Bollywood Show: Ticket to India in Paris: The Videos!

Two short videos about this Bollywood show given in Paris last week. Very nice moments!

Ticket to Bollywood in Paris: The photos!

Ticket to Bollywood has been on tour since 2010. This Bollywood dance show was created by Shubhra Bhardwaj, choreographer and founder of FerrisWheel Entertainment in India. When she started her project, she aimed at foreign audiences, and the performance has been adapted to them. Besides, the name of the show itself sounds like an invitation to travel to the country of Hindi films.

Since then, the dance company has visited many countries: Canada, the USA, Japan, China Germany, Russia and so on!

Of course, you can’t help thinking of Bharati, but contrary to this huge industry, Ticket to Bollywood shows fewer dancers, -about fifteen – and there is no storytelling. However, the dancers have the same energy and the same talent. The atmosphere is warm and friendly. The steps are typical of Bollywood dancing and the songs chosen have been taken from recent Bollywood blockbusters such as: Devdas, Om Shanti Om, Singham, Desi Boyz or Bodyguard.

Take a look at the picture I took yesterday.

See there for more information in French and there for more photos if you are my friend on Facebook.

Hindi Night in Paris: Cinema and Restaurant

Article only available in French.

Turban legend…

Saravana Bhavan, Canal Saint-Martin, a friend…

The holidays are ending. I enjoyed my last day of freedom with my friend Valérie who learns Hindi with me.

She took me to Saravana Bhavan, a famous vegetarian restaurant, 170 rue du Faubourg Saint-Denis. This is a chain; you can eat at Saravana’s everywhere from the Usa to the Emirates. The food is really different from the Indian restaurants I usually go to in Paris. Very few stews, no cheese naans, no lime pickle, no alcohol except Kingfisher beer and of course, no meat! Most of the dishes are from the South; the specialities are dosas, idlis and thalis.

 

The food is very fresh, fatless, not too salty, refined which is quite unusual in an Indian restaurant. The only weak point; I found the sauces a little tasteless and the dosa was cold. But all in all, it was a good experience and the chai was delicious!

The atmosphere in the restaurant was warm. The customers were talkative and enthusiastic. Most of them were Indian, which is the sign it is a good restaurant. The waiters were smily and elegant. I enjoyed the modern, classy but simple decoration; a mixture of grey, black and white. It was very different from the fake zardosi Taj Mahal pictures, the elephant carvings and the former-Chinese-restaurant chairs that you can see in other Indian restaurants.  From one o’clock pm onwards people started to queue up on the pavement.

For all that you can see in the pictures, we paid 32.50 euros.

 

 

If you want to read a nice post about this restaurant, go to the blog Mistress of Spicies.

And then, a walk along the Canal Saint Martin, before the rain!

Canal Saint Martin before the rain

IDEAT Design Magazine: a colourful trip to modern India

Today, I want to talk to you about a very beautiful magazine. Its name is IDEAT. This magazine is about Design, Modern Art and Architecture. I’m not really fond of that kind of magazines but when I saw it was a Special India Issue, I didn’t hesitate to spend 5 euros ( 300 rupies!) for it.

Trop beau! The pictures are colourful and make you travel. The articles introduce trendy artists or designers from India. The texts are short, so you never get bored and you have pleasure reading them. I learnt and saw a lot of things in this magazine. It is like visiting a Modern Art Museum in your sofa.

Click on the pictures to see them bigger or pass your cursor on them to get information.

    

IDEAT – november 2012 – Travel in India and visit the main cities in the country – The trendy places to go shopping or to visit exhibitions – Nine French people who have worked in India talk about it – What’s your favourite city: Marie-Hélène de Taillac, jewel designer: Jaipur; it is the capital of jewels and gems; 3 million people work in this industry there. – What do you miss when you leave India? Normal Studio, Design Agency: street food and bazars – Strength and weakness of contemporary India? J.François Lesage; furniture embroidery: India can organize its chaos with a feeling of energy and freedom but they are too eager for modernism – Sangaru Design Studio makes practical objects with bamboo – Satuendra Pakhalé, the Indian Philippe Starck – Doshi and Levien make glass objects and colourful sofas – Kama soap, organic cosmetic – Tata Dinasty – Manish Arora and his world of colours – Designer Arjun Bhasin shows his home in Mumbai – Architect M.N. Sharman, the man who built Chandigarh with Le Corbusier – Hotels and shopping in Delhi – Discover Bollywood and Victorian architecture in Mumbai – Shanti life in Pondichéry – Auroville – Indian art: Anish Kapoor, Rina Banerjee, Subodh Gupta, Bharti Kher – Selection of music – Indian shopping in Paris…

   

A Sikh Kid and a Bleeding Building!

