On the ICE 17 I have an aisle seat in front of a table. Diagonally across, facing me, is a young man speaking on a phone – an iPhone – with a British accent. A copy of the International Herald Tribune lies on the table, crisp and unopened. The seat next to mine is vacant; the sign above it indicates a reservation, like mine, from Brussels to Frankfurt.

Passengers move through the compartment slowly, stumbling over bags in front, pausing briefly to look at seat numbers or to allow someone settle into a seat. No one stops at our table. The Britisher, still on the phone, is speaking tenderly to (I presume) his girlfriend. He tells her to get some rest and says he’ll try to sleep as well. When the train begins to move he ends his call, tilts his seat back, and drops off to sleep.

My neighbour has not arrived yet. A few people are milling about, trying to locate their seat or to find one that isn’t reserved. A girl stops and asks me if the seat next to mine is free. I point to the sign above: it’s reserved, I tell her. But she persists: we’ve left Brussels, she says, and no one’s turned up. Alright then, I reply and make way – good luck.

* * *

The Britisher is fast asleep. Next to him is a middle-aged man, bald, wearing thick glasses, reading a Dutch magazine. It’s dark outside. The train has settled into its rhythm, cruising (the electronic display tells us) at close to 300 kmph. The girl next to me is typing fast on her mobile phone. I open my book and start reading.

Soon I hear the familiar cadence of the conductor as he enters the compartment. There is a rustle amongst passengers, reaching – inside handbags, coat-pockets, books – for their tickets. The conductor’s mannerisms are animated: he nods vigorously, gives a musical touch to his Danke Schöns, raises his eyebrows in an expression of mock-suspicion. At the table across the aisle he looks at a ticket and exclaims “Ah! Liège-Guillemins!” as though it was the name of a long-forgotten station. At our table, after he’s done with the rest of us, he gently taps the Britisher’s shoulder, twice. The man doesn’t move an inch. “Tickets please!” the conductor says loudly, giving him a shake this time. The Britisher, initially startled to find himself waking up in another world, recovers and hands his ticket to the conductor, who gives it a cursory glance, hands it back with a flourish and moves on.

* * *

The girl next to me is staring out of the window. It is impossible to see anything outside, but for the distant lights that occasionally trace a straight line across the window. The right moment to begin a conversation.

“You were right.” I say to her. “No one turned up to claim the seat.”

She turns around and nods. “I was lucky. The funny thing is, when I bought the ticket I was told there’s no need for a reservation. But this train is full.”

Her voice, soft and steady, suggests a maturity far beyond the age I’ve associated with her. The accent seems European, but I’m unable to place it.

“Yes,” I reply. “The train is usually full on Sunday evenings. I travel often on this route – my wife lives in Brussels – and I always insist on a seat reservation. Are you travelling to Frankfurt?”

“Köln. I study there.”

“What do you study?”

“Masters in Business. Not exactly an MBA, but something equivalent. I’m an exchange student, here in Germany for six months. I’m from Finland, actually.” She smiles as she speaks that sentence, almost anticipating my surprise.

“Finland?!” I exclaim, raising my eyebrows; in all these years in Europe I’ve never met someone from Finland. “Where in Finland are you from?”

But this is an unnecessary question: the only place in Finland I know of is Helsinki.

“Helsinki,” she replies.

“Finland – I remember it being referred to as the land of a thousand lakes.” This is the only other fact I know about the country. Apparently, it is wrong.

She smiles. “It should actually be known as the land of a hundred thousand lakes. There are so many of them.”

The conversation takes off. She tells me of her experience in Germany: very positive so far. The Germans are a bit like the Finns – reserved and conservative – but a lot more formal. (Her Professors here ask politely if they can address students as “Du”.) Finns, though reserved at first, become rather friendly once they get to know someone, even hugging one another each time they meet.

Are Finns religious? Not at all. Even among her parents’ generation, most people visit churches only during Christmas or for weddings. Around 80% of Finns are protestants, and have to pay church tax. Many opt out.

What does she plan to do after her Masters degree? She has to get back to the consulting firm that is sponsoring her studies. She started working for them after her undergraduate degree, and is still engaged part-time, working remotely; she’ll go back there, for a while at least. 60 to 70 % of Finns leaving school join the university, so it isn’t easy to get a good job unless you have a Masters. She hopes her prospects will improve with this additional degree.

Her course has taken her to other places too. She spent one semester in Montreal – a charming, vibrant city – and, while in Canada, she visited the U.S. on a holiday. The U.S was also nice, but the people there were superficial; she liked Canada better. What about Asia? India? She hasn’t been to India, but she spent a few days in Bangkok, at a conference. There, on her way back to the hotel one day, she saw an elephant on the road – it was fascinating. There was hardly enough time to see Bangkok, but she liked whatever she experienced.

* * *

As the train slows down near Aachen, a man on the other side of the aisle gets up, removes his bag from the overhead shelf, and walks away. A little later, when the train is almost at the platform, my neighbour indicates that she wants to move out (“Pick up something from the on-board restaurant.”). At Aachen some passengers get down, many more enter; soon a middle-aged woman is by my side, pointing to the seat next to me.

“Is that free?” Her German is thickly accented. Bavarian, I think.

“No,” I reply. “It’s occupied.”

