The 21st of June…longest day of the year…world music day..fete de la musique …and paris was alive….I on the other hand being the over zealous partying animal that I am …slept till 3…

determined(read desperate) to catch SOME action …i left almost immediately(by 9pm) with my sis and Sayem b to look up the city and meet up with some friends of theirs….the lizard bar at Hotel de Ville turned out to be our primary haunt for the night while we were joined by some others…

**So far in my chota sa stint at paris i have NEVER..EVER..come across any indians…well except twice…

1} The saddar family (big big family with a big big love for hair oil with a very very distinctive (read,crap!what on earth?!:O ) smell) in the metro

2) The guy in the small ‘reception box’ beside the door at at the entry of a chinese restaurant who ever so greatfully helped me find charles’ place(it was later revealed the gentleman hailed from Pakistan…but what the heck…its right next door…same difference… )

3) Yeah and the 20′ish flower sellers randomly spotted…everywhere here…!

**

well anyway…as it turned out our group for the night comprised of a panju, 2 mallus, 2 bongs and ALSO our dear French friend…so with that i guess the world had already shrunk enough for the night….so when Priyanka turned out to be our neighbour from my gali cricket days….i wasn’t really THAT surprised….but she remembering us(“the tall one, the shortish one and the upar chhat pe ghoomne wala….” were approximately almost the precise words ) and the window breaking too!! well now THAT was a tad too much…!!

the night ensued and the sights and sounds just kept creeping in…( predominantly hiccups ,smoke ,bumps ,the “ouch” ;P and some French guy singing out “baje chudiyan baje kangana” to us… )

well the longest day finally seemed to come to a close and the night finally ended at 5 with us leaving for home with ‘the varied spirits’ getting the better of us and the shrunken world finally having partied itself off to sleep…

With the peaceful easy feeling in my ears as the eagles playlist carried on through my earphones….I strode on to the platform waiting on line 7 for the metro to arrive at Place Monge and carry me away till la defense…with the cool summer breeze accompanying the metro through the tunnel, I waited along with the other early risers of Paris, to get to our varied destinations. If the city were to be described in a sentence… the most apt I’ve heard yet shall have to be “Its where the centuries meet”.

The heart of Paris seems to revel in its archaism and the French seem to go to great lengths to retain the sense of an older yet modern unspoilt ruin within which a civilization survives and competes with the world at the highest levels….not with cut throat aggression nor political hypocrisy of any sort, but with poise and élan which I feel is portrayed so well through the playboy charmer ,that is, its president. Be it the architectural supremacy boasted upon the doors and balconies of the ordinary households around where I live….or the massive structures that erupt around the most unassuming corners….or the old man playing the mandolin at the metro station while I awaited the train….central Paris and the areas around it, in all its splendor, seems to have kept the 17th century very much alive…

The metro zipped through the city undergrounds and finally arose in the suburbs of Paris above the river seine…one look at the area around the last stop of the metro and I realised as to why Paris is and shall be what it is….with the tallest buildings with the coolest looks and incredibly ‘fascinating’ ( ) women adorning the area….(not just from the ‘geek from the hills’ point of view)…the jaw dropped as the Parisian time machine just seemed to have stopped at the 21st century at its freakin best!……

A days work and play later with Micheal Andrews describing the mad world through my earphones, I walked back with the sunset to my back, toward the metro station to grab my ticket back into the past yet again…..such is the marvel of Paris….and is the reason why Paris is and shall be what it is…. “The city where the centuries meet”

Fun cinemas at the HUB….one of the rarer places in Guwahati wherein the majic of the concrete jungle that is Delhi can be relived……
what brought me and a friend there was a choice….that of either being entertained by Vidya Balan with Ajay Devgan accompanying her in bollywod’s latesht…Halla Bol….or watching an aging man trying to fight to stay alive in Rambo 4….well the former choice prevailed and fun cinems it was……
The movie turned out to be a real entertainer with a brilliant storyline and awesome performances….for instance the scene wherein Vidya Balan smiled her smile and played with her hair while ajay devgan uttered some stuff about …..well something……and the scene where Vidya stood under the banyan tree with her innocent eyes full of hope…looking up to Devgan who uttered some stuff about….well something….
anyhow…..1 movie..2 jumbo combo’s of popcorn and pepsi and 3 separate pepsi’s and 1  trip to the bathroom later….we finally made our exit from fun cinemas and arrived upon the streets of Gu wah of T (sorry….but i love saying that!).
Well revelling in our virility, we decided to walk down the 30 km distance back till IIT and hence create an “oh..remember that night” occasion…. but 10 minutes later as a bus crossed our path the option of climbing it was way too tempting and it seemingly overrode our admirable aspirations….
so there we were in the bus…..the night seeping in through the window, accompanied by a cool breeze brisking across my hair…blissfully travelling ….until the darkness of the night was abruptly dirupted by the sick yellow of a bulb….followed by an even more sudden glas shattering….the driver’s side view mirror was shattered….then the wind shield crashed and cracked……….through my window were then visible to me, men with lathis…… and through the chaos and desperate attempts of our fellow passengers to exit, a couple of lucid moments emerged through which it was understood that our bus had apparently bumped another and in doing so angered its conductor…..
but 10 or more conductors with lathis and turbans?? and wrecking a bus in revenge of a slight bump and scratch??
well i did stick on till the bus emptied and got wrecked further…partly because of the enthusiasm for making a difference to society that Halla Bol had infused into me, by coming to the rescue of the driver!!…..and partly in the hope that the 3 rupees ka ticket vasool ho jaye….
but as the window adjacent to mine smashed as well…..i realised that with that last blow i’d received more than my money’s worth!
so off i hopped and became a part of the crowd…..a part of the onlookers….looking at the driver bleeding from his head clasped in his hands….and suddenly….’revelling in our virility’ ..seemed to be a distant dream….
so one video of a bus being wrecked later….we walked back and during that long walk of the short remaining distance…vidya balan’s smile seemed to fade a tad bit and Devgan’s actions finally came into prominence….but only this time…..it left an impact….

PS:who says gu wah of T aint a happening city?