Pondiyalli Pralaya

Author – Santhosh G R/ Madhusmita Datta

Pondiyalli Pralaya (Deluge in Pondicherry)

To commemorate the anniversary of the trekking expedition in Kodai-Munnar an year back, and to ring in the new year, we decided to have a trip to pondi and roll about in the “sun-kissed” beaches.

Who?

QQ (Quli Qutub) – Santhosh G R

Miss Madhu/QT/Mrs QQ – Madhusmita Datta

DJinn (Dada Jinn) – Raghunandan Keshava

Ravi/Lower Body – Ravi H M

Nagi – Nagaraj C

Sanjayo – Sanjay Subramaniam

DD (Dagar Dany)/Kolakamandala – Dany K M

Day 0 – Dec 23

We had tickets to Madras on the Madras mail which would leave Blore late in the night. Tickets were for III AC, a new found fad among d_men to always travel by III AC and stay in AC hotel rooms. Nagi (who had stayed in the US) would not deem to have anything to do with non-AC stuff, QQ & DJinn were the other enthusiasts for this school of thought!!

Dinner was Chinese food + Haldiram’s Jamun. DJinn & Ravi, showed much enthusiasm in drinking the syrup of Jamun, while Dany was reluctant.

Mrs QQ in her usual jest wanted a punja (handwrestling game) with nagi and dany to show off her manly strength. Unfortunately for all of us Nagi & Mrs QQ ended in a tie, Dany was defeated by her. Unfortunate as this led to Mrs QQ strutting her stuff for quite some time.

We went to sleep warning nagi to not call up his future wife all thru the night and disturb our sleep. Nagi challenged Madhu to sleep on the floor of the compartment which obviously the clean Miss refused.

Day 1 – Dec 24

The train chugged into Chennai central, very early to our dismay. It was still 4:30 AM and Sanjay coming from Hyd was nowhere in sight. We sat down waiting for Sanjay cursing that a mail travels to Chennai so fast, while an express takes longer. Dany boy retired to the rest-room for ablutions, while QQ was more adventurous in daring to dump his stuff on a train. Madhu remembered to get some paper towel much against QQ’s wishes as it was taking up too much space in his bag, and it so happened that he was the only one to use it!!! DJinn warned QQ to be careful and finish his session soon, before the train moved away and having to jump out with his pants down.

After Sanjay arrived (almost at 6AM) from Hyderabad, we went to the world famous Saravana Bhavan (as mentioned in previous travelogues, they have units in LA, SFO, etc..) for breakfast which consisted of appam, dosa & thick strong coffee.

We hired 3 autos to Coyambedu which is the central bus terminus in Chennai reaching there at 8 am. This bus stand is grand, looks like a railway station, is clean and well maintained in spite of everything. All compared this bus stand to the one in B’lore and even Nagi had to agree that this was better!!

We boarded an ECR (East Coast Road) bus to Pondi, managing to convince DJinn and Nagi to board a non-DVD player bus. Our bus flamboyantly displayed a board which said “AIR cooling rider”. We discussed at length what that could mean, and finally came to the conclusion that the cool and salty sea breeze (it even smelled of the sea) was a natural air cooler. All that a passenger need do was keep the window open!!

The ride on the ECR is beautiful, with the road passing about ½ to 1 km of the sea, view of sun-kissed beaches, palm/coconut groves, little patches of beach meant for making salt, prawn fisheries. QQ pointed to a cottage resort on the road, which Mrs QQ flagged out to be nothing but a fishermen’s village. A number of bill boards mentioning local prawn farms and prawn seeds. This set off the salivary glands of sea food lovers amongst us into an overdrive. QQ was already making a list of all the sea food he wanted to try out. Throughout the journey QQ and Nagi were busy comparing the cell-info display on their mobile networks of Airtel and BSNL. BSNL always showed the area we were in, while Airtel as usual was most of the time blank. Most of the gang had a good nap during the journey. Hunger was somewhat abated by Sanjay’s US chocolates. We reached Pondi at noon, after a rest stopover.

