Tag Archives: india

As experiences of India gradually become memories

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THE BOEING JET began moving away from the oddly designed new terminal at Bangalore’s International Airport. I watched the landscape slipping past ever more quickly as we accelerated along the runway before eventually becoming detached from the soil of India. As the aeroplane rose higher and higher, random things flashed through my mind such as: eating laal maas on a rooftop in Jaisalmer; a Dutch cemetery on the coromandel Coast; hawkers wandering up and down a railway carriage in West Bengal; riding through Bangalore in a Jesus autorickshaw; being asked to bless strangers, a newly married couple, in a church in Pondicherry; tasting nolen gur in Murshidabad; attending an aarti on the Ganges; and much more. After flying over the west coast of India, all of these experiences and a whole host of others that we had enjoyed during our 88 day stay in India became, like the coastline we crossed, distant memories, which I hope will remaine etched permanently in my mind.

Only one airport,  only one flight

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THE FORMER FRENCH colony,  now a Union Territory of India,  Pondicherry,  has its own small domestic airport. It is just over 3 miles from the city centre (as the crow flies). However, because of the traffic and the winding nature of our route, it took almost 30 minutes to reach the airport.   

 

After we had booked a flight from Pondicherry to Bangalore,  our daughter, who had taken the same flight twelve months earlier,  warned us that the airport at Pondicherry had limited resources but no refreshment facilities.

 

Prior to arriving at the airport,  I wondered if it would be even more rudimentary than the tiny airport at Khandla (in Kutch, Gujarat). Even that airport has a refreshment kiosk. With these thoughts in mind, and armed with a bag full of snacks and soft drinks, we headed off to Pondicherry Airport.

 

To my great surprise (and relief), we found that the passenger terminal at Pondicherry Airport is housed in a large, airy, well-ventilated, modern, comfortable, cylindrical building. And it has a refreshment kiosk, which sells only soft drinks.

 

The airport was first opened in 1989, and used for two years. However, lack of financial success caused it to be closed in 1991. After reconstructing the airport and its runways, it was reopened in 2012. The new terminal was inaugurated in 2013. Currently, Indigo Airlines operates flights to and from this airport. There is one daily flight : Bangalore to Pondicherry to Hyderabad, and another from Hyderabad to Bangalore via Pondicherry.  We took the latter. The propellor plane on which we flew was an ATR 72-600 (built by a French company, ATR), which can carry 78 passengers.

 

What I particularly liked about the airport is that instead of reaching the aircraft by an air-bridge or on a bus  we simply walked across the tarmac from the terminal to the ‘plane.

 

As we drove from Pondicherry to the airport, Shiva (our taxi driver) casually remarked about Pondicherry:

“Only one airport,  only one flight.”

LIBERTÉ ÉGALITÉ (MAYBE) FRATERNITÉ IN A FORMER FRENCH COLONY

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PONDICHERRY IN SOUTHERN India was a French colony between about 1674 and 1954. This picturesque city is still divided into White Town, where the French lived, and Black Town, where the Tamils and other Indians resided.  The segregation of Europeans and non-Europeans persisted after the French Revolution  of 1789. It was during (or soon after) this historic uprising that  the motto ‘Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité’ came into existence. However, it was during a visit to the lovely church of Notre Dame des Anges in White Town that we discovered that the motto might not have applied to the Non-European inhabitants of the Pondicherry colony.

 

Within the neoclassical church, there is an informative panel outlining the church’s history.  The present edifice was constructed in 1855, but the parish is older. It was established by Capuchin monks in the seventeenth century. In 1699, the Capuchins established a Tamil Christian community. Soon, the Jesuits took over the Tamil community, and the Capuchins began a parish for Europeans and “Eurasians” (people with both Indian and European heritage). The Capuchin church of Notre Dame des Anges served Europeans and Eurasians, but not Tamils, who attended another church.

 

In 1887, almost 100 years after the French Revolution,  Archbishop Lauennen decreed that Notre Dame des Anges was for the exclusive use of Europeans and Eurasians. So much for the ‘égalité’ and ‘fraternité’, which was so dear the the French.

