Kothandaraman Arumugam (Raman)

Kothandaraman Arumugam grew up in a village near Auroville and had his first contact with Auroville in 1968 when he witnessed a huge commotion of people and cars gathered and later found out that it was the inauguration of the international township, Auroville. Since then, Auroville has been his home and his mission. 

He started by helping to build the wall around the Matrimandir amphitheatre and eventually joined the Matrimandir workshop. Someone noticed his skill and invited him to join Roger Anger’s office as an architect apprentice. He joined and spent many years drafting, making models and small house designs. When The Mother passed away in 1973, things in the office slowed down and Ramen moved into farming work and then travelled around India for one year, working where he could to earn money and continue travelling.

From 1983 he worked in Matrimandir for about 12 years before joining Roger Anger again, this time in Bharat Nivas to work on the Galaxy Plan. After two years, he decided to start working on his own, designing low-cost housing for those with less money. In 2002, he moved into filming with the interest of making small documentaries on what the surrounding villagers thought about Auroville which had been in existence for 34 years already. He also interviewed Aurovillians for their thoughts on how Auroville is handling money in the context of Mother’s call for a no-money ideal society.

Throughout his many adventures within Auroville, Ramen always had a search within him. Since he was a young boy, he was a Bhakti. Although this took the form of the traditional pujas and other rituals when he was a young boy, when he came into Auroville, his quest became deeper and yet, more simple. He senses that his initial connection to Lord Shiva may have been through the ancient Irumbai Shiva temple close to his village. Although he couldn’t understand the texts, he became passionate about reading various Tamil spiritual texts since the early 90s, especially Shaivite Saint Mannikkavasagar’s Thiruvasagam and Samandhar’s Thevaram. He remembers going to the beach in the early morning hours (called Brahma Muhurtham) with his copy of Thiruvasagam and making a small heap of sand with space inside to place an oil lamp to light his book as he blindly chanted without knowing the meaning. He madly deepens himself daily into these texts, feeling himself fortunate to have come across this ancient priceless wisdom.