She repeats the question on the other side of the aisle. There, the situation is unclear.

“There was a man sitting here,” someone nearby says, “but he left with his bag a little while before Aachen and I’m not sure if he is coming back or not.”

“I’ll take a chance,” the woman replies, and sits down.

The train leaves Aachen, and soon I see my neighbour enter the compartment with a bottle of mineral water. Short and slim, she has a bouncy, girl-like gait. She’s wearing dark-blue jeans, a violet sweater over a black blouse with frills in front. Her dark hair falls onto her shoulder in a straight line, which reminds me of profiles of women in ancient Egyptian art. The only thing that appears out-of-place is her large brown leather handbag: covering almost half her torso, it seems too large for her. From the way she carries it the handbag does not seem bulky, which makes the choice of size more peculiar. Her eyes narrow and lips widen as she approaches – a wonderful smile.

“I thought you’d been left behind in Aachen.”

She laughs. “There was a long queue at the counter. They must install a vending machine there.”

We continue talking, and soon find ourselves on the subject of movies. I then remember another Finnish reference: the last part of Jim Jarmuschs’s Night on Earth is set in Helsinki. Has she seen the movie? She has, and she remembers that the taxi ride across Helsinki covers some interesting historical spots. And yes, she recently watched Slumdog Millionaire, liked it. I smile, and recommend Wes Anderson’s The Darjeeling Limited for another view of India as seen – and shown – by a westerner.

Apart from Slumdog, the other thing she knows about India is Goa. And yes, the Taj Mahal. I tell her I’ve seen the Taj, but never been to Goa.

Her phone rings. She reaches into her handbag and brings out a slim instrument. After speaking into it for a minute, she types something on it, then places it back in her handbag.

Was that a Nokia phone? Is she loyal to Finnish brands? She laughs, and replies that she indeed has not one but two Nokia mobile phones. Nokia is Finland’s biggest employer, but sometimes their phones do not work so well.

The train is slowing down again – we are near Köln – and the man who had vacated the seat across the aisle returns, a good forty-five minutes after he left, to claim his seat. The middle-aged woman has to make way.

“We thought you had left in Aachen,” his neighbour says, as the man sits down. “You even took your bag!”

“No, no.” he replies, in the most casual manner. “I was just chatting with a friend in the restaurant.”

Köln arrives; it is time for my neighbour to leave. As she collects her belongings and stands up, I ask what her name is. Cini, she replies. I try to imagine it written: Cini, Sini, Seenee, Sceni, Cene? But there is no time to ask – the train has stopped and people are getting down. At the end of the compartment, where the queue has stopped momentarily, she turns around and waves. I wave back. The queue begins to move; the next moment I see her getting down onto the platform, the large handbag slung over her left shoulder. She looks to her left, right, and then merges, with the crowd, into the darkness.

1. Arrival

At the Bengaluru International Airport everything seems new and shining. The modern interiors, polished and spacious; the immigration officials, courteous and efficient; the H1N1 desk, sophisticated (with high-tech equipment measuring, from a distance, the average temperature of passengers in a queue) and orderly; the exit gate, sparse (no swarm of taxi-wallahs waiting to assault you) and organized (a handful of drivers carrying placards, Volvo buses to the city). Is all this only a facade? Or has change renewed other dimensions of life in Bangalore? I’m eager to find out.



2. Belonging

I’m visiting India after two years and yet, just a day into the trip, Germany already seems like a distant dream. It’s the density of experience here, the total invasion of your senses. And the instant connectedness you feel to a place you’ve grown up in. I belong here, I tell myself. Is this another fleeting impression?

3. Sickness

The euphoria doesn’t last long. By the evening of day four I’m running a high fever. This – a flu brought on by an infection of either the ear, nose or throat – has happened, without exception, on every India visit. Indian cities may sell themselves on a number of points; health isn’t one of them. (Health-care is a different matter, of course.) But a powerful antidote is near at hand: Mother. In two days I’m back on my feet.

4. Relatives

The trip is too short to make my obligatory visit to the dozen first-circle relatives in the city. (But Mother, despite my protests, makes me phone all of them and promise a visit when I’m here again in December.) This time I only visit an aunt where Grandma is staying. On this day some other distant relatives are also present. I sit with my coffee, silently watching the scene – with children, aunts and grandmas – unfold.

A 5 year old girl hasn’t been well, and the mother remarks that she is on antibiotics. One of the elderly women is shocked.

“Antibiotics! For such a young child!!”

The mother turns defensive: “The cough wouldn’t go down at all, and the fever also remained very high – so we had to accept the doctor’s advice.”

But the elderly woman isn’t convinced: “Have you tried the seeds of [exotic sounding name] plant? It is so effective that you will never think again of going to a doctor. Just dry them in the sun for a few hours, crush them and mix the powder in a glass of milk for the child. And if you are doing this for the first time, better not to start on a Saturday or Tuesday.”

Grandma, silent until now, doesn’t wish to be left out of this debate of homemade cures: “In our days it was sufficient to mix some Tulsi leaves in a spoonful of ghee. That would cure most ailments.”

This interjection from Grandma is a relief to the little girl’s mother: the focus has shifted to the relative merits of Tulsi leaves over the other seed; the child can continue with antibiotics for the time being.

5. Friends

Five meetings with different friends show what I’m missing back in Germany.