 

In 1984 Fr. Dusseigne, of the Société des Missions Étrangères de Paris (M.E.P) was the last M.E.P. Parish Priest, to serve the parish. He served until 2007, and was the last of a long line of Capuchin priests to lead the parish.

 

Dusseigne was succeeded by Fr. Michael John Antonsamy, who was the first Indian priest to lead the parish. Although he was the first Indian parish priest, I  have not yet discovered when non-Europeans began to be allowed to worship in this church in White Town.

 

Near the church, there is small walled cemetery where Capuchin monks have been buried. The earliest person to have his tomb there died in 1703. Sadly, the graveyard was closed, but we managed to see the well maintained funerary monuments through gaps in the locked gate.

  Colour bars were common in European colonies in Asia and elsewhere. Some of the clubs and schools founded by the British in India forbade entry of Indians even until several years after independence. So, one should not be surprised that colour bars existed in churches such as St Marie des Anges.  But what amazed me somewhat is that even after the French Revolution,  racial inequalities were not frowned upon in a French colony such as Pondicherry.

A DISH OF RICE AND MEAT IN HYDERABAD AND ELSEWHERE

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HYDERABAD IS FAMOUS for its biryanis. One restaurant that is well-known and highly rated is Shadab, which is not far from the Char Minar in the centre of the old city. We have visited it on previous visits to Hyderabad and thought highly of its biryanis. Today, in late January 2025, we ate a mutton biryani. It was certainly very good, but not nearly as excellent as one we ate in Surat last year and another we ate at Berhampore (West Bengal) a few days ago. However, the best biryani I have eaten to date was a Moplah style biryani served at Paragon in Calicut (Kerala). Blending Arabic and Keralan flavours, this biryani, which we ate more than 20 years ago, was memorably fragrant and tasty: a symphony of flavours.

Stepping down to the water in the well

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WATER STORAGE TANKS and wells are subject to changes in the water level. In small wells such as are commonly found in England, a bucket and winch system allows the water gatherer to reach the water in the well. In India  where water tanks and wells can be quite large, occupying a substantial area of ground, another system is used to allow users to get to whatever level the water has reached. The walls of the sides of the tank/reservoir/well are lined with a series of staircases, which are used to reach the water. Often the sets of steps lining the walls of the so-called stepwells are arranged in attractive geometric patterns.

 

At the Toorji stepwell

Since first seeing a (disused) beautiful stepwell in the ruins of the medieval city of Vijayanagara at Hampi in Karnataka thirty years ago, I have been fascinated by stepwells. I have seen many while travelling around Gujarat,  and was pleased to find one near our guest house in Jodhpur (Rajasthan). It’s name is Toorji ka Jhalra Bavdi.

 

The Toorji stepwell was built in about 1740. Its construction was ordered by the Queen Consort of Maharaja Abhay Singh. Back in those days, ladies of the royal family often commissioned the building of  water tanks and wells. The Toorji stepwell was used mostly by women, who traditionally did household chores including the fetching and carrying of water.

 

Toorji stepwell is constructed with the rose red sandstone of Jodhpur.  It is decorated with carvings of various sizes. Nowadays, as with so many interesting places all over the world,  it is a popular location for taking ‘selfies’ and for posing for photographs. Despite this, it is a stepwell worth seeing and is a remarkably tranquil spot surrounded by a maze of narrow, busy streets and lanes.

Built as a Jain temple, then repurposed as a mosque

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AT THE TOP OF a short but hazardous flight of stairs, one reaches the compound of an extremely interesting mosque in Ajmer (Rajasthan, India). It is the Adhai Din Ka Jhonpra mosque, whose name means ‘Two and a half day hut’. To what the two and a half day refers is not certain.

The building was originally constructed as a Jain temple in 660 AD. In about 1190, the temple was destroyed by the Afghan leader Muhammad of Ghor. He built the mosque on the site of the former temple using carved stonework plundered from Hindu and Jain temples. The resulting edifice, although shaped like a mosque, contains many architectural features and decorative motifs that you would expect to find in 12th century (and earlier) Hindu and Jain temples.

