11th edition of Pondicherry Heritage Festival kicks off

Pondicherry Heritage Festival 2025 brings children back to the past with traditional games and activities on city streets.

Children briefly slipped into the play world of their forebears as the bygone past was recreated on a city street as part of the Pondicherry Heritage Festival 2025 here on Sunday.

A stretch between Easwaran Koil and Anna Salai was kept out of bounds for vehicles as the street in the Tamil Quarter of town came alive for “Veedhi Vilayattu” with an array of traditional games, ranging across Pallanguzhi, Pambaram, Dhayam and Pacha Kuthirai.

Through the entirety of the forenoon, more than 250 children from across the city forgot all about screens, and, instead discovered the joys of playing simple solo or group games. For the adults in their midst, this was perhaps nostalgia time.

This marked the 11th edition of the annual festival co-hosted by civil society group People for Pondicherry’s Heritage and PondyCAN with the support of various organisations.

Residents of the street had prepared buttermilk and traditional snacks, which were distributed free of cost to participants and visitors, while students from the Mahatma Gandhi Medical College and Research Institute volunteered to organise the traditional games, said Suguna Selvam, an organiser.

She, along with Ananthi Velmurugan, had designed a mini “passport” for the children that served both a ready reckoner and a colouring book with drawings of typical 18th century houses with their wooden-pillared verandah and projecting portico (thinnai).

Beyond the cheering and whooping as some child tried and missed many bids to smash a bobbing water-filled balloon in a version of the uriyadi, smaller groups sat on the verandahs of households, engrossed in games like “Dhayam” and “Bangle Joining”.