Pondicherry- India's Little France

I am home.

Those are probably the most beautiful three words I’ve ever heard. However, after learning to live in, and love, Pondicherry, I daresay I think the coming-home day came too soon!

Pondicherry is really a tiny town, packed with ‘seeables’. A well organized two-day trip should be enough to view every ‘tourist spot’ there. And I was there for forty days (and I’ll soon be going back for 50 more)! That’s long enough to make me consider taking up a job as a tourist guide. But since I have my work at JIPMER to think about, Pondi-blogging is about all I can do, for now.

Often referred to as The French Riviera of The East, this little town on the Coromandel coast is where the French dream of an Indian Empire began… and ended. French Pondicherry was a Boulevard Town, an oval with straight roads intersecting at right angles. The town was encircled by a boulevard, and split by a canal into Ville Blanche (White Town, the European side) and Ville Noire (Black Town, the Tamil part). While Ville Blanche exudes old-world charm, with its graceful French villas, paved streets and quiet, tree-lined lanes, Ville Noire is a realization of every Indian cliché- the bright colours, the dust, the heat, the flies, the noise and the people, the smell of sea and salt and fish thick in the air, enjoyable nevertheless.

Once called Vedapuri, Pondicherry is said to have been home to the sage Agastya. Excavations at Arikamedu, an archaeological site barely 4km from Pondicherry, reveal vestiges of a port town, and Roman settlements over 2000 years old. Vedapuri’s trade links with Rome and Greece continued till the Cholas took over Pondicherry (around 10^th- 11^th century). In the 13^th century, the Cholas were overthrown by the Pandyas. Later, the Vijayanagara Empire, which encompassed almost all of South India, ruled here till 1638, after which the Sultan of Bijapur took hold of Gingee (pronounced sen-jee, a fortified town 75km from Pondicherry).

In the early 16^th century, the Portuguese started a factory in Pondicherry. They, however, were routed out a century later by the ruler of Gingee. Then came the Danes, and the Dutch, who set up establishments here. The new ruler of Gingee invited the French to open trade centres in Pondicherry, so that they might compete with the Dutch.

On the Fourth of February, 1673, Bellanger, a French officer, took up residence in a Danish lodge in Pondicherry. Thus began the French hold over Pondicherry. A year later, Francois Martin, the first Governor, transformed Pondicherry from a tiny fishing village to a flourishing port town. In 1693, the Dutch took over Pondicherry and fortified it. However, six years and a peace treaty later, the French regained Pondicherry, and developed it considerably.

Under ambitious Governors like Lenoir (1726-35), Dumas (1735-41) and Dupleix (1742-54), Pondicherry grew into a large, wealthy town. But all plans of creating a French Empire in India were thwarted by Robert Clive. The British defeated the French at war, and all peace talks failed. Later, France sent Lally Tollendall to resurrect the French Empire. Tollendall seemed to be successful at first- he managed to raze the British Fort St. David in Cuddalore. However, his success was limited to his initial endeavour only, as France was later forced to cede the Hyderabad region to the British. Moreover, in 1761, Pondicherry was razed to the ground in an act of vengeance, and the city lay in ruins for the next four years.

For the next 50 years, the British and the French took turns occupying Pondicherry. Finally, in 1816, the French regained permanent control of Pondicherry and ruled there for the next 138 years. Long after India attained Independence, Pondicherry, in 1963, became an integral part of the Indian Union.

Today, Puducherry (yes, we do love going back to the Indian names our cities once had) is a Union Territory, and it includes Pondicherry (the town), Karaikal, Mahe and Yanam. Puducherry is considered a tourism hotspot.. Over 55 languages are spoken here. Walking down a busy street, one gets to hear snatches of conversation in Tamil, English, French, Telugu, Malayalam, and sometimes even German. Here’s a place where people from all over the world live together, where people reportedly speak French with a Tamil accent (!!!), where restaurants claim to serve Franco-Tamil food, where policemen continue to wear red military-style caps, the French kepis… India’s Little France.

P.S.: If any of you want to see all the pictures, click here. Some of these pictures may appear in future blogs, too.