At one place we play a stimulating word game that involves making your partner guess the word on your card by giving any verbal clues except those on the must-not-use list. Another friend’s 2-year old daughter dazzles us with her recollections of specific events in The Ramayana. Over dinner with a journalist I hear a fascinating account of life in Bangalore as a freelancer and mother of a 5-year old. Then there is a long evening music session with a colleague who, in his spare time, composes folk songs in Bengali. Finally, the day I’m leaving, I visit a college friend; she’s been taking piano classes and I get to hear some delightful Bach melodies while her 5-year old son dances to the tunes.

It’s the concentration of these social events into a space of a week that paints a picture of life vastly different to what I lead in Germany. But is this an exception? For some of these friends, my visit is a social encounter they seldom have – life in the city leaves them with little time and energy. The irony is that in Germany, in the small-town community life I am a part of, there is a good amount of time and energy to spare, but few friends like these.

6. Society

A friend who moved back to India last year noted that he constantly finds himself being slotted into a social hierarchy. People look for clues – through the dress you wear, the car you drive, your job title, educational background, the address you live in, whom you socialize with, and so on – and place you at a certain level. How they respond to you, the value they give you depends, in the end, on your place in their imagined social tree.

Being an NRI, or having any association with something “foreign”, can propel you higher (or at the least, help you get noticed). I observe this through my parents’ attempts to project my NRI status (Dad promptly introduces me to people in our apartment building as his son “who has just come here from Germany for a week.”) and to project my connections to others with a similar background (Mother, talking to a relative about my planned visit to a friend later in the evening, highlights that this friend is a “U.S return”). I find all this amusing and entertaining (the highlight of the trip is an introduction to someone who calls himself “IIT Srinivasan”, to underscore the institution he graduated from), but the underlying malaise, if one thinks about the consequences, is disturbing. Status anxiety exists today in every society, but it seems to be taking an extreme form in India, guiding more and more decisions people take, from cars to careers, homes to holidays, food to friends.

Swimming pools in apartments are a good example of a status symbol that has emerged in the last decade. Everyone wants one in their apartment complex, but few use it. At a small block of apartments in a crowded street I find a swimming pool, not much larger than a bathtub, filling up the central courtyard from corner-to-corner. Some years ago this space would have been used as a play area for children. The kids now play on the street, dodging speeding autos and shooing dogs rummaging through the rubbish lying on the sides.

7. Family

At home recovering from my bout of sinus, I dig up some old photographs and spend one evening going through them with parents and sister. Dad reminisces about the “good old days” in Ghana in the Seventies; Mother recollects how naughty I was as a boy; Sister reminds parents how she’ll never forgive them for planning their U.S and Europe trip before she was born. In one album there is a photograph of mine, taken a few years previously: I’m sitting in front of a steaming bowl with a towel over my head, looking utterly miserable, just having inhaled some Vicks vapours.

“Look at this,” I tell them, “This is how I’ve always been, isn’t it? The boy whose nose wouldn’t just stop running.”

The picture and its timing (I’ve just finished inhaling Vicks vapours from a steaming bowl about half an hour ago) is too much for all of us: we cannot stop laughing for the next few minutes.

8. Shopping

The forum mall in Koramangala is bathed in a sea of young shoppers. Inside Landmark, in one corner of a crowded book section, I have a conversation with a young engineer from Intel. It begins in a peculiar fashion – he comments on the “nice pattern” my shoes have, asks what brand they are – and moves on to books, my life in Germany as an expatriate, his alternate life as an entrepreneur. (This is a country with ideas, I think to myself.)

Half an hour later, at the billing counter the queues are spilling over to the main shopping area. The systems are down, someone explains; so they are billing everything manually. When my turn finally arrives the cashier’s eyes widen at the stack of thirty-odd articles – books, CDs, DVDs – I place on the counter. This is going to take a while. People behind me also realize this, so they request their “single item” to be billed first. After three such requests the cashier begins to work on my pile.

Writing down the description, code and price of each article takes about twenty minutes. He then begins to sum it up using a calculator. Once completed, he starts again (“Just to verify it, sir.”), which brings up a different amount, so he repeats it a third time. When it all seems done, he observes that a good part of the bill is not copied as the carbon paper was in the wrong position. That won’t work; he has to make a copy for the records. At this moment the system comes up, so he decides to do the entire inventory again, through the electronic channel. Five minutes later we are done. In these forty minutes I’ve seen a few minor episodes at other counters and queues: people are growing impatient and the cashiers, for no fault of theirs, are blamed for small mistakes made under duress.

I can recollect only one such episode of automation failure in Germany in the last nine years. Compared to India, automated systems seem to be more reliable there. Without digging into specific numbers or details I can only guess at a possible cause: perhaps it has something to do with the availability of a backup manual system. In Germany, I haven’t seen any manual alternative – if the systems are down, the queues are closed. This places a much higher demand on the degree of reliability an automated system must offer. In India there is, most often, a manual alternative; perhaps it is a cultural trait – we are more flexible, and also more risk averse.

