The Story of The Ashram Main Building

Perspectives and Elevations

Pondicherry Town

The plans for building the town of Pondicherry were first prepared by the Dutch and later developed by the French during their occupation. The oval shaped town had a series of parallel roads running east to west and north to south with roads on the periphery marking the limits of the town area. These roads were called the North, South, East and West Boulevards, beyond which were villages and agricultural lands. The town was practically divided by a Canal running from north to south, which carried drainage as well as rain water to the sea. To the east of this Canal were mostly administrative offices and residences of French officials built in the French Renaissance style. This area of the town between the Canal to the west and the Bay of Bengal to the east was called the "White Town". The remaining area west of the Canal was occupied by the people of Pondicherry. The houses in this area were built in the traditional Tamil style.

Method of Construction

Both for the traditionally built houses to the west of the Canal and for the French style houses to the east, the same materials and method of construction were used. The walls were about 60 cm thick and made up of brickwork, with a layer of bricks in lime mortar after every few layers of bricks in mud mortar. The wall surface was plastered inside and outside with lime mortar. The floors were built according to the then existing method called Madras terracing. This method utilised heavy wooden main beams to support joists or smaller wooden beams.

On this was laid a flooring about 20 cm thick made up of layers of thin bricks placed vertically in lime mortar and running diagonal to the joists. The final layer of bricks was placed horizontally and the top finished in lime mortar. The old buildings of the Library house, Meditation house and Rosary house were built in this way.

Construction of the Ashram Main Building

The new construction that took place on the north and west sides of the Ashram main building has load-bearing brick walls in cement mortar and not in mud mortar as in the older buildings. The notice board verandah and water filter passage have Madras terracing on steel joists. Pavitra's office and the garage for Mother's car have Madras terracing on wooden joists and beams. The north block consisting of Nirodbaran's room, the Bulletin Office and Dyuman's room has precast reinforced cement concrete (R.C.C.) rafters on which has been laid the R.C.C. floor. In this block, semicircular arches in brickwork were made above the door and window openings. The Mother's Room on the second floor is built on R.C.C. columns, beams and slabs. But the roofing for further extensions - the bathroom, the Music Room and the balcony on the east - were done with lightweight asbestos sheets. Similarly, for the extension on the south-east corner on the first floor (Abhay Singh's room) asbestos sheets were used. This was done to avoid heavy loads on the old walls below.

Ramakant Navelkar ¹⁷

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Construction of the New Secretariat

The construction of the New Secretariat is the biggest change that the Ashram building has undergone from 1929 up to the present. Unlike the other three houses where much of the old structure remains intact, nothing remains of the old building except bits of the compound wall. It was so well integrated into the structures of the Meditation House and Library House that it is now difficult to distinguish it from the other houses. The New Secretariat was built in two stages.

Stage One (1929-1930) was the construction of the reverse L-shaped Balcony block, ground and first floor, providing one long hall and a room for Pavitra upstairs and a place for his workshop (Atelier) downstairs. It left the old building intact and used the courtyard west of it — the space now occupied by the portico and garage of the Mother's car. It also partly covered the area of the Library House where an old garage had to be demolished for the purpose — the space now occupied by Andre's office. It was around this time that the Notice Board verandah probably got its new roof (the old tiled roof was removed) so that Champaklal's terrace was extended to more than twice its original size. The old garage facing Rue de la Marine was also demolished and the bathrooms west of the men's lavatory were constructed in its place.

Stage Two (1931-1932) was the demolition of Pavitra's old house and the construction of the connecting corridor and rooms joining the Balcony block with the Meditation House. The Mother's Salon, the connecting corridor of which the Green Room (the Mother's Boudoir) is a part, and the rooms on the ground floor then occupied by Dyuman, Radhanand and Chandulal (later by Prafull, Bulletin Office and Nirodbaran) are all part of Stage Two.

