MY first introduction to Paris came via three lovely cats. I must have been six or seven. It was through an adorable story book called "Gay Purr-ee", punning on how Gay Paris is correctly pronounced. My Mum and Dad gifted my sister Sarayu and me these wonderful children's books. A few, we may have won for some competition or other. But they suddenly surfaced last week, during a bout of my sister's spring cleaning, and I felt an intense stab of pleasure, as memories flooded back.

What made the book special were these splendid, evocative drawings that brought alive the love story of Jaune-Tom, the French country cat, and his girlfriend, the stylish Mewsette, her of the white fur, purple eye shadow and long eye-lashes; and Jaune-Tom's jigri dost, roly-poly Robespierre. Jaune-Tom is missing Mewsette, who has gone off to Paris, so he and Robespierre go to Paris to find her. Could she be on top of the Eiffel Tower "that glowed and gleamed and glittered in the sunlight?"