Human life is a wondrous maelstrom of almost infinite number of events that shape and nurtures a person. They inspire us, bring us to our knees and then help us to keep going on with our lives. Most of the time we don’t care to give a damn for the minute details, just floating over the big and blunt ones. For me, it is sometimes a confusing mess of intertwined time and space, flowing on a single direction and unlikely to be discovered completely if ever. Even though, some events never forget to leave a mark on memory and touches life.

The place where I come from is deep inside landmass and just on the feet of Himalaya. Obviously, sea is not one of the things I usually jostle with. Arriving at Pondicherry two and half years back changed all that, for good till 30^th December, 2011. I actually got sick of sea a year back after my daily experiences, it became dull and just a huge amount of water hanging in there. So when I got the news of supposedly approaching cyclone Thane amassing in the Bay of Bengal on 28^th December, I couldn’t care less. Being a geek, the first place I checked was the Indian Meteorological Department (IMD from here onwards) website and it gave a rough idea that a severe cyclone was approaching the coast of Tamilnadu and south Andhra Pradesh. While the primary point of attraction was Chennai in the whole saga (and it was horribly wrong for a prediction all along), news outlets started showing Pondicherry as a possible landfall destination. As a self-aware and confident idiot, I didn’t mind at all for the next day, 29^th December. I even went as far as tweeting about Thane’s being late to arrive at the scene. But when it started to rain slowly but confidently with determined continuation on the same day, I thought it was better to be prepared for anything that was to come. Eventually the thought of stocking necessary items in case of an impending disaster pervaded and I approached my nearby bakery to buy enough amount of stuff to get going for at least two days. Drinking water was already aplenty in the room so that was least of my concerns. Some candles and fresh batteries for the torch joined the buying list and soon it was complete. I was ready for the war or so I thought.

My inherent infatuation with daytime sleeping like an owl meant I already slept enough on the day and was definitely awake at night, constantly tweeting and following the IMD website for their often late bulletins from my phone¹. Around 11 PM at that night, power went away for the first time but only to be restored within a few moments. It just gave away the forthcoming power outage and I was prepared, with all my phones charged to full of their capacities. It was not until 12 AM when wind started to howl and coconut trees became harmonized with one another in oscillating. Anyone who has the experience of late March – starting of April winds at afternoon can easily speculate about my point. Slowly the howling turned into stifled roaring and at around 2 AM it was just not safe to go outside. The last IMD bulletin talked about projected landfall at around 5.30 AM and I thought perhaps it would touch landmass at least 50 km away from Pondicherry and that was the best it could do. It’s enjoyable when nature just loves to toy with your expectations and throws them at sea. Power cut ensued again and this time for long. Without anything specific to do I decided to take a nap till landfall, only to be woken up by the sounds of roaring wind and violent shaking of the windowpanes. The darkness gloomed everything and I braved for a quick view of outside through my window. Just lightened by a diminishing pale moon, it was hell of a scene out in the shadows. Leaving the fresh spell of water that instantly wet my face, I had never seen a tree branch flying before in my life. It took me quite some effort to close the window again and wasn’t completely sure if it would hold up through the night. Sound of a tree being uprooted soon followed, accompanied by the distinct noise made by a removed corrugated tin roof as it hit the ground from third floor. Just when I was wondering about the well-being of people who used to live there on the other side of road, window glasses got shattered with a high pitched sound that came from my left. That newly completed house didn’t get through a whole year before getting scratches. Wind was blowing at approximately 60~70 kmph by then, with gusts reaching 100 kmph at ease. With all my network connections dwindling, I barely managed to check IMD website for any updates but there was none. With another thatched roof gone, I heard people panicking and crying out loud below. It was pretty sure that cyclone Thane had already made landfall and that was somewhere very near to Pondicherry. At this moment, the makeshift cardboard blockade that I made for my room’s ventilator just blew inside. For a split second, I couldn’t think of any possible movement from my side before springing out of my bed. I had to plug it and obviously the cardboard was not a wise choice anymore. Without any other viable options, my beloved whiteboard came handy in this occasion although it took me quite some time to stabilize the whiteboard against gusting winds. Thane had no reasons and intensions to stop at that point, roaring and rolling over Pondicherry like an alien warlord. Thankfully, the winds couldn’t find any more ways to enter my room afterwards as I waited patiently for Thane to slow down or move away. After terrorizing the whole city and neighbourhoods for nearly five hours, Thane finally started to move over westwards from Pondicherry at 8 AM in the morning. It was still not possible to open a window without letting the rainwater come inside. I opened the door to corridor to see the conditions outside and it was filled with tree branch, leaves and gravels but the wind was manageable and most of its roaring properties had diminished. Within two more hours, wind was back to being normal with continued rainfall – for the heck of it, cyclone Thane had finally moved away from Pondicherry.

