I landed in Paris in June on an official assignment for about a month. I came prepared for at least 15 days of cooking materials of the Indian genre. As directed by my contact here, I promptly took the RER B train for La Plaine Stade de France without looking at the indicator that it did not stop there. As stations started passing, I got a doubt and asked a co-passenger. She explained that I would have to get down at Gare du Nord and come one station in the reverse direction. With three bags to pull along, I became a little nervous about how I could escape the TTE in the Indian sense. I promptly got down, looked for the reverse direction, made some enquiries, though most of them met with French replies and somehow crossed all the exits and entrances and got a train. This time I was pretty careful to look at the indicator and ensure that it stopped.
It was about 3 PM that I got down at La Plaine and got out. Fortunately there was just one exit and so I did not have to make a choice. But once I got on to the road, it was a dilemma. Should I go this way or that. The information to me was that the hotel was just a few minutes walk. But he did not say that it was opposite Stade de France which every Parisian understood. But lo and behold, there was no Parisian at sight. Probably I was the only person who got out of that compartment. All others who got out, like a typical metro citizen, dashed to the exit and vanished in thin air.
At last, one man appeared and I showed the printed mail as I knew that it was futile to pronounce the French words. ( I later learnt the pronunciation Mont Maat meant Montmaatre). He showed another girl who appeared on the scene and she said in English that she knew few hotels in that area and would leave me there. She promptly left me at a junction from where I was left on my own. Not knowing what to do, I just approached the nearby McDonald shop. There I casually enquired with a man. He saw and said that it was just nearby (I guess) and the most surprising of all, put all my luggage in his car and dropped me at the hotel. That made my day. Once inside and after confirmation of my booking, I came back to my spirits.
Next day, I started pretty early because I knew I had to undertake another search operation to locate the office. The hotelier in her own English asked me to go to the left, go below a Pont (bridge in French). Yes I did and found that I was near the station where I got down the previous day. Making some mental I calculations, I promptly selected the wrong way and started looking for my company. After few inquiries, one man took me to the road and asked me to go straight. Going and going and going, I did not get anywhere near. Little frustrated, I chugged along. Ah, a great sight. My company was there before me. I reached well in time before my contact reached the office. We met and I went into the office. It was all perfect afterwards.
In the past three weeks, I have moved around a lot in Paris both the old city and the modern one. It is an exquisite city and has a glorious and tumultuous past. It has undergone very horrid times and had its days of glory. The monuments are standing tall and great. The Revolution was one such period. The people’s uprising was a great event. But the horrors that followed are unbelievable. One example is the story that after the guillotine operation on 2000 people, the place was full of blood stench that even the oxen refused to cross by. The cruelty was unbelievable and so also the vengeance.
The Eiffel tower might have lost its place as the tallest structure but looking at the period in which it was erected, it is still a miracle. So much of steel has gone into it. The architecture, design and construction are all marvels of history. Yes, we do have Taj Mahal or the Thanjavur temple. This also ranks among them.
The Louvre Museum is another exquisite landmark. The paintings and sculptures are scintillating to put it mildly. There is life in some of the paintings even today after a few centuries. One of my photos has a painting of a townside at the back and some visitors standing before them. The live visitors so easily merge with the people in the picture that it all looks as one place. There is another painting or rather a couple of them which capture the scene of David killing Goliath but from exactly opposite angles. They are so perfect that one can recreate a 3 dimensional scene of that event. Another picture of a sleeping baby was unbelievably realistic. Many of the paintings capture the mood of all the people. A baptism is taking place and all are religiously looking at the bishop but one small baby is engrossed with two pigeons sitting at a table nearby. Many such paintings took the breath out of me.
Notre Dame Cathedral and Montmattre Church are other two places one should not miss. The ambience apart, the architecture and design are breathtaking. The kings and the artisans should have had great taste and money to create such masterpieces. Religion had been and continues to be a great motivator for the human being to test its limits of excellence but the flip side is that the zealots of religions do execute unimaginably horrendous acts like the Twin Tower or the Indian Partition Massacre.
After seeing on the Internet, I visited the Jardine du Luxembourg (Garden of Luxembourg). Simply exquisite, it is nothing more than a garden where the tress are planted in such an orderly manner and the flower plants are beautifully selected that it makes worthy of a visit and spending a few hours. There is a history behind it which was fascinating. Google can help in knowing it.
After all these, certain points did hit me on the face. Poverty is visible. People beg on the road, near the cathedrals, in the trains and one can see destitute people at many places. I was appalled to see a man picking up the left-over from a trash can and eating. I thought that this scene has vanished from India. Cleanliness is not a virtue here. Cigarette butts are available all over Paris. And the Stade de France on Saturdays is unbelievably trashed. No doubt by Sunday morning or afternoon, all are cleared.
Another fact which hit me on the face was a shanty settlement of the blacks. As I was walking along the streets of Aubervillers Saint Denis, I came near a place from the looks of which it looked like a slum area. And it was, a colony for the blacks. The most graceful aspect I observed was that it was clean and not like the slums of India. Still the fact is that blacks enjoy only a lower status here. They do all the physical work. They are not seen much among the white collared. It is similar to US.
People go about in their leisurely pace. No hurry of the American or English cities or Bombay. People stand in queue and do not grudge if the person at the front is taking unusual time in getting a ticket or anything else. They freeze on the stairs while going out of the station and conduct their business, but no one complains. Kissing in the public is very rampant unlike US cities.
I was surprised to see the concentration of the Srilankan Tamils here. They are so much glued to the developments back home that in almost all shops you can see Eelam newspapers and hear Tigers’ Radio. May be they have are second generation or even third generation French but the happenings back home occupy their mind.
Yes I am leaving in a week and may come back again. I have decided to visit the other cities and rural areas if I come back. Definitely, one should visit the city at least for a week. A great place it is. The people are really warm and hospitable.
