Dreaming Pondicherry

I am currently interning with the East Delhi Municipal Corporation these days.  It’s been a week since I’ve joined, and I can be sure to say that this is going to be interesting – it is going to be tiring, exhausting, and all things in between. You see, the commute to the office is long and the formality in the projects there, although encouraging, but ache sometimes. City governments have their hands tied in many ways and even if some major challenges might be identified from the headquarter building of the municipality itself but they have no other option but to stay blind to them. Today, when I was sitting in my temporary cubicle space, with a half-read project report in front of me, mulling over a small discussion I just had with an officer there, I felt like moving away from there. I did. My head and heart moved to Pondicherry at that moment and I stayed there for a while.

I feel very lucky and blessed to even say this – I stayed in Pondicherry for a fortnight with a very amazing friend and her family. We went on long scooty rides, explored a variety of South Indian and French cuisine, sat by the ocean and felt one with it, guzzled down coconut water by every vendor we could find, sometimes right from the tree itself, learned some basic Tamil words, fell in love with lemon tea all over again, woke up early morning (okay, this happened only a few days) to watch the sun go high and notice how the sounds of the place change with it, and ate lots of homemade south Indian chutneys and dishes made by aunty! I and Suruthi also discovered how to spacewalk, something I try to practice when I feel grounded with where I am and have the luxury of an open sky! We also caught rainbows and shooting stars, and spotted Venus, Saturn and the Orion with naked eyes!! I loved participating in important temple rituals for my host family and visited a church for the very first time!! And oh! We shopped as well! I sky gazed more than I ever have in my entire life so far and I marveled at the most underrated wonder that Earth is naturally blessed with.

The city and suburbs have truly left a mark on me, and I would never hitch to go back to this place, and hopefully make them as beautiful as these fifteen days I could spend there. Walking around the French Colony, to reach Rock Beach, while crossing a police station with the most amazing mural ever was definitely not what I had expected to see. And when a city so actively tries to speak the language of art, the message arrives in ease. It is a very casual walk – honestly, I wonder if people even realize the simplicity of it, yet managed so neatly, how can they not! The benches with olden lampposts along the way invite people to chat away, and the architecture – well, the ambiance adds to a conversation, and no matter who says what, I hands down believe it does!! Especially the intense conversations that were brewing on those benches – you could simply tell! The city is a right balance of its culture and past, and the architecture speaks this truth. They also have strict legal safeguards against the restriction of open spaces, and laws that ensure that the sky-space of the city is open for all.

There are many more layers to this that makes the city almost angelic. Funnily, it has nothing to do with city design or structure, but I wonder if a beautiful, clean, and balanced city, one that remains in synergy with nature, has a role to play in this. Some of the kindest people ever can be found here! In the main city, at few main crossings, there are booths for people to give off things they no longer use, and anybody who finds utility can take them. Such a great way to promote sustainability through the reuse mantra! My friend tells me many people utilize this service and the “Wall of Kindness”, as it is called, helps the economically weaker in many ways! Community temples willingly offer food without money to the hungry. Not in any mega-scale, but enough for the area still. What truly was a great contrast (at least as compared to Delhi) were the vigilant people who would promptly order up and leave a way for an ambulance to pass. Even if a patient is in a personal vehicle, people would clear for them, even allow skipping red lights.

We were on a nursery-hopping spree the entire time since Suruthi is going to be shifting to her new home. We were on a hunt to find everything in our plant checklist so as to add more greens to her house to balance the already lush outsides! Haha
We stopped at a place to get a pot for the plants, where the kind woman spoke with Suruthi and upon knowing that the pot was for her new home, offered some wild Tulsi (Holy Basil) that she uprooted in front of us and gave it to her!! I simply kept smiling at this whole affair- not about that she had offered to give, but that she had! They had a conversation for a great five minutes at least, as if they knew each other from before and it’s just so serene to feel the slowness and stability that random conversations extend, even when you don’t understand what the conversation is about!

If cities can be shaped in a way that honor the people who add life and value to the city, I think, this page from Pondicherry must remain dog-eared for reference! After all, a city is only a resonance of the symphony of its regulations and law, isn’t it??

And as far as city governments are concerned, I recently learned how under the leadership of Dr. Kiran Bedi, the water-starved city quenched its thirst by rejuvenating its water resources by utilizing the power of CSR in businesses and generosity of people, and without any fiscal exchange! A shooting star in itself, I encourage you to learn about ‘Water Rich Pondicherry’ if you may or let me know if I should write about this??

As such, I hope I have been able to deliver a fraction of the love that I was encapsulated in from the moment I reached Pondicherry, and still feel, because a part of me has found a home there, and lives rent-free 🙂