9. Education

A cousin comes over to stay for the weekend while I’m in Bangalore. He’s studying Computer Science at a nearby Engineering college, and has brought some books with him to study. When I peek into his notes, I’m shocked to find that he is expected to write down, as an assignment, the commands of the Unix operating system. Apparently they do not have a Unix system in college; all they do is study theory. It’s a bit like asking a carpentry student to write down the theory of drilling a hole; you may make him memorize the procedure, but there is no substitute for doing the real thing.

I search for and locate a web-based Unix emulator he could practice those commands with. But it does not take away the uneasy feeling that this reminder – of how divorced from reality many courses in India continue to be – has created.

10. Departure

At the Lufthansa desk the lady finds my luggage four kilos overweight. She suggests that since the systems make allowance for only 2 additional kilos, I could transfer some weight into my hand luggage. It is a helpful attitude: she has a concrete solution to the problem.

Inside, after an uncomplicated security check, I find myself in a passage lined with classy designer stores and trendy snack bars – this could be Frankfurt or Dubai. I pick up some magazines in a shop and line up at the cash counter. When I’m the next one to be serviced, a foreigner sneaks in next to the person in front – also a White man – and begins to talk to him. This is the classic jump-the-queue technique; I wait and watch. After the person in front leaves, the cashier – a smartly-dressed teenage boy – ignores the foreigner on the side and collects my items. I’m pleasantly surprised. (The usual behavior I’ve observed on several occasions is to give preference to the White man; call it the mindset of the colonized.) I pay for my magazines, and when the cashier finds he does not have change he simply offers to charge me five rupees less. This is another surprise. (I can recollect being turned away from shops when I did not have small change.) I ask him to keep the ten rupee note instead, giving him a credit of five rupees. He accepts, and adds immediately that as soon as he gets a five rupee note he’ll deposit it into the charity drop-box in the corner. I smile, nod, and thank him.

If this boy represents the next generation, the country’s future looks bright.

In August, when she visited Europe with her family, S, a friend from my college days, was delighted to see “so many elderly people” in the town I live. Back in Dubai, where she lives, one hardly saw the old: the city, continually renewing itself, was full of people who worked and tourists who came shopping.  “This is so nice,” she said, after a walk through town the day after they arrived.

Her remark, which could have come only from an outsider to whom the contrast was stark, reminded me of the importance of this demographic, especially on its effect on pace and quality of life here.  A recent incident comes to mind.

It was a Sunday morning; Wife and I were out on a  neighborhood walk. We approached an old man and, guided by habit, wished him a “Guten morgen.”  Instead of returning our greeting he simply stared back. Funny, I thought, and just as we were about to cross him he began to speak.

“Darf ich etwas fragen?” he said.  May I ask something?

“Aber natürlich” I replied. Of course.

“Warum führen Sie die Frau nicht?!”  Why are you not leading the woman?

This expression puzzled me. For a moment I wondered if he was asking why I wasn’t walking in front, but this didn’t seem right.  Sensing our confusion he pointed to my hands, and asked why I wasn’t holding the woman’s hand while walking. He had noticed us on the way up this street, he said, and even then I wasn’t holding her hand! Lead her by the hand!

Confusion turned into a mix of amusement and delight. I instantly reached out to Wife’s hand and told him that of course I should have been doing it all along.  We thanked him and continued our walk, hand in hand.

* * *

I bought an iPhone a couple of weeks back. Whether I need another mobile is debatable, but the device has turned into a such a versatile all-rounder that it was hard to sustain the I-don’t-need-another-phone argument. Simply put, it is no longer a phone: I’ve made less than half a dozen calls so far, and my usage has largely been in other application areas. Here are a few:

• Camera (still and video): Same as any mobile phone, but ease of use and video is a big plus.
• Voice Memos: Delightful to capture sounds in all manner of places. Railway stations, for example.
• Classics:  This application has given me access to about a dozen classics. Presently reading (in odd places and for short intervals) Huckleberry Finn and enjoying the experience.
• Dictionary:  Comes with an offline dictionary and thesaurus. I find myself digging into unknown words more often than before. (The iPhone is always with me when I’m reading a book or a magazine.) It also has a cool feature to pronounce a word out loud (The accent, unfortunately, is American; I would have preferred British.)
• RadioBox:  Provides access to hundreds of radio stations (which stream content over the internet). I’m only beginning to discover the wonders of this resource.
• Google Earth:  Imagine this at your fingertips, always available.
• Shazam:  Make this application listen for 20 seconds to any recorded song that is playing, and it will get back to you with the song details, including a link to buy it on iTunes and play it on YouTube.  (But it doesn’t seem to work with western classical works).

* * *



Sometime in August, driving through a wooded region in Germany, Wife looked at some trees with yellowing leaves and remarked that autumn was upon us much earlier this year. The trees did look yellow, the leaves on the ground also hinted at an early autumn, but the cause was a moth called Horse-chestnut leaf miner that has been spreading fast across Europe in the recent years. I had first noticed infected leaves last year during a walk in the woods; this year the infection seemed far more widespread.

But last week the first signs of the real autumn were visible: leaves slowly changing colour. At this stage it seems as if the plants cannot decide whether to wear a green outfit,  an orange one or something in between.

* * *

Last week I found a letter from the workplace in the postbox.  The familiar pale-blue envelope stood out amongst the white ones – phone bills, subscription reminders – and I wondered what official message it carried. The bonus round was long over; I wasn’t expecting a promotion; and no one had said a word about any stock options.

