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

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Costa Rica

 Our first foray into Central America. That elongated isthmus that forms the geographic boundary between two vast continents of North and South America. Specifically landing for NYE 2026 in San Jose, Costa Rica. Capital city for this region that does not have its own army, instead relying on its big bro the Estados Unidos to the north is a metropolis of approx. 500K people. Largely wilderness and with both a Pacific and Carribean/Atlantic coast the country is rich in bio diversity. In Spanish it means the rich coast so named by Columbus landing in early 16th century and being mesmerized by the local tribes sporting gold jewelry.   Our stay included visiting the foothills of a large strato volcano called Arenal and enjoying the naturally heated thermal baths for a while.  Lunching amidst lush forest and watching indigenous species of avian noise makers fly overhead. Toucans, some sort of pea hens, multiple song bird species completed the spectacle. Iguanas and a lonel...
Post a Comment
Read more

Charges attract

It is said that opposites attract meaning people with contrary viewpoint sometimes find chemistry to be together.  But I'm referring to a modern twist where people are merely attracted towards a common place because their uber communication device aka smart phone is about to die.  The charging station. From airports to hotel lobbies or even bathrooms, when in need they are attracted to this power outlet like moths to a flame or a junkie to a needle. A whole new business of supplying these hyper connected folks is now born whose lifesaver product is a backup charge. Asian tourists perpetually carry a phone sized battery pack stuck to their latest Apple phone updating their status to folks in Hong Kong or Shanghai or Bangalore as they pose for selfies with weird facial expressions and fingers pointed out in a letter V. Vain? PS:  I dis'charged' my blogger duties making this insightful observation as my phone is about to breathe it's last and my flight gets call...
2 comments
Read more

Back in DC

This time for a tech conference in the realm of what else? AI. But applied to an oft neglected space called Knowledge Management. The latter is a community of practice that focuses on analyzing, organizing and making available reams of data that have been gathered over time by various functions within an organization for anyone in the company to utilize. This function or process is ripe for applying AI agents (or agentic AI framework) and optimize for better outcomes. It was informative. More rewarding was getting acquainted with folks who practice this craft as well as learning of what they see in the corporate or public sectors. Since the venue was Washington DC it also afforded me the chance to take evening strolls albeit the weather was trying. With wind chill in the single digit it still is a glamorous place to perambulate through history absorbing what this country has been through since its founding days. I was able to visit the place Lincoln was killed along with his monument t...
Post a Comment
Read more