I feel that my lack of attention to this blog cannot be compensated by me trying to apologise for it. But what can I say, man? Life happens. And I must say, I have been busy.

In this blogpost, I wish to record my experiences of my first European trip to Paris, the birthplace of art, style, and human finesse - not to mention, of revolution, liberty, and a number of incredible breads and other delicacies.

The prelude

This trip was a company retreat and thus was very kindly all-paid. Deliberations began in December of last year when I was first told of the retreat. As everyone was busy with the India AI Impact Summit, visa and other related processes continued to get delayed, eventually we booked the flights via Air France (one of the worst flight experiences I have had but more on this later), I submitted my visa application on the French visa website and booked a slot for my visa appointment via VFS website for Thursday (Jan 29th).

The one-day trip to Mumbai

The premium lounge service was a life-saver as I went to the Mumbai VFS office for appointment - yes, a one day trip to Mumbai from Delhi and missed one of my course tests.¹ I set out very early around 4am and reached Mumbai’s Bandra-Kurla Complex around 9am. As I had lounge service, I was ushered in ahead of my appointment time and they printed all my docs without any extra charge. The process was a breeze except for a minor hiccup where I had filled my application with Delhi as my place of submission. I just refilled a new application and we were all set. My flight back was around 8pm so I went to Juhu beach, basked in the lovely sun (Delhi people don’t see the sun in the month of January), and soaked my feet in lukewarm oceanwater. I felt healed. I grabbed some delicious noodles at China Gate and set out for the airport. The best part? The visa was processed the next day and I received it on the morning of Saturday. It was crazy.

The preparation

The rest of February went in a flash with a fine balancing act of work and study. The India AI summit was from 16th to 20th, the retreat was from 24th Feb to Mar 1st, and my mid-term exams were sandwiched between these two on 21st and 22nd. Phew.

I studied as much as I could, bombed one exam and did fairly decent in another. My supervisor had very kindly agreed to allow me to send in a recording for my mid-term masters project on the condition that I submit a week before the presentation date (27th Feb)…which I never did. I submitted on Feb 27th while in Paris at 1am CET but we’re getting ahead of ourselves.

The summit had left me drained as I had anticipated with more than 350K people and 500 events - it’s kinda hard not to be overwhelmed by Indian things - all scale and grand - the big fat Indian AI summit. Results? Well, that’s the topic for another post. All I was looking for was a place to wind down a bit.

Day 1 - The arrival (24th)

Our Air France flights were scheduled for 1:30 am on the 24th so I reached the IGI T3 airport around 6pm on 23rd. I got off the wrong foot with VA over some shortcomings on my part but I just tried to avoid any unnecessary scuffle. Do also note that I was fasting since Ramadan had started and I was on average in a sour mood so to speak. We were supposed to be four people on the flight - VA (who flew from his hometown to Delhi that evening), JJ (who also flew from his hometown that evening), SSY (who was supposed to fly from Hyd), and me. SSY’s flight from Hyd to Del got delayed due to weather and he had to miss the Air France flight. He had to book a different Air India flight and he arrived in Paris 12 hours late (SSY’s trip was unfortunately marred with bad lucks).

In any case, we cleared immigration, security, and onboarded the flight. SSY’s seat was auctioned by the airline to a French lady for 5000 EUR or similar. I was in the middle seat with another Indian guy to the window. The French girl in the safety video commericial was kinda cute. The flight was for nine hours and a bit of a pain - the food was okay-ish, the seats not very comfortable, but it was night and I tried to sleep for most part of the trip. I scrolled their entertainment system and sadly didn’t find much options. I just put on some Charles Aznavour music and dozed off to sleep to the melody of this French guy rolling a lot of his vowels. The occasional announcements in French were going over my head but my inner linguist was jumping with joy because he had fodder for the next week to assimilate. I started mapping French to English and no surprises, it was semantically almost identical. I wager that if I spend 6 months in France, I would be able to understand and speak French. I started watching Lanthimos’ new movie Bugonia during the last hour or so of the flight.

