Pondicherry Travel Guide
Area : 32 sq km
Population : 401,000
Main Languages : Tamil, English & French
¤ East Coastal Region of India
 Though
nothing can really prepare you for the unusual and somewhat outlandish
jumble that is Pondicherry, one has to aver that the East Coast
Highway that connects Pondicherry to busy Chennai, is a nice ‘unwinding
do’. The superb highway stretches along the Coromandel Coast and
takes you through the suburban chic farmhouses of Chennai’s elite
– built way too close to the coast to pay much heed to ‘silly
little creatures’ like the olive Ridley turtle. The road then
goes through the pretty touristy town of Mamallapuram, with its line
of ‘solely for the white backpacker’ Kashmiri ‘emporiums’,
lined with kurtas (long-sleeved Indian shirt) and T-shirts printed
with the omnipresent, psychedelic ‘Om’, that one has yet to
see across the chest of an average god-fearing Indian. Then through
cashew nut groves and tiny villages that skirt paddy fields and
coconut trees, you travel along salt-processing fields to gradually
meet Pondicherry. The familiar unsavoury smells of a typical Indian
bus stand, and Pondicherry being no exception, will jolt you out of
your bus and bundle you into an auto-rikshaw in no time – unless
of course you decide to assert your right, ignore the cheesy ‘bonjour
madame/ monsieur’, refer to your handy guidebook and wrangle for
the right price…
¤ History
Anyway, on to more pleasant things and some good old-fashioned
information – Pondicherry was occupied by the French in 1674.
Apart from a brief period of dominion by the Dutch from 1693 to 1699,
and later in 1761 by the British, the region remained under French
rule till as late as 1954, after which the area became a part of the
Indian Union.
The town still retains a distinctive French flavour with its red
bonnet police force and the sprinkling of some beautiful colonial
buildings. Pondicherry has a French Conciliate, a French Research
Institute and a French Lycée or school, all of which are run by
the French government. Pondicherry University also has some exchange
programmes with a number of universities in France, the University of
Rennes being one of them. Hence Pondicherry has a certain French
population along with a sizeable number of Franco-Pondicherrians who
had fought for the French during the World Wars.
¤ Attractions of The Place
Aurobindo Ashram
 Another
well-known name associated with the town is that of the Aurobindo
Ashram, the brainchild of the Bengali revolutionary and philosopher
Aurobindo Ghosh and his ardent disciple Mirra Alfassa, popularly known
as ‘The Mother’, who took over from Aurobindo after his
death in 1950.
Founded in 1926, the Ashram is based on his philosophy of a
harmonious community and draws a constant stream of visitors travel
across the globe to India. You could visit the Ashram Centre at Rue de
la Marine, which has the samadhi (tomb) of the philosopher and his
living quarters amidst a pretty little garden of orchids and a variety
of other flowers. The International Centre which occasionally screens
a film, and the Library are just across the road. You can also visit
the Ashram’s Hand Made Paper Factory outlet to pick up some
excellent paper and diaries.
Not all seems fine between the Ashram and the locals. Perhaps the
malaise stems from the fact that the affluent Ashram is mainly run by
people from outside Pondicherry with a majority of Bengalis and
Oriyas, and the Ashram, as an institution, seems to do little in terms
of charity. Also, the nicest places in Pondicherry belong to the
Ashram, and outsiders including the locals are strictly off-limits.
Auroville Village
Auroville – the International Village is situated amongst
cultivated stretches of cashew nut plantations interspersed with
wilderness, at a distance of about 6km from the town. The settlement
is elaborated around the Matri Mandir or ‘the temple of the
Mother’ which has sporadically been under construction for
several years now.
However, the white marble meditation chamber is now complete and
contains a beautiful crystal on which the sun’s rays fall through
a strategically installed mirror.
The foundation of Auroville was laid in 1968, with the aim to
concretise the Mother’s dream of creating a settlement where
people would live in peace, their colour, creed and nationality
notwithstanding. The settlement drew a large number of people who
travel across the continents, especially Europe, many of whom still
continue to live in Auroville.
¤ The People
 The
community has well over a 1000 inhabitants, two thirds of whom are
foreigners. They are a self-contained community and their settlements
are spread across 20 acres of land.
Their work, especially in the area of alternative development,
architecture, agriculture and tree planting, is without doubt
praiseworthy. They also create an impressive range of handicrafts that
can be seen at the boutique in the Visitors Centre. Do glance through
their fine range of postcards on India.
