Karlsruhe Diaries Chapter 6: Back to Home !!

15^th April,2014

1:41 am

Roorkee

They say that the best feeling is when you return to the place where you belong…call it a Germany hangover or returning to home after 7 months or leaving my home just within a week again to join back IIT Roorkee, but its not a good feeling…! It’s like a partial amnesia, as if I was always here. Among these people, yet I can feel no sense of belonging or nostalgia during my last days here…!!

Perhaps people have changed, or perhaps I have changed…!or perhaps it’s the frustration which results from a bad thesis review or the bloody IIT process of writing too many applications. All the people around are either too busy drinking or smoking “weed”…and perhaps I am the one who is already too high….that I crave for a partner just for a long walk…! :-/

Or Maybe I am too tired after my review on weekend….and living life as a refugee in my friends room…but how can people spend an entire day locked in a smoke filled room…and it’s so difficult to make certain people understand the value of privacy, when pestered by Questions like Where are you going? Whom are you going to meet?? And blah blah blah…!!

I thought I would be happy to see all the people in roorkee…!but I am missing home more than anything else right now and want my own space where I can hide myself just for a few days…away from the scrutiny of the curious.

It’s a terrifying feeling when you realize that your two year vacation is about to end, and you have to be back into the real world…! Which is horrific…in many terms…

I realized after coming back…did the people whom I call my best friends here actually miss me when I was away for 7 months ?For it was me who used to call them from Germany…it was me who used to ping them on facebook chats…!! I know some of these things might be kiddish…but these things do matter…!

The brain right now is fucked up, and the heart too…! The sense of having a friend ..a buddy…is lost now..! and the icing on the cake…The Thesis, which never ends.

I guess I might feel better after a cup of tea, but there are sometimes when even a hot cup of tea is not enough to drain away your frustration, especially if you are not a frequent drinker..! I wished I get back my love for hard liquor or weed(for which I never had any love, but I hated it).

And I wish the old friends realize that their friend is actually back…! I haven’t changed, the campus still looks the same, I still roam in my kurta-jeans and chappals, and I still have the same cup of tea-biscuit when I go to canteen at odd hours, What then is missing ?

Karlsruhe Diaries: Going back home away from a home.. Chapter 5

28^th March,2014

1:08 am

Karlsruhe

Till the Grief subsides and appetite is full...

I drink its ardor and the never ending depths...

Till the happiness ensues the promise of an everlasting mirth...

Dissolved in time...

Meddled with the mind....

Till the Poetry surges in the Poet's mind....

Till everything becomes omnipresent...

And INFINITE....!!

Well…seven months have passed…now its time to go back, as I was packing my things and cleaning my room, because the ‘Hausmeister’ is going to come for inspection, the first thing tomorrow morning. As I was clearing up my things, I felt a bump in my chest and a strange numbness in my heart. It wasn’t anxiety, or fear, or anything else. But it was nostalgia, the strange feeling which strikes you when you leave a place after 7 months.

A piece of my heart will be left here, in this city, among the people I met, the university, my accommodation , and all those exhausting but great Trips to various places all over Germany and Europe.

This is the place which made me stronger as a person and lead me on a road to self-discovery, and I realized that quitting my high-paying corporate job 2 years ago wasn’t such a bad idea at all. For it opened up my mind and made me free from chains of corporate slavery.

This is where I learnt how to be actually independent, how to cook and how to appreciate food and the energy it gives. And how terribly difficult and easy it is…hehe..

This is the room where I worked on my thesis, edited so many beautiful photographs, skyped with people who are far away from me this time, yet those who will be close to me in just 3 days, I have learnt to appreciate friendship and the joy of a cup of coffee with a friend instead of a lavish meal in a restaurant or a great trip to Paris.

I learnt how to say “Danke” and “bitte” for small and trivial things which we do day to day…

This is the bed where I lay helpless after my first migraine attack in Germany, and realized how my mother used to massage my head till 2am in the morning when I used to get terrible headaches, and how I kept myself awake till 4am in the morning, so I can give a call when its morning in India and before my parents leave for work.

And this is the place where I was on my own, to face everything, and to accept whatever comes.

Karlsruhe has given me so many good moments that it is difficult not to feel a heart-ache when I bid goodbye to this place. I am surely going to miss the old world charm of this place.

Its strange, how cities change with seasons, and how the colors transform themselves into a pool of memories.

