Because The Pants were causing me so much stress at night (the dust and heat and local busses no longer faze me, but those f-ing Pants are something else all together), we decided to take a vacation.
No, we did not go to Lakshwadeep, the tropical paradise calling out to us from the center of the Arabian sea, nor did we travel to Sri Lanka (too much civil war), instead we decided to head for the opposite coast of the Indian sub-continent, to the erstwhile French colonial capital, Pondichery, mostly because we had heard rumors of the availability of fresh baguettes.
We decided to travel by A/C Volvo bus, faster than train, rickshaw, or ox-cart (the other options that we considered briefly and then rejected), but considerably more dangerous. We felt that this danger is surely off set by the images of Hindu Gods that line the dash of busses. No train has such Divine co-pilots.
After a nimbu-pani (sweet lime soda) at a street stall on M.G. Road, we boarded our A/C Volvo bus and found seats numbers 5 and 6. I had been warned about these A/C busses by several friends who told me that these fancy long-distance busses are extremely cold. I thought that my friends were probably exaggerating, but nonetheless dressed in jeans and a long kurta and brought along a shawl and an extra sheet to wrap up in. The bus was, in fact, extremely cold, colder than a male penguin's package in winter. Several of our fellow passengers covered their heads with the complimentary blanket and snored loudly throughout the night.
The Volvo "air-ride" bus made the roads, which usually make my teeth feel loose in their sockets with all the bumping and divetting, feel delightfully smooth. The air-ride cushioned the frequent break-slams applied by the driver to avoid goats, cows, and pedestrians. Once we were off the major roads- flying through the Tamil Nadu country-side in the middle of the night- the ride became so bumpy that had I had sang, I would have sounded like a cowboy yodeling to the far-off moon. At one point, Grady turned to me and said, "I think we might be off-roading in the bus." I heartily agreed.
As if the bumps weren't jarring enough, the driver constantly swerved around other slower traffic making the entire bus lurch from side to side- imagine traveling down highway 128 in a tub of lard and you will get a sense of the experience.
But, we made it to Pondi in good time.
Near five in the morning, a boy walked through the bus calling "Pondi Pondi Pondi." I roused Grady from his white-pill induced sleep and we gathered our belongings and exited the bus into the night air. There were, of course, several rickshaw-walas waiting for the bus to deliver its round of nightly visitors to Pondi. The drivers spoke to us in English, I responded in Malyalam. Then the drivers switched their price negotiations to Tamil and I responded in Hindi. They then switched to broken English and I responded in French (just to mix things up). We ended up getting an enthusiastic driver who careened through the streets of Pondi and delivered us to our hotel, "Andana Inn" (Inn of Blissful Happiness, a large neo-colonial affair) that Grady had booked in advanced.
The staff at Anandha Inn allowed us to check into our room despite the early morning hour. We gave them all the necessary paperwork and took the mirrored elevator to the fourth floor. Our room was a standard middle-class Indian business hotel- but with a new flat screen TV (bonus, except for the fact that the reception in our room didn't work, thus proving the 65% rule, more on this rule later). Before falling fast asleep, we noted with interest that the Inn had provided several mini-bottles of booze in our hotel room. Pondi is famous for its cheap and plentiful, unregulated liquor. Unlike quasi-communist Kerala where liquor is expensive and highly regulated by the government, Pondichery and other parts of the former Territory of Pondichery, including Mahe and elsewhere, have different laws concerning liquor.
When we woke around 10, we went downstairs to try the buffet breakfast included with our room. It was typical south Indian breakfast, iddily, dosa, sambar and vada. The tea was weak, but the coffee was delightfully thick and delicious. We had come to Pondi, in part for a vacation from The Pants, but also to facilitate some work that I wanted to do at the National Archive of India Record Center located in the city. Of course, when I called the National Archive to take permission to use the library and records, they could not provide any directions to the center. I noted from the address that the archive was located on "Jivananda Street" which I promptly found on a map of the old Pondichery city. Of course, this was not the Jivananda Street that I was looking for, in fact, the Archive was located in a far-off burg of the city called Lawspet. After breakfast, we traveled around by rickshaw trying to find the Government office, spinning through back lanes past dirty canals and Tamil style temples.
