Pondicherry: The French Riviera of the East
The Pondicherry Safarnama runs 2.5 km across 4 monuments, from Basilica of the Sacred Heart of Jesus to Promenade Beach, part of The Coastline Trail. Pondicherry is known as the french riviera of the east, here is the story the route tells, one stop at a time.
Basilica of the Sacred Heart of Jesus
Ground was broken in 1902 and the church consecrated on 17 December 1907, designed by Rev. Fr. Telesphore Welter in a Neo-Gothic style rare enough in India to be described as "an oriental specimen of Gothic Revival architecture." Fifty metres long and eighteen high, its Latin-cross nave rests on twenty-four columns beneath stained glass depicting the life of Christ. Pope Benedict XVI elevated it to minor basilica status in 2011, more than a century after the first stone was laid.
Sri Aurobindo Ashram
Founded on 24 November 1926 by the philosopher Sri Aurobindo and his collaborator Mirra Alfassa, known to the community as the Mother, the ashram now houses around 1,200 members across an interconnected block of French Quarter houses. At its centre, a shaded courtyard holds the Samadhi, a plain white-marble shrine over the spot where both founders are buried, visited daily by residents and travellers who never overlap with the school next door educating more than four hundred students.
French War Memorial
Unveiled on 3 April 1938 by Governor Horace Valentin Crocicchia, this monument on Goubert Avenue honours the roughly eight hundred men French India sent to fight for France from December 1915, five hundred of whom served overseas and seventy-five of whom died. Sculpted by Gaston Petit and designed by the architect Delafon, it still belongs to France today, and its bronze plaques have since added the dead of the Second World War, Indochina and Algeria. Every 14 July and 11 November, ceremonies are still held on this exact spot.
Promenade Beach
Also called Rock Beach, this 1.2-kilometre stretch of Goubert Avenue running from the War Memorial to Dupleix Park lost its actual sand decades ago to erosion caused by the harbour’s breakwater, what remains is a rocky, café-lined promenade, still clean enough to hold Blue Flag certification. A thirteen-foot granite statue of Mahatma Gandhi, unveiled in 1965 and ringed by eight carved pillars taken from Gingee Fort, stands at its centre, facing the sea he never got to walk beside on this particular shore.