this time next week i will be in Paris. i still have a city guide here, from a previous trip - but realized that this was really years ago. so in now ordered a new one, with flip-map and walking tours. and then went and looked for the photos from my first time in Paris.
the photos are Kodaks, laid out as collage - the trip was in the time before digital cameras. and before the internet was such a huge part of life. the scenes in the photos are: Tour Eiffel, Notre Dame (with me), Versailles, L'Arc de Triomphe (here's a larger version of the image 1)
and the second collage: Seine River with Notre Dame, Les Halles, Centre Pompidou, Moulin Rouge (which really means: Red windmill). (and here, a larger version of collage 2)
oh wow. memories.
at that time, i was just finishing school. a friend just had turned 18 a bit earlier, and had a car – and so the plan came together to drive to Paris for 2 days. i still remember how approaching Paris, the highway moved from 2 lane to 4 lane to 6 lane. and then suddenly, we were in the middle of this city, swirling around roundabouts, map in hand, and a rough idea of where to go. which, thinking of it, was like a snapshot of the stage of life we were entering.
back then, i wasn't a writer. i wouldn't have been able to imagine that i would travel to Asia one day. would see Thailand. Cambodia. India. and would write a book. with Smitha, a stranger that turned into a friend. while both of us live in places with a distance that lead to the title of the book: WOR(L)DS APART.
and now, Paris will be the place where i will see the first proof copy of the book - brought by Jessi from the US. and there is a plan that now even connects to one of the places in those images: the Centre Pompidou (next to Moulin Rouge) is a museum. and the exhibition that is on there is, of all possible themes: “Paris – Delhi – Bombay”.
so Jessi and i will go visit it. and in her latest mail, she came up with the idea to bring the book there: "I would love to video you reading an excerpt from Wor(l)ds Apart at that Indo-French exhibit, so that Smitha could be with us in spirit."
ah, life.
2 comments:
goosebumps....how we could not know then what was to come and now, here you are returning and meeting someone else there, book in hand. looking forward to the video!
i really got nostalgic revisiting those photos, and the time connected to it: all the possible turns my life could have taken. and added to that, this combination of old and new buildings, like life circles of a city rooted deep in time. and we, just wandering through it, through some years.
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