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The Dreamers that roam Sorbonne
Feb 22, 2009
(Photos copyright :Author.
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It was a time of transition when summer ends, and the City of Light readies for la rentree - the season of learning. As we made tracks from the metro to our room, the ‘pretty blonde with smiling eyes’, the Seine, was by our side, and Sorbonne University and its surroundings were bathed in late afternoon orange-yellow glow. The Place de Sorbonne had dancing fountains, and trees and statues with lengthening shadows. Presiding over the scene was a sleet and rain pelted bust of the 19th century Auguste Comte, the father of 'Sociology' – a striking figure much familiar to legions ofstudents Victor Hugo,
Jean Paul Sartre and Romain Rolland.
Behind Comewas 'Le Gap' shop, McDonald’s, a tobacconist, a pizzeria and abookstore, all neon-lit open to business. The bookstore, Libraire Philosophique, is unique. It is a philosophystudent's haven. It deals exclusively with philosophy books - medieval thinking to existentialism to logical positivism.
As we took in the scene, near by a gorgeous redhead sat engrossed in a book first released in the Paris of 1922 - James Joyce's Ulysses. ‘This ponderous modernist classic infused with 'puns, parodies and allusions' and other gymnastics of the English language,’ said a friend, ‘is like a rabbit hole. No matter how deep you go into the hole, there's still more to look at, more to marvel and more to shout about’. But is Ulysses as good a read in languages other than English? The girl tossed her head, took a long drag on her cigarette, and said, ‘Maybe I am not crazy smart to understand this book. But I get feeling Joyce is just f***ing with everybody in it’.
Such frankness, such avant garde views are not new to Sorbonne. Ever since it was set up in 1253 – initially for theological studies, it has seen rapid development so much so that it often overshadows other institutions in the area, making newcomers mistake it for the entire University of Paris.
One of the ‘leading lights’ at Sorbonne was a young poor Polish student, Marie Sklodovska. Around her, batch-mates went about gorging on chocolates and cheese and fine wines, and reading in heated rooms. She had none of these indulgences. Instead her pocket money went into studies and laboratory pursuits. In time the sacrifice paid off. She became a famous scientist. The discoveries of Radium and Polonium got her two Nobel prizes, and significantly added to the ‘general welfare of mankind and advancement of science’.
Besides brilliant scientific and academic advancements, the Sorbonne neighborhood has seen much action in its history. At different times, Attila the Hun, the Romans, and the Germans have attacked it. Yet through it all, the Parisii, the original inhabitants of the area have clung on to their homes. They feel they are blessed to have the divine protection of Geneviève, the patron saint of the 5th arrondissement and Paris.
Reading about such heroics in the historic Hotel des 3 Colleges, my mind went to the Nobel Prize winner of literature, Gabriel Garcia Marquez who had once stayed here - in the same room. I visualized him wandering around the foliage-filled old alleys nearby, into the Gibert Joseph bookstore, meeting up with interesting people, sizing up beautiful women, garnering ideas and inspiration for novels. Then rushing back to pen his thoughts. One result was the novel, 'No one Writes to the Colonel'.
Early one morning, I looked out of the garret with a skylight for a window. Pre-dawn light was yet to fall on the grand Pantheon dome and adjoining rooftops. Across the narrow alley, in rooms, table-lamps were on, students were at laptops, and in another window, in faint light, a girl had curled up on the carpet with a book on her face. From somewhere in the dark beginning of the day came the chimes of a church bell. As life began to stir around me, I was up and off, past the Sorbonne archway, in the direction of the bell chimes.
The chimes came from a quaint chapel with a graceful dome, the only remnants
of the original 12th century college era. Around me, the galleries and the sprawling campus had just three or four early stragglers. Nearby was Marie's favorite hang-out, the Library of Sainte-Genevieve, and across me were the damp statues of Victor Hugo and Pasteur, and behind them was a magnificent mural by Weertz celebrating a festival.
