A Personal Paris!

Bestselling author of the recently launched The Rabbit & The Squirrel, Siddharth Dhanvant Shanghvi talks about the city that restored him to writing.

- Siddharth Dhanvant Shanghvi

Many years ago, the writer Tash Aw and I were wandering the streets of Paris. On that Sunday, it was overcast, and even the nobby 7th arrondissement lacked an open bistro.

“I hate this city,” I mumbled.

“Let’s head to the Lutetia,” It was a well-known five-star hotel. “They have a great restaurant. It’ll be open on Sunday.” Visiting the Lutetia (hotellutetia.com) at the time was like calling on an aunt who once enjoyed a celebrated romantic career, but had since fallen into an era of bad thighs. “I’m never coming back,” I told him.

“Don’t be silly,” Aw said. “You’ll love Paris, it’ll creep up on you like a fever.”

Seven years after this trip, Aw—author of the wonderful and acclaimed bestseller Five Star Billionaire— made good on his forecast. This year, across spring, summer, and fall, I spent around three months in Paris. I was knocked for a loop. In Edmund White’s erudite, odd book, The Flâneur—a celebration of walking through Paris—you learn why so many writers and artists made this city home. It is resplendently, annoyingly beautiful; that’s obvious. But its true métier is that it pretends to be charmingly parochial when, in fact, like some sort of good witch, it knows everything—how to love, where to dine, whom to abandon, the perfect put-down. “It’s a mild hell so comfortable,” White writes of Paris, “that it resembles heaven.” This summer, sitting with close friends at the refurbished Lutetia—after a two-year revamp—reminded me of a mature French lady: vintage, but shot through with a timeless sexiness that’s without equal.