I grew up in Paris. Many years later, this experience continues to earn me oohs and ahs: It must have been so… exotic! Cool! Parisian! I never know what to say in response. I mean, all I did was grow up. I rode the Metro and went to the movies a lot. I had long school days and lots of homework. After high school I came to the US, and for better or for worse have stayed here ever since.
It seems that by leaving so soon I missed all the fun:
IN “Weekend in Paris” Molly Clearwater, a 21-year-old British secretary with long blond hair and gorgeous breasts, impulsively sheds her dull life in London and heads to Paris, where she finds “a dizzying carousel ride of passion, excitement and self-discovery.”
In “Paris Hangover” Lauren Klein, a 34-year-old New Yorker with long blond hair and gorgeous breasts, abandons her glamorous job as a fashion consultant, gives up her TriBeCa triplex and plunges “into the mysterious world of Gallic men.”
And in “Salaam, Paris,” a Bollywood version of the story, Tayana Shah, a sheltered 19-year-old Indian Muslim with long legs and gorgeous breasts, arrives in Paris to meet the man to whom she is betrothed, becomes a supermodel and finds true love.
Since all these stories are clearly based on common real-life experiences, I am left to conclude that had I stayed in Paris, I too could have become a mysterious Gallic man, my life’s work devoted to the emotional liberation of perfect-chested beauties from multiple continents. I suppose it would have made a worthy career, but hey, so is blogging. Life is about choices.
Still, I wanted to learn more about Miss Shah. Who is the literary mastermind who brought this creature to life? Why, it’s old friend Kavita Daswani, whose prior oeuvre includes The Village Bride of Beverly Hills and For Matrimonial Purposes, of which one SM regular’s concise review follows:
I’ve read For Matrimonial Purposes. (don’t ask)…vomit!
Now I don’t mind a little chick-lit. I unabashedly enjoyed the original Bridget Jones. Salaam, Paris intrigues me, if only to see the treatment of the city of my youth, even if it bears as much relation to the actual Paris as my current ghetto surroundings do to Carrie and Miranda’s New York City.
Desi reviewer Reeta Sinha gives Salaam, Paris the business, however:
Kavita Daswani seems to know a bit about stereotypes. Her first book, For Matrimonial Purposes, was full of them and things havenÂ’t changed much with this, her third and most recent work. If anything, the storyline provides room to expand, adding stereotypes about Muslim women to the usual desi chick-lit mix of arranged marriages, overbearing parents and the promise of glitz, glamour and happiness as soon as you leave India. …
ItÂ’s hard being a virgin, teetotaler supermodel, flitting between New York, the Caribbean and Paris, pretending to be hooked up with a rock star and being mauled by her handlers. ItÂ’s even worse when in between raking in fame and money, all you want to do is see your grandfather. … AllÂ’s well that ends well, of course. A fairy godmother in the form of an aunt helps Tanaya reconcile with her dying (of course), grandfather and Prince Charming does finally show up and they live happily ever after, in Paris (of course). …
Every imaginable cliché about Muslims and western perceptions has been thrown in, sadly, quite casually. So, you have references to RushdieÂ’s fatwa, four wives (Tanaya clarifies that sheÂ’s an Indian Muslim, not an Arab), she explains sheÂ’s not the “terrorist kind” when asked if sheÂ’s Muslim…
In conclusion, Sinha says:
But, then this is a beach-read. A fantasy. No bearing to the real world or real people whatsoever.
Or, as Entertainment Weekly puts it (via Amazon):
The culture-clash dilemmas ring heartbreakingly true.
SPLITTER!
Kobayashi,
(1) r.e. #25, well said, yaar. My sentiments exactly.
(2) r.e. #32, you have set off something brilliant. I humbly implore y’all to write some of this down – especially in light of the whole Newkyoolur / Mango thang– and do something with it as a performance piece!
I say this because the Fruitian nature of this thread inspired me to look up something I once heard on This American Life in which a Second City comedienne presents America as a young socialite organizing “a little coalish” (Of the Willing, that is). She calls various strategically significant countries in turn, beginning with Pakistan (“Hi, Pakistan? Hi, itÂ’s America! How are you! Oh my gawd, I almost didnÂ’t recognize your voice itÂ’s been so long! Listen, I was just getting together this little coalition…” and “Ah! just wondering if you could bring full exchange of intelligence and use of ports. No big thing if you forget! Mwah!”) then moving on to India (“So howÂ’s Kashmir…? YouÂ’re kidding, no! ThatÂ’s yours isnÂ’t it?!”), Iran (“God, it feels so weird to talk to you again…It was just one of those things where it was easier to stay away and repair myself a little bit…”), China, and so forth.
I can’t do justice to it here but you can download if for free at thislife.org by putting “How to Win Friends and Influence People” into the search box. ‘Keep In Touch’ (the name of the aforementioned segment) occurs about 25 minutes into the show.
Let the word go out to every man, woman and child:
Slay the mangoes wherever you may find them, and drive them out until the Earth is purified of their unclean presence. Slay the forbidden fruits wherever they occur, and take them captive, and besiege them, and prepare for them each ambush. O warriors ! Strive against the mangoes ! Be harsh with them. Their ultimate abode is the pickle jar, a hapless journey’s end. Smite their roots and tear out their stone-cold hearts until they are diced into nicely-shaped cubes or pulped into a refreshingly frothy drink. Let not the pure fruits take the mangoes for their friends in preference to pure fruits. Strike fear into their hearts, that they will submit in battle until the whole world is united and free without their blasphemy. Lo, a day will come when even the trees will say “There is a mango behind me, come slay him”.
One World. One Fruit. No Mangoes.
People, The comments on this post are downright juvenile and silly; your collective failure to remain decorous stinks like rotten Jackfruit!
Aha, a mango sympathiser — an apostate and heretic. Show the infidel no mercy. And Alphonso knows what is best for all things.
Mangostan Murdabad !
Jai:
Your text sounds familiar.
I accuse Jai of being the diabolical creator of SpoorLam!
Emile Zola,
I assure you that I am not the mysterious and heinous criminal mastermind SpoorLam.
About the Indian diaspora in France, it’s not that small anymore. I guess many things have changed in twenty years. I’m from Canada, and in my hometown, there was a heavy Punjabi and North Indian influence, in terms of establishments: stores, restaurants, membership in associations, etc. When I first got here and found an Indian store, I asked for methi and he said ‘quoi?’ The South Asian diaspora here is mostly Pakistani, Bangladeshi, Srilankan, and Tamilian from the Indian side. I found great ingredients in the Indian store that I hadn’t seen before!
Siddhartha, yes it’s still the 10th for all things South Asian – mostly between Gare du Nord and Bd La Chapelle. . If you haven’t been to Paris in a while, you might be surprised to see rue du Faubourg St. Denis and the area – it’s full of saree shops, South Asian grocery stores, restaurants, fast food places, young South Asians just ‘hanging out’ etc. As for literature, besides travel-experiences type books by Alexandra David-Neel etc, I haven’t come across any fiction by the francophone South Asia, but I haven’t really been looking either. I’ll let you know if I come across anything.
Oh, and one more thing: VIVE LA MANGUE!!