Visited the mangroves of Picchavaram near Pondicherry on 16th december, 2018 which are the largest in India. I had never seen a mangrove. A friend of mine Chhavi Nath Pandey and also the husband of a very dear friend Renu Singh Pandey who retired from Indian forest service and currently teaches at IIT Ahmedabad, is an expert on Mangroves. He had gifted me two beautiful books long time back on Mangroves and I was fascinated by them. One of these was a Coffee table book and had lovely pictures of the mangroves. Finally in Picchavaram for the first time, I could see the mangroves spread for miles together. This is an amazing eco system and the plants are able to convert the salt water into enough fresh water to survive. I plan to go back to Chhavi's book again and read them. In fact this whole area historically was known as Thillaivanam due to the Mangrove Jungles and it was the Cholas who in 10th cen when they established the Natraja temple renamed this place as Chidambaram, clothed in wisdom. It was a beautiful experience roving miles together into the Mangroves and admiring them. We found a very interesting boatman, Ganesh, who spoke perfect hindi and proudly stated that he was the only one among the fifty boatmen who spoke Hindi for he had worked in Saudi Arabia for six years. He was born in this place and obviously very attached to it. A very interesting person who told us that the boatmen get Rs. 65 for each ride and since there are fifty of them some times their number does not come at all. They are all temporary employees but the persons who issue the tickets are all permanent employees of the Government and get more pay than them. He told us that the climax scenes of the film Dasavatara and Jamai raja were shot in he Mangroves. He had immense knowledge about the Mangrove, including their botanical names and lot of myths and stories related to them. He told us many things about Saudi too and his experiences there. He is an expert boat's an who can take you for miles together in the mangroves and keep talking about them. He also informed us that during the Sunami in 2006,this area was not affected and it was protected due to the Mangrove Jungles around it.