As is well known, Pondi is one half pucca chettinad, while the other half (I would say just about 1/10 and not half) is French. The bus stand was in the chettinad half. To cross the road, there was a pedestrian flyover, which was full of stench and shit. Ravi was surprised of how people used the pedestrian walkway as their toilet and what if there were dogs nearby?

We spent a while searching for a lodge. MASS a pretty big lodge did not have any vacancy, or even if he had vacancy wasn’t interested in letting it out to us. Finally we managed to get 2 rooms in “MNM Guest House”. Of course AC rooms with cable TV.

We finished our bath as quickly as we could, with nagi taking photos of Dany in his undressed grandeur (of crse with a kacha/undie) on his mobile camera. Ravi and Djinn as usual took forever to finish their bath.

We had a heavy lunch at MASS, consisting of a lot of chettinad delicacies. They served water in copper chambus (small pot shaped container). We took a lot of pictures with the chambus. They didn’t serve us papds with our meal, that was the only thing missing.

Our first destination was the French quarters & Aurobindo ashram. We decided to walk towards the French quarters.

Pondi botanical gardens separate the French part from the chettinad part. A road divides the two. Once you cross over, you find all the road names only in French. All the houses have an elaborate door frame. Door frames on Christian houses have a symbol of the heart atop the cross, while the hindu houses have the symbol of the lion in the popular chola style. Pondi also has many cats on the street. We saw many varieties of them, one of them even resembling a Siamese cat, posing for Mrs QQ to admire and take some pictures. The house the cat belonged to was just as beautiful as the cat. We could see the courtyard thru the open door at the entrance. Lovely panels carved in wood, antique furniture and fixtures on the walls and ceiling. Mrs QQ was totally impressed by this house and longed to have one of her own. We walked for 2-3 kms after which we came to a drain. We could see the difference in the roads on the other side of the drain. It was neat, with the footpaths having a cobbled look, raised roads with a thick layer of tar, unlike the tar-paint in Mysore (as quipped by Mrs QQ). Raghu was on the lookout for Rendezvous a restaurant suggested by Sh.. his secret girlfriend. The French town is beautiful, and very charming. There are a lot of roof top restaurants, but sadly all these restaurants cater to only the videshi junta with exhorbitantly priced food. We were treated like second class citizens in our own country!!! What an outrage.

Going further on we suddenly reached the sea-side embankment. The view from here was mind-blowing. Imagine a walkway along the sea, with a neatly paved road on one side and the sea on the other side. Boulders and rocks form the embankment. Ravi hurried down along with Mrs QQ, to drink in the beauty of nature and was lost in reverie. Mrs QQ had a tough time trying to hold down her skirt from the blowing wind, much to her chagrin, and much to the amusement of the onlookers, who were waiting with bated breath for her skirt to blow up and getting a glimpse at her legs/thighs!!!

After a good rest on the rocks we stared walking along the sea. The avenue is full of old style colonial buildings, beautiful and majestic. At this point a street-vendor peddling a dolu ( a small drum/mridanga) started stalking us. Mrs QQ was his target and he finally enticed her to buy a small dolu for a large price. Nagi commented that “Madhu, you proved that girls are dumb – manda, pedda, guldu etc etc by buying that drum”. The drum would have costed around 25/50 bucks but Mrs QQ ended up paying 200. The vendor pursued us for some more time, trying to make Madhu buy a bigger drum also. Meanwhile another peddled offered a similar drum for 150 and made Madhu realize that she was cheated. She blasted the vendor of having cheated, but the deal was done and could not be retracted.

Proceeding further, we came to a raised platform with Bapuji’s statue in the center and decorated by carved pillars all around, and the open ocean as the backdrop. Facing this statue there was a little road leading to a huge garden and there was a little statue of Nehru nearby. Ravi and Sanjay were very enthusiastic in answering to a foreign-female about whose statue it was. Dany spotted a roadside peddler on a gaadi (pushcart) selling music CDs. The CDs were cheap, just 20 Rs, a steal considering an empty CD itself costs 20. There were a lot of Rahman, Ilayaraja music MP3s.. a veritable treasure trove of pirated music. In the garden there was a shapely woman holding a pot on her waist and water was flowing out of the pot, which DJinn as usual stopped to admire. This was a fountain in the garden. Walking along the garden, with Madhu playing her dhol and singing some silly songs to entertain all we came to the secretariat building and circle with the statue of Sardar Patel.

