Of Mustard Hilsa and Howrah Bridge

Roots. Everyone has some somewhere. With the world having shrunk, metaphorically, people are moving, living, breathing and fornicating everywhere. But every once in a while everybody wants to go home - to familiar streets, sounds and smells.

Being an army brat I have lived, for short periods of time, in a lot of cities. There have been so many landscapes that somewhere down the line all of them start looking the same. Cities blend into each other and each face is as indistinguishable as the next. Picking up the pieces of my life and setting them to rest until the next move has become second nature. No move is unsettling, no city a stranger and none to call home.

And yet, I found myself in a certain big-small city. The humid air prickling my skin, the smells so strong that they invaded my being, the human sea sucking me in! For the first time I understood what coming home meant.

Something put my wandering heart to rest; was it the comforting lilt of the language? The language that brought back childhood memories of my grandmother in her cotton sari and big round bindi. Or was it the languid laidbackness with which hundreds of people around me went nowhere in particular? I was in a city where I knew absolutely no one and yet it felt like I had come back to where I began!

On my first evening, standing on the corner of Park street, slightly damp, smoking a cigarette and nursing a black tea, I gave my heart to Calcutta, because you see my soul already belonged.

Good Girl gone Wild Or….?

It was the summer solstice, the world was beautiful and Paris even more so. On the longest day of the year what do Parisians do? – Dance and sing on the streets – but of course! And who was I to deny myself the pleasure of joining in :P

So, I take poor Fabrice and convince him to drive into Paris (a very good decision as we later found out). A very sober quiet evening commenced with a strange restaurant (read: walk into a large place where you are the only customer and you WILL be served bad food) and vinegary wine! Two glasses of wine later we were out of the door and on our way to Bastille when we came across a really nice band and decided to stick around. Jump to 10 minutes later and I asked Fabrice with all the innocence of a day old kitten why was it that everyone was drinking alcohol but us? Well of course then we had to go and buy a bottle of rhum and a can of beer for Fabrice!

And from there it was hop from band to band, sit on park benches and drink out of a bottle in a bag. a quarter of a bottle of alcohol had me wondering why am I not eating ice cream? Then of course it was off to buy ice cream…we walked out of the ice cream store and spotted a strange procession – a marching band doing what it does best – playing music and marching and people doing what they do best – following the marching band! So we proceeded to do what we do best – join the procession!! And then there were Fabrice and I running and dancing across the city, swigging from the bottle of rhum and giggling like fools when we found ourselves somewhere near the Notre Dame and decided to quit following the band and make our way back to the car – for some reason we wanted to go back early and sleep (oh yeah we were hung-over from the night before).  But of course on the way back Fabrice had to stop and listen to some DJs and I had to spot a Haribo stand :/ a liter of alcohol and then smurfs and smurfettes and lollipops that turned my tongue blue and sugar that turned up the crazy!!!

Well, we finally left the DJs and tried to make our way back when I saw the cutest little puppy tied to a strange Afro-American with luscious long hair and grey eyes and I stopped to play with the puppy. The man touches my hair and tells me OMG you have the most amazing hair – please let me ‘sculpt’ it!!! And the lil high me says hey why not? And there I was standing in the middle of the street (soon surrounded by a crowd of spectators with cameras – seriously tourists film anything) and getting my hair sculpted (read: cut – and yes after a haircut last week I got high and got my hair cut again). We were soon all ‘sculpted’ out and Fabrice was all laughed out and then we tried yet again to make our way to the car, this time stopping at the Pompidou to drink some more and put to rest my lil freaked head about the hair (I had not seen it yet). And then off we went – trying to get to the car and finally succeeding without any distractions (well there was that little elephant graffiti that I stopped to look at).

Guess what happened the next morning – No, I did not get scared (hah!) – I woke up with – OMG what the hell did I do last night? Trust me it was worse that waking up in a strange bed and wondering – OMG who the hell did I do last night!

Hair Raising Tales

After a lot of trepidation yours truly decided to hop and skip her way to Republique and get a new haircut (Yaayyy!!!) and thus the adventure commenced in a car without a GPS! As they say a good driver never asks for directions – and ask I did not…landed myself in some strange parking lot (luckily) after cursing half of Paris and their poodles…and made my way over to all time favorite hair stylist – BTW Dom rocks (He compared my shampoo sud filled ear to a champagne flute :P)

Anyway, after the haircut and a couple of kiss faced pictures we headed out to buy shoes – Epic fail – its disturbing that I can barely find shoes my size L , especially on a day I have convinced myself that 200 Euros for a pair of shoes is a good deal. And just when I was about to give up on the idea of having any kind of luck beyond a good haircut a very good friend decided that taking me out for an impulsive dinner is a good idea (I might add its one of the better ideas he has had :P). So I got to discover some amazing, spicy Chinese food and drove back to HEC sans GPS – this time without cursing fluffy dogs or old women.

Back home I decided ta new haircut calls for a celebration (and well there should be at least one day in the week when there is a real reason to drink)!  To cut a long story short – I got wasted and went to sleep without drama (GASP!!!). woke up today to a beautiful rainy day (not) and lay in bed chatting to people about random things…got out of bed to brush my teeth and got a little heart attack when I looked in the mirror – My hair was soooooooo weird :/ And then there was that moment of clarity – I got it cut the night before! Yes, I forgot that I had a haircut and got scared when I looked in the mirror the next day. Moral of the story? After a new haircut I should write on my mirror that I got a new haircut :P (Did you think I would say I should not drink???!!!!).