We landed on time around 6:30 am CET, took a Uber (for 90 EUR!) to our BnB in the Auteuil area on Rue de la Fontaine (Rue means street). I picked up a free French airline magazine along the way. That was around 30km and a 90 mins ride. We checked into the BnB and SS (one of the other members from London) was already there and he headed to IASEAI conference. Me and the India delegation relaxed a bit and went straight to a Carrefour hypermarket. These are basically places to find literally everything like Tesco in London. There were other options too like Monop, Monoprix, and other local vendors. It felt like you could just roam around and buy the whole world haha! We got a lot of packaged food, yoghurt, vegan milk, spreads, breads, and necessary groceries. The bill was a modest 150 EUR and we carried everything back to base camp. A walk of 15 mins with the Parisian sun ushering in hope and casting away the sad drudgery of Delhi. The obvious thing to note were the architecture, of course. Just looking at the harmony of these buildings gave one a kind of inner peace. Truly, Parisian knew what value art holds in the daily mundane. I made a mental note of looking up Haussman who was appointed by the king to make Paris look pretty.

Rest of day 1 went in having some food, relaxing, going for a walk around the neighbourhood (I could use my cellular data for maps thanks to my Airtel international plan), and doing some basic work.

One qualm that I often have with Europe is, of course, the lack of a water spray in the washrooms. This basically meant that I had to wipe my ass and pretent everything was okay for the next six days. Abominable!

Even roadside cafe menus were undecipherable on day 1 so google translate was a big help. By day 5, I was able to make sense of things written. It almost felt like primitive code breaking.

The first walk

The sun rose late around 7:45 am and set later than the tropics. Combined with my jet lag, I felt a bit disoriented. I called folks back at home and they were 4.5 hours ahead of me - I showed them the view outside my room. While on my evening walk, I passed through a church, a hospital, and went to Parc Sainte-Perine, I saw Parisian grannies and grandpas relaxing on park benches, reading books while basking in the temperate sun. Paris realises the image of the stories we were told as kids - the post independence education that I was given that still reeked of the colonial undertones and inadvertently borrowed elements from our colonial overload’s culture. In India, such realisation of dreams is an impossibility due to the sheer numbers and the hawkish distribution of wealth and resources. I quietly observed kids playing in the park, their milky white skin, and golden brown hair being tousled by the Parisian breeze as they played football. Not a single building facade had a blemish - how can you expect such people who take such delicate care of their buildings to not take care of themselves? The soft cold breeze kissing my face competed with the sun’s sweet rays sometimes.

On Why We Take Pictures (and explaining the sales of cameras)

While we were on a bridge over the Seine (Port Mirabeau), I was trying to make sense of why people take pictures. Almost every human action can be traced to human insecurity just like in this case as well. At the bridge, we were not sure of what we were supposed to do and so in order to save our faces from embarrasment, we took out our phone and started clicking pictures. The invention of the camera was to fill our meangingless lives with an activity - something we can point to and say, “Oh, this is what I was doing”. The phone enables our lazy minds to feel accomplished - that’s all.

VA was coordinating with SSY throughout who reached quite late at night. Leaving the comforts of Swiggy and Zomato back home, here I scrolled through Uber Eats and tried to make sense of the menu items via translate.

VA, JJ, and me went for another walk to a shopping mall (Beaugrenelle) on the other bank of the Seine to buy jackets for me and VA as mine was too worn out. I scrolled through Uniqlo, Nike, Levi’s, H&M, and others. The Northface one which I liked was 310 EUR so I calmly put it back. We just had some microwaved leftover from the afternoon meal and went to bed. There was Bolt and Lime for commute as well and funny sounding payment apps like Zuplee and Upplee. I remembered I had Bumble installed, I quickly installed Hinge and setup a profile. I swiped for a bit with absolutely zero expectations partly because I was in Paris only for 5 days. It was the usual French crowd - coiffeurs (hair stylist), etudiants (students), and bakers. It was definitely a notch above the average Delhi crowd.

