In a hundred years' time, when this article would be rediscovered and republished, the literary historians would be tempted to rename it as “A Tale of Two Dinners; Reflections On The Contemporary French Society”. The intent here is very different. I just want to recount the details of the ordeal I passed through. Being placed in the top 1 per cent of my engineering class meant that I was selected for higher studies abroad by Government of Pakistan.

Naturally, I was happy; trip to a European country, finances taken care of by the national exchequer, opportunity to experience a new culture, as is politically correct nowadays, “A win-win situation”. What I forgot was the fact that the decision making authority is the “Ministry of Higher Education”; allegedly having an indefinite number of party-poopers in its ranks and a penchant for committing faux-pas. The honourable minister, in all his highness-ness, selected, of all the countries in the world, France. The teeny-weeny detail that he overlooked was that the country being France and the inhabitants being Frenchmen and Frenchwomen, 99.99% of the people spoke French, while there in Pakistan, albeit with a horrible accent, we spoke English. So now what to do? Take it or leave it, deal or no deal?

As is the case with governments all over the world, hasty cooking was done, as usual without planning, and a French language crash course was arranged. The details of that French course can easily provide subject matter for three or four full length articles so right now I’d like to let this sleeping dog lie. I was a little bit disappointed and dejected and down and low and running out of adjectives when good news about France and life in France started to reach me through a diverse number of channels.

There is quite a sizeable Pakistani expatriate community living in Paris. “Oh! You are going to Toulouse. That’s great. Plenty of sun. Plenty of fun.” My boss chipped in with his own ideas, results of a lifetime of un-fulfilment. “Listen, France is divided into thirty odd regions and each one of them is named after a wine. Imagine the wine culture of the country. You have an opportunity. Go ahead, it’s there for the taking” I thought of myself as a covert wine operative, hopping from region to region, in search of a mysterious wine; let’s name it KX-32 for James Bond fans. Higher studies: that we’d see later. Then came my cousin, who failed to achieve anything in Pakistan and was married off to another distant cousin residing in the U.S of A. Now imagine the content of the pep-talk (read: Gibberish), given by an illiterate Pakistani living in States about higher studies in France; and double it because he had been living in America for only two years and new nothing of France. Sneak preview of that “blood, sweat and tears” delivered by him: “Jiggzy (Equivalent to ‘Mate’) listen! France is a good place (O.K.). Higher study is a very good thing (Again O.K.) and you can always immigrate to Canada after learning French, I have a friend there who has a fleet of 200 taxis, Job would be no problem. Go to France. Higher Study is a good thing. France is a good place.” He kept on saying “France is a good place. Higher study is a good thing”. Perhaps he was mixing “Higher Study” with hashish or marijuana, something we use to get high, and he always said “Higher Study”; one word, with the rock-solid conviction only an ignorant can have. “Nice build-up buddy”, I said to myself.

The language course finished in a few months time and I was all set to leave for France. I imagined my boss imagining me drinking wines; my friends thinking of me as a participant in one of the numerous orgies thrown in for me by the ever so loving people of the “République Française”, my cousin thinking that I am learning French only to leave for Canada one day and become the ultimate “Higher Study Cabbie”. With all this in mind, when I stepped out of the plane, at the famous “Charles de Gaulle” airport, what I received was an anti-culture shock. Now what an anti-culture shock is, that ladies & gentlemen I’ll tell you in a few minutes time and a few lines space but let’s deal with the culture shock thing first.

“Pakistani and French societies are very different; language, attitudes, dress codes everything is different, so be prepared, otherwise you’ll get a culture shock” as was explained by on of our self-francisized language professors. What I extracted from this historic piece of information was that we were supposed to behave normally and not to ogle at girls. O.K. Point taken. Thank You. Now the anti-culture shock that I got was that there were about 50 odd Pakistani “scholars” there to greet us (no girls, Pakistani or French), to guide us, to feed us, to take us to our hotels and to tuck us in beds; and this is exactly what they did. No sightseeing allowed. Why? You’ll get lost. Go to bed, we have to leave early in the morning. My hotel was in the famous “Latin Quarters” and don’t you dare imagine that I was going to give in. So, I sneaked out of the hotel at about 11 o’clock and found my way to the nearest bar to realize my boss’ dreams.

