Day1:
We started our Pondy trip against all odds, it was the same day (morning) when terrorists attacked Taj hotel in Mumbai and on the other side cyclone Nisha was roaming, waiting for us on the eastern coast. But we the VC team at Microsoft didn't give up and continued with our preparations and plan. We had our reservations on a KSRTC Volvo bus which started on time from Majestic bus station early in the morning. In between we stopped only once for lunch, had "Kerala Paratha", omelets and chais. It kept raining all through the way to Pondicherry; and finally when we reached, the city too welcomed us with drizzling, and an overcast sky and empty roads, some of which were water logged.
After having one small fight with auto-rickshaw men we finally reached our hotel ,Lotus Comfort, rested there for around an hour. The hotel is a best value for money hotel I must add here. It stopped raining for a while , so we came out fresh in search of hotel Rondeywoo(spelled Rendezvous), famous for its french cuisine ,however what we ate there was more of the Indian side than French.
We thought of hitting beach in the evening but were barred by the security personnel, the sea was overflowing onto the Pondy's beach side roads we could easily see the water. While returning to hotel, some of us decided to walk along the street through the French colony, walk is always preferable after such a heavy meal. This walk gave us one more chance for tea ,coffee and gossips at a road side stopover which seemed pretty popular, judging by the crowd gathered there for T. The T always taste better and less with our Bollywood gossips. It started raining heavily once again, and we were left with no option than to quickly huddle ourselves back into the auto-rickshaws and to head back to the hotel. It felt like a very long day around 9 PM when most of us decided go off to sleep.
Only four of us - Shekhar, Ravi K, Ganesh and I were alive and agile enough so we played cards till 2 AM and our night ended discussing ghosts, accidents and other scary experiences we had. I heard someone saying that " L it would have been better if we had stayed in Bengaluru, Have we come here to play cards?
Day2:
God always listens to our deepest prayers, and he didn’t let us down this time either! Day 2 was transformed to a magical clear day no rain at all. We started our morning by heading to the Promenade and later heading for the sandy Aura beach and subsequently Auroville city. Auroville, work on which started in 1968, is a must see in Pondicherry and is also called the 'Universal Town'. People from across the world, with different nationalities (around 50), backgrounds, beliefs and culture live here in perfect harmony. You can buy souvenirs and taste good organic continental food here, and great desserts. One day is definitely not sufficient for Auroville.
Matrimandir is the major attraction here, and it is a 30 meters high golden sphere. Honestly a must watch. It's the place for trying to find one's inner self, a place to learn to concentrate. Silence is maintained inside the Matrimandir to ensure the tranquility of the space and entire area surrounding the Matrimandir is called Peace area. However visitors need to do an advance booking if planning to visit inside the Matrimandir golden sphere. Unfortunately we missed visiting this on this trip.
When we returned to the main city from Auroville, some of our born shoppers headed straight for the shopping centers. It’s worth mentioning that those who didn’t want to shop, but take some rest instead were not so lucky - one of the auto-rickshaws we hired met with an accident. Fortunately no one got injured. The trip wouldn’t have been complete without this scary experience, specially post our conversation from the previous night. We didn't have much time left for our 11:30 PM bus to Bangalore so we quickly had our dinner and headed straight for the Bus stand. This brings to end our short, but excitement and fun-filled trip to Pondicherry.
..bhupendra