I slept very early around 10:30 or 11pm.

Day 2 - The migration (25th)

I woke up at 5 am and it was pitch dark! The sunrise was in about 3 hours! I scrolled through Hinge and saw a reply from a girl from Brest. I liked how girls were more forthcoming than those in India who play pathetic mindgames. I really appreciate this quality as I don’t have to second guess what their intentions are. Although, the match didn’t go anywhere, it still felt nice. I tried to make the least amount of noise as I was aware that the walls are really thin in the West.

I went for a long walk around 8am and covered more than 2kms. I just loved walking around. That’s when I saw the Eiffel tower from the west bank of the river along Boulevard Exelman. No matter what you do, I felt that this city amplified everything. It can bring out your inner philosopher, your inner arist, or your inner scientist. It can make a man’s heart resolute and curios again - something that cities should do. Maybe I am romanticising Paris too much but whatever. It’s worth it.

As I passed by half-opened bakeries (la boulangerie) selling all kinds of lovely breads - buttery croissants, pain au chocolat, pain aux raisins, the sweet smell of freshly baked bread at these locally run Parisian bakery felt like a siren ushering you towards it. I was a bit late as VA had already woken up and called me twice to get back so I abandoned my plan to walk to Eiffel tower (that was a 30 mins walk according to Google maps). I got a bit lost at the cross-roads which still felt a bit confusing. I ended up at the same shopping mall as last night and hurried back to the BnB.

And then it started. The noises. Drilling and hammering and construction. It got so bad that we had to abandon the BnB and VA found another one on Rue de la Croulabarbe. We packed out stuff and just headed out in the Uber. I already had a heavy headache but the cab ride through the city made my headache kinda vanish. I saw lazy Parisians roaming the streets at 4pm(!), sipping coffee, smoking cigarettes in stylish clothes sitting on chairs outside cafe, drudgery in their eyes and no hope - the quintessential Parisian just as I have seen in Godard’s and Truffaut’s movies. The city that cures? Maybe.

An unpleasant experience

Although the cab ride cured, the cab driver was very unwelcoming - he was throwing our stuff around and talking haughtily - perhaps because of our colour. That’s when I got the first proper taste of the people of this city. Ironically, he wasn’t a native Parisian but an immigrant himself, I would hope natives would be more welcoming; I tried to justify his poor behaviour by trying to blame my fellow countrymen who might not have been on the best of their behaviour. But in any case, I felt horrible and my day was ruined. A similar slumber felt across the group. We just checked into the BnB which was more spacious and airy than the previous one. As a tiny shock to me, this BnB opened directly into the streets like there was literally just one quarter inch of steel between me and the wild west. I imagined it was a parking garage that the owner had repurposed into a residential suite. I shared my room with SSY. There was fancy wallpapers on the wall, pretty books on the shelves, and quirky painting hanging in the kitchen. I just hoped I could sleep in peace.

After wrapping up some work, me and the gang went out to find another Carrefour nearby (haha). We found one in Saint Marcel in the Gobelins area. VA bought some hot chocolate and a croissant from an artisanal boulangarie and the first bite of that inconspicous looking, cold piece of bread was enough to send me to a buttery delight - something about how these people make croissants, man. It was 100x better than what they dupe us back at home with. The neighbourhood felt way, way more like Europe - there were occassional Indian faces unlike London where every second face was non-Caucasian.

One thing I couldn’t help noticing was young people’s obsession with running. You can see them running literally everywhere. I really appreciate this - it has given me fresh impetus to take a deeper look at my own health. Health and taking care of oneself is not a very Indian thing. And in that gutter hole, you sort of forget what you are. And what you can do. You know, a sad environment kills curiosity and art and innovation. Sorry I got a bit cynical there.

