On Ethnicity

You won`t believe this... I ve been here for a week; walked about a fourth of the city, and I haven`t seen a single Sardarji!!

Now how many big cities in the world can offer you something like that? (I don`t know: like most Indians, I just assumed Sardarji`s were everywhere)

Another, bigger surprise is the number of East-Asian people around. They really are everywhere. Every major and most non-major streets I have seen host an Asian restaurant, be it Chinese, Japanese (esp. the Sushi bars!) or Thai. The restaurants look more or less like family endeavours so you can safely assume that there are atleast that many families of the said ethnicity around town. Actual calculations would probably give you a mind boggling number...

Pro-Paris fact 7

You wouldn`t believe the number of inter-racial couples in this place... all possible permutations of ethnicities can be found cuddling on the bridges on Seine or the parc du champ de mars near the Eiffel. It`s heartening to see such genome-spanning romance in a time when racial violence has become a big problem (Last year, schools in Paris had to be closed for a few days due to anti-immigrant riots.). Guess it`s ok to like someone as a person and hate his race for taking your jobs!

Most of the Indians I have seen here have been tourists, or incredibly pesky souvenir-salesmen at the Eiffel. The few seemingly permanent resident`s I happened to come across appeared to have become very Parisian in manners, and I must say maang-mein-sindoor looks incredibly funny when combined with Parisian 'Haute-Couture'.