The Louvre of India

The Louvre of India

About two weeks back I accompanied my art teacher on a trip to Parrys. It was a 6D bus if I remember right, Beasant Nagar to Tollgate, and it was a 'trip' because, it takes almost an hour and a half to get to Parrys, and, we spent nearly the whole day roaming the streets of India's Louvre. We were going there to buy art material: paper, mounts and frames.

Now as we know, Parrys gets its name from the massive square building painted white with metallic green lettering on the top reading Parrys. It is quite a majestic building, standing beside many others that have recently risen. The building stands at the corner of the main road like a neatly cut piece of white cake, each side of it like fortress walls.
We got off at the Parrys bus-stop, and we were immediately hit by a gush of wind from the beach that we had to brace ourselves against. It was refreshing one like most winds, except it carried the faint stench of stagnant water, like the stale smell of perfume on old clothes.

Looking ahead I saw the cake like fortress, the Parrys building, looking starched white in the gleaming sun. The intensity of the heat struck us as we walked on, and although we were cooled off every now and then by the sea breeze we were still sweating.

Many people say that one gets peace of mind and happiness in a quiet place with minimum activity, but for me, it was a heart-warming sight to see this buzz of civilization ahead of me scrambling about like confused ants. The hum of humanity that rose from it gave me more than anything else, a feeling of happiness.
I took a deep breath, smiled to myself and walked on.
We turned left and I saw the road ahead of me, a confused mixture of people, vehicles, fruits, flowers, dogs, cows and everything else you can think of, trailing to a distance too far to see. Like little coloured beetles, people scurried about in chaos. It was society's circus.



On the road were stalls of fruits, with fat women bargaining. Their voices amidst the hum sounded like wooden clappers that beggars on trains clapped. Drunken men with tangled masses of brown hair like roots of banyan trees lay about in dirty, torn clothes with their balls showing. An old dog with bird flue symptoms limped about slowly in dismay.
Box-like shops on my right sold the craziest plastic toys, including a little blue Santa in a lungi bowing in random to a 'We wish you Merry Christmas ' tune. A huge new hotel appeared garlanded in plastic flowers, and bright red-blue lights that blinked. A hollow echo rose out of the hotel like the sound of bees in a cardboard box. Burping men came out of it like escaping ants.

The main road was clogged with smoky traffic while sweaty fat bellied traffic police waved their hands about unconcerned. A small tea shop steamed with boiling milk and jobless men reading the newspaper. Young children in black banians scrambled about with tea trays and a smile. As we passed by laughter rattled through the shop like a sudden breeze.

Narrow streets crowded with name boards flashed in and out like a snake’s tongue. Glancing right I noticed that each street was dedicated to a specific item: medicines, notebooks, paper, utensils, clothes, plastics, glass, frames, pens, shoes, mats, electric gadgets, the list just goes on, I will never stop.


Having found the street selling frames, we looked out for 'Ramanujan and Sons', the shop my teacher has been going to, the last 15 years. Like a baby growing into an adult man, this little shack-like-shop had grown into a three-floor, glass-door, fully-air conditioned statement of good business.
An old beggar lay sleeping at the entrance, a brass platter of coins lay near his head like a comic strip illustration of his dreams. We entered the artificial atmosphere of cool air and felt a sudden dampness on our backs, a strange hot-cold mixture of blood slid in my body. Things inside the shop stopped with the suddenness of a heart attack as we entered, then friendly smiles were exchanged and we got down to business
People say when one goes to Europe, especially to the Louvre, one ought to spend hours if not days seeing and relishing every object of art displayed within. With the keenness and admiration I would have had if I was looking at the Mona Lisa, I looked about at the things inside this shop, in awe. This is what I wanted to see, the little 'Louvre’.



I gazed at the goings-on inside this shop with the keenness of a substitute at a football match. I watched as frames were cut to size, paintings were framed, mirrors fixed, pictures of gods stuck to ply-wood boards, wood sand-papered, and hooks banged-in with the precision and workmanship of Michelangelo painting the roof of the Sistine chapel or Einstein with a complex mathematics problem. This shop worked like a factory of dedicated ants, tireless in their effort.

We spent four hours here, and I can tell you it seemed like four minutes. Even time whizzed-by like the racing auto's on the crowded streets outside.
The streets appeared again, and the hot air like that of a factory furnace with it. Old men, fat ladies, bony dogs, bawling babies with mucus dripping down to their mouths, cranky teenagers, strolled, walked, slept, and quarreled about us.

2 'o' clock found us eating at a hotel where dirty children wiped tables above large boards that said 'NO CHILD LABOUR'.

3' o' clock and we were walking the length of a narrow street to find 'Mohan Quality Mounts'. It had shifted from its old place and was now a little larger than a picnic tent.

4 o clock and we were drinking a cold grape juice at 'Topsee fresh fruit juice '. From the extremely creative name we realised that it was a Malyali juice shop, one of the many hundreds that one comes across in Madras. A few examples of award winning mallu name-boards are:
Traffic Jam, Truelee Juices, Mountain point, Walk-in Special, Coldly Juices, and the like.

5 'o' clock found us bargaining in a gentlemanly way, with the owner of ' Best Paper'. Now this manner of bargaining is very sophisticated and is of a very recent occurrence. The rules are more or less the same, you quote a price he quotes another and talk follows till either is sufficiently satisfied with the price. However in the gentleman’s ways abuse, quarrel, rude comments, superstition, and the like is replaced with pleasant unrelated talk, ramblings of daily politics from the news paper, indirect banter, light laughter and lot of fake smiles. I have a feeling like everything else, bargaining too is developing over time. How ever, when it comes to effectiveness, like with everything else, the older method reigns supreme, being faster and healthier for the heart!!

6 'o 'clock and we were heading home, hands full, bags full, and mind full.
The day had served its purpose; we had got what we had wanted.



It had been an eventful day, I had seen a picture book open out in front of me, a book full of crowded little streets with shops, people and not to mention animals. With the sun down, the horizon shone with the faint glimmer of orange after-sunset-light. The waves along the beach came and went like happy messages. Little insects appeared like ideas in the evening and flew in circles around the sodium vapour street lamps. The air was quiet. I leaned my head on the bus window, the soft sea breeze easing my buzzing mind. The day was fading like colour on an old trouser, but my thoughts remained, to become memories unto eternity.