Metz Snippets

sparrows: Two days back, the people above our apartment threw down their fungused rotis from their window. At first we thought that giant mushrooms had sprung overnight with all the rains, littering the lawn with brown and cream dotted circles. On a closer look, I knew these were food rejects of humans. I looked up at the closed window above. Two days later, the rains have continued and softened these human fungi. Now flocks of fluffed up winter sparrows nibble on these - and fly to the cedar, when I creep for a closer look. Now, the silence is filled with chirps.

chinese food: Across from us, and a little down our corridor, live a bunch of chinese students. I have seen them a few times, fleetingly, closing the door, walking out, in and out of laundry room. But most of all, I know them through the smells. As soon as I step into the corridor, I am assailed by smells that emanate through their closed door. Intense, unmistakable smells of really good chinese food. I salivate, drool, pause and then move on. I have now resolved to cook better - good indian food. Today I made patties-chole with coriander-mint-tamarind chutney. Yummy…I wonder if these smell reach their noses too? Maybe I should open the door.

fort queuleu: is only a short distance from our current home, 2 km on google map.  The other day, we took a walk to there.  There is a dense green forested park inside the stone fort - very few people around, only a couple of cars parked. We crossed this family of four, returning with large sacks of tree logs. We were surprised, that one could remove wood from a public park; but we were really shocked that all the wood they carried had been cleanly sliced, clearly cut from trees. As we returned, we saw the family loading into a posh SUV and drive off. So this happens, also in France, and also by rich in France - same as in India, huh?

First Impressions:Images from Metz

First Impressions from France

We are on our way to Metz, France. At the Charles de Gaulle airport, Paris, we have a four hour layover:
I sit - a speck in a giant and mobile patchwork quilt - of fractured people and voices. Vaccuous silent bands mark inviolable spaces dividing people of different colors, races, language, culture, religion and style; it is a study of high contrasts, and separations, lacking an artist's touch of synthesis to create a vibrating and a living, whole.

It is Sunday. Everything is closed in Metz:
We are on a deserted planet - with wide empty roads, an occasional racing car, bus or an unbearable  rearing motorcycle. We walk closer together, than we have done since our youth, bonded by our strange mooring in this silent, sterile and non-peopled world.

Nature, on the other hand, revels in our enchantment and blooms, many thousand times over. Leaves hint at crimson and gold, swans glide, and a hundred birds take off in chorused flight - just for us.  We are hungry on only chocolate bars, coffee and pastry. Would die to have sambhar-rice. I buy an extravagant potted plant - purple-black Calle lilies now bloom in our tiny and barren studio apartment. I sleep hungry, but with a smile......... 1 Sept 2013........

After a First Week:

The population of Metz is 2 lakh. We have seen people now. Most smile and say "bonjour" without making eye contact. Restaurants and beauty parlors abound - including parlors for kids, and pets. I must say that people are really interesting to look at; everyone is so interested in practicing a personal style - from the ultra sophisticated and refined, to really weird and funky. People do seem to care very much about how they look, to others, and that makes them interesting to watch. Yesterday, we sat eating pizza with a rose wine, at a sidewalk pizzeria and watched people. We might be the only boring ones in this city. Today, I have kohled my eyes jet black and no longer feel a drab sparrow.

One could never successfully have such street side cafes in US, but one could in India.
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I was stopped on two consecutive days by security and asked to open up my bags..I try to not feel bad. Their racial prejudice is part of their job and profiling it requires of them. Yet, I consider that I do not look like a thief or even needy, by most standards. Maybe because I am so thin...? and not because I am brown? Clive used to laugh and say I looked like a famine victim from Africa.

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I enjoy wandering by myself. Have a sense of their land shape, soil color and texture, the unexpected dense copses of trees with dark mystery, the deeply interesting and forgotten cemetery with ancient gravestones, stained glass, ivy and flowers. In a over-organised layout, I search for dirt roads and shortcuts, sniff out abandoned cottage and still blooming poppies in mowed fields. I search under trees for sweet plums warmed by the sun - and pop them into my mouth, unwashed..ambrosia! Pears weigh down heavily and knock my head; orchards are filled with apples that no one wants.
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I am tired of all things complex and human...and "too much mind".  Visited the Pompidou Museum for Contemporary Arts...seems like so much thinking and analyses of all human processes. All the western psycho-analyses seem to be mere fabrications of bored minds - and then others analysing the original analyses, and so on...really, societies with too much time and too little to do - a veritable devils workshop. All this thinking, and still they continue to wage wars on real human beings, based on duplicity, lies and for profit and power. What has all this thinking really taught anyone?

I sit meditating on "No Mind"                      ............9 Sept 2013