In the beginning, it took me a while to understand that this business of standing on the street side gazing at a newspaper was just a way of catching up with the news on the way to work or someplace else.
It serves as an interesting way to evaluate an article you’ve written – is it crisp and entertaining enough to keep someone standing and reading it engaged throughout?
On clear summer Sundays some locals take to going up in hot-air balloons. Today these two flew right over our apartment.
On a recent visit to the nearby city of Heidelberg a friend’s wife who had just visited a few European cities asked me, “It all looks the same – what is special about Heidelberg?”
For a few moments I was at a loss for words. I loved this charming city and visited it often, but articulating precise reasons why it should appeal to anyone was something I had never attempted. I ended up mumbling something about the river, the castle and the university crowd. She didn’t appear too satisfied.
It is a sentiment many travellers in Western Europe experience; after a while, “the cities all look the same”. And it reminds me of a remark an acquaintance made after listening to a few of my western-classical records: “They all sound the same – why do you listen to them?”
The essence of a city depends on how one chooses to absorb it, but even for the most casual observer Paris is a city that is difficult to mix up with others.
When I first visited Paris four years ago what struck me was the percentage of blacks in the city. In Germany, where I had spent a couple of weeks until then, I had seen few dark-skinned people and had naively assumed that to be a characteristic common to Western Europe. In Paris I learnt I could blend easily with the people around, and I instantly felt comfortable.
Paris metropolitan trains brought back memories of Bombay. Hopping from one train to another, walking along long tunnels to switch between lines, getting swept by the energy of the Parisians, watching them lost in their world, some tired, some bored, some curious but most silent, gazing at the graffiti on the walls juxtaposed with artefacts from a museum – all formed a part of an unforgettable experience.
This time, coming to Paris after visiting Amsterdam, I found a marked difference in elegance. If Amsterdam was kinky, Paris was dignified; Parisians, even in summer clothes, appeared elegant. One could pick up a lesson or two from the way they dressed and carried themselves.
Then there was the space around La Defense. Those modern buildings and artefacts of modern-art spread around the grand arch are so different from the rest of Paris that they never fail to impress. The city, while preserving the old, renews itself with the nouveau.
The list can go on. It strikes me that some of these aspects can be used to describe other cities in relation to Paris. People in Heidelberg, I could tell my friend’s wife, are predominantly German; the city has no metro and its charm lies mainly in the older sections.
At college, I often spent my evenings on the hostel terrace, reading or listening to music. Ashwin joined me sometimes, with a book or his guitar. One such evening we sat through sunset into the night, watching the clouds slowly reveal a beautiful full moon.
“It’s just like a painting…” I said, looking at the horizon.
Then, almost instantly, we looked at each other and laughed at the silliness of that statement. Comparing the beauty of reality with an imitation – it showed how little of reality we observe, and how much we surround ourselves with imitations or reflections.
Often, we miss out on the beauty that surrounds us due to lack of focus – there is too much detail around us, and unless something extraordinarily beautiful catches our attention we fail to focus on the beauty in the details. Framing a portion of reality – through a painting or photograph – helps us look at a single aspect by filtering out surrounding detail.
We’ve taken many walks along that riverside of Rhein at Speyer, and each time I see the statue that sometimes looks like a bird and sometimes like a giant claw reaching out to pluck something out of thin air. Last time, on a clear evening, I photographed it.
Framing reality enhances it, sometimes. And when that happens, you know you have a good photograph.
We just returned after a nice weekend at FIMU – a music festival held each year in Belfort (France) – and since the different thoughts about the weekend refuse to coalesce into a well-structured form I shall write them down as they are.
Somehow last year seemed more fun (the novelty factor, perhaps) and nothing of what we attended this time created the magic we experienced in 2003.
The Chinese have a strange way of presenting introductions. An extract from the brochure of the Art troupe National Music and Dance of South China Normal University: “The troupe is composed of ….associate professor Ning Yong who is praised as the Chinese Great Master of Ruan, the associate professor of dance Wang Haiying who is praised as the Rising Star in the Educational Circles of South Guang Dong…”
The French simply do-not-know-or-do-not-want to speak English. In other European countries you may encounter a willingness to communicate – through a few words or monosyllables of English the natives may know – but the French, no sir. They are either wholly ignorant of the language or are resolute in their determination not to speak it.
