Keukenhof

We were in Holland last weekend, to see tulips before the season was over.

The Keukenhof, a large and beautifully landscaped garden filled with varieties of tulips, reminded me of the botanical garden at Ooty. The differences were obvious, the most significant one being the large number of tourists (We caught some in amusing positions, photographing flowers from every conceivable angle).

Around the garden there were tulip fields, some in full bloom and some already harvested; we rented bicycles and rode around the fields, sometimes on narrow roads that ran along a stretch of water.

The next day we spent some time at the beach, watching kids play in the sand. Children make very good subjects for photographs, and I could capture a few memorable pictures.

Those few moments during the bike ride and at the beach seemed timeless, and we wished we could stay longer. The weekend was over in no time, and we returned both happy and sad.

Nostalgia

“In Esmeralda, city of water, a network of canals and a network of streets span and intersect each other. To go from one place to another you have always the choice between land and boat: and since the shortest distance between two points in Esmeralda is not a straight line but a zigzag that ramifies in tortuous optional routes, the ways that open to each passerby are never two, but many, and they increase further for those who alternate a stretch by boat with one on dry land.And so Esmeralda’s inhabitants are spared the boredom of following the same streets every day. And that is not all: the network of streets is not arranged on one level, but follows instead an up-and-down course of steps, landings, cambered bridges, hanging streets. Combining segments of the various routes, elevated or on ground level, each inhabitant can enjoy every day the pleasure of a new itinerary to reach the same places. The most fixed and calm lives in Esmeralda are spent without repetition.“

This is Marco Polo speaking to Kublai Khan in Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities, describing Esmeralda while thinking of Venice, the city Marco Polo grew up in.

Grandcanal1

Last year, during this first week of April, I was roaming the streets of Venice. The twelve months since then have not diluted my memories or lessened my longing to spend a small portion of my life in that city.

I spent some time today going through those photos again: the gondolas, the bridges, the systems, the people. And memories of my visit spread through the mind like canals criss-crossing the streets of Venice.

There are, as Italo Calvino writes, two cities in Venice: one above water, and one below:

“Thus the traveller, arriving, sees two cities: one erect above the lake, and the other reflected, upside down. Nothing exists or happens in the one Valdrada that the other Valdrada does not repeat, because the city was so constructed that its every point would be reflected in its mirror, and the Valdrada down in the water contains not only all the flutings and juttings of the facades that rise above the lake, but also the rooms’ interiors with ceilings and floors, the perspective of the halls, the mirrors of the wardrobes. Valdrada’s inhabitants know that each of their actions is, at once, that action and its mirror image …”

Earth and Water were not the only elements of duality I found in Venice. There were streets where one half was stuck in the 13th century, while the other half had progressed into the 21st; there were other streets where antiquity and modernity were so intertwined that you couldn’t decide if the new had draped itself upon the old, trying to hide it, or the old had been used to decorate and enhance the new.

“A description of Zaira as it is today should contain all Zaira’s past. The city, however, does not tell its past, but contains it like the lines of a hand, written in the corners of the streets, the gratings of the windows, the banisters of the steps, the antennae of the lightning rods, the poles of the flags, every segment marked in turn with scratches, indentations, scrolls.”

Venicesquare

I had a strange dream one of those nights in Venice: I dreamed of a city that had been hit by a flood, a city where streets that once separated buildings across each other were now overflowing with water, a flood that spread from one street to another through the entire city so that what was left was a collection of half-submerged buildings. Yet – and this I found baffling in the panic of my dream – the city’s inhabitants went on with their tasks as if nothing catastrophic had happened: in place of cars I saw people using boats; bridges had sprung up to carry people over the water; and women hung clothes on lines thrown across the other side unmindful of the water below.

Clothesline1

After I awakened, I sat thinking for a long time whether this was how Venice evolved into its present form: water had once entered the city, and its inhabitants gradually built their life in and around it.

It wasn’t true, the history books said, but I thought it was a good story. Perhaps an old woman in Venice remembered this story passed on to her over generations, like a legend the historians had ignored. I intend to find out when I go there next.

