HERITAGE OF PUDUCHEERY

There are frequent buses to puducherry from places like Chidambaram, Thanjavur Trichy and Coimbatore. Especially private luxury buses are connecting puducherry with other major cities in Tamil Nadu and Bangalore

Puducherry’s ambience is not influenced or dominated by one fabulous heritage monument or by amazing natural surroundings, except perhaps the sea. Puducherry itself is "heritage", as a town and as a conglomerate of different cultural influences. These influences find expression in its architecture and streetscapes, in its people and visitors, and in a subtle feeling which is peculiarly "Pondy".

The town is planned on a grid from its inception. Cities like Ernakulam in Kerala, also built in a grid pattern, were planned and built much later, while its twin-town Cochin had developed at the same time as puducherry in a more clustered manner.    The town was divided in a French section and Tamil section, with its respective population and architectural differences and each its own particular streets capes.

In French Town the roads are flanked by colonial style buildings with long compound walls and stately gates, behind which life unfolds. The facades have often vertical columns and tall windows and are coloured cream, yellow and pink.

 In Tamil Town the streets are lined by verandahs and extended porches where its residents would gather and passing guests would spend the night. The colors here are green, blue and brown, while the facades convey horizontal and low features.

Sights are manifold with pastel colored churches and bright temple towers; Joan of Arc's heavenward gaze vies with the tall carved pillars from Gin gee at the seafront; cricket competes with pétanque. And the Park becomes a green peaceful oasis where these complementary contrasts meet.

Puducherry has an interesting spiritual heritage too and is at a crossroads of eastern and western culture, and of ancient and modern spiritual disciplines. These movements converge in a practical manner in the twin communities of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram and Auroville.

 Originally the native Tamil town developed around the nucleus of a group of temples in the northern section and the streets were laid in an east-west direction. The row houses along these streets stood back-to-back. These streetscapes with continuous wall-to-wall construction vary much in character with that of the French. Their exterior facades often feature a street veranda with platform and lean-to-roof over wooden posts - the thalvaram, a social extension of the house - and a semi-public portico - the thinnai - supported by round wooden pillars with masonry benches for visitors.

 On the whole, a conspicuous synthesis of two varying styles is evident, especially in the case of two storied Tamil buildings where the ground floor is usually of the Tamil type with thinnai, thalvaram and carved doors, while the first floor displays French influence showing pilasters, columns with capitals, arched windows, plaster decorations and end-ornament elements. In French buildings the local influence is obvious in the use of madras terrace flat roofs, wooden balconies and sloping tiled roofs.

 It is a result of this cross-influence of building patterns that gives the old town its distinct architectural vocabulary, which can be termed "puducherry-nes