We picked up some salads and bread from Carrefour and went to a McDonald’s. I had a McCrispy without bacon with fries and a very bad cherry flavoured coke which almost felt like medicine. That was our dinner. The walk back was 5 mins and I went to bed early as usual.

Day 3 - A sour experience (26th)

I woke up around 5 am and tried to complete some pending work and then dozed off again at 7am. I woke up again at 8am and saw the house was awake so I didn’t go back to sleep again. VA and JJ were supposed to head out to IASEAI conference yesterday but couldn’t due to the noise and unplanned BnB switching. They head out today leaving me, SSY, and SS at the BnB working.

Oh, did I tell you that there was construction work going outside the new BnB as well lol. They were building a new road just outside but the noise was much bearable and they finished before lunch. Day 3 was spent wholly inside the BnB in front of the laptop as I got reprimanded for wandering off for long the other day. SS went out for a “bit of movement” around 1pm, changed into running clothes and came back in an hour. He then changed and went away. And in India, there’s dumbnuts like Narayan Murthy screaming 70 hours work week lol. VA and SS came back earlier than expected, they didn’t get access to the venue and the receptionist was also being racist. It was unfortunate.

I had started making primitive relations between words and loved how the French fearlessly string their vowels like there’s no tomorrow. Auteuil for example.

Another unfortunate experience

The most unnerving experience for me, however, was the instance of blatant racism at Carrefour St Marcel. I was standing near the self check-out counters as SSY was getting the stuff billed when one of the coloured attendees exclaimed “Paaji, Chal, Chal” (literally, hey man, move, move!) in a tone that was more akin to herding sheep than a polite request to move. Honestly, I was too shocked to process what just perpetuated for a moment. I just looked at VA who gave me a knowing forlorn look - a look which expressed indifference and familiarity with such repeated abuses. I tried to justify the poor man’s behaviour by imagining the average Indian that he may have had to interact with and who might not have the eloquence of speech in a tongue familiar to him. And yet, somehow this empathethic garb could not veil the harm it had done. I was deeply moved by the experience and talked to my parents after it.

I had some of the packed croissants from Carrefour and even though, it was cold and packed - these were some of the most flaky, buttery goodness I have had. I can only imagine the heavenly taste of a freshly baked batch of croissants. SS ordered some vegan Japanese soup and fried sushis. Although the sushis were alright, the soup was beyond horrible. I just smiled and somehow endured through it. VA, however, is more outspoken and just blatantly expressed what he thought about the food.

Responsibilities from a past life

And inspite of these travesties of life, I was also conscious of my mid-term thesis presentation deadline and another assignment deadline. I quickly prototyped a system using Claude Code for my programming assignment and gave it a cursory read. I knew that the instructor was least bothered about the course so I also felt disinterested in putting in the effort given the tradeoffs. It was 10 pm already and I resolved to make the slides in the next two hours; God knows that making slides is the most agonising experience that man has ever had to endure. And yet I started, only for SS to propose that we play Exploding Kittens - a card game I had never played. My polite resistance felt to deaf ears as VA and others prodded me to participate. I conceded. It was a fun game and would become a daily post-dinner ritual at the retreat. I made some of my cherished memories during these games. It was, after all, a long time since I played such games - any game in fact.

When we were done, I looked at the clock and it was midnight. I groaned. I opened my laptop and opened Google slides only to find there was no Wifi! And then started another 40 minutes of debugging the Wifi and in the process completely dissipating the motivation I had collected for the final act. Great, I thought. In any case, I made some quick slides, recorded my video and submitted the presentation at some time past 1 am. I opened the door out of curiosity and found two figures embracing or sharing a smoke at a distance. The cold breeze froze my face. I shut the door and went to bed.

Day 4 - The meeting on a rainy day (27th)

I woke up around 8 am as expected and took a slow start. I called parents in the morning and listened to dad reciting Surah Baqarah and felt the most ease and warmth. I chronicled my incident from last night to my mother. In all the chaos, talking to parents is the best thing in the world - it felt like the only bit of grounding in an increasingly topsy-turvy world.