So what could it be?

The envelope contained details of a ‘benefit plan’, a set of insurances the company contributes to on behalf of each employee. One sheet summarized the contributions so far, another explained why this was being sent now. A sentence on this second sheet made me pause:

“The age of retirement for the purpose of the statutory pension is being gradually increased to 67.”

67. I stared at the number. Suddenly, I felt tired.

I don’t want to be working in a corporate setting at sixty seven, I told myself.  Why? Several reasons came to mind, but what loomed large at that moment was the imbalance between the proportion of work I put in and the impact this work has. (Plus, in some way, the relevance of that impact on society.)  There is a decent amount of learning and growth on the job, but in the end that has to translate into impact. This isn’t happening, and I’m beginning to feel something is wrong.

All this is still vague, not specific enough. It also isn’t clear where else I would want to be at sixty seven? And what must I be doing now – or soon – if I wish to be occupied very differently at sixty seven?

Sixty seven is a little over thirty years away. Given how long eleven years at the workplace have felt, another thirty-odd years seem like eternity. However, contemplating that length of time brings forth a prospect, a possibility: it seems to me that in that period one could take up something totally different, something one has never done before, and become proficient enough to achieve satisfaction, perhaps even fulfillment. An urban planner, a historian, a translator, a scientist – it all seems possible.

Such a thought could not have occurred to me earlier, say five years ago. One needs a stable period of about a decade, perhaps, to get a feeling of what we can acquire, what we can do, if we give ourselves time and continuity. Eleven years of working in this industry  have instilled a certain grasp of the domain (in which I work) and this culture (of the workplace). Even if I looked at matters beyond work, matters where attention has been partial at best, things still look promising: eight years in Germany have given me an average comprehension of a new language and culture; if I spent the next three decades in three different countries I could pick up three more languages and immerse myself into three other cultures.  An exciting possibility, to say the least.

These thoughts are nascent, premature. But it is a beginning. Who knows where this will lead to?

1. Flowers you pick yourselves, and pay for without fail

3. Colourful, creative clotheslines

5. Those who pose

6. Those who talk, and those who think

7. Those who hide

8. Those who buy and those who sell

9. Those who make you smile

10. Those who read

On this particular Saturday, the 25th of July 2009, I woke up from the right side of the bed, as usual. (This may seem like an irrelevant detail, but it tells you how things all began normally: there were no signs of what was to come later that day.) The light through the half-shuttered window suggested a sunny day ahead – perfect, I thought, for spending the afternoon outside. After a late breakfast I drove to Heidelberg, taking the B291. There was nothing unusual about the drive; traffic was moderate, there were cyclists on the road, and Radio Regenbogen played its usual mix of popular numbers. Now that I think again about it, perhaps there was something different: I do not remember stopping on the way, so all traffic lights must have been green. Merely a low probability event, you may say; nonetheless, given how events played out in the end, there may be something to this after all.

At Heidelberg I parked as usual in P4, below the Darmstädter Hof Centrum, climbed three flights of stairs (the elevator did not arrive for a few minutes), and walked into Hauptstrasse, full of people. Ahead, at Bismarckplatz I saw a gathering of sorts, which was quite normal: the square is an ideal place to attract attention to a cause, and it wasn’t uncommon to see one or more organizations with stalls and banners, spreading their message, be it for peace, for smokers’ rights or for the environment. On this day I did not bother to see what it was all about; I was in a hurry to go to the library, which would close in less than an hour.

At the library I saw Dr.Ahmad talking to another staff member. He waved when he saw me, which was a bit surprising, given the dignity he usually conducts himself with. He has the air of a university professor, a scholarly presence, but on this occasion I observed in his movements something I had never spotted before: nervous excitement. It was as if he was getting ready for an important performance. I didn’t think about it further: the new arrivals section, stacked with titles I hadn’t seen before, had caught my attention. There, hidden between books on American politics, Global warming, and World finance, I found not one but two books on Leo Africanus: a historical novel by Amin Maalouf (whose Samarkand I had enjoyed very much), and a work of non-fiction by Natalie Zemon Davis. This hadn’t happened before; I do not recollect ever reading, simultaneously, a book of fiction and non-fiction on the same figure (or topic, for that matter). Pleased with this coincidence, I decided to check out the books immediately. At the counter Anne was very cheerful; she was leaving soon for New Mexico, she explained, for the break in August when the library would be closed.

Outside, by the time I reached Hauptstrasse, the gathering at Bismarckplatz had grown into a protest march. People – men and women of all ages, with their children – carrying green placards were marching in silence; the Hauptstrasse crowd moved to the margins, making way. The column moved by quickly, and before the next batch arrived (I saw them coming in the distance) I crossed to the other side and took a side lane, Sankt-Anna-Gasse, that joined Plöck.

Plöck runs parallel to Hauptstrasse. It is a quiet street, a stark contrast to the activity on Hauptstrasse, and I like walking here, looking at shop windows on the way. There is an art dealer who sometimes keeps a painting or two outside – I’ve seen people walking by stop to have a look. Next to it is an antique shop whose windows display chess-sets of exotic shapes and texture. A little further, hung along a wall that seems part of an apartment block, are black & white portraits set in elegant wood frames. In the beginning I was always surprised by them – I used to wonder why anyone would choose such a location to display those beautiful photographs – but now-a-days the exhibits are just a pleasant distraction: on this day I again found myself slowing down as I walked past them, taking in the tentative happiness of a bride in white, the child-like innocence of sisters – twins – in front of a tree, the relaxed attentiveness of a woman reading a book.

