So I plunged myself head first into this city and everything seems strange and everyone seems to be staring at me with distrust, and their eyes say to me, “You don’t belong here.” Had the same thing not happened in Paris, I would not have recognized the trend. I realized, of course, that it is my own distrust and my own fear that I need to overcome. I need to grow into the city by taking it in, like one grows into new shoes by wearing them and walking around.

I took the Delhi Metro to go visit Connaught Place, a large central round-about, the equivalent of Paris’s Champs Elysees, as it were. There were expensive shops and though the prices weren’t as high as Paris, I could still not indulge. There were all the expensive brands, there were the usual McDonald’s and KFCs, there were street vendors selling all kinds of things, there was an underground market with less expensive shops that sold copies of the brands being sold above, and there was a park in the center of the round-about, where girls and boys sat and held hands (in various combinations), and parents chased after their kids.

Except a few things (for example, a group of Hindu religious men clad in orange who marched by chanting and crying out slogans), this could very well have been Pakistan. I even stopped to ask directions from policemen, and they joked around with me, which felt bizarre. I didn’t dare to take my camera with me today; even though I laughed off the horror stories my grandmother told us to dissuade me from coming here, in which Pakistani boys are arrested and accused of spying and locked in jail forever, it still was a concern for me. I suppose as long as I am dressed like a photographer, and don’t take pictures in Cantonment areas, I should be fine. Of course, if I stop posting here, and you don’t hear from me, you know what happened!

I sat in Café Coffee Day, writing, sketching, reading (I am near the end of my novel, and it’s getting very, very interesting!), and registered how differently people treat waiters in this part of the world. Parisian waiters would kick them out immediately. It is a reminder of a class society, where people are respected for their social position and not their personality. The same trend is prevalent in Pakistan.

I was in need for someone to talk to. I have acquired this really useful technique of striking up conversations with complete strangers. I can tell if they are bored and would like to talk too. I talked to an American girl from D.C who was at a travel agency where I went to ask for a map. I talked to a Delhi college student in the Metro, who was really fascinated to meet a Pakistani. He confirmed that people treat you according to your appearance. If you appear rich and powerful, and have that attitude, people will bow down and take orders, if you appear old, you can enter bars, and so on.

Tomorrow I am going to the Khoj International Artists Association, which is located in a sort of arts neighborhood from what I understand. I spoke to them on the phone today and they are expecting me at 11am. This place is close to where Uday lives and since he is off from work tomorrow I will probably see him too.

Delhi. Before the partition of the subcontinent in 1947, my maternal ancestors lived not very far from here. My grandmother loves to tell stories of the splendor and joy of life in rural India and dilli.

After World War II the British left behind an independent India but also a hastily established Pakistan where the Muslims of India could “practice their religion without persecution.” It was a result of the Two Nation Theory which had matured over the years and according to which Hinduism and Islam were so different (for example, while Hindus consider cows sacred, Muslims slaughter cows as a religious sacrament!) that they could be considered two separate nations. The same people who had lived together for centuries were now thrown into chaos. It resulted in the largest migration of people in all history. Hindus fled the new Pakistan and a large number of Muslims migrated into it, leaving their friends and property behind. Today there are still more Muslims in India than in Pakistan. In 1971, there was civil war in Pakistan, and East Pakistan fought for and gained independence to become Bangladesh. Indira Gandhi said: “Today we have sunk the two nation theory in the Bay of Bengal.”

I land at the airport and I am scared they will think I am some terrorist for Pakistan. The immigration officer is extremely friendly, helps me out with the extra forms I have to fill out, and gives me information about where to register myself the next day. Pakistanis have to go and report to a special office when they enter India. The last two times I came to India as part of official delegations and was exempted from that.

Now I was in this “enemy” country on my own. I must say though that I can really blend in. I look like an Indian, I speak Hindi, I know the customs, etiquettes, slang, everything. So in a way it is very much like home. It is only when someone asks me where I am from that I hesitate a little. This is because many Indians, like many Pakistanis, are taught in schools and at home to hate the enemy beyond the border. However, I have had so many pleasant experiences even in one day that I will now stop being shocked every time someone is nice to me. (Stephanie had said that Parisians, who are infamous for being rude, were nice to me because I was just a nice person. Maybe that’s true here too!)

