What happens in Puducherry remains in Puducherry!

by Srividya Subramanian (India)

Making a local connection India

It started like any other vacation of mine, where I told myself that I am going to immortalize this solo day of vacationing. I had come from Chennai for a week to Puducherry for work, and had an entire day left to explore the beautiful, sleepy and very French city of Puducherry all by myself. I tried hard not to think of how I had to do my laundry despite over-packing, how I often passed the gym without making eye contact, or that extra nap I took yesterday because I was “vacationing”! Now, I’d already done all the touristy things the last time I had been to Puducherry, where I had been part of a tour group travelling to famous parts of Puducherry, just like a bunch of hippos waddling down the roads. This time I was having none of it, I told myself I was going to do something different. After waking up late and having too many croissants, I decided that it was going to be a quiet, lazy kind of a day. I was determined to avoid the busy parts of Puducherry and explore the city like a local. I hadn’t been on a vacation in ages and wanted to show myself that I could be independent, friendly and confident in a strange city. I tell myself crazy things like that. One auto ride, 100 Rs short and a scenic drive later, I reached the calmer, more residential part of Puducherry, which I had never explored before. I was brimming with excitement and began walking on the cool and wet roads. Suddenly, I came upon this gigantic mass of a structure hanging above the road dangling between two buildings. This sculpture on close examination looked like a huge fish to me and was made of plastic bottles and bottle caps and was quite a sight to see. I looked around for some sort of an explanation, as I am someone who loves to be reminded that art is all around us, even in the most unexpected places. I saw an old man working on a workshop nearby and asked him if he knew anything about this huge fish above our heads - he rudely replied that he didn’t. I told him how amazing the huge fish was and called it “recycled art”. I proceeded to tell him a little pompously about how plastic is affecting the world, how powerful this art was and how vigilant we must be with plastic. Something in my head told me that I was on that road, on that day, underneath that sculpture for a reason. I needed desperately to tell this indifferent old man what recycling was, to prove something to myself. The old man continued to get bored as I told him a little more about how plastic is our mortal enemy. I finally stopped, deciding that the poor man had endured enough and said goodbye. As I leaned against the wall to fix my shoe before I resumed walking, I realized I had messed with a twine of some sort and heard a loud swoosh and looked up – the wires holding the “plastic fish” gave way and about a 100 plastic bottles fell on the road and some on my head. I, as ungracefully as I could, quickly fell butt first onto the wet road. And after the thuds of the bottles could no longer be heard; I saw the old man and a few neighbors come out to see what the ruckus was about, but not before I saw some kids holding their stomachs laughing and the elders giggling. I got off my wet butt and did the only thing left to do - laughed with them. As we all collected the thrash or as I called it earlier “recycled art”, a lady told me that nobody knew what this bottle mess was, but thanks to me they could finally get rid of this ugliness that was annoying everybody on the street and otherwise impossible to get down. I was invited in for coffee, and I accepted – despite a sudden headache, wet butt, damaged ego and all! Why, I even got a very well-earned grin from the old man!