A City is where a large community is lonesome together...
Firstly the Lonely Planet Guides are good stuff!
The one I am currently using is dated, it’s a decade old but is still good enough to help me get around.
Went to Dusseldorf last weekend - a town and a city co-existing on the banks of the Rhine.
Eighty percent of Dusseldorf was destroyed during the last World War, so most of the city as it stands today is modern architecture. No town halls and stadiums harking back to the Renaissance, more modern office towers with facades of glass and steel.
The modern architecture though, is rather impressive. The Rhine Tower shoots skywards, crowned by a glass revolving restaurant, the view it affords is exquisite. It was a clear day, I saw the Rhine snaking through the forests and lazily circumventing the city, I could see right up to Koln with the naked eye.
The Frank ‘O Gehry towers inclined almost at 15 degrees are pretty neat, so is the media harbor, an enclave of television, broadcasting and newspaper companies from all over Europe.
The highlights of Dusseldorf though, are Konigsallee (Kings Alley, popularly known as just the Ko) and The Alstadt (The Old Town).
Konigsallee is a kilometer long boulevard, closed to traffic and dotted with open air restaurants and cafes. It’s the high street of high fashion!
It is lined by the flagship stores of most leading global brands. Europe’s most celebrated jewelers, perfumers and designers brush shoulders on the Ko, confirming its status as the single most expensive place to shop in all of Europe. If one manages to keep shopping and all its associated stress at arms length, then Konigsalle is a wonderful experience.
I sat at a Café for an hour, and saw the city pouring in and out of the Ko on a lazy Saturday afternoon. Lifestyles of Europe’s affluent were on show, a page out of a magazine peddling high fashion. And there was me, a guy from a country where the per Capita Income is 350 dollars and where famine still makes news once a year.
The only thing that I could think of was Robin Leach, and the way he every week signed of his TV show ‘The Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous’ with that one famous line, ‘Champagne wishes and Caviar dreams’.
I walked down the Konigsalle and then across Heinrich Heine allee (yes the street is named after the man, because he was born in a little house on its edge). A few minutes walk, brought me to the famous Alstadt.
The Alstadt is the only remaining scrap of old Dusseldorf city, its atmosphere is unmatchable. It has the typical Rhineland charm about it - gregarious, convivial and quaint. The Rhine runs along the Alstadt bound by the Rhine promenade. The kilometer long promenade has over 260 beer breweries and inns, giving it the reputation of being the world’s longest bar! There are quaint little family run beer breweries, which have been in operation for over two hundred years. Dusseldorf is famous for its local Alt Beer, a dark colored bitter sweet beer which flows more freely here than water through a faucet. Rhinelander’s drink their beer in small slim glasses unlike Bavaria where it is guzzled in tankards.
The Alstadt captures the spirit of Rhine Land, small wooden door breweries whose porch doubles as a café, large groups of men and woman animated in conversation, with laughter and good cheer hanging over the promenade as the late evening sun warily shines over the Rhine.
The Rhine like all major rivers, with its still murky waters, stands witness to the rites of passage of man and that of societies which have grown roots by its banks, almost as if it were marking time.
Labels: Travel
Video killed a lot more than the Radio Star...
Got thirty six odd channels on TV, of those BBC (always) and MTV (sometimes) are in English. Didn’t opt for ‘Kabel’ as they say in Deutsch.
By the time I get back from the Plant, its generally past seven. This far west, the sun sets late and in the evenings its nice to walk around the streets, sit at café tables and drink beer, or sit on the bench under the lime tree and look at the flaky clouds in the sky.
Sometimes when it’s late and there are still a few patrons dining at the restaurant, they leave the stone fountain running.
In the still of the night the water falling on the stones - sounds like syllables from a lost language.
Okay now getting back to what this whole post was about,
The first thing which struck me about European Television is the surfeit of Reality Shows. There are all sorts, gags pulled on celebrities and regular people. Blind dates of all sorts - the plain vanilla ones, girl going out with two guys and then choosing one at the end of the hour, girl and guy out for the evening - making moves on each other based on text instructions from friends, who by the way are watching the whole evening unfold on hidden camera.
