Life of Pi

Life of Pi

Friday, Oct. 6, 2006--Pondicherry (Cont.)

Pondicherry is an interesting city. It was a French colony and, therefore, run separately from British India. In fact, it remained French when India got its independence from Britain in 1949. Pondicherry didn't become part of India for 5 more years. The city is cleaner than most Indian cities and has distinct atmosphere. It really reminds me much of Charleston and of parts of the French Quarter in New Orleans. There are wonderful big stuccoed buildings with many of them having courtyards. Some of the simpler houses and shop buildings are streetfront and have nice wooden trim hanging from the roofline and the balconies. Most buildings have tile roofs. The sea is right here, and many nice government buildings face it. A few blocks back from the sea, there are blocks of buildings that look as if they were built in the 1930s, so different parts of town have different character. All over the city, however, the streets are narrow, and most of them have been recently repaved with concrete covered with patterned pavers.

If you are lucky enough to have read the novel The Life of Pi, you will know that Pondicherry is the setting for the beginning of the book. The boy's father owns a private zoo here. The story is about the boy and a tiger from the zoo being stranded in a lifeboat in the middle of the ocean after their ship goes down. If you haven't read it, it is a delightful book that got much recognition when it came out.

I rested part of the afternoon, then I went out for dinner. I chose the wrong place, however. I went to a muslim restaurant and had mutton biryana. Unfortunately, it was barely warm. I worried whether it had been setting at that temperature for a long time and might give me food poisining or if they just didn't leave it in the oven long enough. The mutton pieces were mainly bone with little meat on them. So I left the meal wishing I had eaten elsewhere.

I returned to the hotel for the evening--watching the news and reading from my current book.

Saturday, Oct. 6, 2006--Pondicherry

I was lazy today. I didn't leave the hotel until at least 3 hours after awakening. When I did leave, I went on a slow walking tour of the south side of town and of the waterfront area. It's such a nice city for that. I took quite a few photos. Because it was Saturday, there wasn't much traffic. There is a big ashram headquartered here that is a major tourist attraction. All the buildings they own are painted the same gray color, and they take up several blocks of the old colonial section of town. There was a big crowd at the temple in that area with an elephant out front. I didn't enter because of all the beggars around.

I became hot and sweaty after a while, so I returned to the hotel without having lunch. I just ate a couple of pieces of peanut candy I had in the room. It is somewhat like peanut brittle, but there are more peanuts and less brittle than in the version eaten in the U.S. Here, the brittle is only to hold the peanuts together. I fell asleep and had a long nap. Now I am back out to explore the town some more.