THINGS I LOVE ABOUT INDIA #5 BOUNDARIES

16 janvier 2012 by a*urélie

More than crossing borders, traveling is about pushing boundaries and twisting all the lines. Discovering India has to be a radical illustration of the process for it is such a physical, emotional and spiritual shock.

At the simplest level, when I get a dirty cup at a café now, can I reasonably ask for a cleaner one, after eating on banana leaves in dodgy restaurants for weeks?

After being followed so many times by random men on Indian streets, bearing with really insistent looks and being asked innumerable tactless questions – not even mentioning the obsession of the teenage boy in the family house where I was staying in Mysore for the details of my schedule and meals: « Coming from? », « Eaten what? »… – can I tell anybody off?

After seeing so much perfection in the most chaotic environment, can I have expectations and preferences?

So now what with cleanliness, intimacy, safety, comfort, beauty, etc.? The list of blurred limits is endless. Travel broadens the mind. It does not make it numb, clueless or indifferent. It does reconcile sharp and fuzzy. It frees you from what closes in on you.

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PONDICHERRY TOP 5

11 janvier 2012 by a*urélie

#1 (Love) Hotel
I was staying at Park Guest House (which is, like many accommodation options, managed by Sri Aurobindo’s ashram, the spiritual center of the city): beautiful view on the beach, peace and cleanliness for 6 to 8 euros a night.
Don’t expect to be warmly welcomed but your room’s name might make up for it.

#2 Fashion (faux-pas)

I used the laundry service at the guest house. A guy threw my dirty clothes on the floor and started sorting them out by genre, to tell me how much it would cost. It took him a while to decide that all my pants and shirts should be classified as… pajamas and my dress as a nightgown! Message to my ego.
I got all this nightwear back the next morning, nicely packed in newspaper with my room number carefully sewn on each piece. And I strutted Pondi’s streets all day long in the ultimate evening fashion.

#3 Saturday night (fever)

The beach front (Goubert Street) is very lively on the weekend. It is enjoyable to watch Indian families chilling by the sea. As I was walking back to the guest house after dinner, I could enjoy a free concert by the promenade. Every second Saturday of the month, the city sponsors a show to entertain the Pondicherrians. On that particular night, the crowd was a mix of teenagers, old men, tourists and metal-heads cheering a gothic rock band. Unexpected!

#4 (Happy) Meals
Pondicherry is famous for offering delicious food, thanks to the multicultural heritage of the city.
My favorite places were Surguru restaurants (there are 2) where I had my first lacha paratha (a multi-layered type of bread); Hotel Aristo, for its name and rooftop more than for the curry; and Baker street, for the handsome hippie guys having breakfast there and the perfect French of the salestaff.

#5 Jewels
The muslim quarter: the quietest part of the city, with hardly any traffic – such a relief after running for my life in Bangalore. And beautiful, colorful houses.
The jewellers’ district: one evening I lingered in this area where competition is tough. The contiguous stores all look the same. Customers sit at a long counter in a corridor shining with massive gold pieces. I had never seen as much gold in my life as I saw in India.
Another jewel was the Kailash bookstore, recommended by their greatest fan, miss C*. Kailash publish beautiful books in French and are specialists of Asia.

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THINGS I LOVE ABOUT INDIA #4 CHEESE

10 janvier 2012 by a*urélie

Not talking about paneer, rather about the refreshing naivety of certain aspects of Indian society. Although reality is more complex than what meets the eye, I enjoyed letting myself be tricked by what appeared as romance and simplicity.

Advertising baselines on billboards, like « Smile today and keep smiling tomorrow », have made me conscious of how sophisticated marketing has become in the West. I was delighted to discover the video-clips that must be the source of inspiration for Japanese karaoke song’s background images.


I have felt rude disturbing the (moderate) intimacy of young couples whispering at the top of some touristy hills and cynical when discussing the intertwined concepts of love and marriage with Indian friends. These conversations have evidenced for me that some people in our confusing world are still playing by the rules. Which rules? Well, gender for example. Women wear flowers in their hair and ride sidesaddle at the back of scooters. Men with a moustache don’t read Fantastic Man but do open coconuts with a machete.


A romantic highlight of my stay was the Mysore Palace illuminations. On Sunday evenings, entrance is free and the facade is lit up with thousands of tiny bulbs from 7 pm sharp until 8. A small orchestra plays hardly audible music (no amp). Indian families, couples and tourists squeeze on motorbikes and in rickshaws to come witness the light show. Once in front of the crowd barriers, they look thrilled. Their hair shine with coconut oil and smell of jasmine flowers. They take group pictures and probably share cotton candy when it is over. Glycemic shock.

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THINGS I LOVE ABOUT INDIA #3 SERVICE

9 janvier 2012 by a*urélie

Amruth coffee store, at opening time, a few hours before sunrise.


