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Montmartre through rose-tinted glasses
Oct 26, 2008
Early on a September morning, an efficient Métro hauled us northwards, across the Seine to the hilly Montmartre area. As we made tracks from the Pigalle station, neon signs of bars and night clubs and erotica twinkled tantalizingly over us. Rock music, classic Led Zepplin blasted out of an abruptly opened door. The visual and the brief audio interlude, confirmed we were bang in the centre of a delightfully ‘free-wheeling and decadent entertainment’ district. Then came the contra entries: three old Carmelitenuns striding business-like in the cold morning, old ladies in heavy make-up and head-scarves grumbling to each other, young mothers with strollers and walking children, middle-aged couples hurrying along with grocery bags from the supermarket that had the ubiquitous baguette and celery sticks.
In that brief first encounter, we had a fascinating introduction to the City of Lights. Before the short morning died on us, we went up a winding cobblestone path to shop-lined streets and a square filled with artists, and upwards on a pilgrim’s route to a point of the city where once cornfields and windmills flourished. There dramatically sitting on the summit, was the ‘frothy white architectural confection’ - the Basilique du Sacre Coeur.
In between, many enchanting scenes experienced in the movies and literature joyfully exploded from Lawerence Kasdan’s ‘French Kiss’ (1995), Woody Allen’s classic ‘Everyone says I love you’ (1996), Jean-Luc Godard’s ‘Breathless’ (1960), and Baz Luhrmann’s ‘Moulin Rouge’ (2001) the film adaptation of Verdi’s La Traviata to classical reads such as Guy de Maupassant’s Tombstones, Maurice deKobra’s The Place Pigalle and Iris Murdoch’s Nuns and Soldiers.
Reaching ground level from the Pigalle station, we moved on Boulevard de Clichy. Elegant, historic buildings lined the streets. At 10 in the morning, the neon lights burnt bright in the shadows of tall buildings. A five-storey building, Sexodrome came up on our left. On its shady exteriors, glowing in scarlet, were the timeless lures for sailors and adult tourists: ‘Salons Prives’, ‘Peep Shows’, ‘Live Shows’, ‘Cabarets’, ‘Sex Shop’ and other ‘sexually-oriented businesses including ‘scantily clad women of ill-repute’ operating out of side streets, to form what to many is the ‘alternate space for the Parisian culturati’.
We were on the walkway, in a foliage-filled median, waiting for the traffic lights to change. In front of us was a bevy of young girls in striped tops and short shorts, giggling. I whipped out the camera in an instant. But as dark, stern looks came from my female companions, I hurriedly trained the lens on a twirling windmill.
After first encountering that icon in Kolkatta’s Park Street, the real McCoy faced us. It is Paris’ oldest nightclub, The Red Windmill. Moulin Rouge seems smaller in real life than in the movies. The dance hall, built in 1885, continues with its ‘wild and colourful can-can shows’. The high-kicking routine pulls crowds by the busloads show after show. Old-timers say that they have seen better fare and that the present cabaret is devoid of the old joi de vivre, and expensive to boot.
On entering Moulin Rouge we found double doors to the hall were shut. The next show was scheduled for the evening. So we walked around the lounge, taking in posters, images on the walls, and fresco depictions of long legged dancers that catapulted viewers to the 1900’s and Henri de Toulouse-Lautree. As we got back on the street, thoughts of the great Edith Piaf came to mind. Wasn’t it in this very neighborhood that the singer soldiered on, battled hunger and the odds, before claiming a place in the sun?
As if paying a tribute to Piaf, an accordionist from a balcony nearby was playing La Vein Rose. Such soothing music, no doubt, filled the Montmartre air in the past too, and comforted young struggling artists of the time - Picasso, Modigliani, Dali, Monet, Manet, Degas, van Gogh, and Gauguin.
Discussing the perennial struggle of artists and the magic of music, we took the steep cobble-stone pathway en route to the top. We passed several quaint little houses including the one where van Gogh once resided, tiny eateries such as La Queue Du Chat and a canary-yellow painted Bistro Lepicurien. Out of breath by the climb and the sheer beauty – and history -- around us, we paused at an old shed-like windmill behind a tree at No. 1 Avenue Junot. It is one of the two windmills in Montmartre.
Fourteen such windmills once flourished in the agrarian community. With them, Parisians could always tell the direction of the wind. The air-powered machines pressed grapes and ground wheat for the elite market down the hill. The windmill in front of us was the 1622 Moulin de la Galette. Cheery music and peels of laughter, signs of an early afternoon party, flowed over the arched entrance. In the past such celebrations were generally associated with bumper harvests when buxom farm girls and their young men danced in the acacia-shaded courtyard. Such scenes, of the working class celebrating life, were the inspiration for many impressionist artists - particularly, Pierre Auguste Renoir.