The hotel is inexpensive and yet there is cable TV, a fridge and an AC, which is very convenient. There is no internet, however. They have a computer in the lobby with internet but that’s it. So I will embark upon the quest of an “internet café” like Andy did a year ago in Bombay.

In fact I went out last night but it was closed. On my way back I got lost in the web of dark, narrow streets, with stray dogs around me, and a few people that didn’t seem very friendly. A big, black dog started following me and kept barking. And though my heart pounded with fear, I maintained a calm façade, pretended to ignore the dog, and kept walking at the same slow pace. It works on people, would it work on this creature? Thankfully it did.

I was in a poor neighborhood near the hotel. I knew the hotel was at most a five-minute walk away. I didn’t know what direction though because here there is no grid, there are no street signs, and now there were few lights. It’s exactly like its counterpart neighborhood in Pakistan. I kept asking for directions in Hindu, pretending I knew exactly where I was, and eventually found it.

This morning I went and registered at a special office. I used an auto to get there. An auto is a small vehicle with three wheels. They’re very cool. I used the Delhi Metro to get back. The metro is very impressive, and in it I no longer feel like I am in Pakistan, because it is really modern and, for me, a symbol of India’s development, flourishing economy, and progressive mindset.

Adieu Paris.

While the beauty of Paris seems eternal, my experience here has been transient. It is an expensive city. The least I spent in a day was 20 Euros. I was worried that I would go over my budget and have no money left for Delhi. Yet that fear was short-lived because time flew by.

[Find more pictures from the day on Flickr.com by clicking here]

Life slips by very quickly. Last night I went for dinner with a friend (how I regretted not discovering the restaurants and shops in Saint Michel earlier!) and later we had ice cream at Amorino artisanal ice cream place. It reminded me of going to Bent Spoon with Andy and Angela at Princeton. As I was packing in my room later in the night, I couldn’t stop thinking about my short sojourn in Paris. I realized then that I would miss most of all, not the paintings, music, architecture, or food, but the people I met here and my crazy adventures that were made possible because of them.

A large aspect of my project is to experience different cultures, interact with different people and use my art to show how we are all linked, or not linked, by the bond of humanity. I already knew that with different languages come different expressions, new words that carry new ideas, subtleties of thought and feeling that you never knew before. This knowledge was confirmed and profoundly experienced in Paris. I learned to speak the little French I knew with perfection so that you couldn’t tell that I was a foreigner.

I sit at the airport now. I leave knowing that I want to come back as soon as I can. I leave having started many sketches, and having done extensive photography (a lot more than what is on Flickr.com) that will either stand on its own or serve as stock imagery for the art I will work on in August when I’m back in Pakistan.

There are certain moments that you just know you will never forget. They are pivotal in your life, and act as anchors for your memory. The time I met up with Uday for a half-hour one night in Delhi when I was on a school trip, the time I walked with Andy to Chili’s on the New Jersey highway, the day at the fountain with Angela, New Years in New York with my colleagues at the Actors Theatre Workshop, and then another lonely New Years when I walked at 6am in a deserted Princeton University and around me leaves fluttered and danced, as if in determined celebration on the cold, cloudy day. This morning I went for a walk in Paris near Chatelet, Notre Dame, Saint Michel. I was looking at everything for the last time, savoring the French R’s as people conversed around me, scared of the stranger who I feared might mug me, finding intricate gothic and baroque architecture on every street and every corner; trucks, boats, and workmen were preparing for the Beach event where they apparently put sand on the Seine (Gregoire and Stephanie had told me about it).…

It was cloudy and I would like to think the city was mourning my imminent departure, but in fact life went on in the city. People come and go. The city lives on eternally.

After that I knew time was running out and I needed to get to the airport, but I couldn’t leave undone something I had attempted earlier. I wanted to go and try to visit the grave/tomb of Oscar Wilde one last time. And this time it seemed like I would make it – at least the gates of the Cemetiere were open. I looked at the map at the entrance and memorized the name of the “street” in which it was located. The cemetery was very large and soon I got lost amongst gravestones and tombs. A black cat would appear every so often and the spider webs and rotting, mossy sculptures haunted me. I was running late for the airport now and that was also weighing on me. After walking for about fifteen or twenty minutes I found it. I had been afraid it would be an anticlimax was it was definitely worth it.

