A trip to London

With much prodding and pushing from Herman and Bernadette, I go on a weekend trip to London. The tourist coach is full of foreign college students studying in Paris. They are extremely friendly, but there is a problem: They cannot speak English and I cannot speak French. We manage to communicate though, using a combination of nods, hand signs, head shakes, and smiles.

We get to Calais and take a ferry. As you approach the coast of England, you can see the awesome white cliffs of Dover. Suddenly, I remember Mathew Arnold and his poem “Dover Beach” and think fondly of my father, the English professor, who had never been to the land of his favourite poets and dramatists.

We are staying in a hotel near Gloucester Road and I find myself sharing a very large room with two Algerian girls and a Mexican boy called Filiberto. We quickly become friends and over a cup of coffee, they anoint me as the de facto leader of the small group, the overriding qualification for the post being of course, a working knowledge of English.

So we do the London tour bit: Hopping on and off open top buses, we feed the pigeons at the Trafalgar Square, gape at the graceful contours of St. Paul's Cathedral, admire the Big Ben and complain bitterly about the exorbitant entrance fees at Madame Tussauds. By evening, we are thoroughly exhausted and decide on an early dinner. Rather selfishly, I suggest Indian and, to my surprise, everyone agrees.

It is my first Indian meal after three weeks and I have tears in my eyes at the end of the feast.

The meal revives our spirits and the girls suggest we go to a night club. Both Filiberto and I are a bit apprehensive but the girls are full of enthusiasm and drag us along. It turns out to be a frenetic but a thoroughly enjoyable experience, even though we run out of money after three rounds of drinks. A bunch of giggling English girls who have smuggled in gin cocktails in quarter bottles share their booty with us and a good time is had by all.

The next day we visit Windsor Castle. I do not remember much of that visit; I am sure, neither do my three friends of the previous night.

We were quietly nursing our king-size hangovers.

Photo Courtesy: Openphoto.net

Paris Diary: 3

There is much about that spring in Paris that I have forgotten, but a few memories remain.

I am sitting in a sidewalk cafe, at peace with myself, watching the world go by. Across the river, I can see the graceful Notre-Dame cathedral, silhouetted against the evening light.

After coming to Paris, I have fallen in love with the wayside café which for the French is not just a place to eat, but also a centre for socialising, relaxation and even rumination. If people-watching is your hobby, hours can be spent just watching various parallel universes revealing themselves all around your table: men in business attire unwinding with a glass of wine before going home; young couples kissing or holding hands oblivious to the world around them; matrons with dogs in tow; old men in chequered caps reading the newspaper or staring emptily into space. For a gifted writer, I think to myself, every table can be the beginning of a story.

On my way back to the hotel, at a newsagents’, I see a stark black and white billboard with three words: Sartre est mort. Sartre is dead. With a mild sense of déjà-vu, I recall reading how the French intellectuals of the post-war era, Jean-Paul Sartre included, were hosted and celebrated by the well-known cafés of Paris of that time, some of which exist even today.

A few days later, Sartre’s funeral is attended by over 20,000 mourners.

I do not go, not knowing where exactly the funeral was taking place. I feel inhibited going alone.

I wish I had gone.

Photo Courtesy: Emilia. Paris. Picasa Web Albums

Paris Diary: 2

One week into my stay in Paris, I meet up with a group of Indian students. Most of them are pursuing post-graduation in Cité Universitaire. They are a helpful lot and especially one of them, Shaji, takes me under his wing. Both of us have studied more or less at the same time in Trivandrum, though we never knew each other then.

Shaji works the night shift in a hotel near La Madeleine. It is a small hotel, Shaji warns me, but, breakfast included, costs only FF 84 per night, whereas I am paying almost three times that in my present hotel. Shaji urges me to shift and I readily agree, the attraction being of course that I will have company in the evening.

What Shaji conveniently forgets to mention is that the hotel is used by streetwalkers to turn short-time tricks and also by amorous couples for illicit liaisons, not that I would have changed my mind even if he had warned me earlier.

So I shift hotels the second week. It is good fun because by the time I come back from work, Shaji will be behind the reception counter. He would have brought with him a small plastic bag which contained stuff for our dinner, mostly the long loaves of the French baguette, sausages and a few cans of beer. There was a pantry behind the reception and we would reminisce about Trivandrum and cook dinner and talk well past midnight, when I will reluctantly, turn myself in for the night. Shaji will try to catch some sleep in a small room adjacent the pantry and would be off to his hostel by 6 am.

Normally the action started after 9 pm. The “working girls” were easy to spot with their heavy make-up and high boots. While the customer pretended to look elsewhere, the girl walked up to the reception and chatted with Shaji. Money will change hands and Shaji will push the key across. Half an hour later, the couple came down the lift and the girl will hand over the keys, again making friendly small talk. It was all very civilised and done with a lot of, what the French call, savoir-faire.

Shaji had an understanding with the owner of the hotel: He could rent out a room two or three times a night and the Patron did not mind, as long as he got one night’s rent.

This was the Patron’s way of letting a struggling Indian student make some extra money.

Photo Courtesy: Emilia. Paris. Picasa Web Albums

Paris Diary: 1

My idea of exploring a city is to throw the guide book away and wander aimlessly. While this method can have disastrous consequences when exploring an Indian city, it works for me every time I am in Europe. In the case of Paris, wandering aimlessly can yield surprisingly delightful results, as every unplanned detour or every unexpected turn of the street has literally the ability to stop you dead in your tracks, such being the aesthetic riches the city has to offer.

Such serendipity brings me one late evening to the Place Vendôme, after all the shops are shut and the beautiful square is lit only by the streetlights. I remember standing there for a very long time, completely overwhelmed by the architectural grandeur on display and the serenity that seem to prevail all around.

To start from the beginning...

I land in Paris on a bright spring afternoon. It is a Sunday and the taxi takes me through deserted streets to my hotel, near the Latin Quarter.

A letter awaits me at the hotel. It is from Herman, the person who will be my trainer for the next four weeks. Herman, writing in an elaborate cursive, welcomes me to Paris; gives clear, precise directions how to reach La Défense, the major business district of Paris where our office is located; apologises for the sorry state of the Metro. Apparently, the sanitation workers of the Metro are on strike and it is in bit of a mess.

Used as I am to the suburban stations and trains of Bombay, I can hardly find anything seriously wrong with the famed underground rail system of Paris. True, the trash cans are overflowing and there are scraps of garbage here and there, but I travel in air-conditioned comfort and the morning rush hour hardly holds any terrors for a battle-scarred commuting veteran from Bombay.

Herman is a tall, jovial man in his fifties. Bernadette, his assistant, is younger, but equally friendly. The couple go out of the way to make me feel at home that first day, showing me how to operate the coffee maker, where to find the cafeteria, and how to work the buffet during lunch time. As the days go by, they become really close and start advising me how to see little bits of Paris every day and what to do (or, not to do, according to Bernadette, clucking like a mother hen) during the weekends.

Thus begins my obsession with a city which I keep revisiting in my imagination even today.

Photo Courtesy: Neil - Vacances d’automne. Picasa Web Albums