The strangest thing happened. I suddenly find myself in my home in Karachi, even though I had planned to have tea with Aman somewhere in Delhi today.

I got up this morning and decided to call Pakistan Airlines to make absolutely sure I would be flying out on Wednesday, July 30th. Ever since I had heard Jahnvi's horror story in which the airline refused to let her travel on an e-ticket, I had been slightly worried.

So it was "lucky" I called. Mrs. Farooqui at PIA told me with great assurance that my flight was confirmed for August 2nd. This was shocking because it was supposed to be July 30th. She said PIA had canceled the July 30th flight. I didnt have any hotel reservation for the extra days, and so their suggestion was to fly today, in three hours from then.

In these three hours I had to get dollars exchanged for rupees to pay off the hotel bill, go to the center city police station to offically "check out" of india (which all Pakistanis have to do), and then rush to the airport. I did it all!

The hotel people were like family by this time and they were very helpful.

On the way to the airport I got to see the Hindu pilgrims who were carrying water from the Ganges River. They had walked all this way and not once, the taxi driver told me, did they let the water containers rest on the ground. It was remarkable that the few I saw were barefoot in the scorching heat!

And now as I still feel like I must be in India I am sharply brought back to reality by the realization that I left some sketches pasted to the wall in my hotel room in Delhi - drawings that are not important enough to have mailed over to me, yet too precious to forget.

I walked around Chandni Chowk and felt like Enoo from Taare Zameen Par. I wanted to see the Light and Sound Show at the Red Fort, but it was much later on, so I walked toward the Jama Masjid to find some food that was not McDonald’s.

Pictures from the day can be found on Flickr.com by clicking here.

As I passed shopkeepers, autos, bicycles and samosa stands, it suddenly became cloudy and dark; there was a strong wind and the leaves began to rustle. Dust rose in gusts and blinded me. People became quiet and there was a strange excitement in the air. The monsoon was here and even as shopkeepers packed up their outdoor stalls in great haste, everyone was merry. The water would come, defeat the Delhi heat and cleanse the city.

Just as it started to pour, I found a small restaurant and entered. It was one of those cheap unhygienic places you never go to, but I felt adventurous. The food, which tasted really good and made me full, cost 15 rupees, which is about 40 American cents. I also got shelter from the rain. It turned out beggars and old holy men also came and sought refuge from the rain there and it was interesting to hear the conversations. I took a picture of the rain and then they wanted me to take more pictures: of an old man, of the coins the cashier was counting, etc.

Then I walked all around the mosque, and back to the fort. At the fort I must have seemed intriguing to the police guards (because of my camera perhaps) so they started a friendly conversation.

Do you like in Delhi or are you visiting? Visiting.

From where? I study in America.

What do you study? Architecture.

Where in India are you from? Uh… my ancestors used to live in Agra. Am I allowed to take pictures here?

I knew bringing up Pakistan would be inconvenient. After the recent terror attacks in Bangalore and Ahmedabad, a 20-year old photographer from Pakistan with a tripod stand would definitely seem suspicious. Besides, I didn’t lie because my grandparents had indeed lived close to Agra before partition. Our conversations were charming and pleasant, and I met them again on my way out.

The light and sound show was spectacular. It traced the history of the fort from the time it was constructed, through the periods of the great Mughal kings, the brief take-over by Nadir Shah, the British rule, the freedom struggle, and then finally Nehru and modern India. The buildings would light up, and you would hear sounds from different parts of the surroundings. This created a very real atmosphere and I felt I was living through history.

And since photography was not allowed I sat and drew in my little sketchbook, using just a pen. This apparently interested the kids and family next to me, and they started a conversation which was nice.

Later that night I met up with Jhanvi, a friend I had met at Princeton last winter. She and her friends were getting together and it was nice to get to know them.

Yesterday I worked on some sketches indoors during the morning and then I met up with Kav and Nienke, friends from Princeton, and had lunch with them in this very rich froofroo market in Delhi, which has really great bookstores, clothes, and all sorts of shops. It’s the kind of market where people dress up and go, as if to be seen – we have them in Pakistan too.

