Metro Plus
Bangalore
Chennai
Coimbatore
Delhi
Hyderabad
Kochi
Madurai
Mangalore
Puducherry
Tiruchirapalli
Thiruvananthapuram
Vijayawada
Visakhapatnam
GOING NATIVE
The land of many tales
|
Julien Bouissou finds India a place of hundreds of stories
|
Photos: V. Sudershan
At the wheel Julien Bouissou in New Delhi
“Being a journalist in France was boring for me…maybe because I was French.” The search for something different led Julien Bouissou to India. He first came to India in 2003 to work with a French company in Mumbai. Subsequently, he became a journalist for the respected Le Monde — “The Hindu of France,” as he puts it — and has been with it nearly three years. He is currently based in Delhi.
We meet at Choko La. The truffles there remind him of Café Angelina in Paris. Even Marcel Proust is said to have favoured its fine chocolates. He might still long for the chocolates out of nostalgia, but in India he has found bliss. Bouissou recalls that the famous French journalist La Couture once said that every age has a special place. If it was America in the ’60s and ’70s, it’s India and China at the start of this century.
In France, the news is predictable, he says. “Everything is static there. There are a few strikes. And little else to report on. They say if Napoleon woke up in his tomb, he’d be able to find his way home. Nothing has changed!”
India however is constantly bombarding him with surprises. As a journalist, he has followed the “Gulabi Gangs” of Bundelkhand. He has travelled with Dominique Lapierre through Kolkata. He has scrutinised the workings of Mollywood. He doesn’t feel disadvantaged at being an outsider. “If you are used to something you become accustomed to it. I had to move to India to appreciate the architecture of Paris!”
He chooses to revel in the “in-between-ness,” of being a part of India and France. “My country is not my identity,” he insists softly. Instead, he feels that his identity is a collage of his different experiences. His family now finds him Indian, he says. Why? “Because I talk about arranged marriages,” he says with a chuckle. “Maybe I’ve become more conservative!”
He appears to be in total earnest when he says, “I might stay my whole life here…I don’t know as yet…but I might.” He does miss his friends back home, though. And reveals that every time he meets his young niece who was born after he moved to India, it is as if two strangers are meeting.
His favourite place in Delhi is Humayun’s tomb and the best times here are spent with Indian friends. He grudges Delhi for having no space to walk and he squirms at being branded a “firang.” He continues to miss the Paris nights, but an overcast Delhi summer day brings a smile to his face.
NANDINI NAIR
nandini@thehindu.co.in
Printer friendly
page
Send this article to Friends by
E-Mail
Metro Plus
Bangalore
Chennai
Coimbatore
Delhi
Hyderabad
Kochi
Madurai
Mangalore
Puducherry
Tiruchirapalli
Thiruvananthapuram
Vijayawada
Visakhapatnam
|
