la mer enchante
Been receiving a number of visitors to Pondicherry these diwali holidays. Sometime I try and show them around the place, in hope of catching a glimpse of a corner of my beloved city that I missed. And I find a lot of neat things around the place. Tuesday was just such a day. I had some friends over from Mumbai and the rain gods decided to give us a break. We were visiting the backwaters at the First River. Jokingly I suggested that we hit the sea. One of the brave young demoiselles from the group decided that it might be a “funky” thing to do. And so we did…
We paid this sweet fisherman a few hundred rupees to drive us out into the ocean in his motor-operated cuttamaran. For those who don’t know what this is, well, it’s a barge made of three logs tied together. Very very scary. Kudos to the ladies for holding their nerves in the rather rough sea. I know that deep inside we were all wishing the torment would end soon (especially me with my stones getting their life squished out of them with every wave we overcame… talk about uphill tasks&hellip, but we went on with a (stupid) brave smile.
And then lady luck smiled. We watched a school of dolphins swim by. We’d already been told by the fisherman that there were chances of spotting dolphins. But, hey, who believes fisherfolk… So that completely changed our take on the boat ride. And if our day was not made by that, there was the most wonderful sight in store for us after that.
The day was just breaking, and the grey clouds gave way to some sunshine. That brought us a double rainbow. so there we were, in the middle of the sea, looking at dolphins and a double rainbow. Could we ask for more?
[Well I did. I wanted to get back to shore with my stones intact… and hoorah! I did]