Pondicherry, India
Summary
Pondicherry, India, is a destination both past and present. Located on India’s Coromandel Coast, Pondicherry celebrates its French colonial history, fuses it with local Tamil culture, and fills visitors’ senses with a rich and varied heritage combined with grace and hospitality. Such a place tempts the thematic traveler. The theme: find traces of the French East India Company.
An excerpt from the star of india
The Dupons surveyed a recently established botanical garden in the French Quarter, about two blocks west of a magnificent palm-lined promenade. Romantics walked there to enjoy the warm sea breeze. There, spectacular reddish sunsets were framed by the calm sea of the Bay of Bengal. The town was in harmony with nature and its heavenly bodies. The name of each street began with the word street. Dumas kept the Dutch layout grid. The streets intersected at right angles. The current governor did add his hand to local engineering when he surrounded the entire French Quarter with a spectacular boulevard. Now the French part of Pondicherry is smoothed out into an oval shape.
The carriage stopped at a colonial house with large windows. The steps were made of teak, and teak doors, twice the size of the doors of the average house, hung from their rails. This house featured a spectacular terrace on Rue Romain Rolland. The gallery was adorned with wicker furniture. The Dupons were provided with a couple of rooms in the spacious space, including one with a small private balcony that offered a view of the Bay of Bengal.
A light wind caught the tall leaves of the tall, slender trunks of the Pondicherry palm trees, rocking them gently like babies in their mother’s arms. The same breeze brought delicious food fragrances that tempted the noses of Ignacio and his teenage son. They walked down Mahe De La Bourdonnais Street, well designed and remarkably straight, in the French Quarter. They walked towards the Bay of Bengal. The Dupons had gone out to socialize and find dinner. It was his game not to plan such outings. Instead, they preferred chance encounters and clues that would lead them to where they were supposed to dine. Ignacio thought that they both liked that because so much of their lives had been structured. The time of the afternoon was his moment to gain momentum… to enjoy. Jean-Louis just thought it was fun to try new things and he enjoyed this daily time with his father. It seemed to him that they had become closer now that the father believed that his ambition for his child would come true.
“What food is that?” Ignacio asked as he lifted his head a little to catch with his nose more of a delicious sweet aroma that floated. Jean-Louis decided that it was a crepe his father was smelling because he knew that Ignacio liked sweet things more to eat. He also detected coffee in the wind. Therefore, he guessed that if they searched for the source of the sweetness, they would find an Indian coffee shop at the end. That sounded like a suitable goal for Ignacio, who would be willing to give up a main course if he could have two or three desserts instead.
No more than two laps around a block did they find him. The cafeteria had French doors wide open in welcome. White net curtains danced in the wind, moving in and out of the restaurant. The aroma of coffee grew stronger as father and son approached the house. Ignacio saw an Indian hand-grinding coffee beans that he took out of a sack. About forty people sat at a series of small tables inside the cafeteria or outside any of the three French doors. The strange thing about coffee shops, like this one in India, was that because European knowledge of the origins of coffee was associated with the desert regions of the Middle East, coffee shops in France tended to be decorated like the ones the Arabs frequented. However, here in Pondicherry, the cafes are filled with trappings from France and India rather than Arabian. Jean-Louis pointed out what Ignacio wanted. Two workers toiled at a griddle making light crepes filled with sweet and savory chocolate or raspberry sauces and sprinkled with cinnamon or powdered sugar. Hungry, Ignacio ordered a plate of each variety while he had his son bring the coffees and go find a table for two under the fading blue sky of India. At the table, they divided the loot so that each one took a chocolate and a raspberry crepe.
Comment
the star of india is a novel that will be published in the summer of 2014. It is the second in a story of three novels that began with A Voice from New Mill Creek: The Methodists. To read a Trip Advisor report on Pondicherry, click http://www.tripadvisor.com/Tourism-g659792-Pondicherry_Union_Territory_of_Pondicherry-Vacations.html. Those who love to see photographs of beaches around the world will enjoy Don Charisma’s blog. Click on http://doncharisma.org/