Two malls and a street

Avenue road, a narrow street made narrower by rows of two-wheelers and auto rickshaws parked on either side, hadn’t changed much over the years. I used to come here during college days; the array of small bookshops that lined the street sold my college textbooks and guides. This time, after many years, I had come looking for some titles in Hindi which, I was surprised to learn, no big bookstore in Bangalore stocked.

The street was crowded and dust-ridden, as usual. Most people I saw were labourers who worked in neighbouring areas and used this street as a thoroughfare; there were also some students – plainly dressed and carrying a book or two – at the bookshops. Above the shops, closely-spaced and discoloured signboards competed with each other announcing their near identical wares. At a nearby South-Indian fast food outlet a barefooted boy wearing shorts and a soiled T-shirt swiped tables vacated by people after their cup of filter-coffee. Up ahead there was an old woman selling fresh flowers from the heap in her basket, while a little girl by her side tried to shoo a cow that had crept close.

Standing there, taking in this scene and the surrounding din of a busy marketplace, it was difficult to imagine that while this street had gone about its usual business for over a decade (since I was here last), a huge IT revolution had taken place in this city. There seemed no clear signs of change visible here; the signs, as it turned out, were elsewhere.

At the end of the street I entered a photo studio that offered “instant” passport-sized photographs. The photo was taken with a digital camera, and a photo-printer instantly ejected multiple copies of tiny portraits in matt finish paper. As I paid at the counter, another customer asked for the negative of the photos he had just received.

“Sir these are from a digital camera” the man behind the counter explained. “There is nothing like a negative these days.”

The customer, still puzzled, asked how he could get more copies.

“Sir for that we have mentioned a serial number on the bill. Anytime you want a copy, you can give us the serial number and we’ll print out more copies for you.”

“So I will have to come here only for the copies?”

“Yes sir, you have to come here only.”

The digital world, in addition to speeding up processes, had opened new ways to retain customers.

* * *

I took an auto rickshaw from Avenue road to the recently opened Forum mall in Koramangala. I had read about The Forum: it was Bangalore’s biggest mall, occupying three floors with dozens of glittering shops, food-outlets, a 11-screen multiplex cinema and a multi-storey car park that could accommodate a thousand cars. Such large malls, common in Europe and the US, were relatively new in India.

The auto ride through one-way streets bursting with traffic took over an hour; it was dark when I reached Koramangala. At first glance, The Forum appeared on the outside like a cross between a cinema hall and a shopping arcade: movie posters covered one side of the facade, and tall masts carried well-lit displays of well-known brands. Inside, I walked across windows displaying crystals from Svarovski, computers from Apple, and music systems from Bose. Soft music filled the background as I glided on escalators from one floor to next, from one expensive display to next. Around me I found mostly teenagers and young-adults, fashionably dressed and willing to spend. At McDonalds a group of boys in neatly starched uniforms took orders from a long queue of people carrying elegant shopping bags. There was another queue at the multiplex: people waiting to pay rupees 500 for a Gold Class cinema experience.

Avenue road seemed a place very distant, perhaps in a different city altogether.

* * *

Some days later I visited another mall on Brigade road: the 5th Avenue. I remembered this mall from my college days: I had been there soon after its gala opening. It was, a friend had told me, the star of Brigade road. The decorations certainly had seemed to indicate so. You entered through a granite-floored passage that opened into a foyer with shops on four sides and a fancy restaurant in the middle. There was a glass capsule lift in one corner and an escalator at the opposite end. A small queue had gathered outside the capsule lift: people were eager to experience this new arrival in town. It was a small mall, but there was much optimism that the concept would catch on: the mall had done well in the West, and people after all preferred one-stop shopping destinations where they could access different brands and have a snack nearby.

Perhaps it was my recollection of this early visit that gave me the jolt I received when I entered 5th Avenue this time. The granite flooring had chipped in places, and it no longer matched the shiny image I carried. The once fancy restaurant looked worn now; most tables were empty. The escalator had been shut down, and stuck in-between its jagged steps were scraps of paper, cigarette-butts and plastic covers. People were using this escalator as a staircase, stepping over all the filth. The capsule lift still worked, although one could no longer see clearly through the stain-covered glass on its sides. The shops seemed to be doing badly: there was hardly anybody shopping, and the shop attendants looked bored and listless.

