La Cote d Azur de l Est - The French Riviera Of The East!

After driving through the East Coast Road halfway, the best place to halt a day or two is Pondicherry(now called Puducherry), which is by the way, an Union Territory.Pondicherry town dates back to ancient times when Greeks used to call this city as Poduke and Aryans referred to it as Vedapuri(As this town was once upon a time an abode of scholars well versed with the Vedas).

Pondicherry bears the imprints of the erstwhile French rulers, with its distinctively European architecture. The French ruled over Pondicherry from 1742 to 1954, of course with many skirmishes with the British in between, which saw them lose control of Madras in 1976.

Besides this, Pondicherry is also an abode for spiritual enlightment, where in a rare instance of the Auroville township, people of all sects, culture,religion and countries, live together in peace and strive for progressive harmony for an unified inner goal.

The entry to Pondicherry town from the ECR does not give any indication of a French past. The town looks like any South Indian city with huge Rajnikant posters and MILs(Men in Lungis).

To understand the amalgamation of Indo - French cultures, please dump your bags at the hotel and leave for a long walk at the Beach Road, which is very similar to a mall of a hill station.As you will walk down the Promenade, you will see on your right(overlooking the sea), The French Consulate, The French Institute and the striking French building called Marie which is now the Municipal building. Parallel to the Beach Road,runs the Rue Dumas street, which was the first street to be build here in 1706.

Source : http://www.sriaurobindoashram.org/

At the heart of the town and just a 5 minutes walk from the Beach road lies the Samadhi(Of Sri Aurobindo and Mother), or the Aurobindo Ashram,located on a very quite street. There's no photography allowed inside, unless one has special permission.Mobile phones must be switched off, and the entire building has a pin drop silence attached with it. One thing that you must do is go and seek blessings at the Samadhi, and then come by the side and sit quietly along with the others for at least an hour. Th combined silence of so many people will make you think of your existence in the larger scheme of things.

There are four beaches that are very popular in Pondicherry - Promenade,Paradise, Auroville and Serenity Beach. The water of the Bay of Bengal is very clean and blue, but it's not really a swimmers paradise, as the beaches are not very clean. Suggested option would be to sit at a nearby resort , sip your beer and look at the shoreline instead, which is laced with Coconut Trees in front and the fishing boats far away.

Pondicherry also has a bit of the Kerala(ish) backwaters in the form of th Chunnambar Lake.Located about 8 km's from Pondicherry on the Cuddalore Road, Chunnambar is a tropical delight.

So many places to visit, and yet no place to eat? Well, the Terrainspotter cant do such injustice to his readers:-). In between all this roaming around, please take out time to have the 'Banana Leaf Lunch Meal' at the Anjappar Chettinad restaurant. For about 250-300 bucks/person, what you get is a mind boggling combination of South Indian Veg and Non Veg(Fish and Chicken/Mutton - all cooked to perfection).End the meal with the traditional butter milk that will keep you digestively sane!

A trip to Pondicherry is incomplete, without a visit to Auroville - An universal city in the making!

The Auroville website states that :Auroville belongs to nobody in particular... Auroville belongs to humanity as a whole...but to live in Auroville, one must be a willing servitor of the divine consciousness! For more details on the philosophy and rules please go tohttp://www.auroville.org/.

The soul of Auroville is the brilliant Matrimandir, a large golden sphere that rises from the earth. Visitors can only see the Matrimandir from far and entry to the gardens and inner chambers of the Matrimandir are given to longstanding residents of the Auroville town.

Source : http://www.auroville.org/

As per the Auroville website and various documents, the spacious Inner Chamber in the upper hemisphere of the structure is completely white, with white marble walls and white carpeting.In the centre a pure crystal-glass globe suffuses a ray of electronically guided sunlight which falls on it through an opening at the apex of the sphere. There are no images, no organised meditations, no flowers, no incense, no religion or religious forms inside the Matrimandir and as told by the Mother, 'The Matrimandir is for those who want to learn how to concentrate'.


There are many other things about Pondicherry that we can write about, be it the beautiful and historical French churches, or the Nehru market for handicrafts or the amazingly cheap booze thats available(a full bottle beer in a proper A/c pub is 100 INR.Not bad!). So let's say that you can read this post for reference and figure the rest out yourselves:-)

For information on Pondicherry Hotels, please check out http://tiny.cc/n9la4.

That's all for now! Please feel free to comment with your views and opinions about this site!