The river Isère gives a region around the Rhône-Alpes its name. Left to my own devices for a long time, I wandered around, exploring Grenoble and the region around it. Grenoble's Bastille was deliciously confusing. I had wonderful, detailed ideas about the history of the Bastille and the storming of the Bastille and all of that, accompanied by utter cluelessness of the geography of France and where these stirring events really occurred. When I got to Grenoble, everyone was talking about 'climbing the Bastille' and 'going to the Bastille'. There was even a ropeway up to the Bastille for those who could not go up on foot. Later discovered that the ropeway is almost more famous than the Bastille itself. Grenoble's Bastille is an old fortress with a spectacular view, but without the history I had superimposed on it. To phrase it like that it to put it down, though. The climb up to the … [Read more...]
Seshan/XB
Nisha had a 'Carte 12-25', which entitled her to ridiculously cheap tickets on trains in France. When she went to buy tickets from Paris to Grenoble, she produced her card and booked a ticket for her sister and herself. Instead of asking for my name (bound to be a complicated Indian name, of course), the gentleman decided to call me XB. I feel like the distant cousin of a pencil. We reached Grenoble and began to practise for one of the many performances we did in France. We were to perform in a place called Gap, a name that I did not quite associate with France. When we met the person who organised the performance, I realised something that continues to haunt me even now. As long as I'm eavesdropping on someone else's conversation, as long as I am not the only person being addressed, as long as I'm part of a group, I understand what's going on. The moment someone addresses me … [Read more...]
Straight to the Louvre
The conversation I overheard while I was at CDG airport convinced me that I simply had to make the most of my youth and of being young in France. I landed in Paris on the 4th of June, 2006, a Sunday. It was the first Sunday of the month, and I was in Paris. That meant only one thing for us - free entry to the Louvre! So, luggage and all, we went straight to the Louvre. France has always been like that for me. Pack as much as possible, as much as possible, into each minute there. So what if I had spent hours awake, terrified of falling asleep on my co-passenger? So what if I had preferred the beautiful mountains below to the sleep I needed? We went to the Louvre. When would I get the chance again? Later that evening, when I was exhausted and my head was swimming, I thought I had been hallucinating, but it was true. Out of the blue, I met a classmate of mine in the Louvre. To meet … [Read more...]
Flying Alone
"Window or aisle?" "Aisle, please." I took my boarding pass and boarded the flight. No sister with me this time. No one to hold my hand. No one to exchange sparkling glances of excitement with. Sure, I was going to meet her, but on this journey in 2006, I was alone. The journey to Milan from Mumbai was a long one, but I sat straight, willing myself not to fall asleep. What if my head dropped and I leaned against the man sitting next to me? Mortifying! Better to be sleep-deprived. I was travelling alone, I reminded myself, and I had no comfortable shoulder to rest on. Chewing the inside of my cheek, I kept myself awake. I could not bring myself to eat dinner at 2 in the morning, so I drank a glass of water and stared out of the window. The world I was flying over looked like a topo map. I loved topo maps. I found myself marking settlements in my head with red dots, matching the red … [Read more...]
Madame Pamplemousse and the Time-Travelling Café
What takes you back to old remembered places and half-forgotten memories? What makes you revisit forgotten parts of your life? Madame Pamplemousse and the Time-Travelling Café explores the idea that taste can make you go back in time and visit parts of history. A contraption that looks like a coffee-machine, fed with the right ingredients, can recreate in your imagination a time that is so vivid that you go back there yourself! In this sweet book set in Monsieur Moutarde's French café in Montmartre, we meet a white cat called Camembert who wears an eye-patch, a young girl, a scientist - and of course, Madame Pamplemousse herself. A quick and easy read, it uses a lighthearted style of storytelling to take you on a crazy adventure. Title Madame Pamplemousse and the Time-Travelling Café Author Rupert Kingfisher Genre Adventure/Fantasy Rating (out of 5) 3 Age-group 7+ … [Read more...]
The Story-Catcher – Kindle Edition!
After three years of good old paperback sales, we now have an e-book! For all those who said you did not buy the hard copy, here's your chance! … [Read more...]
Backpacking through Europe
That year, we went from Salzburg to Munich. We spent a few hours at Munich and then went to Berlin. And from Berlin, northward to Amsterdam. Our night in Amsterdam was another night out, but after so many journeys and so many crazy backpacking experiences, we'd figured out a few things. We had Eurail passes that we kept gushing about - we could use them. We spent the night on trains. Took a train to Utrecht, then another to Rotterdam, and then one back to Amsterdam. That's how we spent the night. We didn't see tulips or windmills. We did see Rijksmuseum and Anne Frank's house. But honestly, we were exhausted. For a long time, we just sat by a canal and did nothing. We were depressed because we thought we'd lost some money, and we were filled up with all kinds of thoughts and emotions. Fifteen days of glorious backpacking. After Salzburg, I did not write any more; I was too tired. But … [Read more...]
Backpacking through Europe: Still in Salzburg
However comfortable a waiting-room may be, it is not a comfortable place to spend the whole night. With hard steel chairs with immovable handles as beds and backpacks as pillows, the night seemed endless. We waited forever for the sun to rise, growing colder and colder as the night went by. At 5:30 in the morning, we finally decided we had had enough of the waiting-room, and we went for a walk. If we had thought the station was cold, outside was freezing. The small consolation was that everything was beautiful. We passed Mozart's house and admired delightful miniatures in shop windows. We saw bottles of all shapes and sizes displayed in some shop windows, and dolls arranged in others. We walked farther and farther, bringing life back to our freezing legs. And we got back at 9:25 for The Sound of Music tour. That was the most expensive thing we did. (What came a close second was the … [Read more...]
Being Billy
When I started reading Being Billy, I felt uncomfortable, but I did not know why. I just could not lay my finger on what made me draw into myself and step back from the book. After a few pages, I realised I was supposed to feel uncomfortable. The book wanted to reach within me and squeeze something that I had buried deep within. For as long as I resisted that, the book made me uncomfortable. The moment I allowed it to touch me, I sobbed my heart out. Sitting in a train, oblivious to the world around me, I sniffed and licked the salty tears that poured down my cheeks. Billy is a young boy forced to be older than he is. A 'lifer' at a home, surrounded by carers whom he calls 'scummers', Billy has only one soft point: his twin siblings six years younger than he is. Other than that, Billy is just a mix of violence and anger, unwilling to be loved, deliberately shoving people out of his … [Read more...]
Backpacking through Europe: Salzburg
We hopped onto the 12:34 from Vienna to Salzburg, delighted as usual with our Eurail passes. At Salzburg station, though, we spent the most depressing time of all. I was 17; my sister was 19. We had spent a long time away from home already. We had little money and less experience. We had been making decision after decision for several days, and we were exhausted. "No, there are absolutely no hostels available for tonight at Salzburg." Florence was fresh in our minds, and we did not want to repeat the horror of a night outdoors. "Maybe we should go to Munich. Let's leave out Salzburg altogether and just take a train out." We called the Munich hostels whose numbers we had, and they were available, but cost the earth. "But what do we do? Should we do it anyway?" "What train should we take? Does it need a reservation?" "Where do we go? What do we do?" Frustration bordering on despair … [Read more...]
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