Spheres of influence
There's a carnival atmosphere on Pondicherry's main beach as locals mingle with pilgrims and tourists from across India, along with a scattering of foreigners. On the sand, couples - girls dressed in bright saris, boys in loose short-sleeved shirts and jeans - huddle, chatting and snacking on barbecued corn cobs. Far out to sea the lights of container ships can be seen gliding through the darkness of the Bay of Bengal.
For travellers wary of India's frantic pace towards modernisation, the seaside town of Pondicherry, located 160km south of Chennai, in southern India, is a welcome reprieve. The farmers' market, crammed with local produce, is bustling every morning, and as the day's heat abates the beachfront becomes a parade of gossipping, photo-taking, humanity. But Pondicherry generally draws visitors seeking a simpler India; one without the traffic and relentless, heaving crowds of India's mega-cities.
Located in its own municipality, 'Pondi' is an administrative union that straddles the states of Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu. A former French enclave that hugs the country's eastern coast, modern day Pondicherry is a city of thinkers, with technical colleges, universities and spiritual institutions dotting its outskirts, making it a truly unique Indian destination.
The terrace of the boutique Promenade Hotel, which overlooks the shoreline, is packed with affluent Indian families and a handful of sunburnt French tourists drinking gin and tonics.
On the beachfront, one entrepreneurial teen sells UFO-like discs covered in battery-powered lights. He throws one high into the air out towards the water, and the evening's warm thermals make it float and dance before descending, boomerang-like, back to his little stand, to the shrieking delight of the children watching. Nearby a statue of Ghandi, framed in an ivory white shrine and surrounded by seven tall pillars, watches over the revellers.
The southern coast bore the brunt of India's tsunami damage, with more than 500 people killed in the Union of Pondicherry, 30,000 left homeless, and more than 7,000 dead in neighbouring Tamil Nadu. A vendor selling sweet gulab jamun dough balls says that for months after the tsunami the wives of missing fishermen would sit on the beach for hours, staring out to sea. A small plastic tassel tied to his stand depicting Varuna, the Hindu lord of the sea riding a bright green sea creature, flaps in the warm air.