Of all of Paris's railway stations, Gare de Bercy is probably the most unromantic and functional. Leaving the grand vaults of Paris Nord, as Gare du Nord is now called and running the hot August gauntlet of the Metro, I arrive at Bercy just as the heatwave sun is flexing its full muscles. The bare, modern lines of the station form a backdrop to a classic summer scene, students with heavy backpacks staring at the departure board, families, the adults wiping ice-cream from children's faces, tourists from Japan and America looking quietly confused, teenagers on skateboards weaving through the heat-stilled forest of humans. Just outside the station, hipsters sit against the glass windows, munching some very non-French wraps, and, like always, unchanging across the decades, a scatter of older women staring into the distance as they puff on their cigarettes. I buy an expensive bottle of water and shake off the sweat that has become trapped between my eyes and my glasses. Everybody in these European parts worships the summer but the season can be quite testing when it fully hits.
Like the summer, the French railways can also vary between being a thing of beauty and a mess of quirky annoyance. The Inter-City trains do not have the streamlined hauteur of the Eurostar or the TGV trains that run between the big French metros, and the fittings, especially in the bathrooms, have that feel of clunky 30s or 40s design so familiar to passengers of the Indian Railways. The seating though, is wholly modern and I find a free four-seat cluster with a table and plonk down my stuff, happy to be out of the searing heat. Outside the window, a man in bright orange overalls couples an engine to a train on the next platform. Finishing, he pulls off his heavy gloves and shakes the hand of the driver-engineer who's leaning out of the engine window. Everything seems to move in slow-motion and as if from another era. The train pulls out, smoothly and right on time. The conductor's announcement is brisk and friendly and, unlike the tri-lingual Eurostar, entirely in rapid French.
As the train whizzes south, deep into the heart of France, I can see that the hot temperatures of July and August have taken their toll on the greenery. The fields are still green but there is no lush depth to the greens; every now and then unusually brown foliage and meadows flash by. One of the towns the train stops at is Nevers, a name I remember from Alain Resnais's classic film Hiroshima Mon Amour; as we leave the station and cross the river, I fancy I'm looking at the riverbank where Resnais shot the scenes of the young, war-time lovers conducting their trysts. Three hours after leaving Paris the train drops me at the equally hot small town of Vichy. The town, famous earlier for its spa with its phosphorus-filled waters, gained notoriety during the Second World War as the capital of collaborationist France ruled by General Pétain.
My friend picks me up at the station and we walk through the centre of town before getting the French version of a nimbu-soda, a citron pressé. Along our route is one of the two local desi restaurants, this one is called Le Gandhi, and it's a bar-restaurant which boasts " cuisine Pakistanais et Indien". I imagine MKG might have been happy to have his name attached to a Pak-India bhai-bhai place though I'm not sure he would have approved of the bar bit. After buying some supplies we get on our way in the car, and soon we are on a winding highway driving deeper into one of the most beautiful and fecund regions of the world.
The region of Auvergne is in the very centre of France, with all kinds of geography, weather and histories acting as tributaries that go into its making. Stopping at Noirétable, the small town nearest to my friend's little house in the countryside, you actually come across farmers with those typical gallic moustaches you see in Asterix. Outside, driving through the picture postcard hills and meadows, one almost laughs out loud at how ridiculously perfect the scene is. On very clear early mornings one can actually see the triangle of Mont Blanc poking out above the lower hills and volcano peaks, all the way across the neighbouring Rhône-Alpes region. Today, however, the Impressionist-painted clouds create a different land-sky dialogue. Closer to us, in the gaps through the trees one can see sloping green hills dotted with white cows.
Different kinds of cows are important in these parts and people argue about them and what they bring to the table. In a country that's obsessive and fanatical about its cheeses, the Auvergne provides some heavy hitters like Cantal, Bleu D'Auvergne, Fourme D'Ambert and Saint-Nectaire; in a culture that puts beef at the top of it's culinary hierarchy the area has at least three kinds of high-end edible breeds, the red Salers, the brown Limousin and the all white Charolais. The better wine may come from the neighbouring Loire and other famous wine-growing regions of France, but the cheese, the meat (both beef and lamb) and poultry, and the fruits are among the best in the world.
Sampling all these and regenerating the appetite by the strange non-Calcutta activity of taking long walks in the forests, the days pass both slowly and all too quickly. At some point the mid-point of August approaches and Noirétable wakes up and fills with people and activity. August 15 is traditionally a big holiday in France and in Noirétable the thrill-rides set up their various enchantments in the parking lot: tilting discs, whirling benches, slam-cars and merry-go-rounds. Miss Noirétable is selected from among the area's young women and prepares to put on her wedding dress costume for the parade on the 15th - there is no corresponding 'Mr.' title for the local boy-men. On the 14th and 15th, the town's two cafés are full and the stalls are up, selling high-quality, locally produced woollens, meat, cheese, jams and oils.
It is an important time for local politicians to circulate and shake some hands and the thirty-something leader of the Communist Party is out in a full suit and bright red tie. As he walks back to his car with an escort of two other suits a woman watching from the café is sharp in her assessment: "Look at how they've parked their car! Taking up half the road! This is the culture of all these ambitious politicos, no matter what party!" Later at night, I find myself standing in a tent watching couples dance to traditional music. A large, slightly drunk man, possibly in his late sixties, enters and greets my friend. As I nod and say " bonsoir" he looks at me with undisguised disgust. Then he raises his eyebrows and walks away. After a few minutes he's back to accost me and my companion, the two South Asian men. He buttonholes my companion, asks him his name and is given the simple two-syllable answer. "What?" He growls in French, "What's that? What's your name?" The young man replies again, "Je...m' appelle...__ __" The bullfrog again makes a face of disgust, raises his hands and growls, "I can't understand that nonsense, why don't you have a proper name!" Before either of us can reply he walks away, thus helping us avoid an unseemly confrontation. Later my friend informs me that the bullfrog is very much a racist votary of Le Pen and Co.
In contrast to this human version of an ingrown toenail, I meet a much nicer local before I leave. On our last day in the area we go to the farm that makes, simply, the best fruit ice-creams and sorbets. We revel in the raspberries, strawberries, blueberries and blackberries, in the rhubarb and the blackcurrant. Tasting the stuff it's easy to understand why this farm was chosen to supply the ice-cream and sorbets to the G8 summit a few years ago, when the leaders met nearby. As we pay the bill, one of the owners, a woman in her sixties, informs us that they are selling the business to a younger family. The three founder-owners plan to spend their retirement visiting and doing workshops with farmers in developing countries. "I've been to south India," the woman tells me, "but never to the east. This time I want to come to Varanasi to hear some classical music." I ask her if she wants to come to Calcutta and Bengal. "Yes, I believe you have some great produce and some great food, so yes!" I pick up the three jars of her superb jam and bid her a warm goodbye.