There was an imposing building with guards dressed like french gendarmes, wearing red cap which Madhu clicked away. We reached a temple for vinayagar (Ganesha). An elephant, as is usual in temples was near the door. The elephant would reach out and bless you only if tipped with some coins or rupee. QQ & DJinn entered a building which looked haunting and asked one of the inmates for the way to Aurobindo ashram. A bit further was the ashram along with Aurobindo’s house.

The Aurobindo house is vintage, photography not allowed, flowers not allowed, and disturbing the flower arrangement on the samaadhi of Aurbindo not allowed as per instructions from the mother. We discussed about the nature of relationship between the mother and aurobindo, concluding that there was some ting-ting between them. The house also encloses a book shop of Aurobindo related writing. We bought some small books, with Dany investing in a Veda book, which obviously he would not finish, and neither understand.

Mrs QQ alongwith QQ, went for a walk around. They noticed some more cats, and a very endearing scene of a dog sleeping on a window sill, with it’s head placed in between the grill and jutting out into the street. Also, they noticed that a unique way of finding out the ashram was to check out the roads. The road around the ashram was cobbled with cement blocks while elsewhere it was tarred. QQ was fascinated by all the women on cycles, almost all of them were in shorts, and not just the French gals. Chocolate colored Indian ladies too, and speaking fluent French and riding cycles in khaki shorts. Two disparate cultures not just coexisting, but influencing each other and bringing about a totally new and unique type of living.

We went back to the sea-side walkaway and proceeded towards the circle which has the statue of Gandhi. Madhu & Sanjay went to have some kale-kaayi (peanuts).

What happened next was strange. We wanted a group photo taken with Gandhi Thata in the background. Madhu tried first to get someone to click the photo, they were local people (Indian, coz in Pondy even the French should be considered as locals) but nobody would oblige. And the rest of the gang, esp QQ was hasty is criticizing Madhu for choosing people who would obviously refuse. So it was Dany’s turn, as it was his camera. And this time it became clear to us that this is another unique feature of this place – people will refuse to take your picture come what may. Dany’s theory –people get scared when they see my camera, it’s so big and looks so complicated, they’re afraid they’ll make a mistake. Madhu’s theory – these pondy guys are nuts!! TAP TAP!! And finally a phirang dude agreed to click, we all thanked him.

We walked back in the moonlight, enjoying the view of the sea glittering in the silver light. We were all wishing for the same thing, to be able to stay at a hotel that overlooked the sea, to spend the night just watching the waves. And just then we spotted just such a hotel – Sea View Guest House (not sure of name). Promptly Madhu and Dany went in to enquire. All the rooms were booked for the next day – it was xmas day as well as the day for entrance exam for JIPMER (Jawahar lal Institute of Post grad in MedicinE and Research)- not sure again!! Rooms were available for just that night, and the rates were cheaper than the MNM Guest House. We felt a little bad, coz moving out of our current hotel just for the night would be a waste of money. Promising ourselves of making stay arrangements before any trip we walked towards Rendezvous restaurant. The hotel was a KLPD (an expression to say it was a letdown). We floundered around the French town searching for a restaurant and could not manage to find anything worthwhile. Deciding to head back, we reached MASS where we had our Dinner. Dinner comprised of heavy heavenly Prawn chettinad, Chinese, pakodas and Cocktails of bloody mary, screw driver along with hard liquor. Some stuff discussed over dinner – road rage and how to control it, no more drinks for the rest of the year and the year after for women. Raghu got a call from Sh… and she gave him some good advice. How we should celebrate Xmas eve, what kind of food to eat, etc etc (coz he wouldn’t have shared everything with us of course ;-) So on Sh.. advice we bought some plum cake from the cake shop in Hotel MASS, and before we hit the bed, we had a small ceremony of cake cutting (Madhu’s swiss knife) and some half baked carols. That was enough to say we officially celebrated Christmas eve in the proper way. Gang fell asleep in no time at all after a few sips of red wine and rum cake.