Uday invited me to dinner. His house is far away from the city, in the suburbs. It is a very large and luxurious country house. It was great to see Uday and meet his parents for the first time. They were very friendly.

It was a very cultural event. Uday’s parents’ friends were over (all of them rich and influential Indians, it seemed). There was a bar and the living room was lit beautifully. Everyone sat comfortably, and then the singing began. They took turns, and to the tune of the harmonium they sang classical and old Indian songs. It was a great experience to be part of this mehfil. The food too was superb – Kashmiri food mostly prepared by Uday’s father. I had some very interesting conversations with the visitors. I especially liked talking to Lekha, an old eccentric (in a good way) potter who would start speaking to me in French after a while – and then Frenglish.

Pictures from the day can be found on Flickr.com by clicking here.

The generally slow-paced life in India, the Delhi heat, and the fact that I am nearing the end of my journey (not to mention the slow internet) makes me more nostalgic, more indulgent, less likely to post on this blog every single day. Things come up, sometimes things so subtle and indescribable you cannot write about them because writing would be expressing it, and that would certainly fall short of the experience.

I have decided not to put up any artwork on this blog until August, because that is when I will be working on that part.

I visited some art galleries on Wednesday. I first went to the India Habitat Center, and saw two shows. The first was called the “Elements” and was a group exhibition of fifteen prominent Indian artists. As I wrote later in the guestbook, I had come to look at contemporary Indian art, and the exhibition was simply superb. Photography was not allowed – I wish you could have seen the thoughtful and mind-blowing sculpture of Sweta, or the expressionism of Naresh Verma, or the whimsical (but truly marvelous) collages of Harpreet Singh.

I asked the artists there how to get to the National Gallery of Modern Art. It seemed only a select few even knew it existed, because the auto driver had been clueless earlier when I got in and announced its name. They explained to me what to tell the auto.

Next I saw an exhibit of photography by Tarun Chhabra. He had documented the life of street children in India, and while there was celebration of love and brotherhood, overall it was very melancholic – a plea for attention and action to the viewer who may have the power to alleviate the dire conditions the kids were in.

I next looked at an exhibit by Bipin Martha, whose watercolors were way more exciting for me than the oil paintings. This is because they were of the common Indian people - fresher, more spontaneous and original. The oils were elaborate and painstaking renditions of Hindu gods. Here photography was allowed.

I went to the NGMA and was a little disappointed because the “modern” art included paintings by British artists in India in the 18th century but there was no M.F.Hussain. I was trying to recall all definitions of “modern” – was it modern as in contemporary (It can’t have been!), was it modern as in Modernism? In that case did 1750s fit in? Maybe it did in visual arts… maybe I was only looking at it from the background of my architecture education.

There was a video about lighting in art to make it theatrical. There was in it something about capturing the vitality of the city in the swift strokes of the pencil or paintbrush. This was interesting to me.

I was especially impressed by the Indian artist Amrita Sher-Gil who had been painting in the early colonial India – it amazed me that a woman Indian artist could have been doing the work she did back then. She seemed ahead of her times, really. Amrita had traveled to Paris and had painted the Notre Dame!

I also really liked the watercolors of Ramkinker Vaij – am I biased or what?

That evening I met up with my friend from Princeton, Aman, who lives here in Delhi. Aman suggested we have dinner at Dilli Haat, this very traditional and touristy market with small crafts shops from all the states of India, and food stalls representing all the states also. It’s a special project funded by the government. It was a really good dinner of paratha, some sort of kebabs, and “fresh-lime soda,” a drink that Indian froofroos love.

We caught up and talked about our lives. Aman’s mother is an artist. I found particularly interesting the story that a few years ago she was invited by the French government for a residency in Paris for three months. According to Aman she had a great time but made little art. He said she claims to have internalized the experience and is just waiting to express it now. I could relate to that so very much it made me really happy. A professional artist was going through the same dilemma as me, it seemed: whether to go out and take in the city, or spend time locked up in a studio working to express. It put me at ease a little. Fortunately I will have time to finish up my artwork once I get back to Karachi.