The economics behind this decline was easy to see: Brigade road, with all its shops and restaurants, was like one big mall; another small mall added little value here. Further, shops tucked inside 5th Avenue were not as accessible and prominent as the ones on Brigade road, and the mall offered little incentive (in addition to shopping) to draw people in.

But while economics can create and destroy assets, attitude and culture is what preserves and sustains them. The Forum is glittering today; how will it be tomorrow, I wondered, as I walked out of 5th Avenue into the familiar buzz of Brigade road.

Two journeys

“When man is in trouble, he goes to God-Man; but when God-Man is in trouble, where does he go?” asked the elderly man (Mr.Joseph, as I learned later), addressing his companion.

I was seated opposite them in a train, journeying back to Bangalore after a week in Kerala. The two old men were engaged in a loud debate over the Kanchi seer’s arrest and I found it difficult to concentrate on my book. Mr.Joseph probably got a hint of my discomfort; he looked at me and asked: “Are we disturbing you, sir?”

“No, no.” I lied. “Please continue. I do not understand Malayalam anyway.”

“Oh, I see. Where are you from?” he asked, and added immediately: “Bangalore?”

“That’s right.”

“And what do you do?”

“I’m a software engineer.”

“I see, I see.” He continued to look in my direction. His companion, a frail old man wrapped in a shawl, seemed keen to continue their debate, but Mr. Joseph showed no inclination.

“I actually retired as Marketing manager of a multinational tyre company,” he went on, “and now-a-days I help my son in his business.”

“What kind of business is it?” I asked, trying to appear curious.

The other old man understood that their debate had ended: he got up to prepare his berth for the night. Mr.Joseph needed no further encouragement, and lost no time in narrating the story of his son’s business.

“As a teenager Anup – my son – was a wayward character. I was probably also to blame – you see, I was busy with my work and did not spend enough time with him. So when he didn’t do well in 12th, I had to use my highest influence to get him a B.Com seat through sports quota. After B.Com Anup took up CA, but after some years he dropped out and started a business with his friend. After all, there are limits to what you can earn as a Chartered Accountant, isn’t it? Today their business has a turnover of a few Crores. Of course, there are risks in business, any business. Recently we lost 33 lakh rupees because the manager of a restaurant in Mumbai – it is owned by Sachin Tendulkar, this restaurant – refused to make the final payment. We could do nothing, because the manager has links with the underworld. What to do, such things happen. My son asked me not to follow it up further and focus on new clients instead. He said, ‘Don’t worry Papa, if we lose 33 lakhs here, we will make 66 lakhs somewhere else.’ Such a mature fellow, my son. He lives in Mumbai, and has three cars now. I look after the Bangalore office. Life is good, God is great. You must be feeling sleepy isn’t it? Good night then. Very nice talking to you.”

Train

Earlier, during our onward train journey from Bangalore to Cochin, we met the lady from Botswana and her three sons.

When I first saw them together, I thought they were siblings – three young boys with their sister. She was a small woman, with sparkling, child-like eyes that made her look like a schoolgirl. Only when she smiled you noticed the wrinkles beside her lips and the folds beneath her eyes – a smile that revealed more than it promised. She spoke softly to the boys – aged 11, 16 and 18; each with a book in hand – and they silently obeyed. Watching them, it was difficult to imagine that those tall, well-built boys were sons of this petite woman who seemed untouched by middle-age.

They moved to Botswana many years ago, she said. She came now and then to India – for her deliveries, and periodical visits to their ancestral home in Trichur – but her husband had been in Botswana throughout. The oldest boy was studying engineering in Johannesburg; the other two lived in Botswana, with her. There were many Indians in Botswana, and their numbers were increasing each year. There were plenty of Malayalis too. Opportunities for travel were good: the Kalahari and Chobe Game reserves offered plenty of wildlife, and there was South Africa just across the border. On the whole, life was good.

Before they slept the lady held each boy’s hand and offered, with closed eyes, a silent prayer. To my surprise, the boys did not show even a hint of embarrassment taking part in this private ritual in our presence.

A little later, as we were preparing to sleep, my wife whispered into my ears: I want three boys just like them.

I slept very little that night.