I was heading for the English bookshop near the street’s end, but when I had about two blocks to go I crossed an opening that made me stop. I had seen it before: the arched entrance led to a courtyard, at whose end a bright yellow-coloured wall had a door carrying a sign, in white with black letters, of a Yoga institute; a creeper that ran up the wall hid part of the sign. I do not know if it was the combination of colours on that wall, the curiously shaped curls of the creeper, or the pattern of stones on the ground – something made me enter the courtyard. I found myself drawn into the enclosure, not knowing why, with little idea of what lay ahead.

The courtyard was deserted. To the right, hidden in view from the street I had just left, a low fence separated the courtyard from a clump of trees. It was a strange place for what seemed like an entrance to a densely wooded area, right in the middle of the altstadt, the old city. Walking closer to the fence I saw that the wooded area was actually a graveyard – a few graves with small letters were visible nearby. In the darker interiors I could see outlines of crosses, their sharp edges jutting out of a jumble of undergrowth. I climbed over the fence and entered the woods.






To be continued…

It happened on our second day in Iceland. Late in the evening, when the bedside timepiece tried – without success – to convince me that it was close to midnight, I discovered that I was locked inside my hotel room. Wife was outside, in the corridor, with the hotel manager. After several attempts to open the electronically operated lock with a key that resembled a discarded ATM card, the manager gave up. “I’ll call the locksmith,” he said, in a muffled voice across three inches of wood. Then, following a few token words of apology, he added: “This has never happened here before. Never.”

We had arrived in Reykjavik the previous afternoon, for a ten-day visit that was both a reunion of college friends (Wife’s, not mine) and a much-needed vacation away from the European mainland. This was the middle of June; the temperature – around 12 degrees Celsius – and the wind got into our bones, through three layers of clothing (but the locals, to our surprise and envy, walked about in T-shirts); the sun set for only a couple of hours each day: it never grew dark.

Earlier that evening, after a noisy welcome cocktail that ‘kicked-off’ the reunion event, I had decided not to accompany Wife and her party-going friends on a late-night pub excursion. Back in the blissful solitude of my room I was only a few pages into a book when I heard someone at the door, trying to open it: Wife had come back to pick up the jacket she had forgotten. Eager to let her in, I tried opening the door, at the same instant, from the inside. Now it wouldn’t open from either side.

The manager called on the phone. “Is this the room whose door isn’t opening?” His English was good, but he had the mannerism of an apprentice who always went by the book. I imagined him in his cabin, manual in hand, reading the chapter on how to rescue locked guests. It wasn’t a reassuring image.

“Yes, it is.” I replied.

“What happens when you try opening the door from the inside?”

“It doesn’t open.”

“Did you try pushing the handle up?”

“Yes.”

“And down, of course?”

“Of course.”

“Ok, I’ve called the locksmith. I’m also trying to organize an empty room so that the locksmith can have a look at a lock that functions – you know, to understand the mechanism.”

“Thank you. How long do you think all this will take?”

“Well, the locksmith should be here in about fifteen minutes. Then it depends on him.”

“As long as he fixes it, it doesn’t matter. I hope we don’t have to shift to another room because of this.” We had settled into the room, intent on staying three more days; packing everything back and shifting in the middle of the night did not seem like an inviting prospect.

“You’ll have to shift to another hotel then,” he said. “We don’t have any more double rooms here. But don’t worry, that is unlikely. As I said, this has never happened before.”

“Uh?”

“And yes, the locksmith will have to enter the room through the window – I’m arranging a ladder as well.”

Our first floor room window was twenty feet above the level of the street it faced. Across the street there was a small square with a few benches. In a corner stood a tree surrounded by a raised platform that bore, on a plate typically seen in scenic lookout spots, a description with some figures. A man was standing there, facing the tree, reading the description. After a minute or so he looked up, contemplating the tree as if it was a sculpture in an art museum; he reached out and touched some leaves from a low branch. The branch, bent by the force of wind, swung away from him and came back. I heard a distant clock strike one. In the stillness that followed its echoes, I realized that the birds had gone quiet; the silence was total, but there was light everywhere, dull yet unending.

The locksmith’s van broke the silence. He was a young man, tall, well-built, dressed in black. He wore his cap backwards and carried a satchel on his waist. His movements, brisk and confident, showed a keenness to get the job done. A ladder was setup on the street. The manager, assuming an air of someone in charge, said something to the locksmith. Some passersby stopped to take in the action. The locksmith began to climb and soon was at the level of the window. I then realized that the window was secured by a latch: it opened just enough to let some air in. “Don’t worry,” said the locksmith, and passed me a screwdriver through the gap. To an uninformed observer on the outside the absurdity of the situation was complete: here was a burglar (in black clothes) trying to break into a room in the middle of a night that was clear as day, with the aid of the inmate in his pajamas. I couldn’t resist taking a picture when the locksmith finally climbed in.

Within minutes he dismantled the handle-and-lock apparatus that had stubbornly refused to yield the normal way. The door was open, but this was the easy part. He now had to figure out the problem that caused the lock to be jammed, and fix it.