Then there are those ones where a bunch of people are made to co-habit. On one particular currently running series, a dozen people are housed in this cottage up in the Alps. There are hidden cameras all over the place, and the whole show is an exercise in group dynamics really. The viewers are supposed to vote out one person a week, and the last man or woman standing end up getting an obscene amount of money or something. And then there is of course the German version of Big Brother, where an eye in the sky (more like a camera in every corner of the house) just takes over the lives of people.
It is said; the movies introduce or destroy social trends, while television actually mirrors society itself. The whole popular flavor of European Television is all about intrusion into the private lives of people, does that then suggest that the current European generation is one of degenerate compulsive peeping toms?
I think that is just the symptom, the malaise runs deeper. The Western world in general, has seen the whole sense of society, the whole sense of ‘the collective’ really going downhill over the last hundred odd years. Instruments of social cohesion - the extended family, the church, the local council have all woefully disintegrated, producing a generation of very lonely and isolated individuals. People who because they are not in touch with lives apart from their own, have this primal propensity to reach out to people, to see what happens in others lives, to get the inside dig about the fears, loves, weaknesses and passion of others.
Frankly , Reality Television is a reflection of this phenomenon, and the continuous camera totting interest in people’s lives is just a way to feed this overriding desire to reach out.
Look at it this way, in India for example, we still have the family structure fairly intact. We have big weddings - with the motley assortment of cousins, aunts, family friends and all of that. We still meet infrequently at least - for childbirths, engagements, anniversaries and deaths. Our festivals, the pujos or dusshera for example, is still about reaching out. It is still about pandal hopping, having people over in our homes, its still about visiting friends and family. Yes we do light our lamps in our houses at diwali, but then we either go out and meet with people or alternately open our doors to them.
Contrast this with the western world - Christmas is usually spent in the company of the Christmas tree. The mechanisms for social interaction and cohesion is eroding rapidly, society is just a word.
Maybe this entire social critique thing is just me bored and lonely at a beer garden on a weekday evening. Or maybe there indeed is some truth in all of these musings.
I don’t know, but I intend to find out...somehow!
Labels: Travel
The Windmills and the Triumvirate
My white office door has a brick-red name plate which reads - “Spillman, Dieter, Guha”. The first a Nordic, the second a German, and finally I, complete the heterogeneous triumvirate.
Doesn’t it sound like an odd little law firm ‘M/s Spillman, Dieter, Guha’?
Anyways, the office block is at the end of the Hydro Plant, and over looks the hills. This plant produces Aluminum stuff for a variety of customers, Cola cans for Coke, inner side foil for milk cartons, automotive parts for Mercedes, BMW and Volvo and little rectangular aluminum food containers for one Bangladesh Biman.
My office is this large room, with three desks. The one by the door is occupied by a Materials Management Consultant, the German Dieter, he the one of the “funky look”. Odd shaped eye-glasses, flaxen colored suits and perpetual stubble. He is picked up every evening by this blonde, who drives a single-door black Jaguar Convertible. They are quite a number, the car and her I mean.
By the window, at two ends of this room are Spillman and myself. Spillman is an auditor, but looks more like a helpless little house dog. He has a cold and is looking miserable, but is waiting with baited breath for his vacation starting Friday, a fact he incants every hour.
And finally me, writing this blog from a slightly dated lap top with a German keypad. Quite a challenge it posed initially. Beyond the window is this wide hillock, in shades of green. The dark somber green becomes more vibrant and leafy as it reaches the top. The hillock is dotted with windmills, which are disturbingly still at the moment. Am sure it doesn’t power the Plant or my little laptop.
I am waiting for Christian Sielaff, the only German here who can speak in fluent English without having to overtly tax his gray cells or facial muscles, to holler out to me for lunch.
The canteen is at the other end plant, a walk of a kilometer at least. Its rather neat and pretty cheap, I had pasta for lunch yesterday with pickled cucumbers and lettuce. I go with Christian not only because he is rather nice company, but also because he painstakingly translates the canteen menu card which is entirely in Deutsch. One afternoon when I did have to go to the canteen solo, with a prayer at my lip I randomly pointed at something on the menu card, hoping at least that it is edible.
Labels: Travel
Under the Lime Tree
Am in Rommerskirchen, Germany.