It was still not completely safe to take a stroll outside as there were severed wires lying around almost everywhere. Electricity and water supply was out of order, as expected. I didn’t venture in the roads till afternoon, but it was a hell of a mess out there. There were no hoardings left standing and most of the shop signs were either missing or lying scattered on roads. Almost every other tree was uprooted, as confirmed by the news agencies later that nearly 75% of them didn’t leave standing. According to the government estimates yesterday, total damages done by Thane cost roughly around Rs. 1500 crore to 2000 crore. As confirmed by locals around Pondicherry, there is still no power at many parts. People living in the outskirts suffered more heavily as most of the houses featured either thatched or corrugated tin roofs.

As I mentioned before, there are some events that do leave some marks on one’s life. And there is no reason for cyclone Thane for not being in that place, it simply rocked my life. Surely there are people who saw more grievous things in their times and perhaps won’t recognize the severity of this storm as I do but that does not change the fact that cyclone Thane was the most disturbingly powerful storm Pondicherry has ever seen and a sits permanently on a corner of my memory.

P. S. Interested persons can see the aftermaths of cyclone Thane in my University here at this album by Kuppu Samy K S.

¹ A heartfelt thanks to BSNL 3G to work even under the duress. It does not work in normal conditions though, but that’s another story.

With so many 'mis' on the title, it's hard not to imagine the piece as a mis-story, which is, even if I vouch for it, unmistakably falsified vagaries. And again, the title is not a misnomer at its core, just signifying my underpinnings for the article. I think, therefore, it's justified to start the stagnating propaganda.

I'm Debsuvra Ghosh, as many of you would recall if you stress that grey matter of yours a little harder. "What's in a name?” they said and I didn't find any reasons to go against that, not until now. Even if you can't make out anything from my name, believe me, there are no reasons to go gaga over it. It's just like any other billions of tags dwelling around the dirty population of us. But name is one of the very few things you can feel personal, a little closer to your heart, if you take it from that philosophical standpoint. Having said that, I can assure you, nothing is more exasperating when you're forced to hear people spelling or saying it wrong innumerable times, even after they are corrected with utmost patience and care. Things get real interesting when your teacher picks you among your peers all of a sudden to blow your arse off the class, and asks your name. And which in turn returns back to the square one even after delicate attempt of correction, followed by a hasty question if it's Sanghamitra (a kind of girl's name).

The probable outcome from an ideological pundit at this point might go something like this, "OK dude, shit happens! Don't give much damn to it." And true to this fact, I didn't give any at all. I'm perfectly fine with people spelling me using alphabets non-existent in English language or pronouncing my name by something similar to elephant farts. Unfortunately, there is yet another point of disturbing phenomena and with gravely radiating side effects. What happens when you are suddenly being called upon in your class just to clarify your strangeness? Especially when you are aware that it is simply a non-question? You start to feel strange for the first time and guess what? Your teacher doesn't share your perplexed appraisal of the situation. Similar incidents starts to precede or follow soon, you become outlawed, still understanding nothing of what is wrong.

Readers may think that I'm bitching too much on a rather bland topic with nagging whines stuffed inside. Hell no, I am not! I just want to convey the message that if you are living in a kind of delusional meta-world having these already elaborated mind sets about me, that's completely fine! Simply speaking, I don't care what the heck you think about me or my persona. If you think there are some inept strangeness lurking inside me, that's the way I am. Having some problems with my attitude? Just nail it down and express openly, and if it's not related with you from any angle, just shove it into the nearest toilet you can find. Don't think that I can make a number of friends? Then I don't need that number, bitch! Just shut up and stop complaining, for you are the one who started it. Thus to put in a sentence, I do have better things to do in my life rather than indulging myself in correcting those 'strangeness'. And probably you do have too, so stop grizzling around and get a life.

