Lille 3000

Struggled not to attempt an excruciating pun for the title of this post and - you will be glad - gave it up as a bad thing. Last Saturday evening saw the inauguration of Lille 3ooo a three-month festival of all things Indian/Asian in the metropolis. I had questioned the reasoning behind the decision wondering what relevance it had but once I discovered that Lille 3000 is to be a biennial event with a different theme each time I was more than open to its possibilities.

Taking coals to Newcastle came to mind as friend Hamid was with us, a Bangladeshi for whom we had to promise heaven and earth in order that he would be granted a visa to visit us.

Throughout the festival there are elephants standing some 6 metres high (20ft if you must) along the Rue Faidherbe running from Gare Lille Flandres to the Place du Théâtre. They stand majestically, in pairs facing each other, a dozen of them forming proud "trumphal" (there got one in) arches. The station itself is illuminated like some brilliant temple, as is the La Voix du Nord building in the Grand' Place.

Admittedly we did have to wait well over an hour but when the parade arrived it was superb and more than made up for the wait. The air was autumnal but not cold and we could see fire and coloured smoke moving intriguingly towards us in the Rue Nationale. Then suddenly the incessant chatter was masked by the noise of the procession which swept passed,

litterally swept though with fire, falla giants, over 1000 dancers, musicians and singers. The air was filled with spice and incense and the night throbbed to a Bollywood beat.

We took our time to walk back up towards where the parade had started in order to see the elephants in all their nighttime glory, bedecked in glowing jewels.

Of course there were some negative feedback on the local paper's website opinion page on Monday, but we thought it a huge success and hope that the standard is now set for the rest of the season. More information can be found on the Lille 3000 dedicated website.

Final photo courtesy of La Voix Du Nord.