Construction of the Prosperity Block

Stage Three (1931-1932) was the building of the Prosperity Block (Prosperity Office and Stores) in the open courtyard to the north of the Library House. The ground floor and basement of this portion was joined with the Balcony block on the west. The garage beside the old Dining Room on the north-west corner of the Library House was demolished at this stage.

The term "Stage Three" has been used more as a convenience than to denote a precise chronological sequence, as work on the Prosperity Block seems to have overlapped with Stage Two.

Construction of the Cold Storage Block

Stage Four (1935) was the building of what is now the Cold Storage downstairs, including its machine room. It joins the Prosperity Office to the north and the main building of the Library House to the south. The old Dining Room was demolished at this stage.

Editor's Note

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Chronology of Construction (1929-1935)

The Secretariat and Library House were bought respectively on 23 March 1929 and 6 April 1929. Construction of the Balcony block began within a few months of their purchase and was finished around October 1930. The old building of the Secretariat was demolished in February 1931. The first floor was coming up when Nagin Doshi joined the Ashram in June 1931 and worked as a supervisor in the Building Service. The connecting corridor and rooms of Stage Two were ready with the Prosperity block still under construction on 1 January 1932 when Chandulal requested the Mother to inspect the new building. The Mother gave ten minutes for the inspection. Priority was given to finishing the Mother's rooms on the first floor, and, according to Dyuman, the Mother's Salon (the room above the Bulletin Office) was opened on 24 April 1932. This seems to have been celebrated by a music programme during which Dilip and Sahana sang in front of the Mother in the Meditation Hall downstairs. The ground floor was taken up next and Dyuman occupied his new room on 21 June 1932, two days after his 29th birthday. On this day, the Mother snipped selected portions from the manuscript of her Prayers and Meditations and distributed them to the sadhaks during a "Prosperity meeting" in the Library House. The Prosperity block came next. Purushottam, the sadhak in charge of Prosperity, moved into it in July 1932, but the electrical wiring of the entire block was completed only in September 1932. On 4 January 1934 the Dining Room and Kitchen were shifted to Aroumé, their present premises beside the Governor's house. The construction of what is now the ground floor of the Cold Storage block (Stage Four), was begun in January 1935 after demolishing the old Dining Room, and completed in August of the same year.

Later Constructions (1935-1962)

The later constructions, except for the Mother's second floor rooms which form a separate section, have not been gone through in detail. The following rooms, in brief, were added on the terraces of the Ashram building after 1935:

(1)The Fruit Room on the first floor on the north-west corner of the Ashram building was built in 1948.

(2)The Mother's Room on the second floor, overlooking the Samadhi, was built in 1953.

(3)Abhay Singh's and Navajat's rooms on the terraces of the Rosary House were built in 1955.

(4)Ravindra's rooms on the first floor of the Cold Storage Block were completed in January 1958.

(5)The Mother's Music Room and balcony on the east side were completed in December 1962.

Editor's Note

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Perspectives of the Ashram Main Building

Perspective from south-east (1929)

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What you see in the centre of the courtyard is not the Samadhi but the three tanks that were built in 1930 for construction work. Refer to chapter on the Samadhi.

Perspective from south-east (1947)

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Perspective from south-east (2000)

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Elevations of the Ashram Main Building

Changes in the North Elevation (1)

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Changes in the North Elevation (2)

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Changes in the South Elevation

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Changes in the West Elevation

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Changes in the East Elevation

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First Four Stages of the Construction

View of Old Secretariat from north-west before reconstruction (1922-1929)

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Balcony block built. Old Secretariat not yet demolished (1930)

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Stage Two of the Construction

Old Secretariat demolished. It was at this point of time that a temporary bridge was built on the scaffolding for the Mother to go from the Meditation House to the Balcony block. See pages 78-82.

June 1931

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New Secretariat and Prosperity block built (1932)

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Stage Four of the Construction

Ground floor of Cold Storage block built (1935)

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