Day 3

The sadness of the lovely holiday getting over was hitting hard, we were up by 6.30 am and decided to hit the beach, we planned out the day because it was the last day in Pondy and we did not want to waste a minute. We rushed to the beach and stayed there, playing in the water, drenched top to down, side to side and never wanting to get dry. My husband was very reluctant to get in to the water because washing his hair was such a pain…he was the official photographer of the trip… he would sit on the sand, guard mine and Maggie’s towel and phones and just watch us play..and also drool at white women besides clicking photos and shooting videos.

We persuaded him to get into the water as it was the last day at Pondy. He finally agreed, but the question was, who would look after our belongings??? We found an old couple sitting on the beach and watching us play. We decided to take their help. We approached them and started rattling out in English, they kept giving us the “what the fuck are you talking” look. Then they spoke in another foreign language, which I thought was Russian..though I don’t know even one word of Russian. We started out actions and they understood!! We left our things with them and then hit the waters, my husband is a good swimmer, he went right into the waves and swam and was gone for a few seconds…Maggie and me stopped in our tracks and looked out, we could not find him!!!! I thought for a minute that the wonderful holiday was over, abruptly. Finally…some where 10 feet away from where he dived we saw his head surface. That was the end, he swam up to the shore and it was the last time I will ever let him enter the sea. Period. I had had enough adventure at the sea, we thanked the old couple and waved good bye to them. We decided to go back to the resort, shower and have breakfast and pack our bags. We went as per plan, took a quick shower and packed our bags and had breakfast. It was 12 noon by then, only few hours before we leave :(

We went to Beach Cottage for lunch and ate as less as possible because we planned to go hit Appachi’s for dinner. We then walked to the beach, for the last time in Pondicherry. Though it was sunny, we decided to bare all odds and have fun. We did not enter the water, but just sat there and enjoyed the scene. I collected sea shells and everything possible from the beach sans. The time was 4.30pm, our bus back to Bangalore was at 10.38pm, yes, 10.38pm was the timings printed on the ticket. With just 6 hours left for departure sadness had filled out hearts and was seeping into our souls… We wanted to pep up the evening, we went to the Coffee Shop on the beach and had cappuccinos. After all the sea shell collecting, we bid a tearful good bye to the beach and left to the resort. We packed all our bags and chilled out for sometime savouring the last few hours at Pondicherry.
We called our chauffer driven auto and Durai was in Auroba by 8pm. We packed up, clicked some last minute pics and left the place by 8.20pm. We asked Durai to take us straight to Appachi’s but he gave us the most disappointing news of the day. Appachi’s is not open for dinner!!!   Then we asked him to take us to the next famous restaurant in Pondicherry. Enroute we did some good Cashew shopping and bought toys for our dog,Cleo and headed to have dinner. We were at Pondicherry bus stop by 10pm and bus departed at 10.30pm 8 minutes before the time on the tickets. We reached Bangalore at 5am the next morning. Holiday over…Pondicherry rocks!

Now, if you have been reading all posts about Pondicherry, you must have come across this name “Selvam” Let me tell you the story of Selvam

* Selvam – The couple that stayed at Auroba Guest House were Lakshmi and Selvam, but Selvam’s actual name is Seth. My husband has christened him Selvam. On Day 2, actually night, we were high on alcohol. Mosquitoes were eating us up alive, as we were sitting in the balcony of our cottage. We wanted a match box to light the mosquito coil so that it will deter those blood suckers from making us anaemic. Bava had left for the day and Lakshmi was not around. None of us knew the man’s name. We called all different words that people used to address an unknown person, “Hello” “Aye” “Oye” “Sir” etc etc, nothing worked. We took turns in calling him, but he just would not respond. We knew he was inside the watchman room, the radio was on therefore that stopped him from hearing our calls. Nothing seemed to work. My husband came to the conclusion that most names from that area sounded some thing like “Selvam” so he called out loudly, he called “SELVAM” and there the man emerged from the watchman room and asked us what we wanted!!! From then we referred to him as Selvam and he also never bothered to correct us. The last evening in the resort we asked Lakshmi her husband’s name and she told us that his name was SETH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!