I had been to Paris twice: the first time was when Ms. Virginia Moreno, UP Film Center director assigned me to research on Juan Luna’s residences and studio, the second time when I went there with Minnie Crouse on the way home from Belgium after our film “The Case of Wilkie Duran: Toxic Chemical Victim” won the Best Humanitarian Award at the Belgium Independent Film Festival. I stayed for a month the first time I went there and stayed two nights the second time I visited the place. That time we met the soft-spoken Burmese actor, Aung Koo whom we met in Belgium during the festival. He was one of the festival jury at the time. He treated us in a Chinese restaurant. I remember doing an on-the-spot sketch of Mr. Aung Koo. We later came to know that he is a friend of Aung San Sung Kyi, 1991 Nobel Prize Winner, the famous oppositionist in Myanmar (then called Burma) who is still in house arrest because of speaking against the military junta and has always been treated as a political threat by the authority.
In Paris, not seeing the Eiffel Tower is madness. You can’t say you had been to Paris unless you visit it, really see it and be awed by it. I received an email today from my Indian bandhu brother Dharam Gulati showing the panoramic view of the tower. Seeing it reminded me of the day when I saw Eiffel Tower the first time.
Please click to marvel at it: 08toureiffel.html
Since I could not stand the cold in Paris and I had to return home because of my bedridden brother. I proceeded back to Belgium alone, then Manila. In Manila, it was being back to reality for being in Paris was like a dream, never to come back anymore perhaps except in thoughts.
The place I really want to go back to now is India to visit friends who are to me, like my real brothers and sisters, and to visit Pune that once became a part of my life, or rather, where I was once a part of.
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