In fact many parts of this trip have involved going to see places or artifacts I have seen in pictures or studied about somewhere, with a fear that the visit would be superfluous, but finding always that my visit gave those spaces, paintings, buildings dimension and put them in context for me – in terms of spatial and emotional perspectives. I also got to experience them as they live in our world today. Recall the Notre Dame in Disney’s Hunchback of Notre Dame. Then imagine actually going there this morning and seeing a trash truck in front of it and people rushing past it to go to work. It’s simply amazing.

In other news, I discovered and learned to appreciate cheese! I had been missing out.

Also, I got disillusioned with and now quite dislike the Metro. Though I like the entrances by Hector Guimard, walking across Paris is definitely more fun.

All photos from my trip are on Flickr and you can access them by clicking here.

I went with some friends I met here to watch the grand concert and fireworks for Bastille Day here in Paris at the Champs de Mars, next to the Eiffel Tower. The place was packed with people, and afterwards it took us a long time to get home.

James Blunt sang songs that were happy which of course didn't suit him. I did discover Christophe though!

I listened to a song by Raphael, “Adieu Haïti,” and it brought stark realization that tomorrow I will be bidding adieu to Paris. And soon to Delhi and then Karachi and then Princeton, and to the people I knew in those places.

This feeling of nostalgia is so strong that it aches physically. And yet I move ahead, thinking of all the good things and how their beauty lies in their transience.

Pictures from Bastille Day concert can be found on Flickr by clicking here.

I can't stop thinking about the fireworks, and though the internet today is very slow (I am in my room because its 14 July and the campus center is closed), here goes.

The whole avenue was packed with people, festive and expectant. We were all very excited. In my excitement I even conversed a little in French with Clare's sister, who spoke little English. Gregiore and Clare were back, and so was I from a long search for the bathroom.

Then it was 11pm. An announcement was made in French. Following that all the streetlights were turned off. So dramatic it was, you could only sense people all around and see the very magically-lit Chateau Versailles. Then the music began, and the fireworks began. And the two were synchronized. It was very, very moving. It was climactic, it was elevating. The music did not blare, it was soothing and triumphant. I was standing with close friends who I cared about and who I felt at home with in this town so very far away from home. And we experienced the fireworks together. They created a bond between us.

When a song would slow down, the fireworks would become subtle and soft. When the song picked up, the fireworks filled the sky in an explosion of color. And this lifted me off the earth, until I was flying high up in the sky. It shook me so that I crossed my arms and clenched my shoulders with my hands.

Leaving and saying goodbye after that experience was heart-breaking. Stephanie and I took the RER back to Paris. Gregoire and Clare drove to Clare's house.

Click here for pictures of Versailles

I am leaving for Delhi on Wednesday. It makes me sad to be leaving Paris.

More pictures from the fireworks at Versailles here.

My last post was very profound, according to Angela, who loves sarcasm. Her comment was of course very appropriate...

Today again I don't even know where to start from, what to write. It's that quiet moment in my life right now, the deep breath before the plunge. I spent yesterday walking around the city with Gregoire and Stephanie, my friends from the internship I had in New York at the Actors Theatre Workshop. It was great to meet up and talk with them. They were very nice about speaking either in English or explaining to me French expressions, culture, connotations, mannerisms, cliches, movies, history, food, etc.

I was talking to Andy about perfection in art. In the end, what matters to me is whether I am happy with it, and whether it brings me joy. I realized that sometimes we want flawed art, because depending on what standards we judge it by, it cannot be absolutely flawless. Van Gogh's paintings are far from accurate in representation of form or color. That is how he creates not a perfect world, but something beyond perfection, something original, something no one has experienced before. That is the true expression of the divine within us.

All is still well and going great.

It's the week-end and I'm seeing some friends today.