The insides looked complicated: beyond the levers, nuts and bolts there was a network of wires that connected an ominous-looking box to the card-reader slot. Watching him use his long fingers to carefully take apart pieces of the mechanism, I had the momentary impression he was dismantling a bomb. There was sweat on his forehead; he took off his fleece jacket saying it was too hot. When I offered him mineral water from the mini-bar, he refused: “Just take a glass and pour me some water from the tap,” he said. “Iceland has the world’s purest water.”

His name was Hemir. Originally from the north, he had come to Reykjavik, like many youngsters, in search of better prospects. He was a law student, three years into his five year course; being a locksmith was a part-time job. Was he the only locksmith in town? No, there was another one, someone who originally worked for the same firm but left to setup his own after learning the secrets of his trade; but that person didn’t know all the tricks, and he would refuse such late assignments. What were the typical lock cases he handled – were hotels common? The most common ones came from cars, homes and offices. Just the other day he rescued a three-year old girl who had locked herself in a room. Hotels were not usual. Calls late in the night, like this one, were typical, but he did not always work on night shifts. Was winter in Iceland difficult? His girlfriend fell into a depression each winter, but he liked the cold and the darkness. And what about the current economic crisis? The initial months had been bad, but he was confident of Iceland’s recovery; the country had been through many difficult periods in the past.

It was half past two when he finished. It had been an “internal misalignment” problem, mechanical in nature, apparently a design issue with these Swedish-make locks.  The door was fixed now; we could stay in our room.

But the episode was not over. The manager appeared at the door, holding a gadget with a number pad on top and a wire dangling by the side. In his other hand was a booklet, a manual of sorts.

“When the battery is removed from the door handle, its memory is erased,” he said, in the tone of an actor who has rehearsed the sentence a few times. “I now have to re-program the door’s security code, and to be honest, I’ve never done this before.”

“Oh.”

“But I have the instruction manual. Please give me some minutes.”

I wished him luck with the manual. This could last forever, I thought, but I was wrong: he was back a few minutes later, this time with two brand-new cards. He tested them on the door; they worked. He apologized again, “for all the inconveniences caused,” and promised to think of something the next day to “make it up” to us. I told him I was simply glad to be in the same room, nothing else mattered.

Back at the window I could see Hemir standing at the edge of the square, smoking. He was looking at the tree in the corner, where the man who stood earlier was now sitting, cross-legged, in a meditative posture, on the platform. I could hear some birds singing. The light, ebbing just an hour ago, now had a touch of vitality, a hint of a new day.

Straddling the border between France and Germany, the fortress town of Belfort is unremarkable save for a large sculpture – by Frédéric Bartholdi, designer of the Statue of Liberty – of a lion carved into the cliff that forms a natural wall of the fortress.  The lion, its head reared up in pride, is more striking at night, when artificial lights accentuate the lines and contours and the figure seems to emerge, in triumph, out of the cliff.  But this star attraction is all but ignored by the fifty thousand or so people who visit the town each year in May, during the three days it hosts FIMU: Festival International de Musique Universitaire.

The music in the festival spans genres: classical, pop, rock, jazz, blues, folk, you-name-it; the musicians – mostly students – come from all over the world (this year there was even a group from Burkina Faso); the venues, spread across the town, are diverse in nature: concert halls, old churches, outdoor concert arenas and stages, even the interior of a fort tower; all concerts are free, and you get in on a first-come-first-served basis.

Continue reading ‘Notes from a music festival’ >

Yesterday we returned, reluctantly, from a vacation in Iceland.  The mind, though, is still there: in the streets of Reykjavik, full of color and gaiety; on the shores of lake Myvatn, swarming with midges; in the vast emptiness of the southern coast, with astonishing cliffs where arctic puffins nest and fly about in strange circles; in the bizarre landscape of moss-covered lava fields; in the salty warmth of the blue lagoon; amidst the Icelanders, relaxed yet enthusiastic.

There is a desire to write at length about this journey.  It has been an atypical trip; the process of writing will, I hope, bring out the differences and clarify them.  The most obvious difference, something that came to view in little things during the last ten-days, was this: Iceland is a simple nation.

300,000 inhabitants; one city – Reykjavik – and a bunch of towns; one people; one religion; one language (that has changed little in a thousand years); no neighboring states; a straightforward – though turbulent – history; a handful of occupations.  (The most complex thing you find are Icelandic names: of the dozen or so Icelanders I had a conversation with, I cannot clearly recollect even one full name.)

This simplicity will be a recurring theme.  But before I get to Iceland, I have some debts – accrued in the busy summer so far – that I have to get off my back: the music festival in Belfort, and the saturday market at Lausanne.  There are no travel plans for the next six weeks – not counting the occasional meet-the-wife trip to Brussels -  so all this writing should get done. I have no excuses this time.

