was eagerly begun — and then the 
dream began to turn sour. A pilgrim re- 
sort, much like a tourist resort, may or 
may not be a blessing to the local com- 
munity. Too much depends on the 
highly variable and fluctuating quality 
of the pilgrims/tourists themselves, on 
what they import with them and what 
( they leave behind. Unfortunately, Aur- 
oville quickly attracted some of the 
youthful flotsam of America and Eu- 
rope, young people who felt that the 
world owed them a life of nothing but 
ease and pleasure. They also had an 
ideal of sorts, but it was far different 
from that of the founders of Auroville. 
Instead of a life of discipline, dedica- 
tion, and service, they wanted nothing 
more than to live under the palm trees 
on the beaches, free to indulge in the 
latest fashions in sex and drugs. Drug 
smuggling brought in the police, the ex- 
cess of freedom brought anarchy, and 
many of the dedicated Aurovillans sim- 
ply left to pursue their dream else- 
where. All construction work stopped, 
and by last year, the amphitheater was 
overgrown with weeds and inhabited 
only by snakes and lizards. The farm- 
land was a desert; the roads all but im- 
passable. The great Matri Mandir rears 
its framework up into the sky, an ugly 
skeleton of unfinished concrete and 
rusting steel. The population has 
shrunk to a bare handful, rent by dis- 
sension and charges of racism, bigotry, 
profiteering, and immorality. Auroville 
stands as a monument to the emptiness 
of a dream in which discipline and total 
dedication had no part. 
While both pilgrimage and tourism 
involve hard realities for communities 
that become resort centers, they have 
more than this in common. They both 
stimulate dreams that, however un- 
matched by reality, have the ability to 
enrich and enlighten, giving the dream- 
er fresh hope and fresh life. Unlike re- 
ality, dreams do no harm to others, and 
more often than not, they do incalcu- 
lable good in terms of both social and 
spiritual consciousness. There is no 
question as to the social benefits of pil- 
grimage in India, and insofar as dreams 
are the stuff that tourism, at its best, is 
made of, we have to admit of at least the 
potential of spiritual benefit from tour- 
ism. India shows us just how closely 
tourism and pilgrimage are connected. 
Colin Turnbull, formerly associate cu- 
rator of African ethnology at the Ameri- 
can Museum of Natural History, is 
visiting professor of anthropology at 
George Washington University. 
DISCOVERY 
TOUR TO 
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Discover the world of 
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February 9-25, 1982. For further information and itineraries write to the 
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