A flurry of inactivity: Pondicherry

The sea is shimmery, it must be Pondicherry

If languor is your hearth then Pondicherry is home. Clocks in this union territory are known to miss a few ticks now and then and make different times of the day – and night – linger. This temporal deceleration hems in the spatial and limits the experiential. Take the chief lure, The Promenade. This landmark drag fronting the sea is not more than a leisurely trot. In your quest for the best coffee you are sent in different directions but to the same spot. This is again next to The Promenade only. The best food comes out of a handful of kitchens – mostly around the French part of town. Also called the ‘Old Town’ or ‘White Town’. Depending on the local skill in gauging your age and wealth. Again, one of them faces The Promenade only. Looking for a great bar – if you count ambience – we found only one. Guess where.

Before long you find that ‘La’ has become a sort of norm in eatery nomenclature – kitsch objects arrayed tastelessly across nouveau interiors hit you hard without warning. You scamper before the ‘Vegetarian coq au vin’ wrenches your culinary curiosities. Then, there are the boutique shops. ‘Boutique’ means run by people with other sources of income. Like performing artistes settled abroad. They are all good shops with good stuff, baubles even if you are not on a budget. These good shops, as with good shops everywhere, come in clusters – one’s exit is another’s entry. But the best thing is that they are all overpriced. This helps you stay away with peace of mind. Leaving you with more time in the room. More time for comadose. After all, holidays are also about frenetic inactivity.

The walls are cheery, it must be Pondicherry

As it is rarely seen in seaside towns, in Pondicherry a sense of fulfilment, a perverse characteristic of straitened living, permeates the air. Not one of helplessness and desperation like the sea-facing towns of Kerala or resignation like in Odisha, but here it was one of acceptance. Gratitude, even. Minor curiosities were peddled though. Early mornings and late evenings when The Promenade, a.k.a. Goubert Avenue, was closed to vehicular traffic, it overflowed with locals and tourists who lolloped along like sloth repositories. We were looking for press coffee after making a night of the day. One thin woman in a crispy cotton sari walked up to us out of the blue and strung a jasmine garland on my partner’s hair. Since the hair was too short the poor woman had to disengage a dozen hair clips from her own carefully made up coiffure to hold the flowers in place. The bindi too was dislodged and stuck on my partner’s forehead. Only afterwards when she stood back to admire her handiwork did we get a handle on what had transpired. Everything happened in slow motion like any extraordinary act which suspends belief. It was too spontaneous to have been a money bait. She disappeared just like she came – into the blue. We looked at each other: mermaid?

The Promenade

The breeze is laden with salt and moisture. And lot of laughter. Eyes glinted and made contact, stayed if friendly. Warmth flowed. Maybe attributable to the Aurobindo Ashram the city houses in its outskirts, the positivity is palpable. Golden rays of love emanating from the Matrimandir is absorbed by everyone at Pondicherry. This looks like a shiny cherry from the air but is a nuclear reactor of selflessness, universal consciousness and soul refuge. Like anything that looks like it, what it does is difficult to fathom but the results are tangible. Even the open area around it called ‘Peace’ is hypnotic. The generally yap-happy city-dwelling tourist too can be spotted spending time with oneself. Some of it of course on the focussed pursuit of taking selfies. 

Missing happiness, Bourdain

One week in Pondicherry is good for futility of time to dawn on you. I didn’t wear watches for weeks afterward. The sea will ebb and flow, wind will blow and mist will rise. Gossamer will be woven across gardens, crows will caw, leaves will rustle and fall, cats will dart across the road, the stump-armed beggar will remain stoned most part of the day and the stout lady by the corner selling tender coconuts will dig into her blouse for change with her sickle. In short, the world will go on whether you are around or not – an existential truth you will stumble upon only in Pondicherry. Probably it’s the dawn of this very truth that drives some to end it even. As Anthony Bourdain did as I write this. What makes you happy? This was a staple question the celebrity chef always put to his subjects. Probably trying to figure some answers for himself. At Pondicherry, you slow down to a querencia, your true self, and you make discoveries about yourself. Through what you set out to find on the outside. 

Coffee

While visiting Madurai a year ago, I got wedded to ‘degree coffee’; most of the places where it was served announced the milk was from their own dairy farm. This was an obvious ploy to take your mind away from the secret concoction and focus it on the froth while being devoured by the taste. Asking for degree coffee in Pondicherry, I got blank stares. Sir wants good coffee, they discussed among themselves. After reaching a quiet consensus quite fast, they sent me to KBS. There was an outlet close to The Promenade. As with any place famous for coffee here too they were dismissive about snacks which were treated as distractions. Nevertheless a commercial necessity. I asked for a bread-like biscuit which was dispensed with a visible wince.

Then the coffee came. I never asked for a bite again.

Food

Eat, drink, make merry, its Pondicherry

We kept sauntering into the Coromandel Café for most meals during our stay. Besides a consistently good fare served in a high-ceilinged dining hall or al fresco with leafy surroundings, there is also the well-equipped CMYK bookstore. The titles here are among the most eclectic ever with ladders going up for more. The top floor has a clothes store flaunting some of the finest designs and prices better than the tucked away boutique stores. Le Dupleix where we stayed whipped up some fine Italian over the course of a weekend special. The seafood is exemplary, as we were told, though we didn’t try any. 

Music and alcohol

Madurai Veeran

The Storyteller’s is a bar housed in The Promenade which is a Hidesign hotel. (There is a Hidesign outlet here which is a bummer – as were the other outlets of the brand which hails from these parts. A shame, we informed a suit-coated, enthu cutlet representative of the company who managed to appear suitably bereaved and promised to inform his superiors.) Pages and quotes from the classics serenade you all the way to the bar at the minus one level. The wine list is average but the cocktails are tantalisingly experimental. The ever-smiling solicitous staff makes you want to drink more. The live gig is earnest but begins to sound better after throwing back a few. Later that evening we saw the same musician again – this time belting it out at La Dupleix.

People and sights

The golden cherry of Pondicherry – Matrimandir

The Promenade in the evenings is the best place to play flaneur. I marvelled at the local men in poppadom-straight shirts and women in cotton saris starched to a sail who gadded about snacking on peanuts and ice cream. Quite a few European novaturients in typical Fab India and Anokhi kurtas and string trousers could be seen with their salwar-clad partners. As dusk fell they would be retiring to their rooms in Auroville. After finding or failing to find what they sought, they would peregrinate to another ashram, radiate into the embrace of another god man/woman. They knew it too for the sea would tell them that.

One morning I bicycled away from The Promenade, in the direction of the derelict lighthouse and reached a fishing hamlet called Vaithikkuppam. The Madurai Veeran was a bedecked Trojan horse with its ornate saddle, bridles, headstalls and collas. A gold-coloured sheath with sword was also tucked into its flanks. It stood proud between the village and the sea. The Veeran was very powerful, I was told. What exactly did it do? I was curious. Did he protect the village from natural calamities which had already claimed much of the shoreline? Disasters, said some elderly fishermen who were out repairing their nets, they lived with since they were born. But intervention of the Veeran was invoked to sort land and family disputes, drinking problems among young men and childlessness among couples.

And was Veeran successful? His wisdom no judge has, nor can any doctor work his magic.

(All the photographs are mine, please get in touch if you want to want to use any. The one of Anthony Bourdain is taken from the author’s tweets.)