10.28.2006…Puducherry

Before heading to Puducherry and Auroville (a separate post), I was warned there wasn’t much to do or see. I often hear this warn when I’m going to some ho-hum place, but it doesn’t really act as a deterrent. I believe there is always something to see. Each village, town or city has its on spirit and to have seen one isn’t to have seen them all.

On heading out I snapped this persistent cricket. It lasted as long as the petrol pump where we sent it packing. It’s really quick a show watching the tiny legs bend and flex to maintain a grip on an otherwise smooth surface while resisting wind speeds of 60km/ph.

Aren't crickets supposed to by lucky??

Of other note, our driver appeared to be Christian. Not that this mattered one way or the other, but it is interesting that one can find so many signs of Jesus down here. Apparently Syrian traders brought Christianity with them to the region some time ago and it is has a fairly sizable foot-hold here. The fact that Christians (of many sects) use items and idols for worship, reflection and luck fits right in with the traditional cultural use of such items among Hindus. In fact, it wasn’t too uncommon to see items from both religious beliefs paired together. Our driver had a rosary, Jesus (lights up at night) and Ganesh all positioned to bring luck for the drive ahead.

After 3 hours of driving we neared Puducherry close to lunch time. The rain was light as we rolled up to town.

I was told that I would see a lot of influence of the French here as this had once been a colony of theirs. However, one really had to ‘pick-out’ architecture elements in order to see the influence. Some of the older buildings were more obvious, but much of the city had been reclaimed by south Indian styles.

An exception is signage on the streets. They are all the familiar blue and white one would see in France with street names in both Tamil and French.

Scenes of Puducherry…

The Bhagavad Gita

Our first night in Puducherry I began reading the Bhagavad Gita. It is on par with the Bible and the Koran . For those seeking further spiritual guidance, I highly recommend the Penguin Classic version. The translator, Eknath Easwaran, is excellent and he provides a fairly unbiased guide to understanding the context of the text.

The main appeal of this text for me is the call for selfless service while remaining engaged in worldly matters, such as having a family, working, etc. I feel as if I’m reading the guiding tenet of my personal life as I’ve been living it for many years now. Am I completely selfless? Of course not. I try, but I’m still driven by the want to see the success of my efforts in making others happy, empowered or otherwise. I am quite crushed when I see that my work has ‘done nothing’.

This is making me reflect quite a bit on the nature of the volunteer work I do now and how I see my service efforts evolving in the future.

I won’t get into the specifics here, but I will say that while I have much room for growth I actually feel quite confident and at ease with the progress I’ve been making in this lifetime. Is that a selfish thought?

Day Two: What’s to See in Puducherry?

It rained all night…strike that…it monsooned all night. We were having serious reservations about whether we would make it through the three days planned. With the rain we opted for an indoor activity of visiting the city’s museum.

Did you know that there used to be an ancient port here called Poduke? Most of you will say of course not. From 200 B.C. it flourished in trade with Greece and Roman. It received a great deal of olive oil and wine from its trading partners.

This was all surprising to me because when I took world history in high school there is no mention of India when talking about Greece and Rome. In fact outside of hearing about such things as the Upanishads, I can’t rightly recall having much exposure at all about India’s history. Shameful, really.

We also visited the Sri Aurobindo Ashram. It is a simple place but profound is the sight of so many people meditating around, kneeling at and lovingly tending to the final resting place of ‘The Mother’. Perhaps you will recall the French woman mentioned in an earlier post.

She also happened to be the founding force behind Auroville.

We took lunch at historic Hotel de l’Orient. This is where I saw the most ‘frenchness’ yet. Sitting inside the courtyard was near exact to some experiences Surnish and I had when we visited Paris. However, Paris was sans the palm trees.

After visiting a number of handicraft shops (the items that are produced from Auroville are beyond description, one must see and feel for oneself), we had dinner at Salt and Pepper restaurant. This isn’t really worth mentioning except that there as very funny typo on the menu: American Chopsy.

Day Three: Final Moments Before Auroville

I must admit that this was the day I’d been looking forward to only second to visiting Kolkata. Before leaving to Auroville there were a couple of things still worthy of attention.

The most significant was this Gandhi Statue on the beach. The weather was lovely (by comparison) and in the morning hours the area wasn’t too crowded so I was able to enjoy viewing the statue without too much distraction.

On our way to breakfast these two pieces caught my attention.

This collection of items is meant to represent both life and luck. Life in that working from the bottom up each piece represents a stage in life ending with the crystal at the top which represents death and return to the earth.

The second sight was a Jesus shrine. Set up nearly the same as any of the small shrines I’ve seen for Hindu and other deities, again I thought how much Jesus may really have become part of the Hindu pantheon of worship rather than remained as a stand out alone.

As I said good-bye to Jesus our car headed toward Auroville.

Peace,

A Pink American