US Diary – Part II

On the 22nd of November 1963, at around half past
twelve, an open-top limousine slowly passed through Main Street in downtown
Dallas. At the end of Main Street it turned right into Houston Street and then
made a 120-degree turn into Elm Street, crossing, at the bend, the Texas School Book
Depository. A few metres after the turn, as the car slowly made its way down
Elm street, there occurred an incident that would shock people all over the
world and begin a mystery that hasn’t – as many believe – been resolved until
today.

Seated in that car were J.F.Kennedy and his wife, along with
Texas Governor John Connally. The drive was part of a long motorcade that
was supposed to take them from Dallas Love Field airport to the Dallas
Business and Trade Mart, but at this section of Elm Street Kennedy was shot on his
head with two bullets, supposedly fired by Lee Harvey Oswald from the sixth
floor of the Texas School Book Depository.

I visited the area when I was in Dallas last week. I
had read that it had been retained more or less as it was in 1963. The spot on
Elm Street where Kennedy’s car stood when he was shot was marked with an X
sign, painted in white on the tar road. Traffic crossed in both directions,
irreverently. From that spot to the sixth floor of Texas School Book Depository
the view was clear, unobstructed by the surrounding trees. The “grassy
knoll” on the right – the spot from where, according to many theories,
another person had supposedly fired a shot – seemed like a place that would
offer good cover to someone who intended to fire a shot and make a quick getaway. I
felt an aura of mystery surrounding the whole place, but it could very well
have been my imagination.

I had arrived in Dallas a couple a days before, on an
evening flight from J.F.Kennedy airport in New York (why wasn’t the airport in
Dallas named after him?). My hotel on Main Street was a fifteen-minute walk
from the Texas School Book Depository. The skyscrapers in this part of town –
downtown – reminded me of Manhattan, but the energy was clearly missing: the
streets were mostly empty and dull. Further, the area was not considered safe.

Dallasdowntown

The morning after I landed was a Sunday, and since my
meeting was scheduled for the evening I decided to spend the morning going
around the city. The plan was short-lived. As I unpacked I realized I had
left my electric shaver back home, which meant I had to buy a new one.
(Strangely enough, I have never used the conventional shaving brush and razor
so far. When the first stubbles made their appearance – after an agonizingly
long wait for signs that indicated my initiation into adulthood – I inherited
my dad’s old unused electric shaver that lasted me through my college days, and
then I bought myself a new one. There are times when I watch ads on TV that
show a woman caressing a man’s smoothly shaven chin, and I wonder if I am
missing the experience of a real shave – plus the fringe benefits it brings along
– but it hasn’t yet pushed me to go out and buy myself a brush and cream. Not
even when an opportunity like this one presents itself).

I asked the lady at the reception for directions to a
shopping district. She suggested I take
the train, offered directions to a nearby station and added some instructions
on how to buy a ticket from the vending machine. The walk to the station, five
minutes away, was like a walk through a modern city that was hollow both
literally and metaphorically – empty streets surrounded by tall empty buildings
that stood as if they had been robbed of their meaning for existence. “It’s Sunday,” I felt like telling
them, “Go home!”

Station

The train station was deserted. The train arrived a
few minutes later, carrying what seemed like a few survivors on a lost planet.
A middle-aged Mexican seated a few feet away looked at me with curiosity, while
the others stared ahead blankly. At the end of the compartment a young girl
with dishevelled hair was sitting on her boyfriend’s lap. He was playing around
with her and she seemed to enjoy it. After a while she let out a yelp.

“Don’t bite me!” she said, as a few heads
turned around in that direction.

“Why not?” came the reply.

“Because it hurts!”

The scene made me wonder if these days such things
happen in India too. When I was there around eighteen months back, there seemed
to be a very different generation growing up in Bangalore. I would be visiting
that city in a few weeks, and I hoped to get my answer soon.

I reached the shopping mall around 11:15 am and
noticed a few dozen cars parked already. Early Sunday shoppers, I thought, but
I was wrong. The mall opened only at noon on Sundays, and these were the cars
of people working there.

As I walked through the mall, scanning the elegant and
expensively decorated windows, I saw people getting ready for their day-at-work, setting up their front desks and switching on their computers.
Along the corridors there were a few like me, sauntering around, waiting for
shops to open. Many were having their breakfast at a restaurant. An elderly
couple dressed in jogging-suits were walking briskly through the mall, from one
end to the other. A few young boys and girls – a study-group, probably – were
discussing softly in a corner.