I was traveling to Auvers-sur-Oise, the small remote town where Van Gogh spent the last years of his life and painted most of his masterpieces, and where he eventually shot himself. The train sped past the city and then fields and smaller towns. It was empty for as far as I could see. The view outside was dazzling. A young man came in and sat opposite me. He wanted to try my headphones on his phone to listen to some music. He started talking to me and showing me crazy videos on his cell phone. I told him I wasn’t interested in that and he laughed. Then he wanted to see my iPod Shuffle. He also asked if I had a cell phone and I said no. The train stopped at a station, he exclaimed something in French that meant “Now it’s mine!” and ran away. I was so shocked I just sat there for a while unable to comprehend what had happened, and meanwhile the train kept moving. It was ironic that, moments before he ran away like that, the man had said “It’s important to be Muslim” and that the inscription on my iPod had been “We Who Believe” (… in peace, freedom etc). I no longer had that iPod… was this symbolic? Of course, we live and we learn, and now I am much more careful about everything. I am glad, though, about all the things he could have taken and didn’t.

The smaller train that took me to the actual town reminded me of trains in Pakistan. I wrote as I sat in it:

“As the old train groans, grunts, screeches its way forward, I find myself amidst small villages, with cottages, woods, green fields, flowers, vines, warm sunlight. This place is removed from anything I have ever experienced before. No one here speaks English. Immediately I fall in love with the beauty of the place and this sense of newness and purity, where I can discover like a child things I have never known.”

The little town was devoid of tourists. Fortunately, though, I met another visitor and we explored the place together. He works at a designer clothing firm in Korea. He had a very good guidebook and we followed its itinerary, and saw everything from the famous church that Van Gogh painted, to his house, to his grave. The whole place felt very serene and inviting.

In fact, for a while I just wanted to live there and keep painting day and night. The documentary we saw in Van Gogh’s house explained how he would paint everyday, all the time, and that that was his life. If only I could even stay the night here, I kept thinking. I even looked for accommodation but didn’t find any rooms. I did however get the chance to go and sit by the church and sketch there.

Soon it got dark and I no longer wanted to be there anymore. This I thought was strange.

*

The time to leave Paris is very near now. Time rushes by, and yet I don’t want to get caught trying to do everything possible before I leave. I want to slow time down by revisiting some places I went to earlier. Today, however, I am going with a friend to the Luxembourg gardens to work on some art there.

In some hurry this morning, because I am going to the location of Vincent Van Gogh’s final days, Auvers-sur-Oise, which I believe is a village outside Paris.

Note: Photographs from the day are on Flickr and can be viewed by clicking here.

Yesterday I went to visit the Centre Pompidou. I visited the temporary architecture exhibition by Dominique Perrault, and then proceeded to look at the museum’s permanent collection of modern art. The architecture was very educational, and I especially loved the vivid display of process – study models, sketches, and concept drawings – as well as in-depth explanation in both French and English.

The museum of modern art was also a great delight, and once again I found myself wishing I had more time (I spent over four hours there). The new batteries I had bought in the morning immediately ran out, which was unfortunate, but it did give me a chance to give the artwork my full attention. Today, therefore, I am not taking a camera with me at all.

Later yesterday I met with Stèphanie, who I had worked with in New York a year-and-a-half ago, and we had Coke in Paris’s most expensive district, near where she works. Gregoire, who also used to work with us, and who lives in Aix-en-Provence, is coming to Paris this week-end and we’re going to see the parade at Champs Elysée on Monday.

"I have a terrible need of - dare I say the word? -religion. Then I go out at night to paint the stars..." -Vincent van Gogh, 1888

I got to see some of my favorite paintings at the Musée d’Orsay. While they invoked a great sense of awe and admiration in me, they also made me joyful and excited because of the magical sense of connectedness I felt when I looked at them. Van Gogh’s meticulous brushstrokes, or Cezzane’s almost whimsical watercolor washes, seemed many times more impressive than what I had seen on slides and in textbooks, but they also seemed much more accessible and human. Seeing them gave me courage and real inspiration for my own artwork.

Note: Photographs from the day are on Flickr and can be viewed by clicking here.

The collection at the Orsay is brilliant, superb, magnificent, opulent... exquisite. I had not expected to find works by Art Nouveau architects Gustav Klimt, Victor Horta and Hector Guimard – people I had studied and written about just last semester at Princeton. There was also work inspired by Viollet-le-Duc.

