Catalogue

Nishan, a young Sikh, reaches Paris in search of political refuge. He seems to have lost almost everything he had possessed in his country, except his sense of humour and imagination. Is that the reason why he lands here with several small colourful bottles called the “Kamasutra Nandi Bull Oil”?… Fixer, the young, gregarious Caribbean who brings Nishan into France, sets the Indian up with a few room-mates in a small flat. Nishan is overwhelmed by the new world around him. Bale, one of the room-mates, does three jobs at a time : in the day, he shoots porn photos clandestinely ; in the evening, he gives erotic “tantra” massages ; at night, he edits the local craze “The Kamasutra Times”. Satti-the-tailor, the other “missing” room-mate, has gone a step further in search of a French passport : he has even changed his sex and eloped with a French man ; his new name is Marie-Jeanne… Nishan is still quite overawed by his flat-mates’ ingenious tricks, when Fixer palms off a few Kamasutra Oil bottles to a roadside pimp, thus teaching Nishan “the art of making a living by giving the French a hard-on”. In the face of such a dynamic professional milieu bursting with ideas, Nishan’s personal choice is indeed very modest : he starts off by selling Indian lentils and rice at the foot of the famous Montmartre steps. His first day is a disaster and he ends up dumping his food into a trash-bin. Just when a frustrated Nishan is all set to abandon the idea of selling Indian food in Paris, his friend Fixer argues that Indian curry is indeed a brilliant eye, but it must be made with the right recipes. Fixer’s first recipe for the Chicken Curry is to invent fake credentials for the cook! Thus Nishan finds himself declared a famous Indian chef now in search of political refuge… To add some spice to the recipe, Fixer spreads the word that Nishan personifies the 17th generation of the most renowned lineage of Indian chefs…