TRAVELLING HERE AND THERE

VOLUME 2, FEBRUARY, 2017

by 

‘We travel, some of us forever, to seek other states, other lives, other souls’Anais Nin, The Diary of Anais Nin, Vol. 7: 1966-1974

The flight was scheduled at 9.25pm. I knew I would reach Berlin late at night, but the delay made me anxious. I was travelling alone to an unknown city in the middle of night without anyone to receive me at the other end, without knowing anyone in the new city. I was excited as well as concerned because I was holding a piece of paper in my hand with an address of a hostel, without any booking. I am generally a planned traveller. I know where am I going to stay, how to reach there, which train to take, I google everything before reaching any new place. But who would have thought I would put myself into sheer uncertainty in a new continent among people with different language, race, ethnicity. The flight was at an odd hour because I was flying with a budget airline and I could only afford that with my tight allowance. Outside the boarding gate at the airport it was raining heavily. The inside was jam-packed with a long trail of waiting passengers whose patience was wearing off quickly. Most of them were sitting on the floor, due to lack of sitting arrangement. Some were travelling alone, they were either glued to an iPad or reading a book, an earphone permanently stuck into their ear, oblivious to the world around. Some were in groups, with family or friends, talking, laughing and somehow braving the endless waiting. I found a small corner for myself and sank onto the floor. I was exhausted from the exceedingly long walk from the security to the boarding gate. Then I was utterly surprised to find myself in a boarding area with such inadequate sitting arrangement. Sitting there, waiting for my flight I was thinking what have I put myself into. For a moment, thoughts came flooding into my mind. I could have just attended the conference in Copenhagen and went back home. But where is home? Where should I go back? May be once we start living away from our family, for studies, for jobs, we can never go back to that home. Home becomes a construct which no longer exists. For a long time, the journey has become home, a constant reminder how transient our lives are. How momentary each experience and each stay is?! Therefore, why not jump from the the pan into the fire and so on with an adventure in Europe? Why plan every move before I make it? An inner voice told me to stop romanticising the idea of adventure. I must have seen too many movies about backpacking across Europe. While I couldn’t gather the courage to make it a prolonged backpacking trip, I did manage to make it as unpredictable as possible. As the clock slowly marched towards 22nd July, I was cursing myself for this self embraced uncertainty.

EasyJet has more restrictions regarding luggage than one can possibly imagine. One has to pay extra for their hold-on luggage which is the checked in baggage. And only one hand baggage with a particular size is allowed inside as cabin baggage. Around 10.30 when finally the gate was open for boarding, airlines officials declared only half of the passengers standing in the line can carry their trolley as cabin baggage. Being a fully packed flight they can’t accommodate all trolleys in the overhead bin. So everything else have to go as checked in baggage, thankfully without paying. Those who were carrying two bags, one laptop bag/ rucksack and another sling bag were asked to make it one. A new set of commotion broke out in the line replacing the din of awaiting passengers. The clutter and clamor of trolleys and hoods, whooping of chains and buttons made the atmosphere more tensed than before. Everyone stared to arrange their belongings according to the newly set norms with much grumbling and displeasure. In the meantime, the rain had hit the terminus in full vigour. In the absence of buses which transport passengers from the gate to the airplane, everyone started running towards the plane once outside the cover of gate. Some tried to use an umbrella but that couldn’t remain still in the blowing wind, making them drenched anyway. At last when the rain soaked passengers entered the aircraft, the stewardess apologized profoundly for all the inconvenience and started distributing paper towels to give the passengers some relief. As I settled myself in the seat, with water dripping from my hair, I clutched my wet passport and thought will this be my memory of Europe?

