Social Project

I've lived in Paris for a few months now and I travel to work everyday, like so many of us, using the capitals amazing mass transit network.

Since my girlfriend Chili moved to London, I’ve started a social experiment in the MTN and while driving around with the company car.

Now it’s important to know that in Paris, like in most big cities, people are not very inclined towards communication when using public transport, they are even rude as reaching home as fast as possible seems to be the local sport.

Every morning free newspapers are distributed around town and my fellow citizens appreciate them a lot.

My social project “would you like the papers with that Samosa?” is to gather those newspapers in the morning and in the evening and when I head back home and there are no more newspapers available I give them to the person next to me after having read them. Now you must be telling yourself “this is normal” but it isn’t here in Paris were people would rather put the newspaper in their bag than risk talking to the person next to them.

So I’ve been doing this for about a month and a half now, asking the person next to me if he would like the papers, most say yes as they look at me with envy while I’m reading it just before, some say no, some even accept it and then put it in their bag.

The idea is that at the end of the day, people will start sharing the paper with others instead of keeping it to themselves, since at some point I or one of my “victims” will have given it to them.

The same thing applies to my other social project Samosa’s own “let the damn car that’s stuck in traffic pass”

When I drive in Paris were traffic is like in Bombay, I let people who are stuck in the middle of the road or trying to take a turn pass, something that nobody does here.

I believe that the next time the person I let pass sees someone else stuck somewhere he or she will let them pass as well and that if he doesn’t he’ll feel bad about it.

I realise that these are very optimistic ideas but I find it important to break the loop in which we are all entangled, not communicating, fending for ourselves behind our steering wheel in a kind of Darwinian nightmare where it’s everyone for themselves.

My dream is that someday, someone I don’t know will ask me if I want the newspaper in the subway and that when I’m trying to take a left turn and nobody lets me pass someone will block traffic to let me take my left turn.

These are actions I take because they would make life simpler, it’s just being polite and generous when you can, and everybody knows that’s how it ought to be especially in stressful environments.