The mosque and its ccompound is very popular with visitors. I noticed that I was the only European amongst several hundred visitors. The site is a much desired place to be photographed. There are many photographers carrying Nikon SLR cameras, all touting for business. And there is no shortage of people wanting to pose for photos. The photographers seemed to have plenty of customers despite the fact that most people carry mobile phones.

Although the nearby dargah (a Sufi shrine) attracts most tourists, the Adhai Din Ka Jhonpra is well worth visiting.

A first peek at the Pink City of Rajasthan

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FOR VARIOUS REASONS, we hired an autorickshaw to give us a first glimpse of Rajasthan’s Pink City: Jaipur. Although the Pink City is the oldest part of Jaipur, its main thoroughfares were laid out centuries ago in a grid pattern typical of modern cities. A complex warren of narrow streets and courtyards lead off from the main roads. We have yet to explore these byways.

The city is so-named because its buildings are all painted with various shades of pink paint. Apparently, this has been done since the structures were first built in order to hide the inferior quality of the stones used in their construction.

After our elderly Bihari driver, Ganesh, had driven us along the straight main roads of the Pink City as well as some of the twisty, narrow lanes leading off them, he took us to see two factories. At one, we were shown men at work making the silver settings for precious stones. At the other, we were shown the way block printing on fabrics is carried out by hand.

At both factories, after we had been shown how the goods were prepared, we were (not surprisingly) invited to make purchases. We bought a few small objects. After leaving each factory, Ganesh asked us how much we had spent. This was not idle curiosity. He told us that he received 1% of whatever his passengers had spent. He told us that the factories, which sell their goods at wholesale prices, give him a much smaller commission than retail outlets.

I am glad that Ganesh took us to the factories rather than the retailers because it was interesting to watch the manufacturers at work.

He moves with the sun on Jewellers Street in Bangalore

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JEWELLERS STREET RUNS in a north/south direction. In the morning, the sun shines on the west side of the street and in the afternoon, on the east side. As its name suggests, the street is lined with many shops selling jewellery.

Jewellery breaks sometimes, but it can often be repaired. K is a jewellery repairer. In the morning he sits working in the shade on the pavement on the east side of the street, outside a particular shop. In the afternoon, you will find him outside a shop close to a silver and hold plating shop on the west side of the street.

K squats bare-footed alongside his trays of tools and materials, and mends a wide variety of jewellery. When re-threading necklaces and bracelets, he uses his toes to hold one end of the thread. We visit this friendly, highly skilled man whenever we are in Bangalore, usually with items if jewellery that have broken since our last visit to the city.

A magnet for bookworms in the heart of Bangalore (Bengaluru)

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I HAVE VISITED BANGALORE regularly over the past 31 years. Each time, I have been impressed by the city’s numerous well-stocked bookshops. Many of them are now located along the short Church Street, which runs parallel to a stretch of the much longer MG Road. At the last count, I found 9 bookshops along Church Street, which is less than half a mile in length.

Bookworm

One of these shops that impresses me most is called Bookworm. Its location has changed several times since I first found it in 1994. Now, it is housed in a former mansion set back from Church Street and reached by a tree shaded pathway. It contains many rooms, each of which has walls lined with bookshelves filled with books from floor to ceiling. Much of the floorspace in these rooms is covered by piles of books. The books range from the latest releases to out of print and secondhand volumes. Recently, a small room has been added to display rare antiquarian editions. Despite this, there are many old and interesting books within the other rooms.

Bookworm is an ideal place for browsing if you have plenty of time on your hands. If you are pressed for time or know what you are looking for, the helpful staff will either know where to find what you are seeking, or will search for you.

When you have selected what you wish to purchase, some of the newer titles are subject to a discount at the cash desk. The older books and secondhand editions are priced very reasonably.

Although there are other superbly stocked bookstores in Church Street, notably Blossom Book House, Bookworm is my favourite. It is truly a magnet for bookworms.