In this essay, Shakti Pada Mukhopadhyay takes the reader on a trip to Paris highlighting all the important landmarks, the art, and the stories behind them all.
On his second visit to America and “The Congress of the History of Religions” in the year 1900, Swami Vivekananda wrote, “….Paris, which is the capital of modern civilization – Paris, the heaven of luxury, fashion, and merriment on earth – the centre of arts and sciences….” He also wrote elsewhere, “France- a picturesque country …….. The rich and the poor, the young and the old, the fields, the gardens, the walks, so artistically neat and clean …. The whole country looks like a picture”.
The above deliberations of Swami Vivekananda had a scintillating effect on my mind when our visit to Paris was finalized. It was a dream coming true. Our ticket was booked for KLM Royal Dutch Airlines from Kolkata to Schiphol, Amsterdam via New Delhi and back. From Kolkata to New Delhi, KLM Royal Dutch Airlines had a tie-up arrangement with Vistara Airlines. The “Meet and greet” services were hired by us at Kolkata, New Delhi and Schiphol Airports to assist us in completing different formalities at the Airports. Along with my wife, I landed at New Delhi Airport at around 11 PM. After obtaining our Boarding passes from the KLM counter and finishing the immigration formalities, “Security checking” etc., we were waiting from 1 AM at the Boarding gate for the KLM flight.