Day 2 – Dec 25

Having had our bath our plan was to visit the famed beaches of Pondi. We had breakfast in a nearby Arya Bhavan. A fake Arya Bhavan hotel as it did not have the photo of the owner with thick rimmed glasses on. We had the usual stuff, Idli Sambar and like all places in TN, they serve chatni like it’s some prasada. We kept asking for more chatni, till they got annoyed, as if we cared. Such rude people in the restaurant!! We finished b’fast with some sweets. Poor Dany, his b’fast was completely ruined – dahi wada, with the dahi so sour he had to waste it.

We caught a bus to Auro beach. Initially Mrs QQ was irritated with the volume of the music in the bus, but later started appreciating the beats and rural tempo of the tamil film songs.

A walk from the bus-stand in between trees led us to the auro beach.

Fig : d_men at their athletic best trying to do headstands!!!

The beach has been partitioned into sections for the Auro-ashram guests and the rest, it’s more a separation between scantily clad foreigners vs Indians frolicking in the sea in their sarees, pants etc.

We went about playing in the water with gusto.

Events held on the beach by us included

• Headstand on the sand
• Handstand on the sand, and landing on your back by QQ
• Ravi attempting to do sirsaasana (headstand) on the waters edge, facing the sea and trying to stay put even after the waves hit him
• Nagi, trying to flip-flop on his back, getting his whole back on the sand
• A running race on the sand which DJinn won
• A running race in the water which QQ won
• Burying Nagi completely in the sand. Mrs QQ even went ahead to make mock female appendages on sand covered Nagi. See photos for details. 2 pieces of shell were used strategically.
• Failed attempt by Ravi to make a castle, then a pyramid, then just giving up!!
• A punja (handwrestling) btn Lower Body Ravi and DJinn which Ravi won, but with stiff resistance from DJinn
• A punja btn Sanjay and a local frail looking tamil boy. The tamil boy showed immense resistance and Sanjay could defeat him after much struggle aided by our boisterous egging.
• Lots of photo sessions in Undies et all, Mrs QQ and QQ posing in intimate embrace making all the other boys seethe with jealousy.
• D.Dany ever affable posing for photos on the sand in his Austin-Powerish display of chest hair. Also his shorts looked like mini shirts!!! We all had a laugh.
• Making Kappe goodus (Frog houses) in the sand, consisting of a lot of tunnels in the sand all interlinked in the center. One could put his hand thru one of the tunnel and catch hold of another’s hand coming in from some other tunnel
• Building of a pyramid by Ravi, rather trying to build a pyramid. Inspite of having a coconut shell for help, he could not accomplish the task.
• A lot of questions to Dany about “Yaake aagabaaradu??” which he would not answer.
• Dany showing off his undies full of sand, and the pockets of sand filled with sand

Ravi who was reluctant to join us for the beach in the morning because of his fever turned out to be the most enthusiastic in the beach activities as is his wont, always enjoying nature and “natural” activities. Mrs QQ missed the whole fun, having to sit on the sand and watch our belongings. She wanted us to visit the beach again tomorrow, even if it meant foregoing some other spots.

We walked back to the road, encountering a lot of vehicles with Bangalore licences, which nagi observed and pointed that people in Blore seem to be the most “free”. Madhu picked up a lot of red coloured seeds with a black eye. And QQ was ranting in the background saying that they were poisonous. It seems these seeds are ground up and taken with milk for abortion!!

We had lots of tender coconut, in fact emptying all the tender coconuts being sold by a vendor. We caught an auto back to the hotel. Mr and Mrs QQ, along with Sanjay came last. They wanted to take the bus back but after waiting for a long time with the French people, they decided to do what the French did – take an auto. After reaching the hotel, we all had our bath shedding all the collected sand from our clothes, with Dany making the whole bathroom dirty with sand.

