A Touch of French Charm and All Indian Colour Therapy

Ooh, I'm so excited! After about a week offline, I found an internet cafe with wifi of a sufficient speed, that I can actually download some images as well. So the following post is not quite up to speed - but I shall post it as written and hopefully catch up with myself in the near future...

After nearly a week of bed and board and good company at Mahabalipuram, I am now back on the road again. My first port of call is Pondicherry, where I have been soaking up colonial charm - this time the French variety.
Initially I thought that the only remains of the French era were the street names and a plethora of French tourists. However, as I walked closer to the shore, I came upon the old French part of town, which is pictoresque, clean, green and quiet - not adjectives that I would use to describe the average Indian city.
The charm of the town is appreciated also by Indian tourists, who flock to town to enjoy promenading on the Beach Boulevard eating ice creams (Kulfi being an absolute favourite of mine and contestant for the Best Ice Cream Ever - a creamy custardy vanilla ice-cream with lots of cardemon and crushed pistacchio nuts).
However, here in Pondicherry, as elsewhere, the colonial flavour is only skin deep (or a few blocks deep). One doesn't have to take many steps to be back in India. Inland from the coast, Indian Pondicherry is a polluted traffic jam of death defying pedestrians and death dealing drivers - motorbikes being the tool of choice. Also street stalls selling just about anything you can imagine never needing and plenty of cheap local diners.
Along the coastline North of Pondicherry, India is a string of villages starting with relatively well-to-do suburbs with painted stone houses and gradually morphing to unpainted brick houses until these change to huts built from bamboo leaves and tarpaulin. Goats outnumber street dogs, a water buffalo cart blocks whole alleyways and everywhere there are gaggles of those fast Asian chickens, which have tiny bodies but the muscular legs of Olympic sprinters.

One major draw in Pondicherry for locals and foreigners alike is the Sri Aurobindo Ashram (a spiritual community or retreat), established in 1926 by Sri Aurobindo (the guru) and a Frenchwoman known as The Mother. The spiritual guideline of the ashram are a combination of yoga and modern science and the ashram is one of the most popular in India among Westerners. To be fair, some of Aurobindo's beliefs seem semi-sensible and are often beneficial to the local community. However, other bits are just doodaah - worshipping giant crystals etc. Also the locals revere Sri Aurobindo and the Mother just as ferverently as Ganesth or other deities. Personally I find this culture of glorified hero worship a bit cumbersome to deal with. The Mother and Sri smirk at me knowingly from a poster in the background as I write this.
These first few weeks in India I have been somewhat surprised to find so many similarities between this country and other Asian countries I have visited. This really shouldn't be a surprise, but I suppose India is at times mystified and orientalized in litterature and films. (Disclaimer: I am obviously talking of things rather skin deep. A couple of weeks in a country the size of India certainly doesn't qualify me for deep analysis. But just the everyday encounters with people, how public transport works, how to get a nice cup of tea etc).

There even at a brief glance it is clear, that there are, unquestionably, many things unique to India. There's the religion of course, and the convoluted, corrupted but bizarrely functional systems that make this land of all too many people go about its daily business. It may not run smoothly at all times, but the fact that it runs at all is a bit of a miracle.

But one of the most visible differences between India and other Asian countries is the fact, that it's much more colourful here than... just about anywhere. The houses are more bright,
the temples garishly painted
but, above all, the beautiful saris and dresses of the women are ablaze in glorious technicolour! And the men aren't above a bit of colour either. What a feast for the eyes these colours are, shimmering in the bright sunlight. Added to this there seems to be a magpie-like love of all things shiny - so shiny, silky materials flutter with golden trimmings or clusters of diamante.
Just look at this group of pilgrims (as denoted by their clothing:bright red with possibly yellow trimmings) frolicking in the surf and enjoying a day at the beach!

I wish I could bring it off, but my fledgeling tan pales at the thought of dressing this, or any other, fair skinned Finn in bright green and yellow. I'll stick to loving these colours from afar.

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