Pondicherry is a pretty coastal French flavoured town where most of the Indians speak French and Tamil and some English. So we have gotten by but found it a bit strange to start with. Our usual Hindi "Namaste" greeting is met with bewildered stares here so we have kind of had to start again! It's been fun though. There are French and Italian food shops everywhere and the prettiest little French lanes. We went for a big walk along the beach and under the pier where we watched some local fishermen playing cards and then found ourselves in the midst of a local Indian village where we were received excitedly by the girls who thought that we were quite funny. 
These are some cyclo drivers who yell "Hello Madammm..." when they see you - "Rickshawww??". They sit around relaxing under shady trees with their mates until potential customers come along.
This is the beach - it's not good for swimming but is nice nonetheless...
We caught a tuk tuk to nearby Auroville which is a community established to promote unity of cultures and countries and is a social experiment on group dynamics, community involvement and sustainability which turned out to be quite an unfriendly place. We were greeted by signs saying 'only residents and their visitors allowed entry' to which we ignored and strolled on through and we left shortly after arriving after being snobbed by the women working in the cafe. 