Pondicherry

This beautiful town/city/state/Union Territory always manages to be in news. Like many other major cities of Tamilnadu, this place also is full of life and activity. Tea-kadais are seen everywhere, airing out aromas of tea and songs of Tamil Superstars. Temples old and new, colored and discolored, faces smeared with holy ash, chandanam and vermillion are as ubiquitous as in Tamilnadu.

Of course, a Pondy-ian may consider himself/herself 'different', but that is similar to people from Vijayawada considering thesmelves above the people of the rest of Andhra Pradesh.

The area around Aurobindo Ashram near the beach is very beautiful with straight clean roads, French style buildings. Rest of the place is just like the rest of Tamilnadu! Except a few French spellings at one or two places, what one can see are Tamil and English letters. A small caution, though: Spellings in Pondicherry can get really different. "Tiru Venkatachalapati" in rest of TN (India, for that matter) becomes "Tiru Vengadasselavady" - French influence, I was told.

In my numerous visits to Pondicherry, I could not hear any locals speak English or French - it is Tamil everywhere. In areas like Pillaichavady one can bump into French people. Of course, at these places other tourists who plan to go to Auroville (more on this in another post) can also be seen.

The recent news of Kanchi Seer's case being shifted "out of Tamilnadu" to Pondicherry has interested.

Pondicherry is as much out of Tamilnadu as Yanam is out of Andhra Pradesh. Population is fully Tamilian - at least 90%. Political parties are nearly same as in the "rest of Tamilnadu" - for example, in general elections, major Tamil political parties devise strategies that seem to suggest that they consider Pondicherry just as a part of Tamilnadu. There is a lot of exchange of people, goods, information etc. between Tamilnadu and Pondicherry. I have not seen any semblence of a border between the places.

I also read news reports that this shifting by SC is a setback to Jayalalitha. It may be a setback to Jayalalitha (which also is debatable), but it certainly is not a sign of victory for Sri Swamigal. Shifting the case to Karnataka or Kerala would have been better - it would have really meant shifing the case "out of Tamilnadu" - and might have ensured some bias is avoided in the trial. Shifting the case to Andhra Pradesh also might have been good. Best part would be to shift the case out of South India itself.