Around midnight when I reached Berlin, the only thing that I was craving for was a bed. I started asking people which way was the train station from airport, often forgetting not many understood English and not many are from Berlin. So from the next moment the usual starting phrase was, ‘Do you speak English’? Luckily help was abundant in airport from how to use a ticket vending machine to which platform to go to, finding my way wasn’t hard. I got down at Storkower Strasse which was the hostel’s address. But standing in a completely deserted station I was in dire need of direction, which way to turn - left or right? My smart phone wasn’t smart anymore without an internet connection. It was lying at some corner of my bag like a discarded toy. I was trying to imagine myself in a railway station at Delhi or Kolkata, alone at 1.30 in the morning. What would have happened to me? Would I ever put myself in such ‘danger’ in India? Suddenly, I remembered the Mumbai trip I took this year in January. How my friends and I went to catch the last local at 1.40 am from Victoria terminus and found there is nothing called ‘Ek challish ka last local’. We had to book a cab to reach our guest house at last. But that reminded me how this journey was drastically different. In Mumbai, I already knew my destination, I was accompanied with people who were familiar with the city. Moreover, it was way past midnight, but Victoria Terminus was throbbing with people. From railway staff, to vendors to half-awake passengers to taxi drivers we had people all around us. Here, standing alone at the heart of European civilization, I found myself completely lost. Accompanied only with a name, name of a place where I was supposed to reach, without knowing the path, without having a single soul in the vicinity to show me the path. Wasn’t this life my dream? Throughout my life I disliked crowds. Growing up in a metropolitan city which is famous for its population density, this aversion towards people came naturally to me. As people around me made sure that I become more ‘social’, I found the process more alienating. Once I started to live on my own, I gradually moved towards a setting where reclusion grew into me like a dead plant and solitude became an addiction. I have always found that emancipatory. Europe was an inspiration. It is what we want to become; as a nation, as an individual. The emulations are unabashed. We often do not acknowledge it but our colonized minds made it sure that we see the west as the citadel of progressive thoughts and epitome of history and modernity. I remember a colleague I met in Copenhagen, a PhD scholar in anthropology who was living on her own. We quickly became fond of each other, shared interests. For her the loneliness came as a social condition, something which was thrust upon her. Not something she would want to become. She told me how summers are happy season for them, because you get to see people on the road. Winters are dreadful. It is cold and bitter, it is when one feels extremely depressed and lonely. Someone I met in Germany later told me a similar story. How she had to flee to Tunisia, a northernmost country in Africa to evade the cold winters in Berlin. She stayed there for couple of years before moving back to Berlin, but this time she came back with someone she loves. Sitting on a roadside bench on a mellow night, with a beer in hand, her exact words were, ‘Emotional ties are not as ephemeral as we would like to think. It sometimes saves you from yourself. You need people around you. How long will you escape life?’

My thoughts were interrupted as I saw someone approaching towards me, offering help. Clearly my lost bewildered face had told him I needed help. He googled the hostel name and asked me to take the next train from the same platform and get down at the immediate next station. Further he told me to ask someone in the next station which way is the hostel. While thanking him profoundly, I thought if I find any living soul in the next station of course I will ask. The night seemed long and never ending. I was dragging my luggage from one country to another for the past seven hours and still couldn’t reach the hostel. What can possibly happen if I can’t find my hostel? There is no ticket counter at any station. Therefore, I couldn’t go ask there. Everything is completely mechanized. No police or guards at the gate, where should I spend the rest of the night? Do I have to spend it sitting on a bench at a railway station? At this moment, when the taste of adventure was gradually wearing off, I got down at the next station. The train left the station and I looked around to find some person. But instead saw a huge tall building at my right side with a bright blue light on top, saying ‘The Generator’; the hostel which I wanted to find so dearly. I gathered my withering strength and started walking again.

From that night till I left, Germany was beautiful. It was indulging myself with the multiplicity of life with indispensable fantasies. From the next day, my endless strolling along the streets, in the parks, by the cafes started residing in me like Benjamin’s flanerie, only I was not in Paris. The essence of liberation made every movement in the city passionate, not only in the sense of freedom but more poignantly in its ability to embrace dreams. For few days I was a wanderer, a dreamer, a poet, an artist, everything that I can and cannot be because perhaps for the first time my movements were not regimented. I walked unknown roads, shared stories, explored food, discovered myself without having the feeling of being watched as a woman, as an Asian. I sat hours on the grass, looked at the world, listened to street music, without anyone telling me where I should be and at what hour. The feeling was so empowering that I fell in love with my solo sojourns as well as myself. I was away from people yet I was among them - people who were ordinary yet not so ordinary, people from all over the world I never thought I would meet. In few days I was immersed within the city, from making friends over sunny breakfasts to taking long trips with complete strangers, it was a journey of surprises and epiphanies. I witnessed how refugees were struggling to make a living, eating left over food in restaurants, collecting plastic bottles and cans from shopping malls, from trains something I never imagined about Europe. Yet in my mind it remains as a place which has dominated world history intellectually. It will remain a place where museums and galleys speak, where beer is cheaper than water, where nights are enchanting, where streets are smeared with art and graffiti. There is a common saying in Berlin that "Berlin ist arm, aber sexy". (Berlin is poor but sexy). And in every way it became that lover who bewitched you into surreal world and left you with nothing but a canvas of brushstrokes. These feelings overwhelmed the miniscule setbacks that a journey offers. At the end of the day, the idea of Europe prevails. It is a triumph of romance. Romancing with an idea which exposes one for suffering. But as Nietzsche said we don’t want the truth as we don’t want the illusion to be destroyed. We need these impressions, images and fantasies to pour our souls, to keep on living, to let us fly. 

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