Mall

When the shops opened at noon, I quickly bought a
shaver and left.

To be continued ? Maybe, Maybe not…..

US Diary – Part I

The variety of experiences that travel – no matter how short, or to which place – ushers in never ceases to amaze. I’ve just returned after a week in the US, and there seem to be many episodes to share……

Flying in

Since 9/11, flying into the US is an exercise surrounded by security checks and interrogations. My last visit – in Oct 2002 – involved three random checks, one just before boarding the aircraft where I was asked to remove my shoes and socks. This time things were more relaxed, and instead of random checks there seemed to be a rigorously defined process. One new element involved removing shoes and passing them through the x-ray machine, along with the hand-luggage. It slowed down the queues, naturally, but also resulted in amusing sights of people struggling to pull out or put on their footwear (One such lady revealed an intricately designed tattoo under her T-shirt. It made me reflect over the common strategy of getting oneself tattooed in such places, and how such tattoos revealed on the outside only part of the pattern – the tip of the iceberg – as if inviting all eyes either to follow a line that led to forbidden regions or to let their imagination construct rest of the pattern.)

Planes

I was flying Singapore Airlines for the first time, and it was a good experience. The food – thanks to an advance request for a vegetarian meal – was very good, and so was the service. An elderly couple in front received a surprise wedding-anniversary cake from the crew; they were thrilled, and so were some of us who watched the small party. The in-flight video offered forty movies (including one Tamil and two Hindi titles), which could be started/paused/forwarded/reversed all using the remote control attached to the seat. I’m not sure if any other airline offers such a facility for economy class passengers; usually there is a choice of a few movies that run uninterrupted between fixed intervals. I watched an Italian and a Spanish movie (with English subtitles, of course) and hardly slept through the 8 hour flight to New York.

Immigration at JFK was a breeze. After a few customary questions, I was asked to place my “left index finger” and “right index finger” on the sensor, and then face a small camera. Quick and painless.

The flight to Dallas was almost empty. It was a very clear evening, and throughout the three and half hour flight I could see the lights below – every now and then there would be a large concentration of orange lights surrounded by mostly dark regions. These nerve centers of civilization – cities like Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington DC – followed one another regularly, and it was quite unlike any view I’ve seen from a flight before. It is a beautiful planet from above.

Taxi drivers

In the space of four days in Dallas, I rode on cabs with drivers from five different nationalities. First there was our desi driver. This one was from Gujarat, and he launched into a monologue on how people in India think we earn in Dollars but forget that we also spend in Dollars. US or India, it didn’t make any difference, he said. I wanted to ask him if he then considered going back, but didn’t.

Then there was one who looked like a Mexican (Dallas has a large Mexican population). On one intersection a lady from an adjacent car pulled down her window and asked him something in Spanish. He gave a quick, blunt reply and drove on. A couple of minutes later he suddenly said : “You know, everyone just assumes I’m Mexican! Over here, if you not a White or Negro, you must be Mexican – they think no other people exist, man!! That lady there asks me directions in Spanish, thinking I’m Mexican! I can learn Spanish, but why should I?!!”

“Where are you from?” I asked.

“I’m from Palestine. But they wouldn’t know where that is!”

The next one was a Black. He said he was from Mauritania, and asked me if I was Indian. “Yes” I replied, and added that I had lived in Ghana – an African country near Mauritania – during childhood. “Where? In Accra? Kumasi?” he inquired. “Near Accra” I replied. Just before I left he greeted me with a “Namaste!”

That evening on the way to a Thai restaurant with a couple of friends, I overheard that our driver was from Syria. I had been reading William Dalrymple’s In Xanadu and had recently covered the pages where the author passed through a Syrian town named Allepo – I told the driver about it. He said it was city north of Damascus, Syria’s capital. Then my Indian companion – whom I’d met at the conference that day – mentioned that the town of Allepy in Kerala was named after this Syrian town, Allepo. It seemed a bit far-fetched, but when he added that his wife was from Kerala and she was a Syrian Christian, the connection to Syria became clear. Syrian Christians in Kerala are the oldest Christians in India, who arrived much before the Portuguese came in the 1500s.