I made some fancy breakfast from all the groceries - toasted sourdough bread with hummus, guac, and choco spread, strawberries, some roasted nuts, and leftover sushis. I was getting fancy. I took a sip of the almond milk and was instantly reminded of the lice-killing concoction that my grandma used to apply to old wooden furniture. It was beyond horrible.

I was also getting sore throat and noticed other people also coughing or with runny noses - it’s pretty easy to figure these things when the walls are so thin. JJ was clearly unwell. I did some gargling with hot water and regularly started taking green tea.

The trauma of last night had not weared away and I obstinately looked at myself in the mirror while brushing my teeth and tried to find what was so different about me. For the first time, I noticed things about myself that I didn’t like.

I opened the door to take a peek only to be surprised by the soaked streets. It had rained! No wonder it was colder than usual. I imagined how Paris must look radianting her passion all soaked in the rain.

SS ordered (a lot of) vegan Thai food and it was honestly so flavourful and scrumptious. If there’s one thing I have updated my beliefs on, it’s the fact that vegan food can be delicious too! The rest of the day was pretty unhappening and slow. We (all six of us) had a long meeting (and I mean really long) and then snuck out for some pain au chocolat and hot chocolate at a local artisanal pattiserie - the owner, also a Parisian, noticed SS and asked about our origins in turn. He guessed Pakistani, Indian, Bangladeshi - the usual. After learning that we were Indians, he seemed to grow more amenable and friendly. He shared his experience of being in the French colony in Pondicherry and Punjab. It was funny noticing a Frenchman pronouncing the word “Punjab” and the word “Shukriya”. I felt a bit easy around him. It is not wise for me to generalise that singular unfortunate experience to all Parisians but traumas are traumas. In any case, the drizzle-ridden walk to the bakery and the hot chocolate and the pain au chocolat was the perfect snack. Someone I ended up at Carrefour St Marcel once again, SS wanted to grab some protein bars.

The gang ended up playing Exploding Kittens again and I won a round after drawing an extremely lucky set of cards. Around 11 pm, I felt hungry and heated the left over food from Lunch with a bunch of everything - a smorgasbord, really! I also called my dad and showed him what I was cooking - it was around 4 am in India - Sehri time. He didn’t say anything but he was clearly beaming. He never said much. I went to bed buzzing with excitement for the next day was supposed to be all about exploring the city.

Day 5 - The outing (28th)

I woke up relatively early and was feeling easier. I had some green tea and went for a quick 10 mins walk at the adjacent park. This was supposed to be the last day so I was more liberal with my use of the cellular data pack. I video called my parents and showed them a Parisian park which was just opposite our BnB near some govt office. People walking their dogs, grannies sitting in the sun, young folks jogging. In my parent’s happiness, I found my contentment. I guess this is what love is.

The boat ride on the Seine

We took a cab to Pont Neuf which is basically this island in the middle of the Seine with a park and a jetty. SS and RH had walked to a metro and reached quicker as they wanted to “get some steps in”. The city center was a delightful to just be in - the weather was lovely with equal parts sun tingling on my face and occassional cool breezes drifting off the Seine. We just got onto the boat and the boat tour started with this 20-something French guy who could speak fluent French, English, Spanish, and Italian (!) Gauging by his almost instantaneous switch between English and French, I imagined he must be a student and was doing a part-time gig to earn some money. While we slowly drifted from the Orsay museum to the Lourve, and then to the French Parliament, and to the Eiffel tower, his tiny tidbits and trivia kept the audience engaged - such as the bricks for the Concorde bridge were taken from the Bastille or that the craved faces below the Neuf bridge were of the dissenters who believed the architect couldn’t make such a bridge and of his almost 50 mistresses with devil horns - the kind of poetic eloquence I liked. I looked around and around 50% of them seemed like French people - mostly 35+ or 40+ uncles and aunties who had nothing better to do. There were very few college students on the ride which might be explained by the fact that Paris is an expensive city to plan a college trip with friends.

