Skip to main content

About Pondicherry aka Puducherry

My two days in this city - state - union territory whatever you might call it are about to come to an end tonight and I proceed to see the temples built by the great Cholla kings two millennia ago.

What I discovered on my maiden voyage in this town is the following-


  • People are generally friendly and I found it extremely safe to be about in the evening hour in streets I had not seen in my life.  That to me is a big deal in India. 
  • Hospitality industry seems to have matured to the point where they will genuinely interact with you to help you rent a room - from a lodging establishment - or serve food as you like it in portion size you want.   As a single person I found some rate and tariffs unsuitable since they advertise for two but food vendor agreed to negotiate rather than lose the customer entirely.  This is progress.
  • Fairly tidy considering the filth predominant in many other cities including erstwhile conservative Pune.
  • taxi driver explained the layout as white neighborhood and black.   White is the French part and black the appas. That might include Hindu or Muslim folk.
  • City is one of few in India that is laid out in a grid and makes easy to get bearings.
  • Weather in summer is bad.  I think technically India is in monsoon season but lack of rain is evident with real feel of 90 with humidity.
  • visited a bunch of temples - two prominent ones included a 300 year old Vinayak aka Ganesh temple with a live young elephant for tourist entertainment outside and the newish 50 foot tall black granite Hanuman (remember he came before superman) on the outskirts of town in Tamilnadu state. Had to pay relatively steep toll for the same. Wrapped my wandering with a visit to the aurobindo ashram and new international city cum meditation faciliity called Auroville.
  • Finally learn to take things on Puducherry time where you will be forced to relax.  Which also means I could not tolerate it beyond a few days akin to Hawaii where the slow as molasses lifestyle means you get part of your warm bread to go with the curry that now went cold. 
  • Will post pictures describing the enterprise in a later blog. 

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

But What If We're Wrong?

I attempted to read this book by author Chuck Klosterman backward to forward but it started hurting my brain so I decided to stop and do it like any other publication in the English language.  Start from page 1 and move to the right. Witty, caustic and thought provoking this is a book you want to read if you believe that the status quo might, just might be wrong. At times bordering on being contrarian about most things around us it tries to zero in on the notion of what makes anything believable and certain in our minds.  The fact that there is a fact itself is ironic.  Something analogous to the idea that you can never predict the future because there is no future. Many books and movies have tried to play on this concept - best that I recollect (I think I am) was 'The Truman Show'.  This book by Klosterman attempts to provoke the reader to at least contemplate that what they think they know may be wrong. He uses examples like concept of gravity, and how it ...

Peru, South America - Week well spent

Growing up in India the only Peru I knew of was a tropical fruit (Guava for those whose lingua is English).   Not until high school did I discover that it was also a country in the South American continent. So it was this early April week that we decided to hit up Peru - the land of the once glorious Inca people that lived 500 years ago.  Today Peru is the third largest country on that continent with a diverse geography that stretches from the drier Pacific coast plains to the high mountains of the Andes and the Amazon river valley to its east. Our trip was primarily a pilgrimage of sorts to visit the last remaining, lost (now found and documented), large scale, mostly undamaged, city of the Inca nobility, called Machu Picchu (MP).  The Inca were great architects and builders.  MP is a UNESCO world heritage site affording it high visibility to the tourism trade and therefore crowded year round.  Our timing was not quite high season allowing us...

You are important to us

Followed by piano music.   Followed by 'we are experiencing heavier than usual call volume'.  Sounds macabre like bleeding during menstruation or after a ghastly attack with a weapon on a hemophiliac.  Sorry Mrs. Johnson but it appears little Gertrude here has been bleeding heavier than usual what with her night time activities competing with the woodchucks in your neighborhood. Some services even go as far as to pick a random day to say - 'if you were to call us during the Chinese lunar month when the moon is axiomatically hugging the polar star with Jupiter intravenous when call volume is light'.  Well I will be damned.  I thought  I had checked with my astrologer before I placed this well focused call but  I guess this is what you get for listening to a quack. Umph! I am not sure which marketing genius came up with this personal touch concept of informing the caller that you are really a jackass for actually calling the customer serv...