Week 1: Nadav

It’s the first attempt of the invite-random-Aurovilians-Human-Food-Unity-scheme, and we’re already cheating. We were too busy to cook, so we had the amma do the dirty work for us. In my mind, the food served is a reflection of the tastes and personalities of the chef—a way for the guest to discover a little more about their random dinner host. But, time is of the essence, and we enjoyed a myriad of delicious South Indian specialties.

Our guest at Lumière, Nadav, went above the call of duty and made an incredible pasta salad as well. Through this gesture, we learned our first surprise factoid: Nadev used to be a popular chef in Israel before coming to Auroville! Here, he works at EVFuture and is currently house-sitting as he pursues that tedious newcomer adventure of finding a permanent place to stay.

To make everyone as comfortable as possible, we invited several others (less randomly): Akash and Monica, who know us as well as Nadav, and a couple of guests passing through Auroville that share our love of nature. It turns out that Nadev also loves Greenbelt-type work and had lived in Sadhana Forest.

We laughed a lot. We spoke of many things: the MMS craze, capsule life, articles from the most recent News & Notes.

When we shared the details of the Human Food Unity plan, Nadav was so excited he too wanted to participate as a host—he was just a bit hesitant to call and invite a random Aurovilian… With relative grace and ease, Martanda did the job for him, and next Monday Nadav will host his first random Aurovilian for dinner.

We too arranged our next guest… Check back next week to hear how our adventures go!

An Idea Is Born...

Where did this idea come from? good question..
i think it was at the top of the hat.

  In a nutshell:

  Invite once a week for dinner a person or family you randomly choose from the telephone directory/AVNet/master list :)
  If each one did this we would get to know one another little by little. Imagine the chain reaction it would create!
  We have begun this effort at Lumière,Auroville, India. This week we will randomly dine with Nadav..
  Try it at your place :) Next Monday we encourage you to do the same! You can share the news or let us know; we can gather the stories in a weekly News & Notes column, and we invite you to participate or follow this Human Food Unity blog..
  Lets get this going! I dare you right now to open up the directory, close your eyes, and spontaneously pick the name of your next dinner guest..