The last few days has been an all together new experience. Professionally, I am thrilled to bits - am doing real get-your-hands-dirty Consultancy. As opposed to sitting in office, pouring over emails and working out abstract business solutions.
I am consulting for a Company called Hydro Aluminum; their plant is fifty kilometers outside of Dusseldorf, which sometimes feels like the beyond of nowhere.
The best thing about the Consulting is that I am framing solutions in discussion with the actual business process owners - the logistics coordinators, the material managers and the plant maintenance guys. It doesn’t get more real. It’s the heart of business consulting and I am thrilled!
I am staying in this village called Rommerskirchen, five kilometers down from the plant. If their ever was an idyllic village, this is one. A population of under 800, no English news papers, no bank, one restaurant, and one non-German inhabitant - me.
I am at the Hotel Zur Linde (literally ‘The Lemon Tree’). It’s just off the main road, an old house lined with lime trees, a large patio and a wonderful little stone fountain in front. It has a restaurant on the ground floor, which when the sun is out, opens out into the patio. The house-specialty is Croatian fare. The first floor has three rooms, curiously marked 1, 2 and 4. Yes it is a hotel with just three rooms.
Currently I am its only occupant, so well I have a whole hotel to myself!
Last night I put my lap top by the window, and played Dido. Walked down to the patio and sat on a wooden bench under a lime tree, the music faintly floated through the open window and filled the night. It was ethereal.
It started drizzling. Typically, European rain - a light awry spray which wafts through the air and kisses the earth. The night was dark and desolate; Dido hung above me from the open window. I closed my eyes and let the whole experience enter all my senses. I could almost see a detachment of Nazi soldiers in their ferret hard-hats, stealthily troop past me from around the corner. Just like the movies.
I thought of my life, thought of the day that had ended, tried to peer into the looking glass, but I still could see nothing. I could have lived my whole life like that, the confused drizzle, the cool of the night, a wooden bench under a lime tree and a woman singing songs for me.
Phew…
This has been the highlight of my trip so far, the black Mercedes which came to fetch me from the Dusseldorf Airport comes in second, a distant second though.
Labels: Travel
I can only love her now, the way I used to…if I was GAY.
“I loved her because she was a woman. She had all the feminine qualities that I admired. Now she is cold and I cant recognize her anymore. She has become like me, she has become like a man. I can only lover her now, the way I used to…if I was gay.”
- Java Script, a friend.
Was talking to my friend Java Script (called so, because he dedicates great number of hours contributing to the bottom line of one Sun Microsystems. And that’s just him moonlighting, well that’s digression…anyways).
So that’s what my buddy JS had to say. Poor man is anguished over his long-term relationship petering out. Well I felt bad for him, truly did, I could see the pain as he said what he had to.And when he said “I can only lover her now, the way I used to…if I was gay.” It felt odd; sardonically I smiled thinking about the improbability of a man becoming gay, cause his ladylove had got one of those sex change ops done and turned into a man. A ‘Ripley’s Believe it or Not’, thing almost.
But I truly did feel bad, there is very little one can do when a relationship goes down hill. It’s almost like a body in free fall; nothing really is in ones control, all seems to be determined by the force of G.I just patted him on his back, talked over things for a bit, and offered him a cigarette. But could do nothing else really.
Read Navtej Sarna's "We wer'nt lovers like that", over the weekend. Maybe thats why the perspective is kinda skewed at the moment. Liked the book, found the end a tad incredulous though.
Hmm...but one never really knows about endings. They never really run its course, you know, kind of always has a sting in its tail.
Labels: Fiction
A peek within and without...
I am on a break, like one of those big televised snooker matches. A chance to run the gauntlet, for a while - without running into a wall.
Had two wonderful days Tuesday and Wednesday.
Two very different evenings, different experiences, both provoked thought, brought joy and reflection.
Here's what happened on Tuesday.
Went to an event showcasing George Sand, her Literature and her influences. She by the way was courted by Fredric Chopin for nine years, though their relationship didn’t materialize into marriage, kids or anything of that sort, it evolved and had influences of a wholly different sort, and I daresay more meaningful.
The whole reason I went to this event was because they were playing selected pieces of Chopin. The focus was on, how Sand influenced Chopin compositions, and how in turn their relationship influenced her writing. The literary machinations apart, I was there just to listen to the master.
