Tempest

Thursday 28 June 2007

It happened to her

R did not entirely understand him. They had this vast cultural barrier and they spoke two different languages. English and well English. But his was unreasonable, tactless and insensitive. She didn’t quite get the ways of her in-laws to be and she hated the food that this new family of hers loved. All bread and leaves and loads of olive oil…ugggh! They thought she looked like a gypsy in those Indian ‘shirts’ of hers (that’s what they call my kurtas can you believe it?!). Where she was loud and joyous, he was quiet. Where she loved going for a movie on a Sunday, he preferred gardening in the backyard for hours. Where she loved candle light dinners in a lovely restaurant, he drank the night away in pubs with his bunch of friends who spoke his kind of English. She cribbed and complained and groaned and grunted. The wedding is in five months and M didn’t think she sounded happy at all. M told her so last night. At which point she smiled, sighed and said she had gotten lucky and had fallen by mistake into her old Cinderella storybook and by some stroke of luck the fairy Godmother had given her the Prince. M smiled her secret little smile then and continued smiling even while R told her there was no way in hell that she would marry this ‘obnoxious’ man.

Mind you she said this in French and spoke from France (which she didn’t let her friend forget for a moment through out the conversation) and she injuncted every odd line with ‘Les francais…ils sont betes!’ She loved calling them stupid. (I think it is something all us students who go abroad carry with us…I love calling the British stupid. I apologise for this rather rude public declaration but in my defense, I do say it with an ounce of affection).

Paris had been a rather shattered dream for R. She’d thought she’d come off with an amazing French experience, lots of French friends, a French love affair (she even confessed to having carried a few V.I.P Frenchies with her as gifts for those supposed beaux of hers, ‘T’wud have been so funny’ remarked R ruefully). But alas, Universite’ Paris Sorbornne turned out to be a French trench emanating French stench of Gucci, Yves Saint Laurent etc and not a single whiff of human warmth and acceptance. Sniff. Though she had learnt and lived French for the past five years she was still not 'gooood enufh' for them to mingle with. She was frustrated, lonely and miserable. Every time she’d try and strike a conversation with a fellow classmate all she’d get were ‘Pardon?’, ‘Quoi?’, and ‘Je ne comprend pas’ at which point poor R initially truly believing that they really didn’t understand her, endeavoured to explain yet again ‘Est’ce que…’ they’d cut her off with a polite ‘au revoir’, an even more polite smile and with a famous French pirouette turn and stalk off.

Oh the despair in beautiful romantic Paris. It was there all around her in the roads, in the chateaus, in the houses…it was everywhere that famed romance and charm of Paris. And so she roamed and explored the beautiful, delightful sights and tourist spots such as the grande Tour d’Eiffel and the beautiful Rue Moufftard, the Montmartre with artists sketching in splendour and took in the gasping beauty of these sights…all alone. ‘C’etait abominable!’ she cried! ‘If romance wouldn’t come hit me on the head in Paris, where on earth would it?’

And then it happened. It happened right there in that magically miserable city. She got hit on the head so hard she had to be revived with a French kiss! ‘Fine fine, it wasn’t a French kiss. Ok so it wasn’t a kiss at all. It was just a blow’, she said. ‘A what?’ asked her friend M in indignation. ‘Ha ha he blew on my face ever so lightly, so warmly, so…’ ‘Yeah yeah, so how did whoever he is get to start doing that?’ M interrupted impatiently. ‘Well he banged into me while I turned the corridor and I knocked my forehead against the wall, so he tried to be a gentleman and blew’ she replied and M could almost see her smug smile over the phone. (More like billowed she added later but then M who knew her so well was already smiling and sieving in only the information she fancied).

‘My prayers had been answered’, exclaimed R. ‘I think it was because I had finally stopped praying in French. I don’t think these arrogant (but oh so hot) French Gods respond to prayers from Indians’, she snorted. T was English and he was the new exchange student in her class for that year. And since both R and T were the only non-French students in class, they unfortunately had to make do with each others company.

Love happens in the funniest of places. It happened to them in spite of his British ‘larger than thou’ attitude and her Indian ‘we’re no less’ attitude. They made their peace on issues of colonialism, rascism, world politics, their first kiss was on agreeing that Tony Blair was ***** ummm lets just say hopeless, and accepted they were in love when he agreed that India was indeed a growing economy and the British economy was fast losing grounds in spite of being a part of the EU. (‘Gosh he groaned and groveled like a baby before saying that! Can you believe it?’ R still couldn’t get over it.) They fought because his English was unreasonable, tactless and insensitive. He never understood why she had this opinion after all the English are known for their diplomacy! She couldn’t digest his meals of all bread and leaves and loads of olive oil…ugggh. But then on one particularly drunk day he had exclaimed that her biryani was ‘outstandingly weird food’ and she’d in equal inebriety agreed to marry him, missing the real import of the statement.

And so M finally gets to see the world and see England for free because her now Indian born, Brit loving and French hating friend was getting married and settling down in London. She couldn’t stop smiling her secret smile for according to her she was benefiting more than anyone because of this Pan European romance. ‘An investment made well in time’ she said to herself and slept that night with dreams of the London Eye, Madame Tussauds and a secret smile on her lips. You see a long time ago M had given R the Cinderella storybook as a birthday gift.

Labels: fiction, love, serendipity

Posted by Pavitra :: 23:26 :: 6 comments