “Our Chief Architect Roger Anger ….”
and ends with a quote of the Mother that ends with “Sri Aurobindo”
(“Let your imagination be moulded by your faith in Sri Aurobindo”).
Some time after that, I had a dream. Roger was playing Tennis and
hits a ball. It raises high in the sky and comes down straight to me
in the middle of the ground where I was standing. I lift my right
hand and catch the ball with superb felicity, effortlessly. The dream
experience could easily be interpreted. It conveys how happy and
fulfilling Roger must have felt that one of his casual remarks
(“Aurovilians have forgotten to dream”) was picked up by another
Aurovilian and became a basis to develop a vitally important theme
on the occasion of Auroville’s 25th anniversary. Later, when I saw
Roger at Bharat Nivas, he waved hand at me from distance and I too
reciprocated, even though we had never met or talked to each other
before!
When the Land Fund office moved from CSR to the Town Hall, the
occasion to come across each other multiplied. We always greeted
each other from distance and waved hand. Occasionally, on the
staircase or the corridor, we came face to face, I would shake his
hand or offer salutations, feeling special about greeting the Mother’s
man and ally for Auroville.

Roger and Jacqueline were always accompanied by Louis Cohen.

So, once I asked him curiously, “Are you Roger’s younger brother”?
Louis seemed to welcome the question and, to the amusement of
all, told gaily that he was in fact Roger’s brother, uncle, cousin,
grand uncle, great grand uncle, friend, mentor, secretary! It shows
how Roger had integrated in his life a close friend and colleague.

“As we grow old, the need and the aspiration to grow spiritually also
grows” – Late Eleanor once said to this effect in an interview to
Auroville Today. This was certainly true for Roger. In a child like
simplicity, he once said in his interaction with some Auroville
working groups that spiritual sadhana has to be the real basis of life
and work in Auroville. This was just a year before his passing and, in
a way, says that he, or something in him, was aware of his
approaching departure, or, if I say so, the “separation” of the soul
from the body.

It was surprise for me to know Roger was an artist as well. Never,

nowhere, it was mentioned, no exhibition of his art, to my
knowledge, was ever got organized in Auroville while he was with
us. Art was perhaps Rogers’ intimate personal life, his joy, and he
wanted to keep it to himself. After his passing, when Paulette put up
the exhibition of his paintings and architecture at the Town Hall, and
when as I saw it for the first time, I had the momentary feeling that
Roger was there, invisibly present and telling me, “Look, look here
and here and here”. The exhibition remained there for a few
months. Before going to work at the first floor of the Town Hall, I
would spend a few minutes seeing the pictures. Gradually, they
begin to impress upon me Roger’s aesthetics side. I begun to see
how he has projected on paper his inner world made up of images,
visions and the wordless “language” of his inspirations, how he has
blended visible with the invisible, in sharp red, yellow, brown and
black designs and motifs. It even seems that at heart Roger was
first and foremost an artist, a dreamer, a lover of languages of
images and symbols, and architecture was only an extension, a
natural outcome which became his profession, his career and a way
to manifest his perceptions in the material forms of structures. I felt
I knew Roger more after he left the body! The exhibition at Town
Hall has recently been taken off but a book on his art and
architecture has been promised and that surely will be a valuable
addition in Auroville literature.

I do not know if Roger has written on art or architecture or any other

topics. But some of the replies he gave to Auroville Today in 1988
reveal his thoughtfulness and his intellectual side and his
aspirations and are of immense value: they are unforgettable. We
in Auroville will do well to pay heed to them.

“Auroville Today: (in 1989) A city with 650 inhabitants is a

village. How to bring in the 50,000 inhabitants Mother spoke of?

Roger: “I think one has to convince the Indian Government that

Auroville represents a stupendous chance for the country – for its
image as well as for its future – but I think they have already
understood this. It must be India that helps propel Auroville into an
international dimension. And in this way the whole world helps
Auroville as India already has,…. For instance, the fields of
electronics and afforestation are examples of the type of help
Auroville can provide India. For instance, let us create the University
of Human Unity. This could become a centre of thought as regards
the bringing together of nations to fight against segregation and all
the problems of racism and division. It could bring universal
understanding with regard to the safe keeping of Peace and Nature.
This all lies within our capacities. It is a dimension Mother always
wanted from Auroville. If we could understand the necessity of this
dimension, it could create a second wind for Auroville. The more we
are demanding of ourselves and the higher we set our sights, the
more chance we will have to be understood by the governments and
to receive international assistance.”

Question: When Auroville will be completed, what will Auroville be?

Roger: “Auroville will undertake a perpetual search for the future

with beings of high quality who will have, for a great deal, overcome
their limitations, achieved a true communication, a true fraternity,
based on openness, and an understanding of the other in a beautiful
and harmonious environment within the context of an exceptional
city, where each man’s dream will be part of life, and where
experience will always renew itself, integrated in an unending
consciousness of spiritual values incarnated in matter, as well as a
harmonious balance with nature. I believe Auroville will be a place
where man’s fear of not being able to live at the level’s of his
expectations of himself will be overcome. A certain form of human
ego will have been left behind. Conflicts and blows will be
stimulating instead of destructive. Auroville will be a beautiful city,
whose children will be beautiful. I believe in ‘The sun-eyed children’
(‘of a marvellous dawn’) And I also believe there will be many more
Aurovilles in the world, each one different, bearing relation to the
particular problems of each country. I believe Auroville will finally
become united to an inner law and then it will be like a lighthouse –
an unbelievable fire. But one will have to remain vigilant and not
allow oneself to become a sect.”

We can say than that this was Roger’s message to us, his advice:
Dream the city in the dimensions the Mother “dreamed” – yes, the
universal township, -
the Earth-Queen. Convince the Government of India and the people
of India, the Government of Tamil Nadu and the people of Tamil
Nadu that Auroville represents “a stupendous chance for the
country (and the states) – for its image as well as for its future.”
Then, there will be second wind for Auroville.

Though Roger is no more with us physically, I believe he is still

there, in the heart and soul of Auroville. If we reach there, we will
surely see him there, happy, in “splendid soft repose.”

“As might a soul fly like a hunted bird,

Escaping with tired wings from a world of storms,
And a quiet reach like a remembered breast,
In a haven of safety and splendid soft repose
One could drink life back in streams of honey-fire,
Recover the lost habit of happiness,
Feel her bright nature's glorious ambience,
And preen joy in her warmth and colour's rule.”

Savitri
Part One,
Book 1, Canto 2