The other really interesting thing he said was about the Muslims in India. He said he fears that India is not moving fast enough to address the problem of minorities, and of religious ethnic clashes. It made me wonder whether the creation of Pakistan was after all a good thing and whether, if Pakistan had not been created and I had grown up as an Indian Muslim, I would be a Princeton student writing about my painting project right now…

We went to a hookah bar, and because it was late by the time we were done I spent the night at Aman’s place. Next morning I went to see the Kutb Minaar and the ruins around it. It was the perfect place to sit and sketch in charcoal, but I could do little of that because I was disheveled (had not changed since the day before), and the heat of the sun overhead was so intense it made me sweat.

When I got back to my hotel room, I caught up with emails, read about my zees in Forbes this fall, and emailed them. It’s difficult to do all that when the internet is so moody.

I visited Laxmi Narayan Mandir (temple) which is dedicated to various Hindu gods. I had to deposit shoes, camera, bag and cell phone outside and enter having been “physically and mentally” cleansed. The temple is also known as the Birla Mandir. It was built in 1938 and was inaugurated by Gandhi. I read about the meaning and history of the swastika sign and was ironically reminded of other places the symbol was used. I looked at all the murals and read their English captions and the messages were very similar to all religious messages – piety, self-sacrifice, peace, abstinence, wariness of the senses.

You can find pictures from the day on Flickr.com by clicking here.

The most spiritual experience for me was walking into a God’s room, which had mirrors on all the walls. It seemed to be a pentagonal room. The statue of the decorated god was in it, but when I walked in I seemed to be very much in the center of the small room. I could see myself all around me and, not just that, I could see myself from the side and from the back and from various other angles. I was alone in the room. I moved around to see what I looked like, and it was a strange feeling of detached observation. I was thinking about the idea that the divine is within us…

Once again, there were tourists from Europe and America, dressed in Indian clothes, accompanied by a tour guide, being led through the temple. When I tried to enter the souvenir shop marked “For Visitors from Abroad” the man outside stopped me and said “This is not the temple – it is only for them,” indicating with a look that the items in there may be overpriced. I thought, thank you for making me feel so at home, and left obligingly.

I next went to Humayun’s tomb. Built in 1572 by Hamida Banu Begum, his grieving widow, the tomb is a precursor to the Taj Mahal. It displays a marked Persian influence in Indian architecture. Large quantities of white marble and red sandstone have been used and the tomb is called “Dormitory of the Mughals” because it has over 100 graves. I entered one of the smaller structures on the side which was completely deserted. I climbed up broken steps (which had grass, squirrels and insects on them) and emerged very high up inside an alcove from where I had a very good view. The place was quiet and cool and I could have sat there for a long time.

It was generally very warm but, just as I was leaving, it became cloudy and fat drops of rain began to fall uncertainly. It must have rained only for ten minutes but it was beautiful.

I had been told to definitely see Nizam uddin Aulia’s shrine, so I headed off for that. It seemed a different world. I had entered a Muslim neighborhood. The Muslims here were much more markedly muslim-looking that those in Pakistan: clad in traditional shalwar-kameez, with a white cap on each man’s head, and each woman with her head covered. I was not that middle-aged woman, deep in love and adoration for the saint, here to fulfill her promise to visit him and ask him to cure her sick son. I was not the old couple who had wanted to come here all their life and pay their respects, and today their wish had been granted. I was merely curious and personally, I thought it was a little unclean. Also, the head of the mosque asking me for money didn’t leave a good impression on me. What excited me much more was to see the great poet Mirza Ghalib’s tomb close by. I have always thought that he should have been Pakistan’s national poet, but of course he wasn’t very religious so that’s a problem.

I decided to have food at a small restaurant in that area, and was happy to find the food tasted great and was very cheap. And though it later made me sick, at the time the world seemed like a very nice place.

You can find pictures from the day on Flickr.com by clicking here.

I woke up with a sore throat and a slight fever on Sunday. I took immediate measures – got standard fever pills, took a cold shower, had hot clear vegetable soup, and when I felt better I went out into the burning heat of Delhi which was soothing. I had some errands to run – groceries, sending faxes, etc. Later that day, Uday took me and his friend Parth to watch a play at the India Habitat Centre.

Photos from the day can be found on Flickr.com by clicking here.

