Exploring Pondicherry-III

We were sitting on the beautiful beach of Pondicherry at night, I was thinking about my future and it was difficult for me to even think that I will have to choose something other than my dream of flying high for my bread and butter. I had come to Pondicherry in search of solution and what I came to know was my problem doesn’t have any solution. I did not talk to Rushikesh for a long time. Then finally he got up and went to Cyber café. I was alone in my thoughts and suddenly somebody patted on my shoulder, I looked back, it was Rajashree standing with one other lady. “So you are still lost in the sadness, we were going for a dinner and I saw you from the street”, Said Rajashree. She introduced other lady with me. Her name was Aruna, of medium height, fair and smart. “So do you like Pondicherry?”  asked Aruna. “Yes, off course and today we have hired bicycles to see the Pondicherry and nearby places.” I answered. “Good so where are you going tomorrow?” Aruna asked me with curiosity, “I think we will be going to Arikamedu. We are very much interested in archeology and would like to visit that place”. “Ok then, see you soon”, said Rajashree and Aruna and then they went ahead. When Rushikesh came back we went further for a walk and suddenly realized that we should return as the guest house will be closed by 10:00 PM and then nobody will be allowed to enter or to go outside. We hurriedly hired one auto and told him to drop us at our guest house; the distance was of hardly 3-4 Kilometers hence we thought that auto driver will take 15-20 rupees. But when the auto stopped the driver told us to pay 50 rupees, we were surprised and became angry with this attitude of auto driver; we refused to pay and warned him not to cheat us. Then the driver started arguing with us and we remained firm on our decision not to pay him that exaggerated amount. Finally after much quarrel we both agreed on rupees 25, I opened my wallet and found that I had only note of 500 rupees, I was not having change and Rushikesh had forgotten his wallet in the guest house room. I gave that note to the auto driver and all of sudden he started talking angrily in Tamil, Rushikesh thought that he is abusing us and tried to warn him not to use dirty language but that auto driver did not stop, then Rushikesh also got angry and gave him a blow. I tried to mediate but failed. Then finally I went to medical store which was near to that ‘battlefield’, bought few medicines (which I thought will be helpful to us during our stay), got the change , gave the fare to the angry auto driver and left that place to enter guest house only to find the closed main gate of the guest house. So even after our hard work we failed to achieve our destination in time. ‘What to do next’? was the question in front of us, the gate and compound walls were at least 10 feet in height and the security person was in deep sleep or at least he was pretending to do so. We decided then to experience the thrill of climbing the compound wall to get in. So Rushikesh tried first, he hold the pillar near the gate climbed the wall with the tight grip and jumped to the other side with ease. Now it was my turn and I was hesitating to climb and requested Rushikesh to get the security guy up and told him to open the lock but Rushikesh was insisting on crossing the wall in the same way he did. So finally I started to climb the wall with fear at the back of my mind of getting caught. I crossed the wall but while jumping to the other side mistakenly my foot touched the Iron Gate and created noise and the result was the security guy woke up and started shouting. We rushed to the staircase before he could realize and caught us. It was too late in the night and we were tired after giving our best performance of the day.

Ashram's sports complex near beach

  On the next day we were on bicycles to visit the Arikamedu. Climate was mild with temperature pretty down by 3-4 degrees. The distance was around 4 kilometers from Pondicherry, the ride was pleasant and we could see the typical scene of Tamil country with plenty of coconut trees, white sand everywhere and small mud houses covered with coconut leaves. Due to Sunday there was less traffic hence we could reach there in 20 minutes. It was a small village with nothing appearing special. When we asked local people about the ancient site, they pointed to one direction. We started heading towards that direction and reached at one place where ruins of some structure were lying, truly speaking it was not appearing as excavation site. We searched for a while but there was no sign of such site anywhere. Then we went further and found river bank and a small boat tied to wooden platform. We parked our bicycles and sat on the platform. Suddenly we looked at each other and smiled. Yes! We were planning to jump into river even though we did not have any spare cloths, towel with us. We hide our cloths behind the bushes in order to prevent the theft and the possible disaster. Although I am a pretty good swimmer but I hadn’t have any previous experience of swimming in flowing water at that time. We decided that we will swim across the river and will come back one by one. Obviously Rushikesh was the first to swim. The river was around 60-70 meters wide; Rushikesh took around 10 minutes to reach at the other side with pretty wider angle of deviation with the line he started from. He stayed there for some time and then came back. I started,  went half of the total distance and then decided to return. Now we were lying on the bank with only underwear on our body, filling fresh air in our lungs and free from rest of the world. After drying ourselves, we started for our return journey. Although we could not find the ancient excavation site because either we lost our way or just we lost our way, indeed we had a very good time there. While going back some villagers showed us very old coins which belonged to circa 2^nd century AD. At least in appearance they were looking very old hence we bought 2 coins for Rs.110 each after much bargain.

Botanical Garden

  We went to visit the botanical garden in the Pondicherry after coming from Arikamedu, we were less interested in it as we knew nothing about the plants except that these are also living beings and these are distinguishable from the animals. Then we went to cyber café to check emails and other stuff. We saw one pamphlet there telling about getting the copy of ‘Holy Quran’ in just Rs.100. We enquired at the counter about the pamphlet and he told us that if you are Muslim then you will get that copy in Rs.100, if you are non-Muslim then you will get that copy free of cost. Along with traveling, history and philosophy are also my areas of interest and as a part of it I have always tried to study other religions. Although I am devout follower of Hinduism I respect all other religions. We told the guy at the counter that we are interested in studying ‘Holy Quran’, he asked to register our names and gave us the copy of ‘Holy Quran’. 
Then in the evening, we again met with our friends Rajashri and Aruna in the dining hall. After dinner we spent some time on the seashore with them talking on numerous subjects and topics including our last night’s adventure and swimming experience at Arikamedu. Finally at 9:30 PM we got up to leave as we wanted no more adventure at the end of this joyous day.

(in continuation.)