The French capital has a well-established, if rough-edged Little India. Elaine Sciolino takes a walk — and a look, sip and taste.
There are times when Paris is touched by other cultures. The touch may be temporary — like a spritz of perfume. Or it can open up a world hiding in plain sight.
This is Paris’s India moment.
In December, Karl Lagerfeld took inspiration from India for his Paris-Bombay collection for Chanel, which included Nehru jackets, sweaters that draped like saris and opulent beading and embroidery. “Paris-Delhi-Bombay,” a show of 50 Indian and French artists, was the Centre Pompidou’s most ambitious exhibition of the year. On January 27, the Petit Palais museum will display nearly 100 paintings and designs by Rabindranath Tagore.
There’s shopping, too. Mandalas, a boutique, is Indian-Tibetan. For Euro30, you can buy drop earrings from Jaipur. At Le Cachemirien, Rosenda Meer sells cashmere. A shawl is Euro1,500.
Yet if you know where to look, there is a more complex picture of Indian Paris. In 1674, on behalf of Louis XIV, the French negotiated a trading post at Pondicherry. The region sent a small number of Tamils to Paris, who were joined by other Tamil refugees after Indian and Sri Lankan independence (with Punjabis, Bengalis, Sikhs and Gujaratis to follow). More came to France in the 1980s after Britain made immigration harder. A pocket of Paris became “Little India”.
The neighborhood is rough-edged, working-class and authentic. When you emerge from the Metro, you don’t want to look like a tourist. If gritty urban settings leave you skittish, call Poonam Chawla. She will guide you through the neighbourhood. She runs a cooking school specialising in north Indian cuisine, from her apartment.
The first time I visited the neighborhood, I came for colourful metal bangles. (About a dozen bangles make perfect napkin rings.) I passed shops selling Bollywood DVDs at bargain prices and Indian tailors, food shops, restaurants and travel agencies offering cheap flights to India.
I found the bangles in the sari and costume jewellery shops that dot the Faubourg Saint-Denis, the main street. These are busy shops that cater to brides-to-be, and many are not accustomed to curious Westerners. But Chennai Silks is welcoming. Saris there start at Euro25 and go up to the hundreds for a fine beaded and embroidered one. Indian Designs dazzles with its wall of costume and real necklaces and earrings, and offers more than 150 patterns of bangles, hundreds of saris and embroidered pajamas for men and women. When it’s not too busy, Abdul Aziz Ansari, the owner, will show you around.
VS CO Cash & Carry is a large grocery with mysterious vegetables and half a dozen kinds of eggplant. Anglo-Saxon-style baking powder is hard to find in Paris, but here it is sold in kilo-size tins. I left with cardamom tea and bottles of curry paste and chutney.
Want your eyebrows threaded for only Euro7? Your hand hennaed? Try the Centre de Beauté Indien. Dass Ponnoussamy, who owns the shop with his wife, Stella, is full of wisdom about the area. His father, Antoine, opened the first grocery store nearby 40 years ago. The florist Hibiscus Fleurs flies in fresh jasmine packed in ice from Chennai. You pin it in your hair and suddenly you exude a purer scent than Chanel No. 5.
At noon is a ceremony at Temple Ganesh, on a side street a few blocks from the commercial area. Non-Hindus are welcome. Leave your shoes at the door and buy a basket of coconut, banana and betel leaf for Euro8 to make a traditional offering. The ceremony, led by a priest naked to the waist, fills the room with camphor and incense; chants and prayers; offerings of milk, honey, fruits and flowers. I was handed a plate of prasad, warm sweet rice, as a token of appreciation.
Then comes lunch, starting with a lassi made with mango or rose. There are dosas and idlis. Good vegetarian restaurants can be hard to find in Paris, but this neighborhood has two. The most recent is Saravana Bhavan. It leaves even India-savvy diners with the impression of having just been to Madras. At nearby Krishna Bhavan, five of us ate well for Euro46.
Instead of ordering dessert, stop in at Canabady Snacks. The shop offers savouries and brightly coloured desserts. Ask enough questions of the charmingly timid men in the shop and they might pull out folding chairs, offer you samples and make you boiling black tea with milk and sugar.
Then head to the Passage Brady several blocks away. A forlorn, dimly lit covered arcade, its floor tiles are broken and many of its shops and restaurants empty. It was here that the first Indian businesses opened decades ago. Still going strong is Velan, a one-stop shop for foodstuffs, decorative objects, incense, candles, costume jewellery and ayurvedic beauty products.
And in the Joan Miró garden near the Porte d’Italie in the south of Paris, off a street called Tagore, there is another surprise: lost in a corner is a bronze bust of the poet and painter himself, pensive as he writes in a notebook.
©2011 The New York Times
