Anniversary with Paris

“You know, I sometimes think, how is anyone ever gonna come up with a book, or a painting, or a symphony, or a sculpture that can compete with a great city. You can't. Because you look around and every street, every boulevard, is its own special art form and when you think that in the cold, violent, meaningless universe that Paris exists, these lights, I mean come on, there's nothing happening on Jupiter or Neptune, but from way out in space you can see these lights, the cafés, people drinking and singing. For all we know, Paris is the hottest spot in the universe-” said Gill Pender  in Midnight in Paris

On May 6, 2021, I moved to Paris from Bordeaux. The moment I stepped out of the train, a whiff of frigorific air which was in total contrast to the pleasant Bordeaux weather took me by a shock. Visiting or living in Paris is usually a dream for most people. For years, I had been visiting Paris virtually through shows and movies. I was obviously simmering with excitement to be finally able to saunter on those cobbled streets, eat at those fancy restaurants, marvel at the Haussmannian architecture, see the MonaLisa, and spend quiet moments by the Seine. Seeing ‘The Eiffel Tower’ for the first time felt surrealistic. However, the excitement frizzled in a day’s time and all I was left with was antipathy.

I was living away from the city, in a suburb that did not remotely look or feel like Paris. For close to two months, I was under house arrest, researching and working on my thesis. I hardly stepped out, had nobody to talk to and started wondering if it was a good decision after all. Two months later, I moved in with my current flatmates. My life changed drastically, and so did my opinion about Paris. The Paris I was hating a month ago felt magical when I went on an impromptu trip with my roomie to the Eiffel late one night and lost our way back in a desolate street. The pitter-patter that I had been dreading for the last two months started feeling so rejuvenating when I was enjoying it with the right company. I discovered a newfound love for this ‘city of love'. 

When people move to Europe from India, you hear them talk about its unadulterated beauty, serenity, and hygienic quality of life. Not many open up about how badly the silence hits you, unapologetically. Coming from a country of 1.3 billion to one with 75 million (which by the way, happens to be the population of Madhya Pradesh alone), it takes time to get used to the silence. People talk about the colourful spring and pleasant summer but not about the long damp, drab and torturous months of winter. Only rosy pictures of the West have been imprinted on our minds and we have never been able to recover from this colonial hangover. But that is a discussion reserved for another day. Let’s just say I had to deal with my share of homesickness (read India-sickness) to finally fall in love with Paris. 

Coming to think about it, from hating Paris to falling in love with it, nothing much changed in the city per se. The Eiffel still stood tall beside the Seine, brands from across the globe still adorned both sides of the Champs-Élysées and 2.5M tourists still flocked to the Louvre. The only change that happened was me finding the right company. For the last year I have been living in the most incredible company I could think of in an alien nation. Together we have celebrated everything; from birthdays to Ganesh Chaturthi, Diwali, Durga Puja, and New Year to arrivals and farewells.

Far away from our homes, we have found a family in each other here, which also dawned an important realization upon me. It is never the place that is good or bad but the company and the memories we build there that makes us love or hate it. The long rainy days become soothing when you have someone to just sit and enjoy it with a cup of coffee and pakodas. Festival-sickness can be dealt with when you have the right kind of friends to celebrate them 8,000kms away from your country. The inhibitions you have when stepping into the biggest startup incubation centre for a job can be replaced with confidence and aplomb when there are people around who are constantly inspiring and supporting you. You can be at ease after a long tiring day at work knowing somebody at home would have cooked a tasty dinner for you.

Author Yuval Noah Harari says humans have four basic needs- food, clothing, shelter, and storytelling. In the end, all of us need storytellers around us to survive. As I mark my anniversary with Paris, I thank my flatmates and friends here for being my storyteller for the last one year, and for making me fall in love with the city every day. I am one year old in Paris and these lines by Majhrooh Sultanpuri make so much sense:

मैं अकेला ही चला था जानिब-ए-मंज़िल मगर

लोग साथ आते गए और कारवाँ बनता गया

PS- All things said, Dear Bhopal, you will always remain my first love. 

Ode to that handsome man

Everything that happened on the morning of May 5, 2004, is so evocative. The early morning call, rushing to the hospital, returning home, and his coming home one last time. It was a sunny day but nothing was bright about it. We lost our patriarch. 

To the world, he was ‘Daktarbabu’ the charismatic man of the lean frame, dressed impeccably in a pair of crisp white dhoti, voile kurta and rimmed glasses, waiting to attend a beeline of patients even on a Sunday morning. To us, he was simply our Dadubhai, the strict disciplinarian who would not let us sleep past 7 am even on vacations and Sunday mornings and who would chide us for watching ‘Hindustani’ movies and shows over Bangla. He is the reason we were forced to eat everything put on the plate (much later in life I realized its importance) and the reason we had a fixed summer vacation to West Bengal in a troop of nothing less than 20 people! My parents say I am brave enough to move to another country all alone to pursue my dreams. When I remember how my grandfather, barely out of his teens, did the same in another century, an era when channels of communication were almost non-existent, I realize how minuscule any of my achievements will ever be. 

I remember him every day, a little more on the 5th of May and I wish he was here; to gift us new clothes on Durga Puja, to return home with ‘pakodas’ in winter, for us, to give me a few pieces of hajmolas from his pharmacy every time we got the opportunity to drop by, to reprimand us for not following a disciplined life, and of course, for inspiring us to be like him, a man so vigorous and passionate about everything he did. 

I do not have many photographs of his. Of the few I do, this remains my favourite. Among the many hats he donned, one of that was of a Jatra artiste and I thought it was befitting the world to see how gracious, poised, and elegant he could look when playing a queen.