From the Moulin de la Galette, we cut right, to the bustling Place du Tertre. Thesquare had scores of artists busy painting, sketching and selling their work. Around us were bistros with striped awnings and large colourful umbrellas, and cafes with red-table. In the square’s centre, under slender trees were scores of easels depicting French landscapes and even vignettes of Tertre. Sassy quick-draw portraitists, with berets, goatees and exaggerated French-English accent, were entertaining American tourists rather compiling portraits. But that’s touristy entertainment! For such reasons, guides say that the Square has lost much of its charm of the avant-garde days of 1875-1905. Yet, it is plain even to the untrained eye that some significant work of enduring beauty lies hidden in the heap that is the Tertre today, and like Piaf once, waiting for its moment.
Above the din and bustle of the bohemian Montmartre, playing hide and seek amid the foliage, was the gleaming white pointed dome of the Sacre Coeur.
Built by public subscription ‘as a gesture of expiation after the defeat of 1871 in the Franco-Prussian War’, Sacred Heart Basilica is located on the highest point in Paris. At its entrance, are huge bronze doors with the depiction of The Last Supper. Inside the somber, cavernous church are figures of Virgin Mary and Child executed by Gustave Brunet (1807-1896), elaborate golden mosaics, and a magnificent stained glass gallery. From the top, visitors get wonderful panoramic views of the city. Below, by the side of the bell tower, clinging to the hillside, are ancient crooked little lanes that have witnessed many a historical moment including their beloved city go up in flames.
To return to the Pigalle metro, instead of taking the popular, touristy Funiculaire de Montmartre, the cable railway, we walked down the basilica’s grand steps. On the steps scattered were groups of old women with cigarettes dangling from their lips selling fleurs de lilas, lilac flowers, young couples holding hands, parents playing with children, vendors selling ‘holy souvenirs’, and a boisterous group of karaoke singers. ‘Hey! Jude’ was in the air.
To capture the mood and the fleeting rose-tinted moment, on hand were painters and digital cameras. The white edifice and the shenanigans below it were being faithfully captured for ‘posterity’. So that on a later day, like Bogie and Bergman in Casablanca (1942), visitors will always have Paris!
Chicks with Pretty Voices
Sept 05, 2008
It’s a bright, beautiful morning in Delhi cantonment. We are taking tea in a small elevated garden and shooting the breeze. Flowers sparkle in the gentle sunshine. Across, on the lawns and trees and bushes and in the fresh air, green parakeets, Babblers, Tailorbirds with up-right tails, bush larks, and such are out in large numbers. Their cheerful notes make for a wonderful symphony.
I open the morning papers. The broadsheet has screaming headlines. Militants cross over the LOC. A young Bangalore army officer succumbs to enemy bullets. More innocents caught in the conflict and tension of the valley. Displaced Kashmiri pandits talk of their land and homes being taken over by extremists. 'So what's new?' goes my companion. I don't know whether it's a question or a remark. More birds fill the air, bushes and trees. Mynahs boldly come hopping, close to our feet rummaging for insects in the grass. A long tailed black Drongo swoops in front of us.
Interrupting the morning stillness and the birdsong are urgent, screeching sounds. A belligerent house crow is in hot pursuit of a screeching jet-black common koel. It is a noisy and angry chase. Why is the crow chasing the poor music producing bird? Didn't the veena maestro Chitti Babu fashion the koel's mellifluous notes into the hauntingly beautiful piece Kommalo Koila*? My companion observing the action, said, 'The chick with pretty voice is taking the crow for a ride this nesting season. The cuckoo that you see being chased is actually a scheming bird. It has provoked and distracted the crow, so that its mate can lay an egg in the crow's nest. Not just that, the femme fatale will destroy the crow's eggs. In time, the wide-mouthed koel hatchling will get priority in the food-chain! That's what's happening, old chap!' Aghast at what I heard, and without a Salim Ali or a Ranjit Lal around to throw light on the conflict, I stood, confused in my crushed kurta-pajama, watching the social tensions of the avian world.
As we got ready to leave the garden, to prepare for the day, my companion said, 'Happens all the time in nature, and around us. Don't we all get fooled by chicks with pretty voices? So what's new?'
*To listen to the Carnatic light classical instrumental by veena maestro Chitti Babu open:
http://www.kannadaaudio.com/Songs/Instrumental/home/ChittiBabu-CarnaticVeena.php
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