Coming from Kerala, we quickly noted that people here, in general, are much thinner than Keralites and that the road has more bicycles, ox-carts, cows, motorcycles, and scooters than cars. The standard of living in Pondicherry seemed much lower than in urban Cochin which has recently had a boom of money from NRI's working in the gulf and residents working in IT and at call-centers ("Hi, I am 'Jane' answering all your tech-support and credit card needs"). We passed several Goddess shrines with ferocious expressions, manifestations of the angry dark Goddess Kali whose lolling tongue drips blood, clearly, one pissed-off Mama. In front of most of the doorsteps of houses were chalk rangoli designs, auspicious figures that women draw in the early morning. This is not a custom in Kerala.
Finally, after backtracking, side-tracking, and asking several strangers we made it to the Record Center. A guard at the gate looked at his watch and noted that the time was 2:00, "You are very late!" he reprimanded. I apologized, a bit bewildered, because no one knew we were coming. He graciously let us in despite the tardy hour of our arrival.
We entered the building and walked up the stairs, noting the depressingly dirty paint in the stairwell. Reaching the first floor, we went directly to the office of the research assistant Sri M. He remembered me from my phone calls and faxes, and asked if it would be possible for me to return tomorrow when he could collect some materials for me to examine. This, of course, was an unexpected turn of events. I am generally used to archival workers who take little interest and sometimes actively block the progress of my research. I was a bit doubtful at his interest, given my past experience.
We left the archive and traveled back to the hotel via rip-shaw (our name for rick-shaws when the driver charges too much for a ride). We wandered downtown for lunch into the area between the old French quarter and the newer side of the city. No baguettes- just The Rice Food, but spicy Tamil-style rice food.
The evening found us resting by the poolside- the best feature of our hotel. A spacious pool of crystal water tiled with multi-hued blue, green, and purple tiles, watched over by a statue of Buddha, who might have been somewhat surprised to see half-naked foreigners and Indians alike frolicking in the pool. The hotel also had surprisingly good food, but no tonic water.I was on vacation and I wanted a G&T to go with the post-colonial surroundings, but "So sorry, Madam, we will try to get it tomorrow night." "So sorry Madam, it is too difficult to source just now." "Yes, Madam, we will try tomorrow night." This was also the case with the business center when I wanted to send an email, "So sorry, Madam, it isn't working just now," and our television which only had Tamil channels though we were supposed to get Star-World and HBO.
The following days in Pondi took on a comfortable rhythm. We rented a trusty Honda scooter to take us around the city each day for about 120 rupees ($3/day) and enjoyed the ease of having our own transportation. I spent four mornings and two afternoons at the archive finding several documents that should help with a paper I am writing for an academic journal.
One evening we made a pilgrimage to an important Tamil temple that I have long wanted to visit in a neighboring village. There we did pooja (worship) in the large Vashnivite temple complex. The Brahmin poojaris in the temple were very tolerant of our desire to do pooja there and encouraged us to have darshan (sight) of all the Gods in the large complex.
Wandering downtown in the old section of Pondi I frequently found myself transported to other eras and other places: Was I in France? Or 19th century India?. The streets were remarkably clean. The buildings and walls, freshly painted yellow, blue, and cream and overgrown with bougainvillea wouldn't have been out of place in France or Italy. Every evening the red-capped police of Pondi garrison off the old section of Pondicherry from traffic (an unheard of luxury in the rest of India) so that the populace can take an evening stroll along the Promenade, to take in the sea breeze, eat chaat (a type of snack) and fruit from street venders. We indulged in several types of chaat and delicious fresh chilied mango and sweet pineapple on our nightly promenades. There is a graceful ease about old Pondichery. This ease quickly changes when you cross over the main canal into the newer section of town that is as crowded and bustling as any Indian city. There isn't much to do except watch the ocean, beat the heat with naps and laze by the pool. A much needed respite from the heat and dust of the Kerala summer.
