Once night at Paris, Charles De Gaulle Airport (A narration)
6th October 2010
Butterflies in our stomachs as our flight from Lisbon to Paris on a fine evening flutters its wings like the butterfly itself. Happy over a bite into my choco-chip cookies, I look out to admire the beautifully lit city and Eiffel tower from aside our wings from top. The flutter continued while a few feathers shiver with difficulty to fly. A screech and a bang and then the flutter again with an apology from the pilot.
“Bonjour madame” greets a big French smile outside the scary butterfly. With my connecting flight to India the next morning, I had ONE whole night to myself at the huge huge Paris Airport. Going by words from a few, I decided not to step out of the airport and instead “hopefully” find a few fellow travelers and stay over at the Air France lounge. The question then was were there any fellow travelers? Was there a lounge? Fellow travelers dispersed in different directions. Some outside the airport and some checked into the hotels within the airport. The lights got dim and some went off with no lounge left open. With dark hall-ways in front of me I stood there with a dark mind as well. Paris was asleep sooner than I blinked an eye. Just when it felt like it was a land with no humans, a thin ray opened from a swirling door of the Sheraton.
Skype with a loved one on a free WI-FI network from the Sheraton lounge didn’t seem like a bad idea after being let down by the staff who gave no room to stay. The black in red who kept making his rounds snarled at me at 1:00 am and said “you will have to leave now. We are closing doors”. The last did I expect even the swirling door would close – I thought they were meant to only swirl. I sat back on the black leather couch and stretched my legs to settle. The long coated staff came with the black now. “1:30 am it is; you will have to leave now.” she said while I struggled to understand if she spoke French or English. Refusing to go out back into the land with no humans, I pleaded her. “go to Terminal 2F and you’ll find a police protected waiting area there” is the last I heard from the voice of the long coat before the swirling door showed me the way out.
7th October 2010
2:00 am, beams of light over the way finding signages took a walk with me across the dark hall-ways again. ”Bonjour madame, how can I help?” came a voice with some smell of French wine. A drunken chatty cop to rescue pointed to 2F saying “Bollywood shooting huh?! Enjoy!”. The beams of light slowly turned into a bright hall way with the noise of humans. Yes it was a movie being filmed – much did my eyes look for one of the star Khans from India. But even better – a French movie being filmed at Terminal 2F with policemen in the vicinity. Safe and sound but heavy eyes and legs is what I traveled with now. “Action” and “Cut” innumerable times as I stay seated amidst the junior artist who sat there acting as travelers. I am guessing the camera frame couldn’t help but capture me in the frame.
4:00 am, having forgotten to carry my coat from Lisbon, I was beginning to freeze a bit. 2F still looked busy but drifting suddenly. The policemen were packing their bags and walking away with the French hero. They were done with the filming and the policemen were no longer policemen. Actually they were never policemen – they were the actors who staged as policemen:-). God bless my long coated friend from Sheraton I thought!
Time ticked and I was about to board my next scary butterfly back home.
