#106 Gare du Nord- Suketu Mehta
This is a year-in-the-life type of piece. The year is 1982,
the place is Paris, in the immigrant heavy part of town. Everyone visiting,
fleeing, transient or making the best of somewhere that wasn’t home. It was a
romantic, unanchored ship floating with the current.
“It was not a pretty area, and the noise of trains and cars
consumes the neighborhood from an early hour. But maybe what keeps the
immigrants in the area is the knowledge that the very first door to home is
just there, in that station, two blocks away. The energy of travelers is
comforting, for it makes us feel that the whole world, like us, is transient."
There is a small indian café that serves masala dosas run by
a Vietnamese man. “Nobody in this Café
was there by design; we were all in transit.” It was filled each day with the
same people
“There were people who come to Paris and never visit the
Louvre or the Eiffel Tower. We were like that.”
This is a nice representative story, with a gentle flowing
style, sometimes strikes a very touching chord:
“He said something to her, very softly, so that only she
could hear, and she put her arm up and touched his shoulder. Many worlds met in
that gesture, vast distances were shattered. That light touch was more intimate
than the most passionate embrace, and all of us, the spectators, felt our
hearts breaking.”
Notable Passage: “The afternoon sun came slanting and
sneaking into the apartment, coloring our thoughts insidiously.”
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