"The Pondi Promenade"

A Story by Arun Raj

A Walk I Made Through The Streets Of Pondicherry...

I kicked-off with an early morning bus course from Chennai to Pondicherry, it took 3 hours through the East Cost Route to reach the old French Town of Pondicherry. Off the bus and on to the office, it took no time for me to get doused into work and responsibilities. At some part of my mind images daubed along with the description given by my friends and colleagues about Pondicherry and its different sites were popping out. I desperately wanted to get out of the office and start my wander walk that Saturday afternoon. I was given descriptions like “Pondicherry is nothing but one big street crossing through the middle of a sea-side town; then shops, buildings and life at the either sides”, “It is like a big cake sliced into pieces by the streets running through”, “Pondicherry has much to offer you as a visual treat especially what the French had leftover, the streets, the buildings, the culture, the people and the beach side is awesome”. “Pondicherry is a place where you can neck liters alcohol and that too for half the price you pay at Cochin”, and the last one made me look like a dog with two tails.

After the office, I rushed to the hotel where I had booked my room. It was near to the beach at Bazar Saint Laurent Street and I specifically chose it to stay near to the beach. From “Anna Nagar” where my office is, to the hotel it is hardly 4 kms, normally it will take 10 minutes to reach the hotel. And it might take a little longer, 15 �" 20 minutes, in case you gets caught up in the evening traffic. If there is something which you should be always careful about while visiting Pondicherry, (Okay, in the light of my experience I should say not only at Pondicherry but also for the whole of Tamil Nadu) is auto-rickshaw rides and the drivers. Literally these morons could monetarily rape and loot you on the road. Always make it a point to ask the average distance and the amount before you put yourself into the yellow box which runs on 3 wheels. And If you did not ask, then you are asking to get “fucked hard”. By the end of the journey, even if it was for 2 or 3 kms, they will come up with absurd justifications and can charge you gobs. Don’t ever smile at them, your face should convey the message “you are a stinking piece of s**t and I f*****g know that”. Right at the center of the city you have one or two options of business class hotels to stay. But I preferred to stay next to the beach, I was so convinced that there will be nature, people and life by the beach.

When you leave the small city limits and advance towards the beach side, you could see and feel the change happening around. Leaving the hustling city and the mayhem behind, you slowly makes your way into an old French seaside township. As you get close to the beach-side, you will find that the theory “Pondicherry is nothing but just one street” proven wrong. Ironically you will find, “series of streets”. All these streets are connected, one to the next at either one of its ends, for an out-lander it can be a labyrinth at the beginning, but soon the pavements will turn so dear. It's a lovely walk at night and also in the day, through these streets where you have shade trees on either sides and breeze flowing filtered through the channels between buildings facing the beach and the beach road. Obviously the accommodation is bit expensive with most of these hotels near to the beach and it could go exponentially high during the peak seasons, it is sad that you will always have to “pay for beauty & pleasure”. I managed to get an affordable accommodation thanks to my friends who have been to Pondicherry earlier and as it was not the peak season. My room was like 15 x 12 ft square basket, with basic amenities of a bed, an old model television with a broken remote control having access to only 8 or 10 channels, a mirror, a cloth rack, a toilet and a stinking air conditioner which will always trips off the electricity when its turned on. The bed was as old as the hotel, I felt like the room and the bed had so many stories of “unleashing emotions, pleasure and sex” to say. I think gradually the bed has become so hard and couples might have complained for suffering hard to feel the joy of sex, so that later it was decided to give the room for lonesome travelers like me when there is no other rooms to allocate.

I when I stepped out of my room it was around 7 p.m at night. Few feet away to my right from the hotel entrance is the “Goubert Avenue” aka “Beach Road”, it starts from the point where the South Boulevard ends, from the Dupleix Park which has a statue of Joseph Francois Dupleix �" the Governor General of French Establishment in India to point where it meets the SadarVallabhai Patel Salai Road at north, near to the Taluk Office it extends. The whole stretch is approximately 1.5 kms long, adjacent to the avenue lies, vast and mysterious Bay of Bengal.

Wind in my hair, bare coconut on my shoulder, placid spirit and vodka ignited belly, it was a relishing evening. It was people all around, all the way and all the while. I stood above the sea wall, with tides of “Bay of Bengal” rolling right in my front. I felt like I was on a big stage and about to sing, “song of my life” to a roaring crowd. And with all those men, women and children on the other side of the sea wall, I said to myself “a sea of people beside the ocean”

I strode towards the north direction of the promenade from the Dupliex Park, I felt so facile and soothing, with every step that I made, I felt that a different sort of elation was filling up my mind. The night was calling out my name and wind was playing a dub-step track in my ears, even though I was a lone traveler I never felt it that way, that night. There is a long stretch of buildings, old and new ones, opposite to the sea and next to the beach road on my left. Hotels of different standards, cafes, snack bars , French war memorial, Dr. Ambedkar Manimandiram, Antiques & Handicraft shopes, the Aurbindo Shop, if you go further to the North end of the street you could see the Chief Secretariat of the Pondicherry State, they had everything by the sea-side. A peculiar feature with most of these buildings is that still when it comes to the aspect of architecture they are made following the French design, I mean the design French people developed for the buildings they made in Pondicherry are still been followed. It was easily evident from the appearance and structure of these buildings. Another typical feature I noticed was about the color combination which has been followed for external walls, dark and white/light combination. It is really appealing and delightful.

I slowly made my walk between and through the people, many different faces, most of them are domestic travelers and foreigners are few. When I looked around, I saw everyone around me talking, talking different stories. I could hear different languages spoken around by people and in different accents, it was a happy havoc. Out of these languages being spoken out, I could here from few points on my way that my language Malayalam also being uttered. I wanted to keep the crazy feeling in my mind that I am traveling in some foreign place, I did not wanted to recognize someone from my state and to spoil the feeling. Stray dogs were all around the walkway but all of them were so friendly to all the guests and they were living a happy life down the road and around the corners. I followed a clan to some distance till they decided to take rest, ask me to get the f**k out of there for the night by posing a nice picture to take home.

Divine Kaleidoscope

Another thing that fascinated me at Pondicherry was churches, you take any road or turn any corner, sure you will find one church somewhere near. Again most of these churches are made following beautiful and in a way divine French Architecture. I have been to lot of different churches in my life but the experience I had at Pondicherry after visiting Pondichery churches was a different one. I felt I was looking through a Divine Kaleidoscope, indeed it was divine and beautiful.

The Sea Bridge

Like many of the port towns or cities where there was trade and transportation done through sea in the earlier days, the city of Pondicherry also has a sea bridge which extends to the Bay of Bengal as a reminiscence of the sublime past. This sea bridge can be considered as the last item on the table if you go towards the southern most end. The bridge might appear rusted and worn out but it still has the clout to carry the umpteen number of people walking in and climbing on, to seeing the sea rolling, and to align themselves to the horizon and also for taking the pictures. There is a neighborhood of fishermen at this part and you could see them working and repairing nets while their boats parked onto the shore. Believe me, it is a place to sit alone , make your thoughts fly and watch the life around.

I have written this out of my short period stay at Pondicherry, I could have gone much more in detail with the help of little bit of research. But for the moment I would like to keep simple and raw, what I could recollect and put down here with just one half day trip of mine around Pondicherry and its streets.