Gay Old Post-Modern Pondy

Sorry about the poor quality of the above photo. Blogger is freaking out because of how slow my internet connection is.

A side trip from Mahabalipuram took me to Pondicherry, about 100 km down the coast, and the former capital of the French colonial interests in India. In the early days of the British East India Company, the Brits and the Frogs fought about fifteen skirmishes referred to as the "Carnatic Wars", in which the French would capture one British garrison, realize it was full of gin-drunk, foul-mouthed sailors with the rickets, then give it back, then allow the same limeys to take a French outpost, and when they found out that it was full of wine-drunk, foul-smelling sailors with the runs, they would give it back. Quite silly it was, just like most colonial squabbles, except when you realize that people died and the gravitas hits you like wow.

I know what you're thinking, again. You're thinking, "what's with the title of this post, Robbie?" And the answer is this. Pondicherry ("Pondy") is gay in way all things French, like baguetteries, promenades, and Dominique Villepin, are gay. That is, sprightly, leggiere, full of carelessness, air, and the untrammeled scent of fresh petunias. But the "post-modern" part, that's because I came to Pondicherry mainly to buy some stationary from the Sri Aurobindo Hand-Made Paper Factory, so that I can write home to all of you about my travels in style. Get it? I traveled somewhere for the express purpose of describing my travels. That's post-modern, isn't it? It's meta, at the very least.

Several things you should know before we start. First, my camera ran out of batteries very early in the day, so I don't have a lot of pictures, but the ones I have are good (my camera is a lot like the gas meter on my '89 Taurus wagon, "Gold Torro" -- it shows me full until the tank is half-empty, then dips like a George W. Bush approval rating when I least expect it).

Second, Pondy is ruled by these two freaky people, Sri Aurobindo and the Mother. Aurobindo is a spiritual philosopher from Calcutta who locked himself in his room in Pondy for 35 years writing books that argued for a fusion of yoga and the natural sciences, but also that man is a "transitional being," that all of his creations are falling apart and destroying themselves, and that the only hope for human kind is to encourage the presence of the Divine on earth. I dug that philosophy. Kind of like Daniel Quinn's "Ishmael", minus that stupid talking gorilla, plus some Stephen Hawking meets Siddhartha Gautama. The Mother is a Frenchwoman who came to Pondy in the early 20th century and started telling children's stories around town and shrieking about the beauty of the universe and life and love. Think of her as the gorilla. Somehow these two hooked up and started making philosophy together, and their house is now called the Sri Aurobindo Ashram (temple), and hundreds of devotees come every day. There were a bunch of granola-eating French ex-pats there, meditating in front of the philosophers' burial samadhi, but I wasn't allowed to use my camera inside there.

Other than that, which was sort of a cool perk to the town that I didn't know about, Pondy looks like a fading European resort town -- sort of reminded me of Cascais, Portugal, with the rocky coast and stained-paint buildings...



Here's a nice clay goods market...



A French bungalow...



The promenade...



And the undisputed best part of the trip, happened here. I apologize in advance for how much I look like a pirate in this picture. Some Australian lady took a better picture of me and she's gonna send it along shortly. Anyway, I was walking down the street near the Sri Aurobindo Ashram, and I hear this jangling sound behind me. But you hear all sorts of things in India, so I didn't turn around until it got really loud. So I turn around, and look what I see...



An elephant with a necklace made of bells!

They took him to a sidestreet hindu temple and we all got to feed him grass and bananas and the parents in the audience handed their small children up to ride the elephant while they shrieked and cried in terror. He had swastikas painted on his ears, too.



And I finally made it to the paper factory, where I snuck in and got a tour from an eager paper worker, even though the factory part was closed...



There's the Sri and the Mother on the wall near some paper-cutters...



And at the end, the factory worker guy took a handful of chemical-treated cotton and jute, put it in a little hand-press, and made me this thick, soggy, pulpy piece of raw paper. He said I would have to let it dry for two days before it was usable, but that seemed like a bit too much commitment to me. I threw it away.



I did, however, but all this beautiful paper... both stationary and journals. So I'm having a contest. Whoever leaves the funniest comments on this post gets a letter on my beautiful handmade paper stationary. You have to leave you address too (or email it to me) so I know where to send it.



Let the posting begin!