winterinparis – ARUNDHATI BASU

As I sit in the American Airlines Flagship Lounge, bound for Calcutta, with my mug of cappuccino and book (Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil), I thought of my last update on Adi and mine few days in Paris. This seems a time as good as any to finally send this post going. Paris seems a world away even though it was just a few months ago.

Another year seems to have brought a new home our way. We just finished moving apartments in the same building. Our bodies are sore, but our souls are satisfied. It comes with the territory I suppose. Where would the pleasure be if we did not have to put in this back-breaking work. After all, man is made of pain and pleasure.

Back to that time when we walked the streets of Paris and swooned at its eternal beauty. There was the afternoon when we met Lulu. It was golden. Apart from that the fact that we had a soft bundle of canine loveliness to bury our faces into. At Les Invalides, a guard shushed me with a smile. Even remonstrations in French sound chic. I saw the reason for it soon. There was a funeral cortege issuing from one of the doors.

We had a gander at the Luxembourg gardens that is somewhere between Saint-Germain-des-Prés and the Latin Quarter. Its sylvan beauty sat within a not-too-overwhelming radius. The waters in the fountain gleamed on that cold winter’s day with unerring beauty. The dappled sunlight, the bronzed sculptures of Greek gods and actors, the bare bones of swaying trees, and the soft breeze. It was one of those moments that you appreciated the effortless artistry of nature, the presence of your beloved, and the loveliness of life in one of the grandest cities in this world.

A white-haired man turned up with his two sons and decided that they wanted a photograph to be taken of them in front of the Medici Fountain. We obliged. He directed his sons to pick up the chairs around us. I thought, now for a grand photo shoot and a hell lot of creativity. What did they do? They simply plonked themselves on the chairs in front of that strip of water. That’s all. A comedown of sorts. But then remember The Hollow Men? This is the way the world ends. Not with a bang. More of a whimper.

A boulevard from the garden eventually led us to the Latin Quarter. The Pantheon with its grandeur and then the quiet hum of life in and around the Sorbonne. People sat in the shadow of the Pantheon braving the cold wind, and meanwhile, we came upon a British pub in the quiet lanes of the quarter. A pint of ale for Adi, a coffee for me. And then, back on the road. For that is the one great love affair in life. The road.

Art Nouveau lamps and my handsome fella on Pont Alexandre III

La Tour Eiffel from the gardens of Les Invalides

Nutty tart at a café in the Saint Germain district

The 17th-century Luxembourg Palace and its grounds were inspired by the Pitti Palace and the Boboli Gardens in Florence because Queen Marie de Medici was from that Italian city of unparalleled architecture and beauty.

The Pantheon shows up in the backdrop of Jardin du Luxembourg

A pint at a British pub in the Latin Quarter

Lofty scenes. Fountain of Saint Sulpice.

Scene captured at The Church of Saint Sulpice where you had met Lulu earlier. Looking at this man who was so oblivious to the passage of time and people, I thought to myself, there should always be time to sit, shut your eyes awhile, to bathe in the liquid warmth of the winter sun. If there isn’t time or the intent, you realise with a shock, why, you are not in Paris!

The city was shrouded in mist that afternoon we landed in Paris. The cold was not blistering, but you know what happens after a 10-hour flight. Bleary-eyed and shivery, you are properly keyed up for a deep sleep. That’s all. All those plans of showering and taking the city by storm? A big, fat zero.

The flight from JFK had taken us into Frankfurt for a three-hour layover. We discovered a private sleeping pod, but at the tail end of our wait. The irony of it: shattering. There you were desperate for some shut-eye and (huzzah!) you located a comfortable bed in the privacy of a cabin. Ding! went the announcement for boarding. Hardly any time to nod off on the flight from Frankfurt to Paris. So, all you could do was slip into this delicious dream, consumed by the desire for a bed. Soft sheets. Fluffy pillows. Plump duvet to burrow into. Then, oblivion.

A 20-minute cab ride brought me closer to my the object of my dreams.

