The Doors Of Pondicherry

The Doors Of Pondicherry 

In Pondicherry, the doors and streets are not merely wood and concrete, but stories and poems painted with bright colours and history. The former stand at the corner of almost every street, adorned in vibrant hues of yellow, white, and coral blue, humming their own rhythms and narrating their own stories.

I walked through these French streets with my camera dangling from my neck, a map in one hand and a cup of melting gelato in the other, collecting their colours and silences like seashells. Some doors were coral blue, like the waves crashing on the rocks at the beach, while some were yellow like the petals of a sunflower. But every time I tried to click a picture, something inside me hesitated. How could I capture something that seemed to mirror me? The doors of Pondicherry do that sometimes - they stare back at you, unblinking, as if they know all the stories you’ve brought along with you; all the weight you’ve carried on your shoulders, and the amount of tears you’ve shed till they formed a sea echoing the sound of waves crashing against the shore. 

I paused before one. It was a mahogany door, with its white paint chipped at the edges, taking the shape of a thunderstorm, weaving its way from top to bottom. I imagined the hands that once pushed these doors, the feet that crossed the threshold, and a farewell whispered through someone’s last breath that once echoed inside; perhaps even sorrow had sown its seeds there, stagnant like the puddles on the road after a heavy rainstorm. 

There was something deeply surreal, something human-like. Some stood ajar, welcoming, with warmth and comfort radiating through them, while some remained only half open, hesitant like a half-spoken confession. Others were sealed shut, guarding what stood inside. Every time I passed one, I had an urge to knock on them, enter, and breathe in their beauty concealed inside. 

I wanted to be acknowledged by these doors and walls that have stood there for eons, witnessing generations of joy and heartbreak. 

Perhaps I was drawn to these beautiful standing pieces of wood because I, too, live in thresholds, in the comfort I’ve found between leaving and belonging; between doubt and certainty, yearning and retreat. They seemed to understand this indecision. Some days, I wish to remain open and welcome everything with wide open arms. On others, I seal myself shut, afraid of what the world might drag in. Even as the roads quieted, the doors did not; they seemed to ask me a question: What are you searching for? I did not quite know the answer to it. Perhaps I was searching for stillness, quiet, or maybe proof that beauty did not need a loud declaration, just stillness. Somehow, the doors made me feel strangely seen. 

I passed another one, basking in the rays of the setting sun, aging the way one always hopes to: gracefully, without regrets. Bright pink Bougainvillea surrounded its edges, perhaps to hide the cracks on the doors, to show that resilience sometimes means to endure. 

The breeze carried with it the faint sound of calmness, the kind I did not know I had been missing, and for a moment, time paused, and I felt myself suspended among the strangers walking around me, caught between their rush. Like these doors, I was a silent observer in this world of chaotic urban symphony. 

The doors of Pondicherry were not just doors; they showed me the beauty of belonging. Each door was a quiet declaration that we all live in thresholds, but are always in motion. Maybe my heart is like the doors, with hinges that creak out of fatigue and exhaustion, every coat of paint a memory reborn in an attempt to begin again.  Perhaps one day, I will have the courage to turn the handles and let the wind rearrange the furniture of my soul, which I have meticulously built- to make space for more. 

Written by Aditi Prabhu 

Edited by Gressica Gandhi