Paris

I hadn’t been outside Rouen since I came to France 4months back. .......and so the two day trip to Paris and Nice was a very welcome break from the monotony of Rouen.....my trip begun with an hour long journey from Rouen to Paris St Lazare........it might seem funny but since the day I saw DDLJ, one of Shahrukh’s most memorable films, I always wanted to see Europe, to travel by Eurail and probably even meet my cinneritaJ.....lol.....so here I was travelling in Eurail to the city of lights....it’s hard to explain how excited I felt....I felt like a little kid being taken to the circus for the first time in his life......I cldnt stop staring outside the window, I cldnt stop remembering all the days I spent dreaming that one day I’ll be zipping across Europe in Eurail, I cldnt stop remembering DDLJ....

An hour later we arrived at Paris St Lazare station and the image of Paris I had in my mind cldn’t be farther from the one right in front of my eyes. Paris is sometimes called the most romantic city in the world......they say famous painters and poets flocked to Paris in the past.....well it might have been true centuries back but talking about the present, I am pretty sure those painters would rather go to New Delhi than come to Paris. I was in Paris for just one day, but that one day was enough to make me realize that Paris is not part of MY Europe.

The most important part of any city is not its monuments, museums or the public transport, it’s the trust and helpfulness you see in people’s eyes and manners that really matters. In the metro I saw a young couple sitting by the door with the women sitting just beside the door with a handbag on her lap.....she had both her hands on it.....and as if that wasn’t enough, I saw her boyfriend/husband whatever covering both her hands and the bag with his hands too......he was scared somebody might steal the bag.....he saw everybody coming in and out of the metro with eyes full of suspicion and distrust.....I am sure they had their bag stolen before....you could easily guess that if you looked at the man’s eyes long enough......

And then in another metro station, there was this man with his family who was trying to take his bulky luggage across the narrow entry points in Parisian Subways...he was finding it very difficult...I was standing just behind him and I took a step forward to help him out with it.....but as soon as he saw me take a step towards his bag, he suddenly turned towards me and put his hands on his luggage as if I was trying to steal his bag......finally he managed to take his bag across.....and then I too went across and he gave me a good hard look, as if trying to decide whether his instinct that I was a thief was right or not....I hope to god that he chose the later......not for my sake......but for the sake of any remaining trust that might be left in the city......

I saw the Eiffel tower, Notre dame and a few other places in Paris.......they were beautiful.....but none of them could make up for the treasures the city had lost on the way to modernization.....today Paris is the most populous city in Europe.....and I guess it has lost a lot on the way of becoming one.....

I came back to Rouen two days later........with the calmness in the faces of people, beautiful little houses perched on the mountains, little children playing in the mostly empty metro......Rouen accentuated everything Paris had lost and it hadn’t....later in the day when I was crossing the road, I saw a car coming towards me and I waited for it to pass by....the lady driving the car stopped it and gently waved her hand asking me to cross....she had a smile on her face....I never loved the city more......and that day I realized I had already seen the best of Europe right here in Rouen......and I cldnt stop humming ‘Tujhe Dekha to ye jana sanam’......