Pondicherry is in a sense one of the strangest places I’ve visited in India. Amazed at the stark contrast between the old French part of town and the rest of the city. Basically what separates the two is a sewage canal that has been cemented now. All you have to do is step over it to go from one world to another.

The old French area is almost eerie – hardly any motor vehicles, beggars, cows, street vendors, etc. Mostly western tourists (especially French) zipping around on bicycles on clean, spacious streets lined by leafy trees. In the evening the beach boulevard gets a bit livelier as people – both Indian and Western – come to sit and hang around. The first impression of the bus station is not encouraguing but once you get into Pondi proper you can almost touch the Gallic air. A wonderful laidback little slice of France. It is unique in India and probably unique this side of Laos/Vietnam. the people to be more reserved. It’s a bizarre day when you eat a beautiful bagette sandwich and black coffee and then practice your French with an 8 year old school boy with his Magic accent…there are also a number of French restaurants which serve great food and the owners are usually extremly interesting people whop might play patanque as his counterparts might do in the suburb of Nice.

While crossing the canal to the Black Town (Les Francais used to call the Tamil/Hindu/Muslim/Christian Indian side of the town) is like stepping out of the front door of a well-insulated house into a raging storm! Hundreds or thousands of tiny shops, some hardly wider than a man’s shoulders, have available for sales seemingly everything the planet has to offer: silk, shoes, spices, bicycles, remedies-herbal and physical-palm readings, fortune-tellings, pots and pans, sweets, bits of bicycles, rugs, ear-cleanings, fruits, jewellery, ornaments, bits to make bicyclels bites, soaps, trinkles and, of course, everything manufacturable in plastics and stainless steel in every shape and size. Temples, churches and mosques, large and small, of every faith and creed, many garlanded with beautiful flowers and reeking of sandalwood and jasmine, stand on street corners, shabby or well-maintained parks, in marketplaces, at bus station, dotted along the edge of the highway even between the petrol pumps on garage forecourts.

The area is dominated by the ashram. Spent quite a while observing the happenings in the courtyard where Sri Aurobindo and the Mother are buried, people from walks of life, every nationality and personality, race and face, sitting quietly on the ground or putting forehead on the white marble of the shrine, meditating or concentrating, or just trying to wash out the sins? A bit disturbing to see all the merchandise on sale in the ashram – books, photos, etc, though. Was it what the Mother and Sri Aurobindo wanted?

Sunday. Just came over from the fish market. Olala that’s a scene NOT to miss. Women (surprise surprise this place seems to be deminated by women, how rare in a country as India) in all sort of sarees squtting on heir stands of shrimps, fish and shells, yielling to each other at the highest of their voice for the price and quantity, the wave of sounds and the strong smell directly from the Gulf of Bengle, the huge barkles on heads to carry the commodity, and the slippy sticky stingy ground… The Tamil language falling down like a waterfall from the peak to the valley in Himachal… All in all I LOVE the place. Most of the shops will remain closed all day along, another influence from the coqs?

Time for the beach!