Indus Revisited: A look back. Pondicherry, Tamil Nadu, India. 27.03.2011

Sunrise over the Bay of Bengal, Pondicherry, Tamil Nadu, India

I would consider myself a traveler, rather than a tourist. I will never take a narrated tour of anyplace, group tour or don headphones. I go where I like to go. I like to see some of the touristy spots, there is no way around that. But I do love to head off the beaten path, small towns, roads less traveled. I do that here in my home state of Virginia when traveling somewhere, and I most certainly do that in a country such as India.

After a couple of weeks on the road in South India, we found our next stop was Pondicherry, or Puducherry as it is now called locally. "Pondy" is also used by locals and ex pats alike. We had, or, truth be told, my wife, had sketched out this itinerary the month prior, and so far we had almost stuck to it. For a while now, I had considered Pondicherry as one of my least favorite places we had visited. Or so I thought.

We stayed at the Sri Aurobindo Ashram, at the southern end of the Promenade, the long straight beach-side boardwalk, where everybody seemed to gather. The Ashrams accommodations are sparse to say the least, but the grounds were nice and it is fairly close to most everything.

Seaside gardens of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram

Pondicherry seemed different to me than any of the other places that we had stayed so far in India. I was not sure why, until reading up on the history of the city. Pondicherry has been, in one form or another, a port of trade and controlled by the Romans, French, Dutch and English, as well as many Indian rulers over the ages. With this, came influences in the form of architecture and urban planning. It definitely has a more European feel than that of an India one. The tree lined streets even made me feel like I was in my own capitol city, Richmond, in the Fan district.

The main areas are known as Heritage Town, and White Town are laid out in a grid and ringed by a main road and flanked by the Bay of Bengal. The Sri Aurobindo Ashram is comprised of many buildings and ventures, spread all over Pondicherry. We made our way to the Sri Aurobindo Ashram site where they make the famous Marbleized paper and Sarees to get some gifts for my mother in law. These were highly regarded by the women in my wife's family for many years.

Tight, tree-lined streets line up in a grid pattern

The marbling of paper is an ancient art first practiced in Japan in the ninth century. Completely realized by hand, it consists in producing certain patterns and effects by means of colors on water. A piece of paper or silk is laid on the water, so that the flowing patterns get imprinted on it. The marbling unit in the Ashram started as a hobby in 1965. Some sadhaks experimented with this art form and offered marbled handmade paper to the Mother. Later they extended the marbling process to silk. As it was widely appreciated, the Mother permitted the sale of these products. From 1970 onwards the unit took up work on a big scale with the production of sarees, scarves, stoles, ties, kerchiefs, dress material and dupattas on pure silk and pure silk chiffon, for sale locally and abroad. Today marbling has developed into a fine art form to which the Marbling Group has undoubtedly the credit of having added certain refinements, apart from having been among the first to adopt the process successfully to silk fabrics.- Ashram website

Marbleized silk saree

Marbleized paper. Each one is unique. The boxes are indicative of what the pattern is inside.

In front of the Sri Manakula Vinayagar Temple, for a mere rupee coin, you can be blessed by an elephant. The elephant is considered auspicious by the Hindus, and to be blessed by one even more so. For me it was something that I had seen in a travel video and hoped that I too could partake in this ritual. I was not disappointed, as this very act made me swell with happiness.

Our morning sunrise ritual was considerably altered when we encountered massive amounts of people had the same idea and we did not have our usually quiet morning stroll along the Promenade. It seems that Pondicherry is a very popular vacation spot for Indians and they had the same idea. But the sun does not know this and treated us just as well.

lone pot left on a sidewalk. Pondicherry, India

The one thing I have just realized, while writing this, is that maybe I really did like Pondicherry. Maybe I liked it a lot. There was a lot to do there and looking at the photographs, I might want to go back one day. One thing I know is that I have learned more about photography, and that these places I have documented for myself and for my four boys to learn and enjoy upon my passing, lend themselves to fantastic photography. I have shot these with a Canon point and shoot. Boy what I could have done with DSLR with a couple of lenses.