We hired autos for our next destination which was Auroville, a UNO funded venture to create a sort of utopian city. The autos had to detour from the ECR road (East Coast Road) thru some kaccha (untarred) roads so as to escape the net of tamil nadu traffic police. The road to Aurovilla which is in Pondi passes thru part of Tamil nadu, where there lurk a lot of police, trying to embezzle money by catching hold of vehicles without permit to ply in tamil nadu. We reached Auroville after a bumpy ride. There was a queue to visit the auro-gallery. Once you passed thru the gallery you come to a counter where you can collect passes to visit Matrimandir. Strange as there is no fees, but an inordinate delay to collect a free pass which really serves no purpose!!

To reach Matrimandir you had to walk a long way thru a partially arched walkway. On the way Madhu found a chakuli hula (millipede). She held it in her palm for it to uncoil, but Nagi was totally disgusted. He made Madhu put the millipede back. Unfortunately he lost his way after Madhu held it, he was found crushed on the way back. He strayed into the path and people squashed him to death. Poor thing!!

Matrimandir is a strange building in the form of a globe. The outer surface is plastered with a lot of discs with gold plating. At the top of a globe are mounted 3 mirrors, which are moved thru a microprocessor aided motor, so as to catch the light of the sun all thru the day and reflect it into the globe. This light shines on a large crystal, supposedly one of the largest and is the only means of lighting inside. The crystal in turn reflects all the sunlight and keeps the dome “naturally” lighted. You can sit in the globe and meditate. We had a discussion on the frail usage of technology while the motive was to create a quite place for meditation. We also had interesting discussions about what would one do if he felt like farting inside the meditation chamber, to which Ravi & DJinn answered that the soft pillows provided for seating would muffle the sound, and QQ added that holding the pillow to ones nose was a sure-fire way of being chloroformed. Of course as the building was under construction since about 20 years, we were not allowed to go in, but only able to view from a view-point, where a keeper upbraided all the assembled to be silent.

We had a long walk back to the Auro canteen. The famed “hibiscus” juice as recommended by Djinns girlfren turned to be a damp squib, with no novelty. Mrs QQ found that it was more lime juice than hibiscus. However Djinn defended saying that it was just diluted, but was really a very good juice. We also had a look at the ethnic clothes showroom inside the ville limits. We returned by autos to our hotel. Needless to say we were thankful to return in one piece, the rick drivers were reckless.

We planned to go to the sea side promenade for a leisurely walk and have dinner in the French town for the night. Nagi & Ravi wanted to give it a go and stay in the hotel till dinner time. Ravi for resting, and Nagi for calling his beau. The rest trudged off to the old “Sacred Heart“ church. The church is very near to the auro-ashram, and is a huge and magnificient structure.

Just the previous day, Sanjay called this building “do minar”- view from the sea side walk, and it turned out to be a church!! Not much of gothic architecture but the building is imposing with very good architecture inside. After this we proceeded to “Goubert” avenue, which is the sea facing road mentioned above. We had a nice relaxed sit on the embankment. Dany, Mrs QQ & Sanjay had a meandering walk on the promenade. They discovered some good restaurants and even booked a table for 7 in one of them. They also saw some road signs that mentioned “Sea Gulls” restaurant but didn’t venture into the dark road to verify. They were so hungry after the walk and photo session (against a statue in a tiny park at the end of the sea side walkway) they had to have some masalapuri from a rajasthani gaadi opposite to the restaurant where the table was booked. By the time they went back to join QQ and Djin it was 7:30 PM. We called Nagi and Ravi to joining us. We were now on the look out for a good place to have our dinner. We tried at all places, including Rendezvous. But they just made us wait and never got back to us even after half an hour. Our tummies were beginning to groan quite loudly by then and we decided to go back to the place where Madhu had booked a place for the gang. But before going into that restaurant Madhu wanted to check out Seagulls first. While the rest of the gang waited, QQ and Madhu checked this place out. Madhu managed to get a fantastic place for the gang and waited there till the rest of them arrived. This place was recommended by Mrs QQ’s fren in England –Raj. The hunt had taken a while, but the view from that place was well worth the wait. It was simply the best place in town, cool breeze from the sea filtering through moonlit coconut leaves hitting our faces, while we sipped our drinks. We could see a ledge that went into the sea, and beyond that we could spot some buoys, which were mistaken for ships by some. Seagull restaurant faces the sea and from the roof-top one can have a good view of the sea pounding on to the rocks below while you sip your choice of poison. Food was exotic with a mix of French and Chettinad cuisine. We had loads of liquor filling our bellies. Liquor proved to be our blessing in disguise for events which happened on the next day. We hired autos and retired for the day at the hotel.