While it was great to see familiar paintings in real life – and indeed the crowds were all gathered around the famous impressionist paintings on the top floor – what really excited me much more were the watercolors. After all, a lot of the art I am working on is going to be in watercolors and so these pieces – framed behind glass and therefore impossible to portray well in photography – were a real and practical source of inspiration. I loved the rough pencil marks, the free-flowing color, the sense of spontaneity and movement... oh, and the pastels (in particular, Degas!) of course were also superb.

I spent over four hours at the museum. I took a break half-way through and sat and watched a documentary in a small theater about the mystery in Manet’s life and works. It was in French but, surprisingly, I understood quite a lot.

After the museum, I went and walked on the Seine and then went to the Tulliere Park, where I sat in a comfortable chair facing a large, circular fountain and read my book.

After the adventures of the night before, it wasn’t surprising that I got up at 3pm yesterday. I hadn’t slept properly for a few days. I wanted to go visit the Cimetière du Père-Lachaise, where Oscar Wilde is buried, and thought sunset would be a good time for photography there. There were some problems with the Metro. We were diverted from a station and I had to take a longer route. There will big military men with dogs in the stations and even in some trains. This was the day that I had decided to take my tripod stand along and so it hung on my shoulder almost like a weapon, but they didn’t so much as even notice my tripod-stand case!

The cemetery was closed. I had arrived too late in the day.

Next I wanted to head out to the Eiffel tower and the Seine, to make use of the tripod stand that I had brought all the way. That trip proved fruitful, and you can see some pictures on Flickr by clicking the link above. However, that too was cut short because I ran out of batteries after a while.

Note: Photographs from the day are on Flickr and can be viewed by clicking here.

I had been afraid of taking the tripod stand, but I felt very comfortable, even important, for example, when old couples would stand, smile and admire my admiration of the Eiffel tower as I photographed it.

Today I want to go to the Musée d'Orsay. It is housed in the old Orsay railway station built in 1900. The museum opened in 1986 and while it showcases many forms of artistic expression, it is most famous for its impressionist paintings.

The Musée du Louvre. Grand, ostentatious, overwhelming – it was everything I had expected it to be from my last visit (which must have been 10 years ago) and of course from what I had read. I knew I couldn’t “do” the whole museum in one go and even trying that would be a big mistake.

Note: Photographs from the day are on Flickr and can be viewed by clicking here.

The first thing I saw was the same old pyramids and other Egyptian ruins. You see them in the Metropolitan in New York, you see them in London… you see them in Paris. I didn’t want to linger there one moment. I don’t contest their immense beauty and significance, but I don’t like the idea of seeing Egypt when I came to see Paris. For me, seeing it here is a reminder of an oppressive, colonial world. Just like the great palace was opened to the masses and turned into a museum for all to see, maybe some day these treasures will be available to a larger audience in a more egalitarian way.

So I was interested in the paintings primarily because I wanted a comparison with the contemporary art I had seen earlier. I also knew that one needs to be a little detached and ruthless about what to see and what not to see, otherwise it can be very tiring. I spent five hours there, pretending to be an expert art critic, picking out paintings I loved, paintings I would want if I could buy them. These were paintings that spoke to me, and that I could relate to – sometimes because of the subject and plot, sometimes because of the excellent technique. I stood looking at some of them for several minutes.

In the end I was exhausted, but I was full of awe at how much great art there was under this roof.

I left and went to the Michel neighborhood, to get a sandwich. Then I went back to my room. I should mention here that earlier in the day I was looking up the locations of Le Corbusier’s architecture in Paris and found, to my amazement, that the Ozenfant studio was a two-minute walk from here. I immediately set out with great excitement (this was before I visited the Louvre). It was delightful to see it, and yet there was a disappointment. For one, there was a sign that said “Private Property” and so I didn’t dare enter. Secondly, even though the famous corner window was spectacular, that and the rest of the architecture seemed fairly common and it didn’t seem like I was looking at something significant. I suppose that is what modern architecture is going for – for Corbu, the house is a “machine for living.” Also, its significance lies in the fact that it was innovative when first built.

In the evening I discovered online an itinerary prepared by an art school that brings students to paint in Paris. It gave me some new ideas of what all I could do, but above all it made me really want to visit the Montmartre hill, and see the artist community there, as well as the Basilique du Sacré Coeur.