A certain digression from the key philosophy of Auroville seems to be
palpable, especially with the second generation Aurovillians stung
with a certain sense of restless bohemia. Ironically, most of the
manual labour in Auroville is assured by the Tamilian villagers living
around these settlements. Undoubtedly, the Mother’s death in 1973
has left a spiritual and directional lacuna which is yet to be filled,
and Auroville very much remains what it started out as – an
experiment.
It would be interesting to see where it goes from here. One must
stress upon the fact that Auroville is not a tourist spot, but if you
are genuinely interested in knowing more about it then take a travel
trip to Auroville and spend stay for few more days, you will not be
discouraged by your decision.
¤ Auroville - Natural Therapy Centre
Auroville owns an interesting natural therapy centre called Quiet on
the beach. It is believed that Quiet is built on a stretch of blessed
land, where the Mother is said to have experienced a tremendous flow
of positive energy. The centre was also named by her. Well, even if
you do not swear by natural healing, you could try living here as it’s
a very fine place to stay, and one of the few places in the country
that is actually aptly named.
If interested, you could try some of their excellent massages and
baths, or meditate and exercise while Roberta Flack sings ‘The
first time ever I saw your face’. This is also one of the few
places where a baby can be delivered in water – said to be one of
the least painful processes of delivering a child. Quiet also has an
able doctor who practises homeopathy and comes here a couple of times
every week. If want to travel to this place for medical treatment then
advanced booking is recommended as Quiet is chockablock, especially
during the winter months.
¤ Restaurants
Hey, before one forgets, when in town, don’t miss pigging out in
fine restaurants like Le Club, Satsanga, Rendezvous, Le Terrace, Sea
Gulls, Surguru and the highway shack-restaurant called Riaaz. The
Riaaz has a lot of ambience, and you can spend hours here playing
chess, carom board or the guitar.
You could also try chatting with Riaaz – the owner, cook and
waiter of the restaurant, who is actually quite an interesting
character. A few miles down the road is the little shack called Puru’s
owned by the ever-smiling Purus who serves the best fish curry in
town.
¤ French Influence
 The
little town of Pondicherry has so much more than the slightly
overrated French influence, the Aurobindo Ashram and the pleasant
promenade, that it might surprise you. There is no point in even
trying to describe what this little 32sq km town is all about. Maybe
it’s the bizarre ethnic mix of people from across the world
coupled with a large Tamilian population.
Its typical, covered South Indian markets with colourful wizened old
women poring over baskets of snaking jasmine strands, and the rows of
folks selling coconut, banana, tapioca and ribbons – all adding
their own sing-song marketing strategy to the ever-present din.
Maybe it’s the unfathomable canvas of a myriad communities that
have remained insular at a certain level of existence. The black and
white burkha (a veil) clad Muslim women with their hardworking
menfolk, who still make a living out of their artistic genes, supply
Pondicherry with woodwork that varies from carved furniture to obscure
sculptures, to chilams (a hollow tapering object, made of clay, wood
or stone, used for smoking).
¤ Cultural Life
Pondicherry’s cultural life is inversely proportionate to its
size. The town is abuzz with concerts, films and the welcome madness
of psychedelia trance with a fair share of herbs thrown in.
It is almost impossible to capture the essence of Pondicherry in
one-liner nutshells.
It could be the fisherfolk who get their uncensored version of
Baywatch on Auro Beach as they see a deluge of bikini-clad bodies and
still go back home sozzled to the bone, and like their ancestors,
claim their conjugal rights of sex and wife beating. Or, the bearded
Dominque Baba with his little house built on stilts overlooking a
coconut garden with a Shivalinga (Shiva’s symbolic phallus) and
the sea, where he dances all day long in blissful isolation.
It could well be the heady amalgam of a large student population, as
Pondicherry has one of the best schools of medicine in the country –
Jipmer, and the Pondicherry University is known to be the place where
computer geeks, management nerds and budding ecologists and travellers
throw in their lot. Maybe it’s the gossipy, hoity-toity and
opulent French society, part of which lives in sprawling grand villas,
or their happy-go-lucky party-hopping other half, ‘stirred and
shaken’ with a constant influx of travellers, rastafarians,
musicians and half-baked philosophers that make Pondicherry the heady
blend that it is.
Curiously, Pondicherry is a town of extremes with loads of shiny
happy people and cheap booze, the highest per capita income and the
highest suicide rate in the country! Befittingly there seems little
method in the madness that is Pondicherry.
Note : For information on
the west coast town of Mahe, which falls under the Union Territory of
Pondicherry, please see Kozhikode in Kerala.
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