A summer in pictures – II

Sometime in January, while trying to get an internship in France (how? the old Indian way, I heard your dad works in….), I had an epiphany. I had a history of being ambitious and resourceful behind me and a lifetime of being ambitious and productive ahead. For one summer, could I not try and be something else? Spend a summer not building bridges and ladders and just be. Just be, hmm, but where? My diet allows me just one brilliant insight a day, and I decided that (surprise surprise) Europe will have the honour of entertaining my backpack and me this summer.

It was not an easy task (not a particularly arduous one either) planning this trip. The visa officials, for instance, could not understand why I wanted to travel alone, till I showed them my US visa (It’s strange, this math of meandering, how some people are more entitled to travel than others). As I sat waiting for my visa, nearly in tears, I remember telling myself, if I don’t get this, I will never write again, I will straighten my hair and become a banker.

Why? Because I don’t always make sense.
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I did get the visa. And after four short, cold days in London, I was off to..well, I’ll let you guess.

Paris in a modern city in every respect, but has the charming pace of a town on the verge of a breakthrough. Fast, but not tripping over. The fashion is carefully put together to look careless, carefree. Souvenir shops abound in all corners like moss on a rainy wall. People and cameras (and pickpockets) jostle for space in crowded markets.

And yet, a moment of solitude is an arm’s length away. The city is social and solitary at once. Buildings have rows of brown chimneys on the roofs, like curious marmots peeping out of their cubbyholes, soaking the city in. The architecture imbibes this voyeurism from the city. Chairs in cafes face outwards towards the street, and not each other.

You might also wonder why after a rather wordy (and woefully inadequate) description of a summer in Paris, there is a picture of a yellow rose in a cemetery. No, I do not wish you dead. I just didn’t get too many pictures in Paris. Was busy looking out for cheap food and handsome men. Sadly, Paris offered just one.

What Paris offered abundantly was opportunities to get lost and discover unexpected sights, sounds and smells. A night at Pont des Arts (a wooden bridge outside the Louvre which comes alive with ‘musicians and merrymakers’ at night), drinking cheap wine from a borrowed plastic cup, talking about Kaiz and breaking out into an impromptu waltz; such are the joys of life.

Another accidental discovery was Montmartre – the artists’ district (I say accidental because I traveled without guide books. It is rather touristy to be honest). This scene (that I would later discover is found in ALL European cities) completely swept me away.

My staccato thoughts hardly do justice to the experience that is Paris. Neither does one week. And the next time I go to Paris, I hope I speak much much more French than ‘Est-ce que vous avez des pins?’ Till then, I can just wait.