I had a 2 week language course in Strasbourg to polish the so-called French language skills achieved in Islamabad. That language course reminds me of that old classic “Twelve Angry Men”. The reason being the presence of twelve Pakistani men in the lecture room, bored to death by those silly little grammar exercises. By the end of the course the students and teachers were so fed up with each other that both the parties concerned, invited each other for farewell dinners. We arranged a traditional Pakistani feast with chicken curry and rice and Pakistani bread which was appreciated.

I had read quite a few things about French dinners. There is this “aperitif” thing; you are supposed to drink some light wine with it. Then there is this main course, again a little bit of white wine will help. Then dessert and after that some more wine as “digestif”. Finally the host and the guests chat around while coffee is served. So, I started preparing myself; mentally that is, on how to drink wine in front of my Pakistani fellows. How’d I be able to look them in the eye? “No way man, you can’t do it”, “Yes, I can and Yes, I will and I’d show you. I am prepared to take them on. I am not afraid. I am…” that, dear readers, was me against me, (‘ad I ‘ad a cockney way of putting things, I‘d ‘ave ‘itten “me-self”).

I phoned a friend of mine, who had the good fortune of living just across the channel, in London and told him of my dilemma. Now a trouble I’ve had with my friends over these years is that whenever I ask them for advice, they do give it and with utmost sincerity; making it a matter of life or death for themselves. So this guy suggested, after pumping me up to become the man that I am and do whatever I want, that If I was really nervous I should take a few sips of brandy, just before the dinner, that would act as a “Confidence Restoring Potion” only the providers would be Messrs. Churchill & Churchill of Canada rather than one famous Merlin. I was not in a mood to tell him that I am not going to propose to the girl of my dreams and neither do we find ourselves in 1922 when it was customary for young men to drink brandy before presenting marriage propositions to their beloveds; as is asserted by a certain Pelham Greenville Woodhouse on numerous occasions and most importantly that will ruin the objective. So I thanked him and hung up and decided to do it for once and all. Imagine drinking brandy in order to be able to drink wine; and he was serious.

Our French teachers were already there when we arrived. There was to be a farewell speech before the dinner by the director. The director happened to be quite a friendly man of about forty. He delivered quite a classical farewell speech and after the speech he said that as we were are Moslems and the French are not ignorant of the fact that wine is forbidden in Islam, so as a matter of principle, they would not be serving wines. There is this really delicious traditional tomato juice to go with aperitifs (Keep it in your little minds dear children, everything in France is traditional, everything) and good old cola to go with main course and as you people come from a country that was a British colony so I imagine that you people don’t take coffee, so we have arranged for tea (I hate tea, full stop). And one more thing, no meat mates, nope, you won’t find any of it coz there isn’t any. Vegetables and fish, that’s all. Everything has been taken care off (that is old don Vito Corleone speaking). We respect your traditions; we know you don’t eat meat.

Will Shakespeare of Stratford would have eaten his heart out had he ever been able to write an anti-climax like that. Here I was all set and ready to face the world, to assert my independence and there they were, not serving wines at all but I did not put my head down. I knew that quote about every dog having his day and every cloud having a silver lining. So I packed my bags and left for Toulouse.

Now Toulouse, lots of sun, lots of fun according to one anecdote. Studies began instantly after my arrival. Three really hard months of commuting between campuses, cooking, doing laundry, cleaning the apartment and of course studying. I had my final exam on 23rd December followed by a 15 day Christmas plus winter break. Enters another Pakistani into the scenario. He is doing in France, what my cousin must have been doing in USA, running a restaurant. He invited us to a Christmas lunch. In fact he invited all the Pakistanis and Indians he knew in and around Toulouse to that Christmas lunch. When I reached there, at precisely the given time, there was nobody to be found in the hotel except the hosts. Even they had just arrived and were in the process of preparing the dinner. The reason they gave me was that as normally Pakistanis and Indians are at least one hour late, they were given the time of 7 o’clock so that the dinner could start at 8’o clock sharp.

