(Part IV of The Crazy Travelogue)My sister, our French correspondent and I were sitting on a bench outside a bookshop, when two young men walked past. After a few moments, they turned around and walked back. Ignoring our French companion, they turned to the two of us brown-skinned people."Excuse me," asked one in French, "could we ask you two questions? Just two questions?" My sister and I exchanged glances. "Erm ... Okay ..." "Are you Indian?" "Yes ...?" "From the north of India?" "No, from the south." (Technically, our two questions ended there, but they did not seem to realise.) "From Madras?" We shrugged. Madras, unfortunately, is usually very loosely defined. "Do you speak Tamil?" (Question number four, please note.) "Yes."That sealed it. Switching to Tamil with a stronger accent than I can ever hope to even imitate, they grinned and said in Tamil, "Then why on earth are we … [Read more...]
The Crazy Travelogue: All About Food
This is part three of the crazy travelogue about the French exchange programme. Much of our day, especially in the beginning, seems to have revolved around food, if my diary is anything to go by.On the 22nd of May, 2004, I've written about melon (not exactly a unique experience) and a tart ('not sweet') with spinach and goat cheese. That's when I remember that we had not yet started being adventurous with meat. We were vegetarian then, clearly so.On the 23rd of May, we have hot chocolate and McDonald's as our highlights. (To be fair, we did not want to go to McDonald's, but got pulled with the tide.) For dinner, artichokes. I've told that story already.The highlight of the 24th of May is hot chocolate in a bowl. The problem with a foreign language is that after a while, you don't feel like going on asking, "Sorry? I did not understand." Sometimes, you just agree to something, … [Read more...]
The Crazy Travelogue: French Exchange Programme – II
'I don't think anyone cried,' I've noted in my diary. What? I read it again. I don't think anyone cried.I frown as I read it. It is a singularly strange thing to have noted down. We were going on the French exchange programme - a four-week programme. I have no idea why seventeen-year-old me wanted someone to cry.Evidently, though, I wasn't the only one who found things incomplete. Many of us wanted something more dramatic, something beyond the 'cycling-shorts drama' I wrote about yesterday."I want something to happen," G said. "Something should happen."It was just a while before G's wish was fulfilled. Two hours into our journey to Mumbai, we found out that the Air India ground staff were on strike. Thanks to that, all AI flights were delayed by a few hours. "Is this 'something' enough?" we asked G, who was duly penitent. It was her fault, of course, that the staff were on … [Read more...]
The Crazy Travelogue: French Exchange Programme – I
When you are seventeen and off on Fergusson College's famous French exchange programme, everything seems special. There is nothing that is not worth noting down.Now, I chuckle in delight. There is so much to remember.We begin with what I call the 'cycling-shorts drama' in my excited record of each detail.We had been told to carry cycling shorts because we were going to have a lesson at the circus school in Chambéry. We were fifteen teenagers, bouncing with joy.We whispered to one another. "Did you carry a pair?" "Oh no! I forgot!" "I didn't either!" "Nor I." "Oh my God." "Now what?"Not having a pair of cycling shorts was a Big Deal. We Had Been Told To Carry Them And None Of Us Had Any. The world would come to an end.We called friends, cousins, everyone. At less than half an hour's notice, we had a cousin and a friend coming all the way to college to give us cycling … [Read more...]
Not the Mona Lisa
Entry to the Louvre is free on the first Sunday of each month, and I landed in Paris on the first Sunday of June. Jet lag is a luxury that people who have time and money to spend in a foreign country can afford. I couldn’t.Whatever debate may surround the aesthetics of the pyramid of the Louvre, within, you have everything to choose from. For a few seconds, we stood there, letting history and culture seep into our blood.“So, where do you want to go?” My sister smiled at me.“Not the Egyptian zone, that’s for sure.”I could not decide, so we walked along, slowly getting the kind of head-rush that I have begun to associate with museums. As our heads filled to saturation-point, we began to wander a little aimlessly, continuing to look at things around us. We saw the crowd around the Mona Lisa.“Do you want to go?” my sister asked, a little doubtfully.I shook my head. “She looks … [Read more...]
Baby Krishna
Finally, here are a few photographs of the baby that everyone loved so much. It's a doll, yes, a doll, made by my French mother. It's not a real baby, no. We dressed it (her) as Baby Krishna for our performance in December - here are a few pictures! … [Read more...]
Seatbelt
During an exchange programme with a school in France, I noticed something I had never noticed before - rickshaws do not have doors!The first time I went in a rickshaw with my French correspondent, my eyes widened. How comfortable would she feel? Would she be afraid of a vehicle like this without doors? I glanced sideways at her.But like a true exchange student, she had come with an open mind. I saw her steel herself and deliberately remain silent with respect to this doorless wonder.I breathed a sigh of relief.Inside the rickshaw, she looked around, confused."What happened?" I asked.She looked at me in horror. "There are no seatbelts?" … [Read more...]
Performing in Renage
A very dear friend of my sister's organised a performance for us at a chapel in Renage. That was when we learned what effective publicity is.Michèle, who, I should mention, is in her seventies, did absolutely everything to make people come for our performance. She, helped by two friends, went (literally) from pillar to post putting up posters. She made signs to direct people to the chapel, and went and put them up on lamp-posts. When we drove towards the chapel, we saw our own faces everywhere. Every wall, every lamp-post, every pillar had a poster of our performance thanks to this formidable lady. She sat and folded the programmes for the performance - easily a hundred or more - insisting that she had nothing else to do, while we, the dancers, ought to rest. She went individually to each neighbour and convinced all her friends that they would not get the opportunity to watch a … [Read more...]
Easter in France
The good thing about being a foreigner in a French family is that they do everything to give you the true French experience.My family could not control the weather - it was cold and there was hail that spring - but they did make Easter special!Traditionally, children are sent out into the garden with baskets to hunt for Easter eggs hidden for them.Even though I was 24 (and not quite a child), my family wanted it to happen. But it was too cold. The garden was wet and not very clean. So they did the modern commercial version of the event for me. They bought chocolate bunnies and hens, and packets of Easter eggs that we could find quickly without getting too wet and too cold. As soon as I woke up and went downstairs on Easter Sunday, they told me what I was supposed to do. Shivering with cold and excitement, I went out and happily collected my eggs and bunny. They had even marked my … [Read more...]
Chenonceau
The little castle that appears on the Disney logo is, I am convinced, Chenonceau. The château de Chenonceau has to be a Disney castle.In the World War II, the castle marked the boundary between war zones and safe areas. People were often smuggled through the castle to the other side - the idea itself adds the element of romance and adventure I love! We chose not to take the audio guides, but we missed nothing, simply because there was just so much to see. The castle brings to mind all the Georgetter Heyers I've read with its magnificent rooms and four-poster beds and all that. The maze, in typical touristy style, is very simple. It's impossible to get lost there, which takes a little joy out of the idea of a maze. Though the wax museum was a huge disappointment, the rest of the castle had a beautiful feel of people. It felt lived-in, with shiny copper utensils, a quaint pulley to draw … [Read more...]