each other; a kind of family, with the older children looking after the younger ones. Sex was a hot topic of discussion. Being only nine I knew little of the facts of life, until they were graphically, alarmingly described by my Auroville peers. I heard of acts between fellow pupils, acts with children from the surrounding Tamil villages, and even what I would now regard as serious child abuse by adults.

Indeed, my sister twice had to fend off an attempted attack by an adult who'd persistently tried to get her to accept a lift home on his bicycle.

There were terrifying incidents of indecent exposure. We children rationalised the alleged abuse as something - along with snakes, monsoons and scorpions - that you just had to deal with in Auroville.

The solidarity among us was part Lord of the Flies, part Jonestown cult. Together we shared a hatred of the local Tamil children, who would apparently engage in sex for as little as five rupees, and those who'd been excluded from school for various

misdemeanours. I suffered this fate myself when I was wrongfully convicted of stealing a purse by a self-appointed 'council' of children. I was banned from the primary school, no longer welcome in my lodgings, distrusted even by the adults and sent to live in an isolated hut on stilts in a wood. I found the solitude strengthening; I made friends with two other exotically-named outcasts - Gandalf and Mooney. Despite the horrors, there was something hopeful and well-meaning about the place.

After my mother separated from her partner and fell ill we returned to the UK. Naive young people come to Auroville searching for spiritual contentment. Although it espouses a seemingly charitable philosophy of living in harmony with nature and your neighbours, and although it attracts the support of the United Nations and the Indian Government, the community fails in its most basic purpose. Auroville just doesn't know how to care for the people who come there.