The trust didn’t hold back for Juliette’s and my first time in an aeroplane: three seats in business on an A380. We travelled in a bedroom on the top deck of a flying monster. I didn’t sleep and nor did my daughter. We stretched out on our sides, glued to each other, heads on a pillow watching the sun rise over a sea of clouds. It was magical. Hildegarde, for her part, was hardcore anti-flying because of the carbon footprint of planes. She slept like a log with her feet hanging over the end of the bed by 40 centimetres, snoring to top it all off.

On arrival in Chennai, and just a stone’s throw from the airport, we copped a dose of India smack in the face: the oxcarts, the colours, the destitution, the thousands of scooters and motorcycles, the millions of cars, the unbreathable air, the heat, the rubbish, the enormous birds, the cripples, the Middle Ages with mobile phones, cows on the loose, more heat, horns blaring, people shitting in the street . . . it took a lot more than that to unnerve me and Hildegarde; death, suffering, the lack of any normality, and the deformity . . . we knew it all by heart. As for Juliette, provided she wasn’t being served up dodgy, distorted notions of reality, she was happy. But it came as no surprise to me that so many innocent tourists totally lose it after a few days in this country and end up completely prostrate in a corner of their hotel room, in acute decompensation.

After four hours on the road, India all of a sudden stopped being India and gave way to the peacefulness of the forest, with rows of white pyramids emerging from the vegetation, giant mushrooms punctured by windows, structures in the shape of flying saucers, and old VW Kombi vans, their faded bodywork hinting at the journey from Europe in the ’70s. White people everywhere. Tourists wandering around in ethno-chic clothes and busy-looking Aurovillians getting about on motorbikes with blond kids sitting behind them, hair blowing in the wind.

We’d made it.

On the way there, I had read that Auroville was the most significant reforestation and soil regeneration program in the world and that the pioneers had planted 2 million trees in that red, arid soil where previously there had been absolutely nothing. As a result, numerous species of birds and animals had returned, accelerating the dissemination of seeds and creating a truly gigantic forest with its own microclimate. It was true, it felt less hot than elsewhere and the surrounding natural landscape was spectacular.