For three days, my best friend Rebecca and I roamed the streets of Pondicherry with a road map in her hand and a camera in mine. The time seemed so long that by the second day, she knew the route by rote.

We stayed at La Maison Radha, a clean guesthouse which was a kilometre away from the Pondicherry bus station. Since a rental scooter was not available on the day we arrived, we explored the town by walk. Most of the eateries mentioned on the map and also suggested by the owner of the guesthouse were found to be overrated; the food was bland to our combined taste buds. Perhaps, the food catered to the taste buds of international tourists. One eatery that was unmentioned and the food of which we found to be delectable was Café Ole.

From the Aurobindo handmade paper factory, I bought some handcrafted notebooks that reminded me of my sister, who, as a teenager, would make pretty picture postcards, embellishing them with shimmer mists and colourful polystyrene balls. We took a silent tour of the factory. Stealthily, I took pictures of the sheets suspended for natural drying, from various angles. The two women working in the factory were so kind that they gave us some sheets of deep purple handmade paper to be regarded as souvenirs. One of them stroked my cheek as we took leave of them. Perhaps, I reminded her of someone.

A rental scooter was not available on the second day, too. We went to the Serenity beach in an auto-rickshaw. There, I took many pictures of the space eclipsed by the rays of the evening sun. The night, after dinner, was spent on the Promenade beach, quietly watching the eternal process of the waves advancing towards and crashing against the rocks.

A dirty rental scooter was available on the third day. We cleaned its trunk and seat, and rode to Auroville at noon. I knew we had reached the City of Dawn when I saw white people on scooters. When in Auroville, we simply trailed the other tourists, even following them into a bus that later took us to see the outside of Matrimandir from a distance. From the time we reached the hedged spot till the time we left, we watched people have their photos taken in a number of poses with the gleaming golden dome in the far background.

Pondering how to fill the period until evening, we rode the day away as two drained tourists who had had enough of their retreat. When we reached the familiar town, we decided to see the Aurobindo ashram. What a strange place to visit as a tourist, I thought, when I saw people meditating among vacationers. In our attempt to make the most of the last few hours in the town, we found ourselves sauntering through the same streets over and over.

There was such a distinct contrast between Black Town and White Town in terms of sounds and moods; while the former was full of go with vehicular movement, shops, and people, the latter was so quiet that one wondered how the two towns coexisted. A scene I fondly remember from my trip is that of a few stray dogs demanding affection from a homeless man, who responded by petting them, tenderly.