One man is behind the cash register, hidden behind plastic boxes full of ragi biscuits. A young one, half asleep, is throwing buckets of water on the street in front of the shop. A third guy is boiling milk and getting the first saucepan of chai tea ready.

« Good morning. Can I have a masala chai please? (Chai with ginger)
- Yes ma’m. »

A few minutes later, I get a tiny, burning hot glass, filled with milk tea.
After tasting it and finding out that they forgot to add ginger in:

« Excuse me, this is not masala chai, is it?
- No it isn’t Ma’m. »

Well, well…



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THINGS I LOVE ABOUT INDIA #2 ABSURD AGAIN

8 janvier 2012 by a*urélie

For some reason I ignore, restaurants in India are called hotels. They serve local meals and more often than not Chinese dishes.
According to the time of your order, only certain sections of the menu are available. For example, from 7am to 11am, you can have plain idli (a kind of steamed pancake made of lentils and rice). After 5pm, you can have rava idli (same but made of wheat, semolina and flavored with ginger, cashews, coriander, etc.) But between 11am and 5pm, don’t even dream of ordering idli.

Plain idli served with chutneys and sambar

Anyway, my friend Sarah and I have had a few early dinners at Hotel Shivaprasad, a simple restaurant at the center of Mysore. It is opened on a (rather) calm street, serves good dosas and the waiters would always give us the same table which made us feel at home. The only annoying thing was that they would also consistently try and make us pay more than we owed. We would generally settle the (soft) argument with the cashier giving us some candies instead of change. But one evening, after we had complained that the check was wrong again, the waiter disappeared with the menu for a few minutes and came back with a new one, on which prices had been corrected with stickers! We were laughing, but he was not joking!

Dedicated to THE Canadian trio, with whom Sarah and I had the best rickshaw ride to Shivaprasad.

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THINGS I LOVE ABOUT INDIA #1 ABSURD

7 janvier 2012 by a*urélie

I am back from a month and a half in India, where I took a lot of bad pictures with a lomo and recorded my daily adventures in a diary… Enough material to bore you readers ♥ to death, at least until the end of the world, should it come next December. But worry not, I don’t feel like going into that much detail about the trip just now. I guess the experience needs to mature within myself first. I hope that the anecdotes to follow will make you want to start reading again regularly though… that is if I start posting assiduously, now that I have the tools handy.

One thing I have enjoyed, although it has also driven me a bit crazy sometimes: THE SENSE OF THE ABSURD (or rather, the absence of it)

Sample conversation at the confectioner’s:

Standing in front of a large choice of unidentified delicacies, I had decided to make an informed choice that day…

Pointing at the window where various square-shaped sweets were on display, I asked:

 » Can you tell me what this is made of, please? – This is made of milk, Madam. – Hum. Ok… And how about this? – This is made of milk, Ma’m. – Oh! So what is the difference between those? – Well one is kesar badam and the other is kalakand. – … Apart from the way they are called, isn’t there anything special that could help me choose? – In these kesar badam, there is rasgulla. – And what is rasgulla? – Rasgulla is rasgulla. »

So I bought a kesar badam with rasgulla on that day and a kalakand another time…They are indeed the same type of Indian sweets called barfi. Badam means almond and rasgulla is a cheese ball soaked in syrup… 2000 calories a mouthful! I was really happy to get to taste some of these « sweetmeats » I had read about many times in the Autobiography of a yogi without picturing what they were.

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HAPPY NEW YEAR!

5 janvier 2012 by a*urélie

I am back!

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WHITE LIES 2

2 novembre 2011 by a*urélie

Now, following up on this thought I had after visiting the Diane Arbus retrospective, a word about Giacometti and the Etruscans at the Pinacothèque. I have no passion for ancient objects, unless something tricks me into seeing them as live beings. The exhibition is really good in that way. The confrontation of the sculptor’s work, which I love, with that of the ancient civilization is cleverly set up, well explained and exciting.

About Giacometti’s art, one of the boards explains the theory that what matters to sculpt a shape is the space that is hollowed out. Nothing new but these days I am definitely feeling how one needs emptiness to feel fullness. Silence to hear words. Blank spaces for well-defined lines. Rest for adventures. Loneliness for social activity.

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STREET POETRY

1 novembre 2011 by a*urélie

A few days ago I spoke with this guy on the street who asked me if I were adventurious. Now I would like this word to enter in the dictionary. How efficient a definition of who I hope to be, at least for the next month and a half!

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INTERVIEWS 2

1 novembre 2011 by a*urélie

Following up on this, you can read here a new interview I have just done for studiohomme.com.
Giuseppe Zanotti is exclusively selling his first collection for men there. Go check it out, you my fashionable male friends!

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