94. PONDY & AUROVILLE - MY 11th TRIP

Pondicherry is on the eastern seaboard of India. Excavations have revealed a Roman settlement existed 2000 years ago. This was the scene of many a battle fought between the British and the French. Pondy was the capital of French India before it attained independence in 1954. The French stayed 300 years.

It's a 2 and a 1/2hr drive south of Madras. (Chennai)










1 of their many fanciful Catholic churches

this is the way they package their cotton candy - is'nt it neat?

Pondicherry is best known for the ashram of Sri Aurobindo, a world teacher with a large following in Europe. His spiritual collaborator was known as The Mother, a woman of Turkish Egyptian ancestry. A yin-yang combination. 











 






Aurobindo's philosophy is pretty much like Theosophy. There are no rituals, no compulsory meditation, no practices. It revolves around 1 principle - to surrender to the divine principle and be open to the divine force.

Indian 'French' gendarme

Street scenes - leafy suburbs, wide boulevards - quiet for an Indian town... 

The area in and around the ashram is quiet almost closed to noisy traffic. For an Indian town, Pondy is actually quiet and there's almost an air of graciousness about it...

 

The Matrimandir in the commune Auroville, a township created as an experiment to celebrate unity in diversity. This golden globe is a place for quiet reflection and meditation and being late in the day, it was closed. I visited when it was under construction in year 2k (see. Post 36 - The New Colonialists)

The place was overrun by Caucasians either living or working there to build the place. It's now a large, lush and green commune but its inhabitants are tucked away among the greenery in their cottages. It would be interesting to see them and their homes because I sense those cottages are retirement homes to certain wealthy individuals. 

For such a small town with a small French population, France has a consulate office here which handle small immigration matters. Perhaps, slowly but surely and legally too, the French have quietly 'colonised' Pondy again - through Auroville. 











Only in a former French colony will you find such colorful expression, in most Indian cities, if not all, car owners pick their cars in black or white

Love this window grille. It's nice that the Indians stick to their very own style of everything instead of having new modern westernised versions. It helps that the population's huge so there's lots of talent and there's no need to import talent from outside the country. China's like that too and both countries are proud of what their sons and daughters' produce in the areas of art, dance, music, movies, fashion, design and science.....












 

This Frenchified little town has names like Romain Rolland Library and Rue de la Marine. Their cops are gendarmes and locals carry names like Francois and Armand. Needless to say, there's a large Catholic population here. 

The Aurobindo Ashram Publications has probably the largest selection of Aurobindo's books and tapes

 











Our hotel was rustic albeit a little rundown. The Bay of Bengal was right there and I was lulled to sleep by the crashing waves

Early morning yoga and a walk along the beach was the ritual, after dinner it was an exchange of topics over tea and coffee. Absolutely nobody in the group of 30 drank nor smoked! So spiritual to keep the body temples so clean! To top it all, all meals were vegetarian. All Goody Two Shoes till our return to S'pore! But most did well......



 

My days are just packed...