Pondy Diaries

 

Pondy Diaries

The journey to Pondicherry, ‘the Paris of the East’, began on 26^th November 9pm. We boarded the bus from Koyemedu bus stop which is 4 kms away from our college.

The bus took off at 9.30pm and our vibrant journey begins here.

Pondicherry is about 135 kms away from Chennai. As we talk about this place, Pondicherry was a French colony.

Our classmate Rudra’s home town is Pondicherry. So our gang was staying in his house. The lodges and hotels are very expensive there, actually we were lucky.

We reached Pondicherry by 1.30 am the next day. Then we straight went to Rudra’s home. We ended the day with a good sleep.

Rain was the main villain. We feared that rain would spoil our whole day. But morning the climate was good. Everyone was in a deep sleep. By 9.30 am we got ready. Our first destination was Auroville.

Rudra had a bike and scooter, we took that and started our journey.

The road well cleaned compared to Chennai.

Auroville is situated inside a forest. We will get a positive energy from this place.  Auroville is known as City of Dawn. It is an experimental town founded by Mirra Alfassa in 1968. This is a city with no laws, no religion and no racism. A town where everyone is treated equally with a 0% crime rate. It is an international community which is spiritually based, gives a lot of freedom. It is a place where men and women of all countries can live in peace and harmony above all creeds, politics and nationalities.

Auroville is engulfed in beautiful forest.We can different kind of tree. I saw a hugging tree, also a pillar tree like pillars like branches. We visited the museum which tells the history and significance of Auroville. Then we walked about 1 km to the Mantri Mandir, the Golden structure. During the way we saw varieties of tress, plants, garden. Everything is beautifully maintained. This place generate electricity using solar energy. This place is the best example for sustainable development.

The Mantri Mandir we so beautiful from a distance. Unfortunately they didn’t allow us the go there since some work was going on there. Actually Mantri Mandir is a place of meditation. Silence is the only rule we should follow. Our bad we were not able to explore that. We took some pictures and walked back.

On our way back, we saw shops which is operating in Auroville. These shops are creatively designed. They promote upcycling like after using a water bottle instead of throwing it away it can be useful in some other purpose too. We can get a lot of ideas from here. We used glass bottles and CD’s hanging in trees. It’s very beautiful. In my opinion this is a best place for innovation.

With lot of good memories we said good bye to Auroville.   

On our way back we saw JIMPER, one of the finest medical institution in India.

After coming back to Rudra’s home we had our breakfast, well we can call it lunch since it was 12pm.

By 1.30pm we set out for our next expedition. Rock beach or Promenade beach was our next target. The beach was very beautiful. We can see black coloured rocks there. It will attract everyone. That is the main highlight of the beach. We saw Gandhi’s statue, Nehru’s statue, French war memorial, French colonies, French consulate also restaurants near the beach. The restaurant were very costly here. The French colonies will captivate everyone. It will give us a feeling that we are in France. Also poverty is also there in this place. Homeless people lying in the streets begging.

Then we visited a temple and the famous Inoculate Church.

Our next destination was Arikamedu. It’s a historical place where the Romans engaged in the trading activities during that time. Roman coins were excavated from here. This place helped is to know the trade relationship between Romans and ancient Tamil Nadu kingdoms. This structure was build 1000’s of years ago, I wondered how its stand still over these years.

Our next destination was Art and Craft village. In this place we can see people’s creative talents. They display their talents in front of the visiters. We witnessed pottery, paintings, knitting, crafts, toys, statues etc. It was really amazing. We need to promote places like this. These stalwarts should get appreciated.

It was about 5.30pm also it started raining a little bit. So we went home and ended our today’s journey.

The main thing that I was amazed is the hospitality of these people. They treated us very nicely. They treated us as if we were also a member of that family. We all had a long conversation after dinner. In the news channel we saw that Chennai is receiving heavy rain fall. The whole city was flooded. Rudra’s auntee told us that here in Pondy you cannot find a place flooded. The flood will settle down within 1 hour. All thanks to the French people back then. Pondicherry was the master mind of French. The drainage system is too good here. Chennai’s drainage system is the worst. The flood will remain there 2 or 3 days.  Without any proper planning they constructed all this.

Well travelling help us to know the difference between a place and our place. By comparing we can understand what all flaws we have in our place.

The day went well.    

2^nd Day

The Rain spoiled the day. Very cool climate. Everyone was in their bed feeling lazy. By 11am only most of them woke up. The crazy part is that after coming here we ate breakfast during lunch time and lunch by 3.30pm.

The rain was heavy. Rudra said that we will go to his own home. We took a bus to Thirukanur. It took about 1 hour. There we meet Rudra’s family members. They were so nice to us. They were killing as with love and care. Till night we spend our time there. Then we decided to go back to Rudra’s aunt’s house. The farewell was too hard for us. The whole family got emotional. Rudra’s Mother and Grandmother blessed us. These people are so innocent. They only know how to love each other.

The next day we packed our bags. We are leaving Pondicherry. We boarded our bus at 4.30pm and started our journey back to Chennai. We reached our college by 9.30pm. These 2 days gave as lot of good and vibrant memories to carry with us for the rest of our life.

All went well…..