The InterContinental Paris Le Grand was part of our other anniversary indulgence, in the heart of the 9th arrondissement. Just for two nights, but enough to make the most of a stay conjured by the hoarding of hotel points. When we reached the hotel, I had to crane my neck to take in the view of its old facade. It was the colour of cream, a part of it masked by scaffolding. Neat rows of French windows, slatted louvres, those charming wrought-iron balconies atypical of Paris, and carved stone for a touch of opulence. I was sold. Even the most hardened commie would be — except that he would conceal it beneath a careful veneer of contempt. As if to complete the picture, at the porch stood a vintage motorcycle with a sidecar. Manning it was a guy in khaki with sunnies even on that bleak day. He reminded me of an Indian actor who used to arrive punctually late at press conferences, concealing a pair of bloodshot eyes and a predilection for cocaine behind large sunglasses.

Inside the hotel, we were checked in with supreme efficiency, and at that point of time all that mattered was the bed. The room turned out to be a cosy affair, in the manner of those little pieds-à-terre that they show in the old movies, yet sumptuous in reds and burgundies, a hint of bordello chic. Beneath heavy old drapes, were gossamer white drapes fluttering in the cold breeze as we peeked out of our teeny-weeny balcony to exult at the somewhat ethereal sight of the Eiffel Tower wreathed in mist. A bottle of Champagne had been deposited in our room at some point of time, but I had long passed out. Delicious was that slumber, and by the time I woke up I realised we had slept a hefty four hours.

That evening when we dressed up and headed out of the hotel — before which we peeked at the Eiffel Tower again, this time to catch its hourly shimmering aura — it felt like we were in a dream. Not a bubbly-infused dream, but one sparked off by the very air of the city we were in. The kind of city that makes you gush. Such as I did when I uttered repeatedly to Adi, ‘We’re in Paris! We’re in Paris!’

It must have been the air. It was enchanted.

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The Grand was a couple of minutes walk from the Palais Garnier, the iconic opera house of Paris, and so we were ambling past the opera, down the cobbled boulevards of Haussman, bedecked in fairy lights and flamboyant shop windows, mannequins in beautiful dresses and shoes, staring at splendid old squares topped off by gigantic columns, senses reeling at the beauty all around us.

No matter how many times you find yourself in Paris, you are dazed by the elegance of it.

Dinner was at a Moroccan restaurant where an old man in his neatly pressed suit served us Moroccan wine along with snacks of olives and carrots braised in turmeric and cumin. The wine was red and mellow, the carrots spicy. There was lamb tagine, a whole lot of kebabs and couscous, along with more red wine on the house, pressed upon us by the old man with the benevolent smile and wicked sense of humour.

Ah, it was a fine evening that, when we sauntered back to the hotel on the wings of red wine and romance. It was as if we could have only more and the hotel was a big part of this experience. The French empress of the day — that would be the year 1862 — while inaugurating it, had exclaimed that it made her think of home. ‘I feel like I am in Compiègne or Fontainebleau,’ she had remarked. That’s the thing about heritage hotels, they are a window into a world that you will never see, just imagine. To me, it was a window into the world of Josephine Baker, Sarah Bernhardt, Marlene Dietrich…, all of whom liked to be seen at the hotel. I could see why. Its old operatic ballroom was a vision in itself.

The Café de la Paix was yet another visual feast, with its large potted plants, as if to recreate a garden within a café, frescoed and gilded to the hilt. There had sat the likes of Victor Hugo, Emile Zola and Guy de Maupassant, and where people were known to be drawn from all around the globe…’Dark diplomats from Martinique, pale Rastas from Peru/An Englishman from Bloomsbury, a Yank from Kalamazoo;/A poet from Montmartre’s heights, a dapper little Jap’ … as Robert Service noted in his poem, ‘The Absinthe Drinkers’.

‘For has it not been ever said that all the world one day

Will pass in pilgrimage before the Cafe de la Paix?’

(It is a delightful poem, if you are keen to take a gander at it.)

A quick note on the title. A receptionist at the Grand Hotel addressed Adi as Mr. Basu — the room was booked in my name. I startled that man by folding my hands in a ‘namaste’ gesture. And I said, ‘Why that is the best thing I have heard in a long time!’ For a few seconds, he had consternation writ large upon his face. Had he said anything wrong? ‘No, absolutely not,’ I assured him. You see, Basu is my surname. It has cleaved to my person so long that I could not envision being without it. Not to make a defining statement of any sort, just because it is my identity. Naturally, once in a while, when Adi is alluded to as Mr. Basu, fizzy bubbles of joy rise up my chest.