Val de l'Arc

At around dusk on a late summer evening,
by the dark woods on the banks of the river Arc ,

Sitting under the shade of a climber covered tree,
Watching geese and ducks return to the river,

Accompanied by the sounds of flowing water
I took my flute lessons in Nature's own theatre..

...till an army of angry red ants decided to give
some stinging criticism to end the cacophony..!

Lingering memories

Having written verbiose descriptions of my experiences, I still feel like missing out on a few really strange incidents,nice people, weird thoughts..
I will devote no more than a few sentences for each, but each of them have created a lasting impression on me.

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The skydive :
The onward journey from Singapore to Paris took me right over Southern India, over Madurai and other towns. It was so difficult to control this crazy thought, to pick up a parachute and eject myelf outta the plane, to take a short holiday in India.
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Kavithai in CDG
The 5 hour transit time in Charles de Gaulle Airport,Paris saw me bring out the only tamil poetry book I managed to take along - Vairamuthu Kavithaigal. In addition to being captivated by the imaginative similes, I also briefly attempted describing the same in English to my colleague. I dont know how much of the meaning was lost in translation !
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Lonely planet
Solitude during weekends sometimes became unbearable, and made me prefer weekdays spent in office instead. This drove me out of the hotel, and I was travelling alone to nearby places by bus,train and even boats. This was possible due the companionship of such inanimate objects like my camera, the music player and of course a Lonely Planet guide.
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Notre Dame
After trudging uphill the mountain atop which is the Notre Dame Basilica of Marseilles, I paused to regain my breath. I was greeted by the toothless but warm smile of this frail old woman, who started to mutter what sounded like an essay to me in French. She understood very little English, but that did not prevent her from taking me along to the drinking water tap, and show me the utilities in the church. I observed that she seemed to suffer from a nervous problem, which made her extremely restless -moving and gesturing with strange swift movements. Her unexpected kindness made me stay a bit longer, and attend the Sunday evening mass, though I could'nt follow a word of the sermon--only the phrase "Anbae Sivam" ( Love is God) ringed thru my mind all the while..
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Happy Pizzas - happy to be eaten by you.
This is how I was welcomed to the shop of this amazing Goan gentleman- Fred Vaz. Hours were spent discussing every perceivable topic, in the aroma of pizzas in the making. Fred's shop in Aix, was possibly the only place to get a Tandoori chicken pizza in France. With such nice conversations, warm pizzas, and irresistable discounts for NRIs it was my most preferred hangout in the evenings. Eventually we became good friends and was even introduced to his lovely family,some of whom became fine critics of my blog and photos, receivers of 1hr crash courses on sambar-making and SLR photography.
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Sacre Coeur
On a visit to this church in a place called Montmarte in Paris, my friend Praveen decided to stay a bit longer than others, lost in a silent prayer. I just sat with him without exchanging many words. What made this event extraordinary was that, he had returned to church after 'years' of being a non-believer. There were no confessions to be made, but for me the moment was heavily inundated with thoughts on faith, prayer, and spirituality.
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Shuttle service
One big reason to goto office, was to be able to play badminton in the evening after work , with the perfectly matched team I ever played with - a group of interns Said, Eva and Eric. Each had his/her own style and everybody else knew their weakness too. Sports has its own way to bringing together people from diverse backgrounds, and forging some excellant friendships over a competitive match or a point conceded out of fairplay.
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Samba(r) beats
I was really starved of Indian food, either self-cooked or outside for nearly 3 months. I had no motivation to cook good traditional dishes just for myself. But right in the last week of my stay in France, I got to make and share sambar and other south-indian vegetarian dishes in 2 different occasions. Cooked with minimum oil, and less spice than normal, it became a lot more palatable to the French tongues. It gives such great pleasure to prepare and present ones native dishes and seeing being emptied in before you take the second helping..!
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Aliases
Whenever I had the courage to try out some new untried foodstuff, the ones which resembled in taste and appearance to typical Indian dishes were the most loved. For instance Spanish Payela - to Hyderabadi Biriyani, Moroccan Tagine to Kaarakuzhambu, Lebanese Felafel to Keerai Vadai , Algerian Cous Cous to Upma, or Bretagne's Crepes to the crispy Dosais..the list is endless.
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Persistence
Having typed all of the above online, and after clicking "Post", losing all of the text due to internet problem- thus relearning the lesson to use a text-editor to create posts for the umteenth time of my life. And reliving and retyping all of the above memories one more time..

Unarnthu ezhudhiyadhu

Edhai thanimai enalaam ?

Thaayum thanthaiyum illamaiyaa ?
illai..illai...
Thambi thamakkai illamaiya ?
illai..illai...
Thozhano thozhiyo illamaiya ?
adhuvum illai...

Thamizh ingu illamai thaan,
Tha.......ni.....mai enakku !

