What are the chances, that you drive into a spectacular farmhouse estate in Normandie—that’s how the French spell Normandy—two-three hours by train, west of Paris, and are greeted by a familiar Indian mewing—of a peahen-peacock pair called Laxmi and Narayan? My ears did a double take. I was so utterly exhausted after the Cannes Film Festival—I had been invited on the jury of the Cannes Film Festival’s Semaine de la Critique/Critics’ Week, but since we had only seven films in Competition, in my free time, I did seven video interviews of all the Indian/ South Asian filmmakers selected at Cannes, and wrote three Sunday mid-day columns. Phew! So I spent a few days relaxing in Paris after, nipping away for two days to rural Normandie, before returning home to Mumbai.

And what are the chances that your host is a Franco-Bengali couple, let’s call them Andre and Anil, who lived in Delhi for 10 years, before moving to this estate near Lisieux, Normandie, since 12 years? All the scenes from Steven Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan, which is partly set in Normandy during World War II, that flashed in my head, were swiftly erased, as I rode through the bracing countryside to the estate. Then I noticed/remembered that peacocks don’t peacock, they mew like cats. They have a major identity crisis—they must have been busy taking selfies when the ID badges were handed out. I laugh when I discover they are called Laxmi and Narayan, after Indian gods, as Indians are wont to name farm animals, whereas Europeans usually, creepily give animals just numbers, say 3024 for a cow. Sigh!