My comments on his sharpness, I am afraid, cannot be printed here so I offered to help and worked with them during good part of an hour. The guests started to come, as expected after 7:45 and by 8 o’clock we had the totality of desi community in Toulouse in that restaurant. To my surprise there were only 20 persons, including the host and his wife. As the dinner was not yet ready, the guests started chatting among themselves; four of them had the audacity to bring cards and play rummy, then and there. Nobody was offended, as it was considered as a build up to the feast. As we were gossiping, in a mixture of languages ranging from European to Indo-European to Dravidian, the host dropped the bombshell. He said, brandishing a bottle of Johnnie Walker and I quote; “As the dinner is not yet ready, why shouldn’t we drink a little bit of whiskey. Red Label!” Unquote. This statement of his had quite a profound effect on me. The rest of the lot was affected as well, albeit in a slightly different way. They were dumbfounded, rather stunned; truly shocked; both culturally and anti-culturally at a time.

“Come on man, that’s the time, show them how gutsy you are, come on…” I said to myself and then said loudly, perhaps a little too loudly, “Yes please”. Now this was not what everyone was expecting. I remember a Stephen King novel in which a bullying big brother dares junior to fire at him and finds to the cost of his life that the younger one actually can fire. I suppose, now that I see it in retrospect, that perhaps he was just making a superficial offer, knowing that nobody would accept, except the Indians, but man he was in there for a surprise. There were some younger brothers ready to shoot and he found that to the cost of his whiskey.

One thing that a century of British Rule has given us is the very fine art of understating things. No matter how shocked they were, most of them ignored the conversation as it never happened. One of them however was unable to hide the sentimental upheavals going through his being and muttered, under his breath, “Righto”… I have, to this day, not been able to figure out what he meant to say or what he was thinking of, but that is the closest that he ever got to becoming an expressionist. I sipped Johnnie Walker and thought, is this it? Being in France and drinking whiskey with Pakistanis. That I could have done in Pakistan as well. Soon the dinner was served, with white wine ladies and gentlemen and after that we had the digestif, pretty much following the French tradition.

After dinner, as is customary, some of the guests started smoking, while others took tea or coffee according to their respective tastes and then happened the most dreadful thing that, frankly, I knew was going to happen at some point in time. The three favourite topics of discussion for Pakistani/Indian men, not necessarily in that order, are Religion, Politics and Cricket. On any given day you can start a perfectly polite chat with a stranger starting with weather and end up exchanging blows on why a certain batsman was not selected for the upcoming tour of England. As a rule, when drunk, men discuss religion. Here the situation was a little bit different. I had had my fair share of liquor, but was not under its influence, and there were those who hadn’t had a drop of it but were eager to point out the fact that fifty years from now those who have consumed alcohol (reference being made to “yours truly”) are surely going to burn in hell. There was this eager beaver who had learnt all this “fire and brimstone” stuff by heart at some point in his sorry life so he started off with the vices of alcohol and painted quite a bleak (surprisingly bleak given the amount of fire over there) picture of alcoholics’ condemnation in hell. The host, pretty high by now, vehemently opposed any proposition that would ensure even a minimal stay there.

The Indians looked lost, partly because they had consumed enormous quantities of alcohol and partly because they were unable to believe that this is a deal big enough to fight over. The debate was getting ugly and out of control when somehow, somebody mentioned Cricket. I latched upon this opportunity to launch a massive verbal offensive against the impotent Indian cricket time that had recently been defeated by an injured and depleted Pakistani squad. This changed the scenario totally and irrevocably as expected. This was an attempt to provoke the Indians and to lure them in the discussion so that you-are-going-to-burn-in-hell story might finish.

What had started as a Christmas dinner, soon seemed to look like a heated town hall debate. It was about 2 o’clock in the morning. I got up, gathered my coat and muffler from the cloak room and left. Thinking, on the way to my apartment, of the dissimilarities between the two dinners and wondering what my boss would have done given the situation.