The vegan lunch

I took some videos of young people jogging along the Seine with the backdrop of the Eiffel. It was a serene experience. In precisely one hour, the tour concluded at 1pm and we headed to the Notre Dame and clicked a few pictures. Then, JJ and SS found a vegan restaurant and we got a sumptous meal. The owner was an emaciated French man in his 40s who wore a Tshirt with a large imprint of the word ‘Om’ - he told us that he had been to Nepal and the whole meditation escapade. Then, he probably figured killing animals is cruel so he opened a vegan restaurant in Paris - I respect such people who take action rather than just speculate. It doesn’t matter what your sphere of influence is but it is the effort that matters and the conviction to stand by what you think is just and right.

A failed exploration at the museum

I, of course, called parents again as we were strolling through the city and showed them lovely bridges, various wares on display at various shops, and a flea market in full swing. After lunch, we went to the the Carnavalet museum which chronicled the history of the city. It was fun but I wasn’t in the mood and got bored. VA was not a musuem person so we got out and went out into the streets in the lovely weather. I wanted to shop so we went to a Uniqlo and then to this huge, almost stadium-sized mall (Later I learnt, it was actually a train station - Les Halles). We didn’t find anything worth buying but we grabbed some coffee at a McDonalds and then started back to the BnB. The sun had already set and Paris, that shrewd maiden, revealed a different axis of her beauty, covered in the garb of the night. No doubt, it’s a beautiful city.

Whilst ideas of beauty and truth and justice were going through my head, news started pouring in of a war between Israel-US-Iran. Gradually all Middle East airspaces were shut down and I felt that we might have to stay for a day or two more in Paris. I was indifferent to the idea as mid-sem break had kicked in. Unfortunately for SSY, his plans were greatly upended and he spent most of his time firefighting through it. As the night progresses, me and VA got more confident that our flight would be undisturbed as it was a direct flight to Delhi. Our flight was at 10:35 am so I’ll have to get up early. We played Exploding Kittens for the last time, of course.

As I starting descending into the abyss of sleep, sweet french girls saying french words in their sweet french voices starting playng in my mind, “au revoir”, “haa oui”, “bonjour monsieur”, and so on.

Day 6 - The departure (1st)

There was nothing much to say about Paris anymore. It was a pretty standard, get an Uber to get to the airport, buy some souvenirs keychains, fridge magents at a Relay store, VA bought some perfumes, I bought a Ratatouille stuffed toy wink wink. I wanted to buy a T-shirt but things were pricey here (50 EUR for a T-shirt when 20 would have made sense). I grabbed a falafel salad and some vegan pea soup from a Pret. The ride back was pretty standard. I exchanged seats from my aisle to the middle seat with a (really) tall French woman. The Air France food was horrible as expected. The seats were a bit better. I spent most of my time listening to the Qu’ran on my phone and then watched The War of Rohirrim. I tried to sleep but couldn’t. After 8 hours, we landed in New Delhi. SSY had taken a direct flight back to Bangalore. It was 11:30 pm, VA had booked a hotel at a nearby Radisson. We shared a cab and I went to my hostel. I called my parents around 1 am (who were awake for me!) and then crashed into bed.

Conclusion

Thanks for hanging out uptil this point. I am quite out of writing practise but I wanted to get this trip on paper and not procrastinate it to oblivion like I did my last London trip :’)

I think my worldview didn’t go through a significant change except for a stronger preference for a first world city to be my eventual abode. I’ll refrain from making any more comments in this matter and save the conclusion turning (potentially) vitriolic. As they say, Au revoir!

Image rights

Please be nice and ask me for permission before using any of the above pictures.

Footnotes

1. Please also be mindful that all of this is going on during my full-term university work as well as company work. I know, crazy.