Pondicherry & Auroville

One of the most perfect weekends ever. Where do I begin? I guess from the start. Let us chronicle these good times well:

Day 1 – Saturday morning

We (Vijay, Aneesh, Kiran & me) reached Pondicherry at 10 AM after an overnight journey by bus from Bangalore. Pondy was hot, humid & sunny. We immediately made our way to our hotel called Hotel Mass. Not wanting to check in this early ( since it was a 24 hour check out) we decided to hit the only place any of us knew in Pondy called Café Rendezvous. We partook in our first cerveza there at around 11 AM along with a delicious breakfast.

Following breakfast we then hopped down the road to another great café run by a French Aurovillian called Pierre. Here is where we discovered Satsanga. Satsanga has to be experienced. We could easily have been anywhere in Maastricht or Brugge relaxing over our pints & snacks. Simply brilliant. We spent 4 hours at Satsanga and then headed to check in to our hotel.

After checking in to our hotel around 5 PM, having showered etc, we ventured out to buy “a few drinks” for the evening. We also got in touch with an AIESEC’er from Pune who was living in Auroville now. She was at NLDS with Kiran & Aneesh. A masterstroke of luck if there ever was one. So Sharwari and her friend Meera came over to our hotel in the evening and over a few drinks invited us to a party at Auroville. So we headed to Auroville in a cab around 9 ish but not before a few more drinks and Aneesh, Kiran & me swallowing a nifty little pill called Party Smart.

Reached Auroville and headed to Sharwari’s house where we met a few other young Aurovillians & learnt more about the Aurovillian philosophy, their reasons for being here & their views over a few beers. Post that, we headed to the party which was in a house with around 60 people and the people just kept on increasing as the night progressed. Great music, they’d also set up a projector which screened old 80’s music videos. Simply mindblowing evening. We finally headed back to our hotel and ate piping hot dosa’s on the road at 3 AM before crashing.

Day 2

Sunday saw us wake up by around 11 and head out once again to meet Sharwari & Meera for breakfast. A great south Indian breakfast at Surguru later, we moved to Casablanca for some Auroville handicrafts & other shopping. That done, time again found is in Satsanga where we were joined by Vijay’s friend Lisa, another Aurovillian.

The evening was a rocking room party where we were joined by the two girls again and yet again party smart did the trick!

The next day was a lazy wake up and heavy lunch as we bid adieu to Pondy.

Many things came out of these three days: my fascination for Auroville and the people’s philosophy, “party smartisms”, meeting some really interesting people. Satsanga..I could go on. Amidst all this was of course the thrill of riding in the front of an auto, walking around Pondy at 5 AM with Aneesh hunting for dosas, sitting on the roof top of an Auroville house at 4 AM in the cool, crisp breeze talking about life & its many questions over an equally crisp, cool beer....I could not have asked for more. A special thanks to Sharwari & Meera for being great hosts.

My first time but I’m already planning my next!
All in all Pondicherry could be summed up by saying its as rocking as a polar bear's first date!
(if you didnt get the above sentence, you need to start taking Party Smart!)