Shooting Southwards

Chennai Tsunami Memorial

This false tree fountain at Chennai’s Marine Beach is near a series of paintings remember the Boxing Day Tunami.

The kids of Auroville, a conscious-living community on the southeast coast, have a wonderful pirate-ship treehouse to play in.

At Sadhana Forest, this sapling is the tallest of a collection of trees planted by schoolkids. Appropriately, Saumya was the tallest student.

A small restaurant in Auroville is built around a striking banyan tree

Another grand, ancient tamarind at Auroville, this one named after Aurobindo’s French-born comrade, a woman known as the Mother.

The grandest tamarind I found in Auroville was named after the city’s founder, Sri Aurobindo, a renowned Indian freedom fighter and philosopher

A big banyan in Auroville is used as a place for people to tie cloths, representing their wishes.

A funny fake tree at a fountain on the edge of Old Pondicherry.

The first of a line of beautiful yellow (plastic) palms leading to the ocean from the bus station. Follow them and you’ll see the Bay of Bengal soon.

A large pipal with Nagakal snake stones placed beneath it, in the corner of the Ekambaram temple