Scaling Saint Victoire

Anybody who happens to come to Aix en Provence or the nearby villages of Trets, Rousset, Tholonet cannot miss the imposing presence of this majestic and grey-white mountain Saint Victoire. Almost everyday of my stay here, I have been enjoying the different views of this mountain during sunny, cloudy or rainy weather.
After the first weeks of stay, even before the idea strikes your mind people start to ask the question “Have you climbed the Saint Victoire?” Its not a towering peak, and not a part of the mighty Alps, and stands at just over 1010 metres above MSL. It does not sound like an impossible challenge, but I was not able to find somebody to accompany me to the top. To make it too hot to handle for me, there was warning of forest fires, and the whole area had restricted access during the summer months. Whoever wants to be a half burnt hot dog on an adventure trip?

Two months and a dozen friends later, the chances improved, and a group of 3 friendly interns Said, Cedric and Virginie agreed to pull me along on an assault on the mount. We went ahead like pro rock-climbers and did not actually heed the weather reports and predictions for the day. We went on a long drive and somewhere near Puyloubier found a track to the Saint-Victoire. After snapping a few start-of-trek photos, the expedition begun. We proceeded along a route marked with black dashes, with no idea of the colour coding conventions of mountain tracks, if there were any.

A few hundred metres later the inclination of the climb started to increase considerably. Very soon we started to stare blankly and near-vertical walls of rock, with a small crevice here and there for a toe hold or a few fingers. The amateur dare-devils decided to go ahead and managed to scale a few challenging rocks. Soon, exhaustion started to peek into the affairs, and all of a sudden a referendum was held to decide whether we should continue or not. Surprisingly 75% of the population decided to continue further. But a few steps ahead and we heard a clap of thunder emerging from the dangerous looking clouds we were ignoring all the while.

The prospect of facing a storm midway up a shelter-less mountain was not an interesting idea. Amidst a drizzle that slowly graduated to a steady rain, we came thundering down the slopes, slipping and sliding at places. That’s when I hoped very badly that spectacles had some wipers on them! Just after we reached the reassuring interiors of the car, a hail storm started to clutter!

For the next one week, it’s difficult to describe the feelings every time I saw the mountain. It seemed to personify an unfinished challenge. I also learnt that we had unknowingly taken the toughest route, meant for rock climbers with the right gear.
The next weekend I teamed up with another pal Arnaud, (nicknamed Puma, for his extreme agility in the badminton court). He had seen the top of the mountain twice and knew the route to some extent.

This time we took a combination of red and blue tracks and the climb was easier and the weather not bad. There were quite a few breath taking views to be seen, once we reached the higher reaches of the mountain. Almost near the top was a small, church with a small group of people who had reached there earlier. We met a 78-year old man who said he climbs the mountain every week, and volunteers for the upkeep of the church and the surroundings! Further up, at the peak there is this huge Cross which is the visible target for the people who climb the mountain. Destination reached, landscape photos taken, what better way to celebrate it than with a bar of chocolate and chilled water?

Fungus in your cheese ...

This happened in a small party in Singapore. One guy with a terrible cold and blocked nose took it and found nothing strange, one food loving chap took it with some initial surprise and difficulty but eventually finished it and the third could even swallow the first tiny mouthful of …….
The Blue Cheese of Roquefort(no points for guessing the food loving guy here..)

This is a special variety of strong smelling and tasting cheese, which can mean paradise for most French tongues and the paralysis of unsuspecting palettes from other countries. It’s not so difficult to understand such a reaction, if you can visibly see some grey-blue colonies of the fungi Penicillium Roqueforti eating through the insides of the cheese, in addition to the smell and strong taste. The earliest mention of this type of cheese was in 76AD loved by the Romans, and Casanova is said to have associated Roquefort cheese with Chambertin wine to seduce women! But since I have a special affinity to fatty food stuff of all kinds, this fromage (cheese) triggered my curiosity.

I visited the origin of this strange cheese, in a place called Roquefort, and in the insides of a set of natural caves owned by Société, on the top of a mountain, formed by geological perturbances. The conditions inside the caves are said to be a biological heaven for the fungi, with the precise temperature and humidity in which they thrive. There were certain windows in the rock structures called fluerines, through which the cold air blew inside the caves and circulated the volume of air inside.

But the ambience was certainly not for humans- outside the cave, at the time we went, it must have been about 25° C, and inside if fell sharply, bringing out the need for warm clothing, to 8° C ! So I had to endure the long lecture in French about the legend of Roquefort cheese (by a plump guy who seemed to feed exclusively on it) in hunger, darkness and continuous shivering. But fortunately at the end of the tour we were invited to taste samples of 3 varieties of the cheese, of increasing strength; I was not tasting it, but feasting on it. The souvenir that I bought from the place was completely edible- a portion of Société, Cave des Templiers, and Caves Baragnaudes kinds of cheeses.

