Christmas of 2006 at Pondicherry-The French Territory of India!

Ah! This was amongst the bestest of the best ones! Christmas with the French in a French territory! Never thought of it when we left Bangalore again on our weekend getaway….this time with friends, few of them who had reached already & booked out shacks overlooking the beach & we were to join them on the morning of Christmas……sun, sand, Christms with French food…….hahaha Jealous?
We started from Bangalore at around 11 in the night with our usual first stop at the Murugan temple of Dharmapauri, then we headed into the night towards Pondicherry, driving on the beautiful roads of Tamilnadu, which makes driving a pleasure….Kudos to the govt. of TN for the same……man, how can they keep their roads in such good condition! Anyways it did not take us more than 3 hours to get to the city….there we were stranded in near the bus station of Pondi, trying to call our friends who had already reached & reserved our shacks, but stranded because their phones were off & we could not locate them!!!! Nevertheless we managed to get to them by 4….yeah I know, 2 hours!! Then…….rested…..????……nah…..we headed straight to the beach which was just opposite to our shack, cant forget how crazy & juvenile we suddenly became, lost in the beauty of the dawn breaking with the sun & in the sand…..each fall beating the other, with no pain, just getting more messier by the minute with the sand creeping through our clothes, building castles out of sand which got washed away in every 5 minutes, breaking the heart of my poor hands that built them ; ) , slowly at day break with the scorching sun, the sleepless tiredness of the night crept in, but it did not hamper our spirits, we bathed in salted water , trying our best to wash of the sand & went like hungry foxes to gorge some English breakfast!
Setting off again, into the compact town of Pondi, we explored the city-side of it! Finally making a stop at the Sea Gulls restaurant, for just some fries, we almost dozed off, suddenly becoming wise, we decided to take a quick nap before lunch in order for us to enjoy the rest of the day.
Now comes the best part…..the exorbitant wide spread of Christmas special lunch at the Grand Rendezvous! Name it & u would have found it, anything from a French kitchen is what we got to eat…..I can still smell the aromas….& the cherry on the cake was the authentic French wine! We ate until 16.oo hrs in the evening! Off we went again to the project of building sand castles, this time with a few more soldiers to assist me!, Somewhat successful I must say! Suddenly we were getting shooed off by the costal guard at 18.30 because some visitor had gone missing in the mighty Indian ocean, got back carrying this mood & there it was ….the closing of our first day at Pondi!
We again started early the next morning, unable to control my enthusiasm of getting back to the sand & water, I was up before dawn & dragged along a few early risers like me to the beach…with the high tides & the gulls swooping into the ocean…..what a sight & what a time we spent! Back for French breakfast, we dressed & left to the beautiful Auroville- a place belonging to the French who followed Sri Aurobindo Akroyd Ghosh, his preaching’s, his philosophy, his way of life! It was whole village with people having their own small-scale industries, mostly articrafts like candles, hammocks, jute chairs, painting, wooden carving etc. Even had a clubhouse of their own, quite amazing I must say for a little seaside city like Pondicherry! Impressed me! It was almost 5 int evening & we never realized that we had missed lunch lost in this small village called Auroville!
Quickly we walked into a little Chinese kitchen & had small appetizers & momos because we wanted to get back to Rendezvous for dinner before we headed back to Bangalore. As said, again, a most memorable meal we had & reluctant though we were we had to head back to Bangalore, suddenly we came across a Italian ice-cream shop across another beach side, where temptation dragged us! God, this was bliss! The most excellent melting ice-creams….no no, I’m not advertising for them , but trust me, this was real good! We sat at the edge of the beach finishing our ice cream, enjoying every mouthful & thinking about getting back to Namma Bengaluru & back to work! We left the beautiful Pondicherry at around 23.00 hrs & in Bangalore at 2 am! Excellent!