Day 3 – Dec 26

The day began early at 6:30 AM for Dany & Sanjay; they went to Goubert avenue for an early morning stroll and seeing the sunrise. They tried to wake up the rest of the gang to accompany them, but did not find much enthusiasm. They returned early having no company.

It was decided that we visit the beach again before returning to Chennai. After breakfast we got into a bus to reach Auro beach again. The bus stopped midway and suddenly turned back and headed back into town. There was a lot of talk about the sea having rushed into the city - utter confusion. Treating it as rubbish we started walking towards the beach. We found a lot of people on strike on the road, blocking all the traffic. Mrs QQ was appropriately shouted down by the others when she wanted to take the photos of the striking populace. DJinn felt good about the fact that our trip also gave us a feeling of getting caught in between a revolution, a la Tintin and Picarros. The walk was getting tiring. Lower Body Ravi with his Deep Vein Thrombosis leg was finding it very difficult to walk. There was still confusion and rumors of the sea having rushed in and houses lost. Finally we decided to head back and drop the idea of reaching the beach. Ravi was in misery and we didn’t want him to suffer more. Heading back we found a willing scooty ridden person who agreed to drop Ravi further on. We split and found autos to head back to the hotel.

There was shocking moments for us at the hotel. On asking for a taxi which could take us to Mahibalipuram, the hotel proprietor said that the city was flooded by the sea and people had lost their lives. Going to our room, Dany turned the TV on to BBC which reported that an earthquake in Indonesia had unleashed a huge Tsunami on to the coast of India and many lives were lost. The reality hit us and we thanked our stars for having saved us. Nagi suggested that we leave the place as early as possible. He dropped sanjay to the bus stand; Sanjay had to catch an early train to Hyderabad.

After some rest at the hotel we checked out of the hotel and went to MAS for our lunch. We splurged on our lunch with a bottle of wine & rich French cuisine and king prawns. All of us started receiving frantic calls from home and friends asking us if we were safe and were not affected by the tsunami.

Catching a bus to Chennai was an ordeal with multiple queues for securing seats. The journey back was shocking with grizly scenes of the sea having engulfed much of the land. The beach we had frolicked in and wanted to reach in the morning was under water. The whole coastal road was one of devastation, seeing a lot of land submerged, a lot of people on the road with their lifetime belongings. Again we were thankful and thanked our luck of having Mrs QQ, Miss Sandhu’s phone calls & Ms Sh….’s phone calls, which were had been our good luck charms. Ravi, D Dany & QQ regretted the fact that no one called to find if they were ok. There were a lot of calls from Somanna (an affectionate name for Mrs QQ’s father, coined by Nagi) to find if we were safe, every other hour.

We reached Chennai and reached Chennai central well in time. Dinner was at Saravana bhavan, where Dany in his eccentricity was unwilling to join us because of lack of space. Our journey back was uneventful except for Nagi uttering the name of his friend “Devaru” whom he blames for all the misfortunes.

Post trip

The next day was one of revelation, having escaped the Tsunami at such close quarters. Almost 150000 died in the devastation, with Pondi & nearby beaches affected the most in India. We paid our full respects to Hotel Seagull, with DJinn quipping that even though people say that “Kuditadinda Sarvanaasha” (i.e. Drinking leads to complete destruction), it was the liquor which had providentially saved us on the trip.

Additional Notes:

** Dinner at Seagulls: As yenne got the better of us, ravi in particular. Out came words..most of which were targetted at DD, We ganged up against DD because of a statement he made saying "Mysore is a village..". In the end, Ravi D retorted by saying "I give a shit to you.."

** Do we rem the names of the French food items we had...Oriental sea food salad ....?? (Madhu had noted this down on a paper napkin!)

**Tablets given to Ravi by Mrs. QQ and the complications & implications to his lower body...sounded out to him... ;-)

** Stilted roots in Matri mandir premises and our observations..