Pondicherry

A long lasting trip was fulfilled as I travelled to Puducherry as its called now. Vijay and I hit the roads early in the morning at 5 am. Its am amazing experience to ride cutting across the chill wind of the ECR Road. Our 3 hour-long journeys ended at 8 am as we had breakfast at The Promenade, A hidesign hotel across the beach. I was quite impressed looking at the no of foreigners staying at the hotel. The restaurant was packed with French tourist.




We started the day by taking long walks along side the beach; the shore of the beach is covered with bed of rocks on which there is a pedestrian walkway is built. Hence once can only see the water hitting the rocks and gushing back to where they came. At around 9 am we decided to visit the “malakulam vinayakar”; the irony of the temple is that long long ago there used be a pond on which a tree grew up and hence the god Ganesha was name Malakulam Vinayakar. Out side the temple you will find a very friendly elephant that bless all tourist on their head as they bend. Mind you the elephant does not eat bananas, so get him a loads of “Arikam pullu” if you like.






After the temple we headed to aurbindo ashram, a quite place where all devotees of “The Mother” go to pay visit to her centenary. The ashram has also got a bookstore and library. You also get information booklet, which tells about the different stores at the French Colony. You can browse through http://www.sriaurobindoashram.org/ before heading here

We then headed to my favourite shop Auroville where I went on shop for loads of agarbatti and lanterns. Please don’t miss shopping at auroville its definetly much cheaper than their shops in Chennai and Pune. Next was shopping at MG road, one of the oldest and busiest road in the town. Here you will find some branded shops and showrooms. You will also find garment shops selling Tirpur export stuff. They are really cheap but you will have to hunt for good fitting clothes.

We next headed off to Auroville, which is 20km before Pondicherry on the way to Chennai, before going we did take a look at the governors house, which was a beautiful huge mansion. We reached auroville around 12 noon after riding through bumpy and muddy roads. This is an international township established by The Mother who created auroville to fulfil her mentors Vision – “ A new forms of individual and collective life, preparing the way towards a brighter future for the whole earth”. In the centre on Auroville is loacated “ Matrimandir”. The beauty of this place cannot be expressed in words. Please browse through http://www.auroville.org/ for more details about this place. It takes you a good 2 hours to look at the beauty of this township. We had lunch at the Auroville café, the food here is extremely good. They are made of organic ingredients and the best part is its not expensive.

As we finished our lunch we headed out back to Nama Chennai.

........ somethings that I cannot forget about this trip.

The colonial feel of the city.
The rough waves of the sea hitting the rocks.
The small two wheeler-hiring shops.
The French riding bicycle and two wheelers through the city.
The sight of rickshaw wala.

The names of road written in French.

Good Day

After a long time, today i felt good about my day. Woke up on time, which enable me to relish and sip up my morning Kapi; followed by a good half an activity. Reached work on time, spent the day working hard, no wasting time, no bitching :).
Surprisingly also left work on time, was also able to catch up with a new member at work for an activity; Then some shopping, cooking & Dinner, finally spend some with personal e mails and uploading snaps which due for a very long time. I also spent time calling and catching up with long forgotten friends.

Extremely exhausted by the end of the day but still relishing as i complete this Blog.

Bombay

A city full of life!

That's wat one can say about our Mumbai. A city that never sleeps. Business is plenty, people work out of shops which is hardly 100 sqft and located in the basement of buildings. Each one of them doing extremly welll and have been established for years together. At night this city looks more beautiful than during day. The roadside restaurants do not close before 1 am in the morning.

A view of this city through the 12th Floor of my anunts house is breath taking. Look down and you will find the railway track, and then the slums, and then the multistoried tall buildings.

This is the only city which has the rich and the poor, people belonging to all cast and religion. where every one has ways and means to survive.

in short Lively is what i can say