They played four pieces, notably the Raindrop Prelude and the Impromptu Fantaisie, apart from a ballad and a Mazurka.
Frankly it was exquisite. Just exquisite.
The Raindrop prelude, as usual struck a chord with the soul. Impromptu Fantaisie was performed with great skill and flair. The bit at the end, the pianist’s fingers caressed the keys, and the keys responded with musical strains of in-ordinate beauty.
It was enthralling. As I sat there listening to Chopin, I thought about the greatness and universality of music. Chopin, a Pole settled in France, created such exquisite beauty – so full and true, that years later it has the potency to enthrall a room full of men and women, in distant Calcutta. I mean if this is not the mark of greatness, what is?
A creation of beauty, which has transcended time and space, and is applauded by so many for so long. In a wonderful everlasting way, touching all those who hear it.
It was truly humbling, the spirit of man and his abilities of creation.
Later in the evening, went out for dinner with some friends. It was a different sort of evening, a lot of conversation, airing of ideas and opinions. Unfortunately not something which happens much in a group situation, in my group of friends at least. Generally conversation veers towards, the common-past we as friends share. The life at school, movies watched together, and girls we knew, things we did collectively…da-da-da.
But that evening, we talked about all that is generally excluded, the thoughts and opinions of the “individual” and not so much “the friend”. While listening to one of my friends, talking about her experiences and its associated emotions and reflections, I wondered, “There is indeed so so much, to a human being?” In this whole process of labeling people as– scientists, doctors, sailors, hoteliers, we alienate the person itself. It’s like identifying a house by its postbox number and not looking at the house itself or the people and lives that inhabit it.
People have their own private, intrinsic, peculiar response/ emotion/ opinion about so many different things. Some of it is influenced by societal mores, some by what we read, learn or are taught, and yet so much which is just intrinsic and rooted to who or what the person actually is. The variety of emotions, a single event or thread of conversation can elicit from different people is staggeringly diverse, distinct and unique.
Wonderous aint it?
It’s the same bundle of organic matter, which constitutes all beings living. Yet we are so different, not different only by the way we look or the whorls of our finger prints, but so varied in the way we respond to an event, or draw from an event. Even the way we are affected by it, triggering various different emotions and mental processes in each one of us.
Cannot help but think of what Aldous Huxley once wrote, "Every mans mind is his own private literature".
Labels: Art
Of Mickey Blue Eyes, the invertebrate U.N and Hazel Contact Lenses!
Was reading an article on the excesses of the UN/UN backed forces over the years. There was this bit about the excesses of Italian soldiers posted in Somalia during the civil war, well the soldiers came, kept peace and left, having successfully sown their seeds, as it were. Records of troops committing rape and plunder in Somalia, would make the excesses in Iraq look like a garden party gone a tad awry.
Along with the article was this photograph of a Somali woman, dark skinned, haggard and impoverished, holding in her arms a child - dark skin, brown-black hair and blue eyes. Yes, blue eyes. Obviously the fallout of Italian Soldiers "sowing their seeds", and all of that.
I wonder why the goddamned plunderers in army fatigues aren't tried and punished? I mean, hello it's the U.N, aint it? Not the friendly neighborhood lending library.
Hmm...the Eagles in the "Last Resort",
Brought the white man's burden down
Brought the white man's reign...
I looked at that photograph, for a long while. Piercing blue eyes, set against dark skin.
Could be straight out of a 'United Colors of Benetton' advert. How sardonic, how ironic.
Aside from all of this, my mind wandered to a fest I had once attended when I was in school. A particular girl, whose name now escapes me, wore different colored contact lenses on each of the three days of the fest. A light hazel on a Friday, gave way to an emerald green on Saturday. For that one weekend she was the cynosure of many eyes, un-modestly flaunting her newfound 'look'. It had brought a smile to my lips then, but now I laughed, hard and loud.
Who will provide the grand design?
What is yours and what is mine?
'Cause there is no more new frontiers
We have got to make it here
We satisfy our endless needs and
justify our bloody deeds,
in the name of destiny and the name
of God
I wonder what Mickey blue eyes will grow up to be?
Labels: Fiction