The remaining rides were with white Americans, who, in contrast to the verbose nature of most of their countrymen, did not speak at all.

To be continued….

A language affair

The first German word I came across was one I was to encounter frequently in the years to come, but rarely put to use.

It was in 1998, when I had recently joined a German multinational in Bangalore. Among my colleagues were a few who had returned after short assignments in Germany. They spoke of the autobahns, described blondes with skimpy summer tops, showed pictures of snow-covered streets and houses, and every once in a while uttered something I gathered later to be Scheisse. What does it mean, I asked one of them when I could no longer sustain my curiosity. What does it mean, that word you keep uttering now and then when your program does not work the way you intend it to? Oh that one, came the reply, that quite simply means Shit. I prefer, continued this colleague, the German word over its English counterpart because it does not end abruptly but trails endlessly, carrying my frustration farther away each time.

In early 2000 when I was assigned to a project in Germany, my vocabulary did not extend beyond a few scattered phrases, containing words I was wary of using beyond my circle of programmers. In Germany I enrolled, along with a few other Indian colleagues, into the course we were eligible for. Our teacher, Alex, surely must have been perplexed by the sheer variety of sounds our class produced – to him we were all Indians, but amongst us were a Bengali, a Tamilian, an Andhraite, and a Kannadiga. The umlauts pronounced by each acquired a distinct character, and after a few sessions of trying to mend our ways, Alex gave up and moved on to less vocal aspects of the language.

As the course progressed my colleagues dropped out one after the other, citing reasons surrounding work, and towards the end the classes were between only Alex and I. It was during this period, when we chatted well beyond the class, that I learnt Alex was a student of English literature. (But, he told me, we study English literature in German, through translated works). He was curious about India, a land whose impression he had obtained from E.M.Forster’s A passage to India, one of the novels he had to study in his course. It took a while to explain to him that things were very different now, and it ignited in him a desire to visit the country. I also told him about more recent works of Indian literature, and the day before I was to return back to India I met him with a small gift in hand – Rohinton Mistry’s A fine balance. He thanked me and proceeded to pull out a cover from his bag, which he said contained his gift for me. The bundle contained A passage to India (in English), and a few sheets that looked like copies of some study material. He said they included copies of a few critical studies (in English) of this novel, and also his own thesis (in German) on the novel. My eyes lit up seeing all that, and I promised to send him my impressions on the novel.

Eight months later I relocated to Germany, and although for over two years I picked up very little of the language, there grew within me an association of the sounds, the accents and the mannerisms of people speaking German to elements of surrounding life in Germany. I wasn’t aware how strong this association was until one day, seated on board a Lufthansa flight at Cincinnati on my way back to Germany after four weeks in the US – four weeks of constantly hearing the verbose Americans air their thoughts and opinions – I heard the voice of the flight attendant on the speaker welcoming passengers aboard and wishing them a pleasant flight, in German. Those syllables were music to my ears; I felt I was going home.

The medium used at work was English, and that gave me and other foreign nationals little opportunity to practice the local language. Then, about an year ago, an informal “rule” introduced on our team led to the usage of German as the predominant form of communication – oral and written – which in turn acted as catalyst in our learning process simply due to the volume of German we encountered – and continue to encounter – each day.

It is difficult to put into words the feeling that passes through someone who discovers that sentences which seemed to make little sense until then had turned, all of a sudden, much more transparent and could be easily understood. After months of struggling to get a foothold, after countless occasions when concentration lapsed due to the sheer effort needed to maintain an overview of what was being spoken, when one day you become aware that you do understand a lot with little effort, it is as if someone had placed a Babel fish into your ear. On the radio the broadcasts seem familiar and discernable, on TV you begin to laugh at the comedy shows, your elderly neighbour seems more communicative that you thought she was, and suddenly a new world opens out, waiting for you to step in and participate.

In reality, the acquisition of language skills is gradual and most of it happens without our noticing it, until one day we become aware of how much we actually know. Then it seems to have happened all in that instant, and such an instant is a magical moment, a moment you do not wish to let go of. There occur many such moments during the course of learning a language – as one passes through different levels of understanding – each spurring you on to move further to a higher level, towards a deeper understanding of an alien culture.