In the eerie quiet, I wondered about people in history – Voltaire, Molière, Thomas Becket, et al who had passed this way. Then my mind went to the 
legendary rogue, Francois de Montcorbier. This medieval student was in turn a thief, a rabble rouser, a poet, and a swashbuckling romantic - known to waylay innocents on the campus with sword and take what ever got his fancy – purse, jewelry, book or even a kiss off damsels. The prankster kept everyone on their toes either by masked appearances or by staring back at readers from tabloids with his latest shenanigans. In between, he worked the quill to great effect. When in or out of prison, he wrote ‘satiric humour, pathos and irony’ such as Petit Testament (1456) and Grand Testament (1461). The man remains today as one of France’s greatest poets and litterateur....enigmas and scoundrel.
Just as the 15th century Montcorbier fired popular imagination, Sorbonne’s political uproars and religious agitations have been constantly in the news. In recent times, the high rate of unemployment has fuelled wide-spread protests and show-downs with the establishment. Such happenings have been campus staple for long ... and fodder for the media. Film-maker Bernardo Bertolucci, for one, has used the students' angst of May 1968, as a backdrop in the movie, The Dreamers (2003).
Now to claim some fresh printer's ink, in the city where incidentally the first printing press was set up in 1469, is the story of a determined young thing on her way to a doctorate. As unemployment soars, rooming shortage and rocketing inflation dog life, the unnamed art philosophy student who is working a thesis on 'Amazons', the warrior women of the Iliad, has in sheer desperation, turned to porno-flicks to fund her studies! In what could well turn out to be a modern 'cause celebre', her mentor, Francois Aubral told Le Parisien, 'When the big cheeses at the University found out she was in X-rated films, they turned the other way. Their silence was scornful. But this girl is very sensitive and intelligent.'
Such stories abound in Sorbonne. The once staid, all-male theology college now has 25,000 students including many overseas students. The campus has witnessed many cataclasmic events from the great 1670 fire to its re-establishment as the Sorbonne by Napoleon in the 1806 to many student demonstrations. Amidst all this action, it has managed to retain its reputation as a university par excelle. A Sorbonne certificate continues to be highly regarded around the world. As students graduate and hundreds of freshers – potential Hugos and Curies pour in, it will be interesting to see how this ancient institution of learning takes on the challenges of the new millennium.
Sarson da Saga
Feb 16, 2009
The movie on TV had SRK and Kajol romping, singing in a field of golden hued mustard flowers. It wasn't the babe in tight outfit, dewy eyes that held his attention, though. It was the mustard plants that made him nostalgic for home.
That evening for dinner, he warmed up a can of instant sarson da saag and dreaming of maize flour makki di roti, he microwaved instead, corn-flour tortillas and lashed them liberally with margarine. It was the closest thing to home grub, and epicurean heaven.
Then one day, he happened on an old issue of Home & Garden with an article on growing mustard plants in a garden. It fired his imagination. Would they grow indoors? In the empty flat that belonged to a classmate who had had a skiing accident and was laid up in bed in faraway Switzerland , the experiments began. Using room heater and other devices, he found to his surprise, shoots formed and later yellow flowers. Ecstatic, he rushed the first harvest to an old sardani who he had met in the local Indian store. In spite of the gray hair and withered face, the old bird showed girlish enthusiasm and made sarson da saag for him.
The arrangement continued. Until someone in the apartment below noticed the leaking roof, and the Swiss buddy rang to say he was returning. The magic garden of mustard had to go. In quick time. On a Friday evening the old sardarani, got not the usual brown shopping bag but two large back-packs of the greens. 'So much,' she gasped. Using all the charm he could muster, he mumbled, 'It's good for health, naani'.
That was in 1997. After graduation he left Vancouver . By then ‘naani’s letters had stopped. In her last note she said she was off to the UK with family, and he lost track of her
Years later, the man now overtly grey in the beard and paunchy, looked startled when told the news story about a Leicester based Sikh lady celebrating her 105 th birthday who attributed her longevity to sarson da saag. 'Could it be possible?' he said, eyes bulging, putting down the beer mug, 'That it’s the same old bird…' After some silent reminiscing, more lager,' he said, 'Yaar, could it be her?' His friend replied, 'And how the heck am I to know that?'
There hangs a mystery. The Sarson da Saga.© Copyright - Author