Patricia's Choice

Patricia Loison was adopted from Delhi. The first director of Indian-origin of the Alliance Française, she talks of growing up French and the challenges of having a past with some pieces missing.

- PARAMITA GHOSH

With the party underway, Patricia Loison began to waltz. And as was proper, one of the first dances of the director of Alliance Française de Delhi (AFD) was with Thierry Mathou, the French Ambassador to India. Both were in French colours—blue, white, and red; in her off-shoulder dress, Loison moved gracefully under the chandelier before Pichwai paintings. A pièce montée cake installation at the other end of the ballroom, a violinist in all black, a poster of earlier versions of cultural evenings in Delhi, plates of macaroons with honey and goat cheese plus other savouries by L'Opéra on little tables beside the bar—all played their part in evoking the '50s 'French Ball' that Loison had re-ushered into Delhi a few weeks ago, just as summer grew in the city.

White heat bleaches the glass windows, as it were, but the office of Loison, the first Indian-origin director of Alliance Française de Delhi, whom we meet a few days later, is cool. The books, files, bulletin boards with stickies of things to do, and indoor plants set against office furniture give the room a busy look, but the arrangement all seems aimed at aiding work. At her workplace, Loison has imposed the order of a French garden. The start of her story of life was anything but.

“There are a few boxes that I open with caution and only now and then,” she says. “If I were to see a certain kind of movie or read a book. Otherwise, they stay quite closed.” In 2019, Loison wrote a book Je cherche encore ton nom (I am still Looking for your Name), published by Fayard, in which she wrote: “I could have grown up on these Delhi sidewalks begging, mirroring the fates of those little girls…”