Pondicherry, Jan 18th 2011
W: Are we still on Pondicherry, mum? Oh brilliant! I like this place because it’s got 2 bridges in the garden outside and we found a frog, a crab and 2 newts (I’ve seen loads of newts, more than you…) The other good thing is I like the buttered toast and the spaghetti last night.
WM: We are in Pondicherry (or Puducherry), mostly for the food – see M’s and L’s appreciative blogs below - but also for a few days’ R&R. WD has used the town for similar in the past (when he was craving non-veg and apple pie, after too long in the wilds of Tamil Nadu), and we came here briefly together in 1999.
M: We are in Pondicherry – think French bakeries, yoga halls and the endless sound of the rolling breakers. Pondicherry is an ideal place after two weeks of idlis, dosas and puri. I dropped my only piece of French bread. I was very upset but the next day we went to the exactly the same place as the day before. Dad brought home buns and brown bread for lunch yesterday. It was the nicest lunch we’d had for a while…
WM: I’ve washed our entire bag of clothes. We were about to have a major dirty pants crisis, which has only narrowly been averted, phew! Although M has just said she and L wore the same pants for three days (stinky girls). Standards have definitely slipped… There’s something very homely about the lines of washing drying on the porch.
We are staying at the Park Guest House, part of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram empire here. All the rooms have rather spooky pictures of Sri Aurobindo and ‘The Mother’ and messages of spiritual encouragement. Strange place, but definitely restful (lots of rules, including no noise 10 pm-5 am - in India!) with simple rooms (no flat screen TV, no internet access – the wireless is direct to your guru) just behind the seafront. All the rooms have names like ‘Courage’ and ‘Humility’. We are staying in ‘Aspiration’ (I guess aspiration to spiritual enlightenment, rather than to material acquisition?) and the children are directly next door in ‘Gentleness’!!! Crows are cawing, waves are crashing onto the shore just the other side of the compound wall, and the odd ashram visitor is meditating in the stone circle or doing yoga stretches or head stands in the sculpture garden (known as the Garden of Good Vibrations – you couldn’t make it up!). You are instructed to leave cell phone, ego, speech and footwear outside but allowed to bring in your full heart, silent mind and bare feet. M loves the fact that she can go into the garden and read a book and commune with geckos (“Mr Lizard”) there in peace, but W&L find a garden that is not for running around and letting rip, a bit of a contradiction in terms.
WD and I woke up this morning with a tropical pink sun rising through our window. It’s been a bit frantic, so a bit of calm is now seeping back into our bones. WD is desperate to catch up on emails – but is thwarted by a lack of wireless internet, so has been forced to read his book (a book about the economic and social recent history of India, rather than anything directly work-related), write up field notes and stare into space, perhaps reflecting on progress so far?
We’d arrived 2 days earlier and run headlong into Pongal Problems. We’d done the night train, seen dawn arrive at a junction station waiting for the connecting morning train, and arrived in Pondi exhausted, hungry and filthy. Pongal is a four day fest and with the growth of domestic tourism, everywhere was full, not a room to be had anywhere in town. We drove round town crammed into an auto with all our luggage (we just about fit though some contortion is needed – but we are not even trying as we’ve seen entire classes of school children in the back of an auto, count them – 21,22,23…), getting more and more discouraged.
Eventually we found a very inadequate, tiny room on busy MG Road, charged at extortionate rates and knew it was the best we’d find until the end of the holidays. We were able to move here (the Ashram Guest House) after I’d passed a test of spiritual fitness. I had to hang out in a waiting room full of mosquitoes for a morning, waiting patiently and humbly, putting aside physical discomfort (deranged itching, hunger), anger and irritation with the reception staff, feeling only calm and love…quite tricky. (The others were meanwhile eating breakfast at ‘Le Club’.)
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| L: "That's SO disgusting!" |
Pondicherry is an ex-French colonial territory so considers itself somewhat ‘special’ and appears to have absorbed the Gallic shrug of indifference into its character. It is, without any doubt, the least friendly place we’ve been in India. Even in 2 days here, the examples of frostiness, if not overt rudeness, are numerous. Elsewhere we’ve had irritation and frustration (but mostly great friendliness), but never such chippiness. It’s not just about it being a tourist hub, although that may contribute. So, we just laugh in slight disbelief and Carry On enjoying this time-out of India proper (the café-frappes, the private contractors dealing with rubbish around town, heritage walks, internet cafes playing Mozart, the Botanic Gardens, beer not out of a teapot…) but will be happy to throw ourselves back in before very long. In some ways, it’s harder as we have to keep warning the children that whilst you can get ‘proper’ bread (i.e. not the Asian Bread, a sweet sliced milk loaf that you get elsewhere) and other delicacies (doughnuts, bacon, feta cheese) here, they won’t be elsewhere… Better to get used to not having, or to indulge their missing?
We’ve invented a ‘swear’ word (the children were wanting to know the ‘F’ word) to fit the situation – ‘Froggit’ – which may be used to vent, as in: ‘Frogging Froggits!’, ‘Holy Froggit!’. Feel free to try it at home.
L: Lovly freash Pondercherry with yummy French bakerys and restaraunts. High lights of Pondercherry are food, beach, hotels, smell [atully not, it smells the same] and peace. I have made up a song here it is: I love Pondercherry yeh oh yeh I love Pondercherry yeh oh yeh I love Pondercherry yeh oh yeh and the world all loves it too.
CHILDREN ONLY NO GROWN UPS. Please email me I want to hear the gossip. School freands tell me if theres any news because I need it for a magizeine. Wish you were here to play with me. Me and W had a laugh but I still miss you.
(WM: L and W have just drunk a lot of Sprite; it fizzed up their noses and they played crazy horses on the grass at the Alliance Française and both ended up with hiccups!)
WELL BYE BYE EVREY ONE I’LL WRITE AGAIN TOMORROW
WD: I know I’m avoiding Chennai, a big city that’s certainly interesting but not very peaceful by comparison with Pondy. But, subject to the reception graciously allowing us to stay a day longer, we’ll go there tomorrow and stay till next week. I have some more archival work to do there and some people to meet. In the meantime, I FOUND THE BAKERY and it does have almond croissants (and indeed filled baguettes and olive breadsticks). In all my years coming here, I’d never managed to find a croissant despite all the rumours that they existed. Success!
À bientôt, mes amies!
P.S. Pilgrim update: another year of deaths at Sabarimala (near Kumily where we were earlier) – 102 died in a stampede near the hill-shrine of Lord Ayyapa on Friday (Makarajyothi night, the climatic culmination of the Ayyapa pilgrimage). It’s happened before (53 people died on the same day in 1999) and, this time, up to an estimated 25 lakh (I think that’s 2.5 million) pilgrims had been in Sabarimala, and most were hurrying down the hillside after dark to start their journeys home, with only 4 policemen at the section where the tragedy occurred, according to The Hindu on Monday.
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