It is difficult, however, to sustain this magical moment for long. Every now and then you come upon a word you haven’t heard of, and this little word robs you of the meaning of a sentence you had been following perfectly well all along. If you are reading, you can refer to a dictionary, but if you are listening to someone, the sentence is lost forever.

These days there are times when I stand outside bookstores and look longingly at German titles adorning the glossy paperbacks on display. Someday, I tell myself, I will be able to walk into such a store, just as I would walk into an English bookstore today, pick up books of my choice, turn their pages and enter, with effortless ease, the universe contained within.

Lausanne

Last weekend we were in Lausanne.

Our drive towards Switzerland – along the patchy A5, through edge of black forest, to the border city of Basel – is always uneventful and one we try to get over soon. The scenery alters dramatically after Basel, so much that someone who lands in Frankfurt and drives into Switzerland along this route would label Germany as a featureless land with clumps of trees and houses, and, impressed with the transformation a little after crossing the border, would concur with the image of Switzerland portrayed by travel brochures and Bollywood song sequences. This time, however, the difference was less evident as we stopped at Basel to meet a friend.

The second half of our journey acquired a surreal quality under the fading light. Wife and I drove on in silence, watching the shifting colours of sunset under a clear sky, with the soft rhythms of Norah Jones in the background. Towards the end of our journey the sight of Lake Geneva – a huge mass of molten lead reflecting the last rays of a dying sun, surrounded by outlines of hills below a sky sinking into darkness – formed an image we would remember for a long time.

Our hotel – one from the Novotel chain – reminded me of the Novotel we recently had stayed at in Paris. Hotels in the same chain tend to reuse the same architecture and design which sometimes creates a feeling of having been there before; this one even had a receptionist who spoke French (Lausanne lies in the French-speaking part of Switzerland) and the rooms were furnished with the same elements we had seen earlier in Paris. I looked for a connecting door that would lead to the adjacent room my parents would have been staying in; there was none.

Next morning we drove into the city centre and parked the car in a lot next to the lake. As I walked towards the ticket vending machine I realized that my Euros would be of no use here – I needed Swiss Francs to purchase my parking ticket. There was an elderly man at the machine, trying to insert a five Franc coin into a slot that accepted a maximum of two Francs. He muttered something to himself in German and tried again. I spoke to him in German, explained that the machine would not accept his five Franc coin, and later bid him goodbye after he had received his ticket.

It was my turn next, and I had only a ten Franc note in my wallet. There was no shop nearby; the place looked deserted. I was looking around, unable to decide what to do next when I saw the old man walking towards me. He came up and asked me how much change I needed – five Francs, I replied, and gave him four Euros in exchange. After thanking him and wishing him a good day, I picked up my ticket and walked over to the car to keep the ticket inside while my wife waited at the entrance of the parking lot. When I joined her she told me that she heard the old man tell his wife: “Er spricht perfekt Deutsch“. We both had a good laugh. My German is still eons away from perfection, and I can barely speak a few sentences without making a mistake. Nevertheless, I couldn’t help feeling thrilled by that remark. (A little later I bumped into the old man and his wife again and we had a small conversation. They were from a town near Dusseldorf, and the lady wanted to know if Lausanne had any interesting sights to offer. I somehow held on – without revealing the imperfections in my German – until we parted, and as I walked away I sensed a tinge of excitement at the thought of how many more such conversations I could have in future. Learning a foreign language does open up new worlds.)

My wife had some official work so she went her way while I walked along the waterfront on Lake Geneva and spent the next few hours simply lying in the sun, watching birds and boats, dreaming, reading, and taking the occasional photograph.

Swiss Cows

cow

On our recent trip to Switzerland (a trip I haven’t yet written about, the editor within reminds me), we stopped at a service area that had a restaurant overlooking a typical Swiss landscape – a lake, surrounded by green hills dotted with cottages. But what caught our attention were a dozen cows, each painted differently and bearing the name of a sponsor.

We spent more time looking at and photographing the cows; the beauty of the surrounding landscape served only as a background.

Singular city

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.

metroInterior

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.

ladyInParis

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.

grandArch

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.