Gay Paree

I found an ancient photograph of Tim and his Parisian mongrel, sitting on a stone bridge over the Seine.

I have a bad cold and an infectious fever, which got cured by a French drug. The medicine worked like magic.

R has a French "lady friend". All of nineteen years. No doubt, a very virtuous Mademoiselle..

I learnt that an old college mate of mine is now posted in Paris.

So much French in my life ........ took me back in time......

Paris is one of the most beautiful cities - perhaps the most beautiful city - in the world.  But certainly it is very poorly planned. Oh. No No. It is not the planners fault. The fault is ours, we emigres. Our poor countries never had any town planning.

Thoroughfares radiating out from the Arc de Triomphe is the basic pattern of town planning in Paris. For the first-time emigre, this is most confusing.

1.Roads are NEVER parallel, instead they diverge. 

2.The streets are radii of a circle.

3.You are always in fear of getting lost.

4.You always have the humiliating feeling that the late Euclid (whom you have just shaken off in School) would have found the rue Longchamps ..... armed with sextant, dividers, paper and drawing board, of course.

Parallelograms were unknown to the planners of this dream city. All roads are pseudo-parallel. specially constructed to get any reasonably educated and mathematically oriented person in a state of total confusion. 

Addresses :  Every city has a Postal system which sorts out addresses. In Paris every address is a Relative Address. By this I mean..... next to, across from, near, practically next door. 

"It is, mon cheri, near the cafe". Now Paris has thousands of cafes.....so, which cafe? No policemen ever help. Even if they are twenty yards ( oops, it's metres in Paris) from the Metro, they will sagely say "Nous, nous"

Food and drink is a national passion for the French. In Paris, the passion is enhanced exponentially. An average Parisian culinary habits are well worth observing. He eats no breakfast. Drinks coffee instead. The secret of this is that he simply has to get rid of that hangover. Eating is out of the question when you are quite sozzled. Hence, for the love of God, you CAN NOT get a decent brekker in Paris. You would HAVE to settle for C&C (croissant and coffee). Incidentally, Parisians don't drink milk.

The rest of the day a Parisian will eat the most gourmet food, exquisitely

served with such unrefined manners, that one is left in a "off-food" mood for hours. 

Food is outrageously expensive in France. Paris.... even more. This is one of the main reasons for the permanent economic crisis that the country has been facing for the last 60 years. Buying food all the time is out of the question. To eat frugally is almost a sin. To earn money is a worse sin. By the time tested method of hit and miss I found that it was easy to get hold of a garcon who (at a small price and a big smile) would gladly steal bread and fruit for you. The easiest, simplest and the most economic way of obtaining food in Paris.

Of course there is the Maxim, which still survives. Remarkable, it's existence, considering it's bourgeoisie price list !!! A bistro by the Seine is always a better option, i.e, if you actually want to pay for the food you eat.

Drinks.It is not a passion. It is a habit. The English like their whisky, the Irish their beer, but they can carry their drink, or the drink can carry them.Not all men are sober all the time, but the French rarely drink to excess, they drink regularly. Like breathing in. Breathing out.A little wine for breakfast, a glass or two at lunch. Some more at tea-time (actually the French have no tea-time) and of course after 6pm they are just impregnated with alcohol. After all, 'moderation' is a foreign word !! 

Plain drinking water is practically unknown is Paris. Little boys in grey shorts sit in cafes at 11pm drinking beer or wine (read vinegar) Their wine drinking begin when they are born. Wine for the weakling, wine for the crying child. Wine in the winter cold, Anytime wine. At any age. In Paris, unlike any other city in the world, one has to buy water. And that too at a premium. A bottle of Perrier or Evian  does not come cheap.

The French Language. The least said the better. If truth be told, the French don't much care what they say actuallly....as long as they say it with great fervour. They will fling their arms and gesticulate wildly. Gesticulation is a part and parcel of French grammar. it is an organic part of it. Just as much there is a noun, and those horrible verbs, there are rolling eyes, and shrugging shoulders, clicking sounds (entirely grammatical) with tongues and also fingers if needs be. It is quite a spectacle to watch a Parisian speak his mother tongue in his own home ground. To the uninitiated, is can be daunting, because you tend to lose the thread of the conversation/monologue by watching the flaying arms and rolling eyes.

Do not even try to speak French the way a Frenchman does. Your arms may get a foreign accent, your eyes may catch a foreign intonation, as for your internal organs..... a grave grammatical error may be committed in convoluted intestines. O-la-la.

In the poor country where I belong, the janta tries their best to be nouveau-riche.It is considered fashionable to show off your swanky car or the new white Italian leather sofa (nevermind the fact that the leather came from the hide of an Indian cow). The French are snobbish in a different way. They pretend to be nouveau-pauvre. They look unkempt, disheveled and unwashed only when they own a few vineyards and half of the Riviera.  

In Paris you are always an emigre . Which is an advantage. Whatever you do is wrong. Next step la police or les flics catch you. However, you are a foreign national, and anyway they don't speak your brand of French. You can not gesticulate and roll your eyes (our grammar does not have it), hence the Interpol may be called. Then you are on safe grounds, because with some luck you may get deported..... without luck, your Embassy steps in.

Notwithstanding such trivial trials.....Gay Paree, I miss you.

 

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