A guy selling honey from the back of his bicycle straight out of honeycombs

We were in Bangalore recently for a friend’s marriage and a ‘big fat south Indian wedding’ at that! It was the marriage of my Bangalore partner Arvind Raju with most, if not all, of the arrangements made by our other partner in crime — Minnie, the much more organised and assertive sister. The pair of them make up a small part of what is a huge family of Raju’s from Bangalore. There was a time around three years ago that I started to believe that a day wouldn’t go by in Bangalore without me being introduced to yet another cousin, another uncle, another aunt.

The first function was arranged by the beautiful bride Keerthi’s friends and family — a slightly unexpected (at least for a south Indian wedding) mehndi and sangeet the evening before the wedding at The Chancery Pavilion. After this, there wasn’t much time after a late-night and the bride, groom and the rest of the family were back in action by 5.30am for the start of the rituals at the Bangalore Palace. (I know I’m a foreigner here but why do weddings start late at night in north India while in the south incredibly early?!)

The blushing bride looked beautiful and the pair of them incredibly shy, but having said that, there was an audience of around a thousand. So a little nervousness and shyness should probably be expected with all the lights, cameras, action. After all the rituals at the enormous Bangalore Palace were complete, it was time for me to sit down and get to eating. My primary reason for going to any traditional wedding and to see what, if anything, new I can find.

The caterer’s spread at the wedding

So yes, a sit-down traditional meal we were served and what a meal it was! A banana leaf was laid, then one by one it was slowly filled up by bearer after bearer, moving around the tables in swathes with buckets full of all manner of items, starting with a sweet-and-sour drink, a few sweet and savoury pickles and chutneys, through pakora-style bits and pieces, sabzis, lentil and sambhar, fried breads, pulaos and rice, raita, curd and ending with fruit, halwa, ice cream and paan. I counted 27 items! And it was fabulous.

This is the first south Indian wedding I’ve been to and the meal in itself was by far the most memorable part of it (sorry Arvind and Keerthi), but then food always comes way before rituals for me!

There was a three-day gap before the final reception in Mamallapuram and as we’d never been to Pondicherry there was suddenly a window of opportunity.

There are two options from Bangalore to Pondicherry, by flight to Chennai and around two-and-a-half hours in a cab to Pondi, which from door to door is around six hours, if you set off early morning. There is a direct flight from Bangalore to Pondi but only one a day and on this particular day, by the time I’d finished messing around trying to plan the trip, we’d already missed it! (I should have taken heed from our hosts who told us to set off early next morning in a hired car and make our way by road).

Eventually we ended up setting off around 2.30pm in the afternoon, not the best time to set off in all honesty and the trip by road ended up taking around eight hours and although I’m not such a road- travel person unless I’m driving myself, it wasn’t as bad as I’d initially thought. It was around 10pm by the time we reached The Windflower resort and nothing much else to do than grab a bite and sleep.

We woke up to find that it’d been raining all night but the view from our first-floor window was that of an empty sun-kissed beach and slowly rolling waves. My idea of heaven, but before we set off on our little day trip around Pondi we grabbed a quick breakfast bite. And it was here that I fell in love with a deliciously hot, sexy, curvaceous beauty over breakfast (don’t tell my wife), in fact I think my wife was equally spellbound in all honesty and as she walked over to us, pale complexion glowing against the rays of sun coming in through the window, she was introduced. Pongal! I couldn’t believe it! I’ve never really taken Pongal seriously in the past, but that soft, sumptuous, ghee-drippingly-rich, creamy, peppery stuff really is the breakfast option of sin! And the same thing we repeated the next two mornings.

I’ve never been to Pondicherry before so wasn’t really sure what to expect but generally it’s a lovely little sleepy fishing town and the French quarter has some lovely little cafes and restaurants. We had a couple of glasses of wine and a bite to eat in a ‘tres petite’ little place called La Maison Rose — simple crusty home-made bread, a plate of penne with tomato ragu and a better Caesar salad than you’d probably get in most of the hotels in India. It was scorchingly hot but we did have a little walk around and along the beach before heading back for a little afternoon sleep.

A part of the wedding lunch

In the evening, the chef had prepared a special menu for us and a selection of delicious local seafood dishes, dry pepper crab, dried fish curry and grilled seer fish were all eaten by hand with a little steamed rice. I suppose I’m a little spoilt when it comes to food as I can always excite a chef enough to cook something special and local and usually something that’s not on the menu. And the following night, chef put together another delicious seafood feast of mussels, prawns and again, fish!

The next day I’d planned to meet a friend who lives at Auroville. I’d gone there for the cheese. They manufacture (small scale) the most delicious organic and pure vegetarian cheese there. From soft cheeses to Cheddars, mature, tangy pecorino-style cheeses and a fantastic, blue Gorgonzola-style cheese. Other than the cheese, the place is pretty and everything, but I don’t really think people can live like that for long, however great the Auroville dream sounds. My friend who has been living there for the past 18 years also pretty much confirmed my thoughts but I suppose I really shouldn’t be the one to judge! The cheeses were fabulous though!

The best part of the day was the way back to the resort and just outside the infamous German Bakery that was already closed, I met this guy selling honey from the back of his bicycle. There must have been 50kg of honeycomb on the back of that bike and he had the most hypnotising crystal blue eyes that I couldn’t help but think was maybe due to so many bee stings over the years?!

The following day we were up at 5.30am and set on a two-hour road trip to the Radisson Blu Resort Temple Bay, Mamallapuram for the reception. This is one of the biggest resort properties I’ve ever seen, sprawling over acres and acres. By this time I’d had my fill of eating and after the reception, I spent the rest of the day in the enormous pool. A much better option than the awful beach that the resort really, really doesn’t want you to explore.

Another couple of hours by road to Chennai and a flight back to Bangalore and I was back to work.

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