City of Romance, full of Contradictions

When I look Paris through the window of India House

Sorry folks, it is not the fault of tiger while uploading the image. Of course the question in your mind will be, then why you put the photo of eiffel tower like this?. To get the answer you must go through this article.

Before coming to France, the picture of Paris in Tiger’s mind was straight forward, hence the eiffel tower too. But how and when the things came upside-down, it was not happened accidentally, but a deep study of the life of the residents of Maison de l’Inde (India House) made me so.

I dont know where exactly I have to start explaining the incidents changed tiger’s view. Before that I want to give the (upside-down) disclaimer “All characters, names and places depicted in this article are NOT fictitious but real, any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, are NOT coincidence but purely intended[1]“. Now let us go ahead to see different kind of people in India house, and how they changed the picture of Paris in tiger’s mind.

In the morning, If you watch the residents of India house, going out, well dressed with clean suit and tie, you might be thinking how decent this guys are. But you will find how decent most of them are, if you go to the Cité universitaire[2] station. There you can see many of this gentlemen struggling to intrude into the platform, jumping across the ticket validation system[3], so as to save the ticket fare.

A scene from a malayalam movie flashing in my mind while thinking about these guys. There, a gentleman in formal suit and with a good looking briefcase in his hand, is asking to the auto-riksha drivar “do you accept credit card?”, when he answered “no”, he opened the briefcase as if he is taking money, but the only thing inside is some outdated fish !!!.

Another type of people, who has nothing to do in Paris, still stay in maison de l’Inde, paying 480 Euros per month. At night this people will approach other residents ecstatically, to tell them he has saved about 5 euros by bidding in “ebay” through internet. Then people get to know that, for this purpose only, he is sitting in his room round the clock, with door locked and phone disconnected. But he is forgetting the 16 euros he paid as the rent every day. Tiger is not getting the logic behind the economics of spending 16 euros to save 5 euros.

Next is the most interesting charecter that I have ever seen. This fellow is in dieting, who is not supposed to eat anything for dinner except some vegetable salad. However he cannot leave the tasty chicken biriyani, at the same time he want to keep dieting. The solution he found is excellent. First, he eat one or two plates of chicken biriyani, then go to wash basin and vomit it out by inserting finger into throat. Then he will eat the salad as the doctor said. Ah..what a beautiful idea!!!.

Some are very special, they are not using ORKUT because their ethics is not allowing them to peep into others privacy. Principle is great and we must respect them since they are more concerned with moral values, that are vanishing from the modern world. However you will be exclaimed to see this people visiting almost all the orkut profiles of girls/boys using the orkut ID of their friends or even their partners !!.

There is a group of great people, talking too much about cultural deterioration in the society, they use all energy to voice their concerns against the semi-nak ed dress culture in western community. But they are spending most of their time at night, watching the same or worser things in internet, and at day time, they go to park, only to enjoy the same culture.

Tiger invite your attention to a bar, where, two Muslim friends are asking the waiter, about the chicken provided with the beer[4], whether that chicken is halal[5] or not. The above mentioned type is not much different from these two.

I am summing up by explaining another class, like the one, staying in 418, if you visit their room on sundays they will be busy with polishing shoes, ironing dress and doing facial, But they will not wash their undergarments for one month!.

I hope this is more than enough for you to get, why the photo of the centerpiece of Paris, looks upside-down in this article.

© Yasar K
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Notes:

[1]- To my dear friends in India house, I hope you will take this with a sportsman spirit. If you have any objection please let me know through my email ID.
[2]- “Cité Universitaire” is the Metro/RER station serving Cite Universitaire campus and suroundings.
[3]- To enter a platform in Paris metro network, you have to insert the ticket/pass in the validation machine, at the entrance to get the door opened.
[4] – All alcoholic drinks are strictly forbidden for muslims, this will help you to get the logic of this story.
[5]- A meat is treated as ‘halal’(lawful for muslims), if the animal killed, by cutting neck, in the name of god. You may click HERE for more details.