 |
| Alliance Française |
 |
| A street |
 |
| Horsehoe doorway |
 |
| The staircase to our room |
 |
| A typical doorway |
 |
| A cobbled street |
I find Pondicherry very exotic - The French-French, the Pondicherry-born-Tamil-French, and the Tamils all live so happily together, it's amazing... If you spend time on the Promenade, or wander around the streets (Rues), the atmosphere completely captivates you.
Auroville is again another world that one can access from Pondicherry - so different, and yet something links it with the rest of Pondicherry and India.
If you happen to be near one of the French schools, and close your eyes, you will hear children and their teachers happily chattering away in French...
The buildings in the French Quarter are still very well-preserved. Some have been successfully restored to look the way they looked when the French occupied this territory. We stayed in a heritage hotel - absolutely charming place. The staircase with a room on every landing had been carved out brilliantly...
It was only in 1954 that Pondicherry became a part of the Indian Union. Strange isn't it? The police still wear kepis, a lot of the signboards are in French and Tamil - in fact the official languages are Tamil and French. I find this a rather difficult phenomenon to absorb - having a still-very-French enclave. (The British influence in India we take for granted.) And, there is NO Hindi at all!!! (which is very refreshing to a non-Hindi Indian)
Am sharing some pix here, and I hope they bring out the quaintness of this lovely, exotic place...
