PONDICHERRY and the Road to Happiness
The French left a corner of India a strange and alluring legacy, complete with a taste for the Utopian, writes Stanley Stewart
N a seaside cafe on the Rue Goubert in Pondicherry, Monsieur Nallaswamy and I are discussing the pursuit of happiness. It might have been India, but the scene could hardly have been more Parisian — the rude waiter, the café chalkboard, the croissants, the existential conversation. Arrival in Pondicherry is like falling down the rabbit hole. At the bottom you emerge in the strange world of French India.
You know what the French are like. The moment the British began to forge an empire in India, the French turned up, keen to muscle in. By the beginning of the 19th century, after various false starts, they were ensconced in Pondicherry, a trading port known to the Romans in the 1st century AD. But there the grand project stalled; French India never amounted to much more than this single town, a thorn in the rump of British India.
When the French went home in 1954 they left behind a Francophone legacy as persistent as any of the colonial relics of the Raj — policemen in red kepis, boulevards with French names, houses with louvered shutters, men playing petanque in dusty squares, a Hotel de Ville, its paint peeling on the sea front, public gardens laid out with French formality, and, above all, the possibility of scoring an excellent lunch of grilled fish and a fresh salad served with a glass of chilled Sauvignon. This was part of Monsieur Nallaswamy’s thesis — that a good lunch could be one of the keys to happiness, that bliss exists in the simple pleasures of this world.
In Pondicherry — now Puducherry as part of India’s mania for renaming everywhere — happiness is a bit of a preoccupation. It is home to Utopia, in the form of the mysterious Auroville, an offshoot of the town’s long-standing Sri Aurobindho Ashram. Founded in 1968, Auroville aspired to be a happy Utopian community where relationships were based on collaboration and brotherhood. Predictably, collaboration and brotherhood have occasionally turned to dispute and enmity. At one point in Auroville’s chequered history, the police had to be called in.
I set off for Utopia in the back of a motor rickshaw. For visitors there are interesting exhibitions, an arcade of health cafés and craft shops, and a vantage point to view the Matrimandir, the spectacular spherical building that is the meditation centre and the “soul” of the community.
In order to get a real feel for the place you probably need to leave your job, sell the house, buy a couple of wafty white outfits and get into meditative pose. These days the community’s early conflicts seem to have settled down, and just over two thousand Aurovillians now live peacefully, obeying the endless rules that moderate non-Utopian impulses, in 100 “villages”. Most seem to have found happiness, truth and light. I just found a rather nice pair of linen trousers in the shopping arcade.
Back in town at the Hindu temple, worshippers were queuing to have a word with Ganesh, the impish elephant god in scenes of chaos and confusion. In the alley outside, rows of hawkers sold the offerings apparently expected by Ganesh — coconuts, bananas, jasmine garlands, lotus flowers, butter lamps. Inside, wrapped in the familiar temple aroma of incense and sewers, the bare-chested Brahmin priests took charge of the offerings — possibly selling some back to the hawkers outside — and pocketing the 10 rupee notes that people tucked into the railings.
Ganesh is known as the remover of obstacles, a god who provides a shortcut to happiness. Devotees seek his assistance with the practical issues of life — finding a wife, starting a business, bribing a government official.
Most seem to have found happiness, truth and light. I just found a nice pair of
linen trousers
Ganesh appeals to the most base kind of religious impulse — self-advancement. But it didn’t appear to lead to happiness. Pressing forward with their trays of offerings and a collective glint in their eyes, the temple devotees looked as glum as salesmen with empty order books.
In contrast to Vijay, whose house was next door but a million miles away. Vijay was a senior figure in the Sri Aurobindho Society, the governing body of the ashram as distinct from autonomous Auroville. An elderly gentleman with a patient face as fine as porcelain, there was something birdlike about him — a lightness of being. We sat together on his sofa in a tall cool room of fans and books. How delicately, I thought, he perches on this world.
We might have talked about life, about spirituality, about the divine. We might have talked about Vijay, whose journey from schoolboy to senior ashramite was fascinating. But instead we talked about helping others. Vijay was involved in the ashram’s outreach work, lending support to grassroots development in rural villages. His face lit up as he talked about altruistic projects. Forgetting about himself, Vijay was bubbling with happiness. He even had a name for it — sukha — bliss in Sanskrit.
For Monsieur Nallaswamy, sukha was simpler and more direct. I ran into him in the dilapidated square between the Cathedral de Notre Dame des Anges and the sea. A statue of Joan of Arc stood above broken paving stones. In the British India corner, boys were playing cricket. In the opposite corner, Monsieur and his friends were playing petanque.
The Monsieur had emigrated to France in the late ’50s and joined the Foreign Legion just in time for the Algerian war. Now in his 70s, he was one of the many former soldats who have returned to Pondicherry to live very comfortably on a French army pension. You could find him most evenings in Le Foyer du Soldat, enjoying a glass of pastis with old comrades. “Paris is fine but Pondicherry is better,” the Monsieur said. “The sea on your doorstep, the warm sun on your back, and the comfortable, friendly feeling of a small town.”
Monsieur Nallaswamy was one of those happy fellows who found pleasure at every turn. He talked of the morning breezes off the ocean, of peo- ple-watching on the Corniche, of children’s voices from a neighbouring garden, of the excellent claret we had just ordered for lunch.
A waitress in a sari arrived with une omlette aux fines herbes.
“Voilà,” the Monsieur beamed. “Happiness on a plate. Bon appetit.” —© Stanley Stewart