The Inida Habitat Centre is a dynamic center for the arts, with exhibitions, auditoriums, outdoor spaces, etc, and I definitely want to go back there to see everything. Particularly, its architecture struck me. In it I could read elements of modernism – the bridges reminded me of Groupius’s Dessau Bauhaus building, and the windows, with their use of pattern and color, reminded me of a Kandinsky painting, and the fusion of brick, concrete and other materials was very Venturi.

The play was being performed on the special occasion of the Columbian Independence day, and was an Indian adaptation of Gabriel García Márquez’s Eréndira and her Heartless Grandmother. It very powerful in execution, and moved me with its drama, passion, music and inherent tragedy. It was performed by a group of actors who would change roles, and orchestrate scenes through narration, dance, and by using techniques to created movement on the stage. The play was full of color and had beautiful costumes, masks, and symbols that could take you on a flight of imagination because they were so loaded with meaning. It was almost like watching the fireworks at Versailles, and like that time, this great performance created a bond between those who experienced it.

The auditorium was full of “froofroos,” a term coined by Parth for rich, well-dressed (usually in traditional clothing), educated Indians, who are progressive, who love the arts, and who, according to him, love the Pakistanis. We made fun of how the froofroos were a little pretentious, but then admitted that it was not a derogatory term and that we were froofroos too.

Yesterday I went to the Red Fort, the Jama Masjid (mosque), the Gandhi Darshan and Mandi House, where there are some art galleries. It was a long day, and I beat the heat by stopping to drink water, or lemonade that I got from a street vendor. Later I wanted something else to read (after my iPod met its tragic fate, I have turned to reading on the metro etc.), so I bought a copy of Uday’s mother’s latest book Weed - “We are Kashmir’s weeds. Wild, unwanted children.” I can’t wait to start reading it.

The Jama Masjid is enormous, gorgeous, and ornate, and it was a great delight to experience its architecture, complete with skillful technique, choice of material, and the exquisite use of color, on this day. I climbed up the minaar (tower) and the view was comparable to the Eiffel Tower’s. Here I could recognize landmarks in the city and study the cityscape as a whole. I was interested in the tops of buildings, and how they meet the sky, and Delhi is as interesting as Paris in that regard. I am excited to work on a related study.

I wanted to go next to the Gandhi Darshan, but the auto drivers didn’t quite know what that was. So I asked for Firoz Shah Kotla, thinking I could walk from there, and showed it to the driver on a map. That was a mistake, because he thought I had no idea what I was doing, and started off on a long, patronizing speech about ho I should go to the tourism office and ask them to help me out. I said okay and left. I had learnt a lesson. I went to another auto driver and just said Firoz Shah Kotla. It was perfect. I also realized that I had just to go ask for a ticket in Hindi, and I would get the rate for Indians (Rs. 5 as opposed to Rs. 100 for foreigners), because clearly I am not white and therefore not a foreigner!

The Kotla was something I stumbled on, but it turned out that these were ruins from the citadel built by Firoz Shah Tughlaq in 1351. It was a strange experience to walk through the complex – many of the arches reminded me of the Roman arches we had studied at Princeton. These were different but worked on the same concept of arranging stone so it is in perfect compression. It felt bizarre that these structures had survived for so many years. Architecture, like poetry, really is a way for transient humans to immortalize themselves; I thought maybe I should become an architect.

The Gandhi Darshan was located near the bank of the Yamuna River and there was a museum with a chronological presentation of Gandhi’s life. I have been a great fan of Gandhi, ever since I read outside the textbooks taught in Pakistan. His vision of non-violent civil-disobedience got a great nation its independence, and to the end of his life, he worked for humanity. I spent a lot of time reading about his early life, which I knew very little about.

During the day, to cover short distances, I rode the bicycle carts (I don’t know what they are called). You see them all over the city, and yet I felt at first it would be wrong to ride one, because it’s human labor that pulls you along while you sit and enjoy the view. Something about it seemed very colonial – or like a remnant of the caste system, far from equality. However, with the intense heat, and with so many of them looking to earn a living I fell for it and hopped on. It was a bumpy ride but an excellent opportunity for photography. I don’t know if I should have done that though…

Photos from the day can be found on Flickr.com by clicking here.