The sun was setting on Paris and the lights were coming on. The area is a popular tourist spot, partly due to its religious significance. It is of course popular also because it has the Moulin Rouge and a street lined with sex shops. I was almost happy to note that photography was not allowed inside the Sacré Coeur – there are things I don’t like to photograph because photography might understate the effect they have on me, and thus be dishonest. In this case it would be hard to represent the peace and serenity in the atmosphere inside.

I spent the late evening in the Marais, sitting at a bar and writing (and sketching) in my journal. People from Paris go these places and start conversations with everyone present. There are introductions and questions. They were curious about what I was writing, and it always impresses people that I can speak English. I see a growing trend that it’s cool and sophisticated to know English, which is strange. I talked with a woman who had left her job and wanted to go and work in America, because the French are “very rigid in their standards and there are few opportunities to grow.” I spoke to a man Ismael and his sister Amina, and I commented that those were Muslim names, and they said that, yes, their parents are Muslim.

I missed the last Metro at 1am and had to take a taxi back home. But before I did that I walked in the deserted streets of Paris, and it seemed like it was all mine for that moment, and I got to know it intimately.

It’s said that if you put things in words you lose them forever.

Yesterday started out with a plan to replicate last semester’s class trip to the art galleries in New York. It began with a dread that angry French curators in elite galleries would throw me out. After all I had heard a friend here exclaim once that “the French are very theatrical; they like to perform!”

The location is called Quartier Saint Germain and the main streets I visited were Rue de Seine and Rue des Beaux Arts. At the end of the latter there stands the age-old, world renowned Ecole des Beaux Arts.

I went with a Spanish friend, Amelino, who was interested in looking at art too, though he insisted he knew nothing about it. The streets were lined with little galleries, marked by flags with the art neighborhood’s graphic identity on them. It was simply spectacular. The curators were mostly extremely friendly and a lot of them allowed me to take pictures.

Of the ones I wasn’t allowed to photograph I especially liked the artist Miguel Macaya, who painted, for instance, a running dog in oils in a style where you couldn’t tell if it was realistic or abstract, and yet there was a powerful impression that it was moving at a high speed. Or the dog was frozen in mid air and the viewer was moving very fast.























Until late afternoon we looked at them, and it made me very happy. My friend kept getting annoyed at the abstract paintings and complained about how it was not honest. I tried to explain that they take reality to a whole new level and indulge in a process of real creation. Looking at art in these small galleries gave me a strange sense of elation.

We went to a gallery where the two artists were actually present – a Bangladeshi and a Palestinian – and they talked with us about where we all came from, about their work, and about the end-of-year exhibition of the students of the Ecole des Beaux Arts that was on display further down the road.

At the exhibition, once again, there was work that was fresh and contemporary, beautiful but not too daring – alas, it’s Beaux Arts, the stuff Le Corbusier and the modernists reacted to. However, I suppose I am really not qualified to judge it like this. Overall, by the time we exited that gallery, I almost felt intoxicated, but also very tired and hungry.







So we saw the outside of the Louvre, my destination for today (definitely, maybe?) and then walked to the “student” neighborhood, Quartier Saint Michel, to get food that wasn’t 50 Euros.

Next we went to the Notre Dame, but did not go up just then, because there was a long line. I’ll add it to my now shorter list of things to do. I made it short because I don’t want it to be merely a checklist that I am ticking off (like a tourist). Instead I really want to do justice to the places I go to. I want to get to know and understand them, so when I draw them they will be familiar. The other things I have on my list now are some large museums, like the Louvre and Musèe d’Orsay, the gardens of Van Gogh, and maybe a visit to a Le Corbusier house outside of Paris. I also want to revisit a few locations I’ve been to, hopefully using the boat as a form of transport over the Seine.

So anyway, after the Notre Dame we went to the Centre Pompidou. On the way we saw a temporary park with very comfortable chairs. They were all taken so they must be comfortable. After an overdose of baroque, the architecture of the Centre Pompidou seemed either like heresy, or like a breath of fresh air. It was affirmed what I said earlier about Paris having a sort of balance that is maintained by points and counterpoints which anchor it in place with great harmony.

It was late and the exhibitions would soon close for the day, so we didn’t go in. We went and sat on the esplanade, which sloped toward the building, and it seemed like an amphitheatre. Everyone was on display but especially the building was on display.