Saturday, July 28, 2018

Return to Pondicherry!

A couple of years back I had the time of my life in Pondicherry doing scuba diving with my friends Abhishek and Bhanu. We returned again this year with one more friend swatchit joining the party. This time there were no plans for scuba diving just chilling out.

The others had arrived a day earlier and were fast asleep as I arrived early morning. Abhishek was the only one who was awake and he guided me to the hotel. As soon as I entered the room I gave a mighty kick to swat who was sleeping on the floor.This woke him up instantly. That's how you greet friends when you are meeting after a year esp when they are coming from abroad. After a lot of trading insults and swear words we were done with the pleasantries.

Next we decided to go to the beach and have a look at the sunrise. But to our disappointment the sun skipped the rising part and suddenly revealed itself in between the clouds. Dejected we just started to stroll aimlessly. After a short walk it began to rain. We ran from one building to another dodging the raindrops and finally reached our hotel. After a refreshing bath and a light breakfast we went off in search of a fish market. Yeah, a fish market. Because swat wanted to see one. I don't know what got into him but he was whining like a kid when we did not want to go. So to placate the kid in him we started off on our rented scootys. We zipped past narrow lanes, through some truly off the beaten paths to finally reach what we thought to be a fish market but which turned out to be a jetty. It was packed with small fishing boats all round. Though the sight was beautiful the whole place reeked of fish. We strolled around here for some time and left to continue our search for the damned fish market.

At around 11 am we realized we had to check out of our hotel and check in a different hotel.This was because of the unavailability of rooms. The afternoon was taken by this activity. By 2 pm we were well settled in our new hotel which was quite comfortable. We had our lunch in the hotel itself and soon departed for a swim in a nearby beach. We spent the next 3 hours here swimming and just lazing around. It was fun. Later we went back to our hotel and the evening was spent in just lying in the bed and just chilling. We ordered some pizzas and cold drinks and did nothing else other than talk and joke. When good friends gather time flies past. We drifted off to sleep around 1 am late into the night.


The next day morning it was abhishek who woke us all up insisting we go to Auroville. I was against the idea as I thought there was not much to see and do there. Bhanu was of the same opinion. But abhishek won the day and we went off to see Auroville. After an hour's ride and lots of walking we finally had a glimpse of Auroville. Though it was magnificent, like I said before there was not much to do for a bunch of guys not much interested in spirituality. We left the place with abhishek avoiding our angry gazes all the way back to the hotel. Mid way we had one of the most memorable lunches ever in my life in a hotel called Junior Kupanna. Memorable not only because of the delicious food but mostly because of the company I had. I remarked that this may be the last time we all meet as bachelors as it is highly likely that abhishek and bhanu will get married soon.


As I had a bus to catch in the night we just went to the beach and spent the evening strolling and just aimlessly strolling around. We ended the trip like we started it. Without a care in the world! 



Here is a video of the whole trip.