There are few things in this world that can offer as much relaxation as an hour of listening to violins and cellos.
FIMU is not the best of places to listen to western classical music. Since all concerts are free there is always a thoroughfare of people walking in and out of the halls, frequent whispers between people, and even the occasional ringing of mobile phones. When I express this aloud, my wife says:”It adds to the charm of the place. If you want a perfectly silent environment go to the Vienna music festival and pay a handsome price for each ticket.” Hmmm…..
Wife also says that Anu Malik would have a field day at this festival, hopping in and out of concerts, pinching tunes for his forthcoming movies.
I do not know if it was the fragrance that wafted in through his windows that prompted it, or simply the sunny weather portending little rain. This evening our neighbour – whose garden received a divine shower on Saturday – was out with a purpose in mind and a hose in hand.
One has to only wait and watch the growth of that hedge to ascertain the potency of this combination of sunlight, water, and a fertilizer frequently wasted.
We live in a quiet, residential area in a small town around a hundred kilometers south of Frankfurt. Houses in the neighbourhood – elegant sloped-roof cottages – have well maintained gardens, which, come spring, exhibit impressive blooms. Each morning I look forward to the ritual of lifting the window shutters and taking in the image of a pretty neighbourhood draped in sunny, wet, cloudy, misty or snowy outfits.
This morning I casually looked out into the street when I saw a man dressed in red shirt and trousers, standing awkwardly with his legs apart in front of a tall hedge that surrounds a nearby cottage. He was a dark skinned person, very much like the Sri Lankans we see in these parts, and in his hands were a bunch of white papers. What caught my attention were his peculiar mannerisms: he looked this way and that, like a boy about to commit some mischief, and then thrust his papers into what seemed to be an opening in his shirt. Then, he slowly turned towards the hedge.
“Oh NO!” I cried, “Not HERE!”
It was unbelievable, outrageous and incredibly hilarious. I hopped to the bedroom, picked up my camera, and was back at the window while he was still at it.
Although it was difficult to keep the camera steady (my wife and I were laughing so much) I managed to capture what is, without doubt, the photo of this week.
System failures often lead to comical situations. I was in a queue at the office canteen counter, having picked-up my pretzel and orange juice for breakfast, when the computer that was used for billing stopped working. It simply “hung”, and then the system restarted (I could see Windows XP starting up). The lady at the counter, trained at nothing more than pressing large icons on the touch screen, had little idea on how to proceed. As the queue grew longer she turned progressively jittery, until a colleague came to her rescue by suggesting we all move to a counter nearby.
The queue moved (it was a bit like a train of people moving in unison, each one with their bananas, croissants, apples, sandwiches, fruit-salads, juices – the Breakfast Express, if you like) and the lady came behind this new counter, only to find that this system was not turned on at all.
It took a while for the counter to start functioning again, and by then the queue was so long that the security guard came around to see what the problem was. Some people were amused, some were not. The poor lady at the counter was still bemused.
It is a tricky thing, automating processes like these. To the end user – people buying snacks at a counter – it seems quite unnecessary: the transaction is very simple and hardly seems to justify anything more than a cash register at the counter. Why have a computer here? The reasons are not so apparent: there may be a need to store all transactions digitally (as a company policy) and it may also be useful to gather statistics (to plan inventory).
While it is nice, in general, to have a manual process that works as a backup for the automated one, this becomes quite crucial in areas where the end user sees no direct benefits of automation. You may tolerate a system delay at an airport booking counter (it is difficult to imagine a world without computerized ticketing systems), but if the same happens at a bakery in your neighborhood, you’d seriously consider baking your own bread.
We recently got back after a vacation in Venice.
Everything one can say about Venice – past, present, future – appears to have been said by Italo Calvino in Invisible Cities – his masterpiece that defies classification (and even, perhaps, description). After reading those pages, anything I can put down seems hopelessly commonplace; I wonder if it is worth attempting a sketch of either the city or the book.
When words fail, pictures come to the rescue. We captured images of Venice in plenty; the albums listed below offer a thematic view to this city of all cities.
It snowed here again last week. The neighbourhood (as Patrix elegantly put it), was “shrouded in stark white”. Beautiful, as always.
Parmanu 