]]> http://parmanu.wordpress.com/2009/06/28/back-from-iceland/feed/ 8 parmanu cliff http://parmanu.wordpress.com/2009/06/12/an-sms-travelogue/ http://parmanu.wordpress.com/2009/06/12/an-sms-travelogue/#comments Fri, 12 Jun 2009 21:28:15 +0000 parmanu http://parmanu.wordpress.com/?p=733 ]]>

(Some weeks ago my parents and sister traveled through parts of northern India. Before they left, when I asked my sister to keep in touch through her mobile, she replied that she would be “on roaming” so would prefer to send SMS messages rather than talk.  What follows – in unedited form – is the full set of messages I received during their trip; all messages, save one, are from my sister, who figures in my contact list as ‘H Cell’)

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[From: H Cell] [ Sent: 31-May-09 21:18]

In delhi. Saw qutub minar, india gate and red fort today.  Chandigarh tomorrow. Howz fimu?

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[From: H Cell] [ Sent: 01-Jun-09 17:20]

We are in chandigarh. Saw rock garden – good – innovative and rose garden – bad – dry roses.  City is very very clean – wide roads. Tomorrow simla by toy train.

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[From: H Cell] [ Sent: 02-Jun-09 18:53]

We are in Shimla. Reached some time back in toy train. Hotel in hilly area. Had to climb a lot. Hotel is nice

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[From: H Cell] [ Sent: 03-Jun-09 19:11]

Your message reached today afternoon went sightseeing today. Just got back. Was pretty ok. After seeing swiss, india is not impressive. He he

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[From: Dad Cell] [ Sent: 04-Jun-09 14:35]

Great fun river rafting sutlej river at tattapani self and H. dad

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[From: H Cell] [ Sent: 04-Jun-09 16:56]

We had been to hot sulphur water springs at sutluj river today. Did white water rafting, got yet completely. Daddy enjoyed a lot. He has messaged u. Do reply back to him. Tomorrow bus to manali.

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[From: H Cell] [ Sent: 05-Jun-09 12:01]

Daddy is waiting for a reply for his sms about rafting. Do sms him. We r in the bus from simla to manali. Out of ten hrs, done with 4. 6 more to go. Very hot.

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[From: H Cell] [ Sent: 05-Jun-09 14:08]

Severe traffic jam due to some accident. Stuck for the last 2.5hrs. More than 12 hrs journey

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[From: H Cell] [ Sent: 05-Jun-09 21:25]

No other option at all. One can only drive. Finally reached manali. Nice hotel. Going now for dinner. Saw snow caped himalayas on the way. Where in swiss r u going to? Have fun.

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[From: H Cell] [ Sent: 06-Jun-09 10:40]

We r on our way to rohtang pass in manali. Snow fall happening here. Parents very happy. Going to 14 k feet high very scenic

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[From: H Cell] [ Sent: 06-Jun-09 16:03]

Ah nice. Have fun. I did paragliding today. Was gr8 fun. was flying in the air.

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[From: H Cell] [ Sent: 08-Jun-09 10:40]

. Flight from kullu to Delhi got cancelled. We have connecting flight from delhi to blr. 600 kms distance. Cud not have reached delhi by road in time.

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[From: H Cell] [ Sent: 08-Jun-09 10:43]

So, ripping in a cab to chandigarh which is 250 kms from kullu. Have booked flight from chandigarh to delhi. Hope cab and flight reach on time. Praying hard & crying. Spending 18k extra due to last minute booking of flight.

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[From: H Cell] [ Sent: 08-Jun-09 15:35]

We reached chandigarh 30mins before departure. Fortunately flight is delayed by 40 mins. So they let us in. Hoping it does not get delayed further. Else delhi-blr will b a problem. Waiting for boarding call. Keeping fingers crossed.

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[From: H Cell] [ Sent: 08-Jun-09 18:07]

Reached delhi airport on time. Security check done. Flight in 30mins. So all fine now. But I am very tired.

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[From: H Cell] [ Sent: 08-Jun-09 18:40]

In the flight now. Shud take off in ten mins. So relieved. Finally! Call in the evening. We will b home by 7:30 ur time.

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[From: H Cell] [ Sent: 08-Jun-09 21:34]

Just Landed in blr airport. It was an almost impossible job today.

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[From: H Cell] [ Sent: 08-Jun-09 22:07]

our luggage also arrived fine. Had booked cab. Driving home now. Shud reach home in an hour.

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[From: H Cell] [ Sent: 09-Jun-09 00:57]

I forgot to tell u that I left my mark on rohtang pass in manali.  I asked mummy to take a video of me sliding down snow. After that i was very giddy for 5 mins due to less o2 there. I puked complete breakfast on snow. My identity is there

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(While this may have similarities to Twitter, I think there are some fundamental differences here. Before I get into that, I’d first love to hear your thoughts.)

A fellow blogger – or better, a writer and photographer – has invited (tagged, as they say) me to write about “seven things I love.”  I spent a good part of the previous weekend thinking what to leave out from this list. It helps, of course, that the tag is not about “seven things I love most”; that would have been an impossible task. It also helps that a “thing” is vague enough, left to one’s interpretation.  I’ve chosen a thing each from seven categories: a composition, a book, a place, a movie, a process, a medium and a person.

Description of things you love can easily tend towards hyperbole, and I cannot say I’ve managed to avoid it altogether. But love without emotion is like pickle without spice; this should explain any excess in the writing.

A tag, like those chain-mails, is meant to be propagated. Without naming a specific person, I request all regular readers here to consider creating such a list. A tag like this, unlike a chain-mail, makes you think. When was the last time you did that?

Read “Seven Things I Love” >>