There was a rumbling thunderstorm in the darkness before dawn. I hear big drops of rain fall and the sky flashing and crackling. Sipping my espresso, huddled on the sofa and looking out into the darkness, the thick old walls of the house surround us in a cold dampness. We are in a rented old home in Vauban, the old quarter of Marseille, and the houses are two or three levels and come with small courtyard gardens. They are at least a few centuries old. I leaf through a vintage hardbound book on Molluscs, in French, and look into the eyes of a large squid. The owner of this holiday apartment bought a whole set of vintage graduate-level books on Animal biology and Dog breeds, to weigh down an IKEA lamp that has a tendency to tip over. It makes for great reading.

The rain must have cleaned the streets. The French love their dogs, and the dogs love pissing and pooping in the alleys. Their masters, too, enjoy a bit of the open-air stuff. A narrow street, with burgundy flowers, where a snappily suited oldish man can freely relieve himself on a faded, yet charming wall, seems a little weird at first, but after a few days, I begin to see its cultural function. Dhanya takes a few more days to come around, though.

There is a long and thin thread between this act of open pissing and the French lady who wears full makeup to shop for tomatoes and gingerly steps over dog feces with her high heels. They also wear scarves. The French are different that way.

The clouds have cleared, and the Sun shines warmly on a stacked row of old pastel colored homes. Arjun is strumming on a broken mandolin that the owners left behind as wall decor.  

We step out into the day and walk on clean streets, up a small hill towards the Notre Dame. The church is fairly new and is perched atop a small hillock of limestone. Inside, there are paintings of stormy seas, and wooden model ships hang from the ceiling. They would make for stupendous toys, but thankfully, Arjun does not look up. Chants that remind me of the band Enigma ring out through sleek speakers. Dhanya chimes in and reminds me that Enigma is just Gregorian monks chanting with electronic beats.

From the viewing platform outside, we look out and down towards the port and the sea. I see a green football field, amidst the sprawling city with white walls. Zinedine Zidane, the great footballer, grew up in the grittier neighbourhoods of Marseille and must have scored a few goals here. His dad worked in the ports and came over from Algeria. Far away on the horizon, I convince myself that the brown haze is Algeria. 

The next day, we walk downhill towards the old port. Parakeets fly overhead,  exotic escapees from the Amazon. The Moors must be the ones who imported the palm trees from the Maghreb. Continents are more cultural separations than geographic boundaries anyway.

Parked along the sides of the road are cars, whose bodywork is held together with straps of gorilla tape, attracting Arjun’s attention. We simulate scenarios that would lead to dangling side-view mirrors and cracked bumpers, but it is easy to see why cars in the old quarter look this way. There is a palpable impatience in the narrow and steep roads, and it is an anomaly to see a car with no scratches. A decade ago, Marseilles had a reputation for being a little too rough. Perhaps, these are hangovers from that time. Gentrification is probably around the corner, but it’s still possible to get a working man’s croissant here.

We take a mile-long walk towards the port, deftly dodging over patches of piss and frand dog poop in various stages of freshness. A large avenue lines the pretty old port. Ferries and sailboats do what they do in the Mediterranean. The big container ships that we saw from the hill dock many miles away, are at the real working port. After a meal of beef bourgignon, for which we pay tourist prices, we sit down in a cafe and watch bare-chested Brazilians (clearly marked by the green, yellow, and blue shorts) dance, do cartwheels, and bang on paint tubs.

The port of Marseilles has been onboarding immigrants for quite a while. The French had their own unique take on colonization, too. They tried to teach their subjects French, aspired for them to be citizens of the “republique,” and only massacred them when absolutely necessary. So you have millions of Algerians, and  “Afrirques” from Ghana, Mali, and West Africa now.

We head to the district of Noailles, a bastion of the once colonised. Barbers showcase their skills with afro haircuts, straw baskets are sold on streets, and some of the vegetables in the market are frankly rotting. Tourists shop for cakes of handmade soap, and big, bold graffiti drapes the walls. Noailles is colorful. Artists are always the first to embrace cheap housing. Some apartments are boarded up and are marked for demolition. There is an empty lot, where excavators have cleared some rubble. A memorial with young African faces marks the place where some people died when an old building collapsed. 

We retrace our steps back towards the “Old Port” and step right into an afro punk metal concert.  The dreadlocked guitarists don computer motherboards and have silver spray-painted electric guitars. A towering, colourful fish dances and reaches out to clasp Arjun, who is riding on my shoulders. The drum beat is frantic, and two middle-aged French ladies try their hardest to keep their hips in sync.

Retreating towards the open spaces of the wharf, we see more drums and loudspeakers. Syrian and Palestinian flags wave, there are loud chants in French, and I see a kid has got a football for this march. Yesterday, we had lunch in a Palestinian restaurant, and our sympathies are with them. 

When the sun does set, it casts a beautiful golden glow on the scene. 

After a few more days of this, we move our base south, towards the limestone cliffs called the Calanques. The neighbourhood here is called Pointe Rouge and has a distinctly different vibe. We build sand cars on the beach and eat the juiciest persimmons. 

The next day, a fierce wind blows. The sky is cloudless, waves crash over and spray cars driving by the seafront. Windsurfers cling to their sails and dart across the rolling surf. This cold, dry wind that blows from the North is called the Mistral. Van Gogh,  who escaped the grimness of northern Europe and lived for a few years in the nearby town of Arles, drew his swirling patterns after his easel was knocked around a few times in the wind. 

We seek shelter in an old school sailors’ pub, with wooden boards and watch horses gallop over hedges on the TV. A French flag hangs from the ceiling, and the TV behind shows lotto numbers spinning inside balls.  The locals have battened the hatches and while away the time, kissing each other on the cheeks, smoking like steam engines, and peeking at the winning numbers. 

Dhanya gets a cappuccino with masses of foam, which doubles up as dessert for the kiddo, who has suddenly started to love horses. 

The people here are exceedingly kind. Inside a cafe, I watch in wonder as a homeless man walks and is served a free sandwich, with just as much warmth as paying customers. Outside a supermarket, another man is handed over a baguette with such casualness that I think at first that he had sent his friend inside to shop. Only after a few moments did I understand. A few days later, the same homeless man gives Arjun a banana as we step inside the supermarket. When I return to give him a little bread that we bought, he is nowhere to be seen.  The French are different in many ways. 

The next day, the Mistral has quietened down, and we make for the hills. We clamber up a hillside, with short pines and lavender-dusted bushes, collecting rosemary and chewing on wild junipers. When we sit down to eat our sandwiches, everyone who passes us has a cheery “bon appetit”. It’s impossible to eat in Marseille without being cheered on.

From the top of the hill, the sea is all turquoise and glazed gold. There is something about the light here. Everything is sharp and vivid. The quality of light is what drew Van Gogh and other sensitive souls here. Immersed in a dreamy hyper-reality, after quarrelling with Gaugin, on a bright sunny day, Van Gogh cut his own ear off.  What happens in hyper-reality sometimes seeps painfully into reality. 

The next day, we ride a bus to the University of Luminy and walk into the heart of the Calanques. Carlo Rovelli, the famous physicist who claims that the universe is just a bunch of imaginary quantum gravity loops and time does not exist, teaches here. The shimmering Mediterranean does affect you.

We look out into the sea, now grey to match the clouds above. The wind blows, and the limestone piles into towering cliffs. But Lunch was the real surprise today. We walk into a buffet, set amidst tennis courts, and eat all sorts of delicacies to our heart’s content. Arjun is still shocked by the three creme brueles he had.