(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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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!
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
Trains in India
I remember when two friends of ours were coming to India from France, and wanted to travel across the north. We warned them that reserving tickets on trains here is necessary, unlike in Europe. We had to book two months in advance (it was two then, not four, as it now is). They were surprised, […]
An Old Lady in France
Having performed at Aix-en-Provence (close to Marseilles), and being readers of Dumas, we couldn’t not go to Marseilles and visit the Château d’If. We had read and heard enough about it to want to go and see how picturesque it was. We went to the tourist office and found out what we were supposed to do. […]
Ramayan in French
My association with France began with a French exchange programme in 2004. I was vegetarian, I barely spoke French, I had never heard the French accent, I was to live with a French family for three weeks and I was to attend French school in that time. And because I was 17, I was not […]