But there was something with this species of fungi which delivered me an unexpected surprise later on. I enjoyed a pack of Roquefort cheese and kept it in the refrigerator. During the time, they were quietly getting used the ambience inside my fridge, and found it quite hospitable; and well stocked too! Anything else that was left uncovered in the fridge was seen as important stockpiles of calories to be inherited by the future generations of the fungi through their off-spring spores. So anybody who wants to develop a good immunity, just need to take a whiff from the grey-bluish green internals of my ice box!

Classic Calanques

The south-eastern coast of France to the east of Marseille is blessed with warm waters, sand and pebble beaches close to some amazing and massive rock structures bordering the sea, called Calanques. Scenic that these things are, the tourists just love them.

One of the weekends a colleague of mine, Christophe invited me over to his parents place in a village called Saint Cyr and I was only too glad to join him, to escape from the suffocating boredom of the hotel. Tophe, along with his wife Valerie, son Bastien and lovely little Amandine took me through a circuitous route driving up, and stopped in the middle to show me a cliff. Looking below the dizzying heights of the cliff, we saw stunning views of the sea, the town of La Ciatat and calanques of Cassis. It was nearly impossible to capture the depth of the cliff in a photo, even with wide-angled shots.

Tophe’s parents were a warm and friendly couple, with his mother being the Goddess of Home-made Desserts for a sweet-toothed disciple like me. After a sumptuous dinner and walk along the beach, I went to sleep without any expectations of the adventure filled weekend to follow.

Next morning saw us go on a long trek along the hilly coast, through some bushy forest area. Tophe and Valerie were quite athletic, and I was lagging behind them while seeing my well preserved calories being burnt away. Despite the desolate beauty of the place, it was a bit frustrating to see how some people had cleared some restricted forest area to have an unobstructed view of the sea from their sea-side homes. At end of the walk, we arrived at a beach where we were to meet the rest of the family.

Tophe handed me a pair of goggles and mouth pipe, and for the first time in my life I went for diving in the beach. For a poor swimmer who had marveled at the vibrant diversity of marine life only in TV channels like the Discovery or National Geographic, it was an ‘eye-opening’ experience. In the 2 days I dived a few times, saw some interesting fish and marine plants and gained in confidence. This inspires me greatly to explore the tropical waters in SE Asia.
After having tea made the Indian way (with milk, lottsa sugar and froth), the evening was ‘petanqued’ up, along with some more friends from ST. Late in the evening, we visited an ancient village Le Castellet with its houses of stone, and had dinner at with Crepes of Brittany- the French version of wheat dosai with topping.

On Sunday morning, I woke up at (an unearthly hour of) 6am, to accompany Christophe on a ‘hunt’ as an apprentice. He happens to be a serious diver with all the right gear, costume and harpoon to carry out fishing under water. On the way to his hunting waters we had to climb down a small cliff. I found that while Tophe we carrying his heavy equipment and walked like other homo-sapiens do; I was on all-fours for most of the descent! When he went into aqua-mode, I had all the time in the world to take quite a few abstract photos about joys of an amphibian existence. But I don’t remember the subtle meanings behind the images, when I see them in the computer now!

That afternoon, I was entrusted with the responsibility of at least 10 lives, by being asked to cook some Indian dish for lunch. The famous Indian spices company MTR, came to my rescue again, and I made some Puliodharai(tamarind rice) of varying spice levels, and the natives improvised by adding some coconut milk to the mix, to get a less pungent sauce for the kids.

In Love with the Louvre

Most people, who have read the novel “Da Vinci Code” for the first time, would probably feel an irresistible urge to visit the actual site of the events in the story- namely the famous museum in Paris- the Louvre. I too had similar interests but by the time I got a chance to visit the place, it was so overwhelming that I forgot the incidents in the novel altogether.

The general flow of events that could happen to a first time visitor like me is:
Great initial interest in the museum and careful observation of the first 20 or 30 works of art. Spend decreasing amounts of time with each exhibit like skimming the pages of a book.
By the time fatigue creeps in, discover that one has just reached the beginning of the best section.
After about half the galleries are seen, succumb to the sensory overload and return with streaming illusions of contrasting images, sculptures.

Its quite easy to take good looking photos here, since many of the exhibits are awesome and all you have to do is take photos. But that’s exactly what everybody else has in mind too; the biggest challenge is to take pictures without being dominated by the images of the countless tourists. The worst was the gallery which housed the Mona Lisa, was simply overcrowded with digital camera wielding paparazzi photographing it, while she seems to smile with a tinge of sarcasm at the admiring crowd.

But after this anti climax, we went around the art gallery containing medium size to HUGE paintings, and the play of lights and shades by the artists, and the emotions and expressions of the subjects gave most of them a photo like quality. We could have gone taking more photos as much as our cameras allowed, but the memory capacity in our brains were overloaded with the incredible images. it was time to move on, not to the next collections, but to other inspirations that Paris had to offer.