Off to Paris

If God had really intended men to fly, he'd make it easier to get to the airport. ~George Winters

After months of planning and indecisive confusion, followed by an extremely hectic session of shopping and packing, I was ready to move. We reached Indira Gandhi International Airport at 9 pm on 11th May 2009.

IGI is an interesting place, though I have not seen many airports in my life either. But there was something in the airport that reminded me of the chaos seen at Railway stations.......Few terminals, fewer indications and still fewer places to sit.............just a crowd of madmen walking hither-tither without having the slightest idea of where were they headed to.........looked as if one whole world had been compressed into a small space and all the outlets have been sealed.........But anyways, I helped myself up to the Air France counter and managed to get my boarding pass after some unwanted embarrassments - by mistake I stepped on the conveyor belt used to move the check-in luggage and ended up playing hide and seek with gravity and my center of mass for the next few seconds.

So after this interesting spectacle, I went into the queue for immigration and that was where my first true global interaction started.......A Dutch girl was struggling with her bags while standing in the queue, and she was lucky enough to find a helping hand in me who himself was in struggle with his luggage.......perhaps this struggle generated in us a feeling of compassion towards each other, and as the flight still had a few hours to go, we found enough time to indulge in a nice chat......She seemed to be in love with India, and deeply regretted that she couldn't go to Varanasi. She also suggested me to go to Amsterdam(which I was going to do anyways!), and see Netherlands closely. We talked about India, its temples, and its mountains, and she was emotional that she had to leave this wonderful country so soon. I was emotional too, but for a different reason - I was going to Paris man!! So after exchanging our emotions and ideas, we had to part ways, and the lovely Dutchess went to board her KLM flight.

By that time, I could see several more familiar faces waiting for their flights. Finally, Phoney also came, walking like a drunkard with his usual careless attitude . Soon it was the time for the flight, and hey, there it was - the Air France Airbus which was to take me across the skies to the loveliest city on the planet. We boarded the plane and soon after it was off in the air, amidst the clouds, leaving Delhi behind me for the next three months. From that height, Saddi Dilli looked like a beautiful bride bathed in a sea of lovely lights; it was incredibly amazing, and sowed in me the first seeds of nostalgia.

The flight was nice, and the cabin crew tried hard to speak good English; nevertheless, they made us quite comfortable during the journey. I woke up early in the morning to catch a view of the clouds, and God, that was simply breathtaking - My plane sailing in that vast ocean of clouds. The TV screen indicated that we were flying over Budapest. Soon we crossed Bratislava and Vienna, and I could see below me the soaring peaks of the Austrian Alps emerging out of that sea of clouds.

And then, then my first acquaintance with the city of lights, the capital of fashion as much as the capital of France - PARIS!! It looked so awe-inspiring from the top, with the Seine meandering through the city center and creating a spectacle of extreme beauty.........I was finally in Paris.! We landed at the Charles de Gaulle airport, and trust me, its simply HUGE. It took us some time to cross the immigration counter and take the tickets for RER-B, the Paris suburban train.

I was loaded with 38 kgs of luggage and it was getting difficult to manage. But the excitement of being in Paris combined with the comfortable public transport infrastructure of the city made me feel at ease and we were soon speeding past the town in the Metro. My first impression of the city was essentially centered around its people. They looked extremely fashionable, and their dressing sense was amazing. The ladies were incredibly beautiful, though the men couldn't get much attention from my side, for obvious reasons! After an hour, we came out at the Orsay Le Guichet station with our truckloads of luggage.

Marie Jeanne had asked us to wait outside the station and give her a call, and it was this situation that gave us our first lesson in France - Its not only difficult, but almost impossible, to survive in France unless you speak french.