| Description | Track 1: silence 0.18 mins
Tracks 2-10: Interview with Mrs Nicolai Malik, a French woman who came to India when she married her Indian husband. She discusses her shock at discovering that India was a more modern country than she imagined. She talks about meeting her husband while studying at Oxford, her surprise at the English influence in India, and the lack of a relationship between France and India. She talks about her preconceptions and prejudices about the country, her arrival in Delhi in 1959, and her job with the French Embassy, and describes her Sikh wedding ceremony and her feelings about it. She explains that she has not changed her religion, but that she does not really practise Catholicism. She goes on to discuss travelling to Rajasthan when she first arrived in India, but spending most of her time in Bombay or Delhi, where her husband's relatives live. She describes her life in Bombay compared to life in Paris, the lack of opportunity to go to the theatre or to other cultural events, and considers what she might miss about India when in Paris. She talks about the visits that her family have made to see her and the reactions they had to India, her own growing feeling of despair and distress about it, her sister's shock when she gave money to someone begging in Paris, and her lack of bad experiences with people in India
Track 11: silence 0.59 mins
Tracks 12-19: Mrs Nicolai Malik continues to talk about her life in Bombay, in the Malabar Hill area, and taking her mother to visit a residential area of the city where they saw a large number of temples and people observing religious rituals. She discusses her social life in Bombay, compares typical social activities with those she would arrange in Paris, and talks about the different groups of people that she and her husband typically meet. She mentions that French people only mix with people speaking their own language, and that there are very few French people in Bombay, talks about her husband's job in the purchase section of a company that makes jeeps, and returns to talking about the French people in Bombay who are usually there on short term contracts. She talks about the changes she has noticed when she visits Paris, and the changes she has become aware of in India. She discusses her feeling that she is French first and that she does not feel Indian
Total: 32.45 mins
Dubber's reference number: PLA KF565D0565380 |