While going sweating in a gymnasium in the East of Paris, you can discover worth seeing things! That’s why yesterday, I found a bleeding building and a sikh child!

In Bercy Parc, near the Palais Omnisport de Bercy, – a place where people can see tennis championships, Madonna Concerts, surfing contests or sumo wrestling – , I met strange creatures standing on the lawn.

These still silhouettes are bronze sculptures by artist Rachid Khimoune. They were made in 2001 with pieces of streets such as paving stones, pieces of curbs, non-slip plates, manhole covers and so on… These kids have been lined up on the lawn. Each of them has a name and represents a country. The artist raised the matter of children’s rights for the twenty-first century.

Unfortunately, the sculptures are continually subjects to the weather and people’s bad tendency to damage street furniture. However, if they’re made of street stuff, where else could they be?

(Other pictures on this site)

       

Another thing drew my attention while I was passing on an elevated railway train. A bleeding building! I would have found this idea horrible if the district and the building itself hadn’t been so common! This flashy painting dripping along the façades conveys a bit of joy in all this urban sadness.

A Cup of Chai in Paris

 

Café l’Etoile Manquante: Strange mudras on the wall

 

This post is not advertising!

 It’s All Saints’ Day, which means cemeteries and chrysanthemums but also day off! I went for a walk with my friend Lim. It wasn’t very cold but cold enough to go and have a cup of tea in Le Marais, a chic, trendy, pleasant but crowded district in Paris.

Chai à L’Etoile Manquante

A Hindi classmate called François had told me: « I drank very good chai in the café L’Etoile Manquante (The Missing Star). » Strangely enough, there is nothing Indian in this café, apart from the barman who seems to come from Sri Lanka and who’s got one of the nicest smiles ever!

It’s always extremely difficult to find some good chai in Paris, even in Indian restaurants. It’s always a bit tasteless, spiceless, disappointing… So, I trusted François and ordered some chai and it was good; that’s true. However, that’s the kind of chai you shouldn’t drink if you’re trying to lose weight. Very sweet, very creamy; I don’t dare to imagine how many calories there were in it! I had the feeling I was drinking hot melted icecream!

Believe me or not, but so far, the best chai I’ve drunk in France is the chai I make at home. Even if I shamefully use skimmed milk and aspartame and although I’m too impatient to make it simmer in a saucepan for five minutes – I damaged enough saucepans while making porridge, that’s enough! No more milk in my saucepans! – Harney and Sons regularly give me the opportunity to drink good chai at home.

                   

To buy delicious tea by American brand Harney and Sons, go onto this site or if you are French… I’m not promoting anything, I’m really sincere, their tea is the best. I recommend you Hot Cinnamon Sunset! It’s a dream!

To have an authentic hot chocolate or a diet-killing chai: L’Etoile Manquante 34 rue Vieille du Temple 4ème Arrondissement Métro Saint Paul.

 

Pictures from Bharati in Paris 19th October 2012

I’ve already talked to you about this Bolly-like musical which has seduced many countries for several years. The article is here.

Today, I’ll show you a few photos from the show and short video extracts. I don’t have a high quality camera, and we were very far from the stage so…let’s say, I did my best!

Bharati’s team

A boat on the Ganges

Singers…

Bharati in the moon…

Energy and happiness!

On the left, the Bolly star who couldn’t marry Bharati but who found a new fiancée in the end! The taler on the right…

‘like the movement in this photo…

The taler in the middle. Very funny and very good French!

Krishna and Radha

The artists make the audience dance at the end of the show:

An extract showing Mallakhamb. Do you remember this post? Of course, there is no woman dancing in real Mallakhamb events!