 

It is always a delight for me to visit a new place, places where I’ve never been before. I love the way it unfolds for me, presenting the bits and pieces of new culture, people and heritages. Even though for academic reasons, when I first came to Pondicherry, my experience was nothing different. I began to appreciate the people, their originality, helpfulness and enjoying the ways of life. But, there’s a certain period when the bubble bursts, hurling people inside to a harsh realistic world. Parents left for home and suddenly it felt like a huge amount of void appeared out of nothing. Responsibilities became clearer than ever, for nothing other than my own survival, alone.

I was never afraid of taking a duty, especially when it’s for my own interests. So, it did not become a pathetic situation for me where I can’t do anything but cry along (it became like that for so many people in university, mostly for girls). Eventually, I decided to kick start things and everything began to roll out finely. Well, ‘almost’ everything. The first and foremost problem I faced which blew my mind away was the language barrier. More than 85% population of Pondicherry are Tamil and frankly speaking I did not have slightest idea of that language apart from a vague image that it was something really hard to learn for non-Tamils.  And that image isn’t changed as of now. Nevertheless, one has to live. I quickly found out that common people have really impromptu concepts of English and it would be a tough job for me to get them and make them understand me. Regularities didn’t pose any problems for me, since even a dumb guy can express if he needs to get a cup of tea standing beside a tea stall. But soon things went beyond being simple and hilarious incidents started taking places. One for example, our University Canteen -2 doesn’t serves meals (it means a plateful of rice, sambar, some vegetables and a cup of butter milk) before 12:30 PM. Unknowingly, I went there and asked for it, only to be refused and advised to come on or after 12:30. Incidentally, the time was 12:15 then and I replied to the counter “OK, so it’s just 15 minutes to go”. Adding to my surprise, the man on the counter promptly retaliated, “NO NO, DON’T go, stay here!” For a while, I was awestruck and couldn’t manage to tell something. That guy really knocked me out. Just picking the last word of my speech and ignoring the whole of it, he thought I needed to go out and quickly asked me not to do so!

I feel these incidents are more on the funnier side than posing serious problems. Those are the little mischiefs which give some comic relief to otherwise hectic and ultra-dull present lifestyle of mine.

 

It’s been 78 days since I landed for the first time on Pondicherry, and that’s quite a few days for me. People who don’t know my profession will most probably like to ask why on earth I’m staying for so many days at one place outside my home town. Well, it’s impossible to attend the classes on university if I don’t stay here and yes, I’m a student of Pondicherry University. There’s a lot to tell on why I approached here to pursue a career but I’m not here to write about those now. Let’s focus on the very ridiculous, super plain-Jane yet sometimes hilarious tale of my life here.

Perhaps, if I was to describe the flow of life here in a single word, I would have said ‘ultra-boring’. Let me elaborate it a bit. What happens if you suddenly take a lad from his own place where he’s laden with his favourite people, friends, relatives; where he’s blessed with almost every kind of entertainment options a middle class family could afford in today’s world to someplace else in between some alien people speaking out-of-the-world languages and nothing but a mobile phone and a 17th century internet connection to keep connection with outer planets? The lad becomes a freak like me (I was a freak even before coming here, just got freakier here!). There’s practically nothing to do for me except attending university business, having some ridiculous foods and sleeping. Talking about food, I am NOT racially abusing someone but Tamil people don’t know how to use spices. It’s really, really hard for us north Indians to cope with the kinds of food they used to have here. Having my lunch and dinner is not an interesting thing now, it’s a kind of forced punishment which I can’t escape for the sake of my health.

Well, I have to assess the experience so far being here on Pondicherry, in fact that is why I started writing ‘Pondicherry Chronicles’, then still there are some little funny interesting things from time to time those bring tiny amounts of enjoyment back on life. I will do my best to bring these twitches down here, as insanely as possible and more than they really are.

P.S. I’m known among the friends and relatives circle for being an insane one with little knowledge of surroundings, be ready to become surprised if you don’t already know me!