Yesterday, I met up with Uday.

I first met Uday four years ago at the Mahindra United World College of India at Pune, where I was representing Pakistan at the peace conference organized by Youth Initiative for Peace. We became really close friends, and I want to think that our friendship is a microcosm of the peace, friendship and love we wish to see in the entire subcontinent.

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

In the morning I went to visit Aastha Chauhan, an artist at the Khoj International Artists Association. This workshop focuses on alternative forms of art, such as video, photography, mixed media, etc. Aaastha, however, had endless resources and some very good advice for me. She shared with me magazines and catalogues that had listings of Delhi art galleries, pointing out some significant ones. She also gave me copies of the Khoj yearbooks, and I was most excited to read about the community-based arts initiatives that Khoj had undertaken. Aastha recommended that I limit myself to some area of focus, just like I had done in Paris (rooftops and their conversation with the sky, roman sculptures, and windows). She suggested the Metro, which is a very new phenomenon in Delhi, as a subject for study. She also suggested walking along the Yamuna River and seeing what comes off that.

Though I agreed with her on the point that my subject matter needs to be narrowed down with some restrictions, I still thought that my watercolor sketches, even of famous landmarks like the Red Fort, can help contextualize them, and shed new light on them. Further, even though these landmarks may have been documented before, I would be experiencing them as they exist in the world today. I was thinking of Van Gogh’s church at Auvers-sur-Oise – a common subject with an entirely new treatment in painting technique.

The Khoj workshop is located in Khirkee Village. It was a long journey on the auto and I took some pictures on the way. It was almost like a ride in Universal Studios, and as I sped through the city, through small rickety streets and broad boulevards, and composed frames for photos shots, I felt elated.

Uday picked me up from Khirkee village and we went for lunch at a South Indian restaurant. The food was very good (read: spicy) and at the end we were given small bowls with hot water and a slice of lemon in it, to clean our fingers. We should really introduce those in Pakistan too!

We went next to Sanskriti Museum of Everyday Art. It was a beautiful establishment located in a remote area in south Delhi. It houses exhibitions and also serves as a space to organize workshops in the arts. There was a beautiful and extensive exhibit of terracotta art from different parts of India. There was also a textile exhibit which was very fascinating. But what struck me most of all was the heavily guarded, extremely well-preserved museum of “everyday art” in India. That section was closed and they opened it especially for us when Uday went and told them I had come all the way from Karachi.

We had ten minutes and the lady was a very friendly guide. The exhibit inside those gates was one of the most exquisite I have ever seen in my life. Though photography was not allowed, I spent a few moments later just to register it so that I would never forget it. There were household items that I recognized because my great grandmother might have owned some version of them. But these were many times more detailed, well-designed, ornate, or ostentatious. The delicate wood carvings were so unimaginably beautiful that it didn’t seem like the work of humans.

Later we went for a while to Uday’s house, which is located in a grand estate (with servants, gardens, ponds, walkways, amphitheatre and all!) in a serene suburb of Delhi.

We were short of time to we went, according to plan, to a mandir (temple) he really likes. It was indeed a very spiritual experience, although here too I didn’t think I should have taken pictures. It was interesting to see ardent believers making rounds of the shrine in extreme devotion and humble submission. They were lighting lamps inside coconuts and “feeding” the god this fire. I stood there, barefoot, and the warmth of the hot stone floor was very soothing. Tomorrow evening I am going to watch a play with Uday and his friend.

Later I was on my own and I wanted to get out, so I went to check out Chandni Chowk (every time I read Chandni Chowk, I am reminded of the first part of the movie Kabhi Kushi Kabhi Ghum – never ended up watching the whole three-hour movie!): a historic Indian market with vendors and people and haggling (and lights at night). It was a good walk, and I failed to muster enough courage to walk into a shabby restaurant. I had seen that universal McDonald’s sign and it anchored me in place on that chaotic street. A stranger I was, but I recognized it and it recognized me.

On the way back to the hotel, I ended up helping locals with their Metro routes!

I will now get back to my book. Ivan Karamazov is almost certainly doomed. The prosecutor is making his closing speech. How will it all end?

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.