Parapluie, I couldn't find the Umbrella

[Parapluie is the French word for 'Umbrella'. Why should you know this? To shield yourself from a 'downpour of lingual trivia.']

Paris announced the arrival of Autumn last week with an eight day continuous spell of very rainy rain and very windy wind. The spell continues as I write this.

As I write this, the clock in India has struck 12 and my mother has turned a year older. In Paris, she remains 3 hours 30 minutes younger but I have to make do by only hugging the parapluie that I have just found. The parapluie that she had packed in my cargo luggage over a month ago when I was about to leave Delhi for Paris on my first posting.

The four weeks that I had spent here were quite comfortable. Shifting to new places, meeting new faces- is like second nature to me (with masks, it is definitely a first. Living abroad is another first). My luggage arrived just 10 hours after Autumn in Paris. 

28 cartons. According to immediate need, priorities were clear: Umbrella, rolling pin, sarson ka tel, chimta. It took me 3 days to open all boxes- strategically: food > clothes > kitchenware > crockery. 

I couldn't find the umbrella. 

Carton no.19 was the last remaining carton (number '19' was chosen to be the last one as an 'unlucky' sign of Covid 19 and  certainly not because it was my favourite cricketer's jersey number).

I couldn't find the umbrella.

I kept getting wet in the rain for 4 days; partly because I knew the 'windy' wind was drying my wet jacket as I walked through the misty illuminated pathways of Paris, and partly because I woke up each day with the belief that I shall find the umbrella.

I couldn't find the umbrella.   

I didn't buy a new one because I just had supreme faith in my mother's packing skills. She had been omniscient about the things I would need here: from the smallest sachets of spices to the hugest bags of quilts (to my rugged Led Zeppelin sweatshirt that I kept carrying with me). Everything was there in the 28 cartons. It had to be!

I couldn't find the umbrella. 

I decided I will buy a new one yesterday when I got extremely late for my French class because of heavy rain. After the class, I walked up to a convenience store and just bought more onions (they remind me of home every evening when they sizzle in my tadka)- not an umbrella. I thought this might just be a case of ignorance like it was every single time in childhood= Me: (shouting) 'Mummy, I can't find X' > Mummy appears, spots X and gives it to you, while you realize that it was in front of your eyes all this while.

I couldn't find the umbrella.

Over an entire week passed and I kept getting wet (and subsequently dried thanks to the windy wind of Paris). During my daily calls with Mummy I kept telling her that I was still searching for the umbrella. She told me that the packers took all the stuff that she had collected, but in which carton the umbrella was she couldn't know. She told me to buy a new one. But I somehow didn't want to. I wanted to wake up everyday in the hope that I shall conquer a mound of cartons and emerge victorious with the umbrella in my hand.

I couldn't find the umbrella.    

I spoke to Mummy today and she told me how I should use dhaniya powder and that tomorrow is her birthday. I said I remembered. She told me to sort out my cartons and start getting things in order slowly and steadily. So, I started with the simplest of things: clothes. I began to place shirts, pants, sweaters, jackets in different compartments in my almirah. There was an umbrella rolled in my rugged Led Zeppelin sweatshirt!

I had found the parapluie, I couldn't find the umbrella.

I got wet in the downpour of tears that it had suddenly brought me. My umbrella was a year older now, I thought. And she was far far away. But I did have the parapluie- to remind me that I could conquer numerous mounds of cartons- but the thing I would be searching for, would have always been in front of me.