When I left Auroville,last summer,  I had the same stinging feeling in my heart,and it had been just 2 months, because the truth is, you never know if you will be visiting that city or that place again in your life and this might be the last time you actually see this place.

 I soaked in as much possible in my mind. Karlsruhe will always be etched in my mind and heart, and I have two more days to soak in as much as I can.

“And here you come with a cup of tea,

Wreathed in steam, the blood jet is poetry,

There is no stopping it.”

I will always have mixed feelings for Karlsruhe, but surely I will miss it.

As I look around myself now,all I can see is a spotless room and my packed luggage, and I am all ready to leave on a new journey… back to my homeland, to my people, to my friends.

It was true when they said that “All good things come to an end”  !!

Only to give way for new good things which are coming on the way….!!

“The woods are lovely dark and deep,

But I have promises to keep

And miles to go before I sleep…and miles to go before I sleep.” 

Danke schön! ! tschüss :) :)

Karlsruhe Diaries...!! Chapter 4

8^th March, 2014

Well, it feels good to write after so many months, I was brainstorming in ArcGIS when I came across a song on youtube, which goes something like this:

Clap along if you feel like a room without a roof

Because I'm happy

Clap along if you feel like happiness is the truth

Because I'm happy

Clap along if you know what happiness is to you

Because I'm happy

Clap along if you feel like that's what you wanna do

The original video was by Pharell Williams and this Karlsruhe version shows people dancing at various spots in Karlsruhe.

As I am counting my days for my departure from Germany to India, I am falling in love more and more with Karlsruhe, with all its trams, old Gothic buildings and amazing, fascinating Architecture.

When I arrived here 7 months earlier, I was all excited, and nervous, and ready to take on the world in my own hands, I sensed a freedom, freedom to be myself. Germany has been educating in more than one ways, one of the added skills being “cooking, before coming here, I hardly knew how to prepare a spicy Indian curry, but thanks to days of practice, I have finally mastered the art of feeding myself.(Though at times, it’s a disaster.)

Living alone all these months has made me strong, strong enough to face the world, and it has given me a new spirit. Though I miss India terribly, Karlsruhe is rewarding and welcoming. The last two years have been a blessing, after being a corporate slave for 2 years before that, coming into IIT was refreshing, a break from the monotonous and dull routine of a office life. I call it my 2 year vacation from life, and I am embracing it fully to the core.

As I go around and see the places, meet new people, I feel more and more enchanted by the mystery of the city. The same enchantment which I had felt when I was in Auroville. A new found independence, a strong will power and a never ending zeal to perform. I learnt how to cope with the loneliness, and to rediscover myself and my interests. The old houses, the Marktplatz, the colorful Kaiserstrasee, and the sprawling campus, at times this place is full of life, and at times, it seems empty…dull and blank. But I think all depends on the state of mind and how I perceive things.

22 days and I will be flying back to India, but a part of my heart will stay at this place.As much as I have missed India, I will miss being in Karlsruhe and exploring new things.

But, needless to say, a strange fear is engulfing me these days, the fear that my two year long vacation is going to end, and I wonder how the real world treats me when I am out of IIT. Meanwhile, I have errands on my mind, a never ending thesis , a pile of dishes to clean, and some more food to cook….!!

Till then :

Clap along if you feel like a room without a roof

Because I'm happy

Clap along if you feel like happiness is the truth

Because I'm happy

Karlsruhe Diaries...!! Chapter 3

19^th November,2013

Karlsruhe

Till the Grief subsides and appetite is full...

I drink its ardor and the never ending depths...

Till the happiness ensues the promise of an everlasting mirth...

Dissolved in time...

Meddled with the mind....

Till the Poetry surges in the Poet's mind....

Till everything becomes omnipresent...

And INFINITE....!!

This is the Promise of a never ending Verse...!!

People tell me very often that my poetry is sort of dark, depressing and what not… but at times, that’s what everything seems to be…doesn’t it ?

Too much of everything is bad, they say, but I never thought that too much of aesthetics can be suffocating, at times , so much that you can’t do anything but blame the weather for your own weariness, and for your own inability and the incapability of your own mettle, no one is to be blamed, but perhaps a strange land teaches you a lot, to be stronger, to keep your emotions under control, and yet, be sensitive.

12.30 pm in Germany, 5.00 pm in India, I call my mom, she is as usual, busy in the daily stuff, routine chores of an Indian household, at times, I admire the ability of a female, that too of a mother, how she controls her emotions, and yet, can do all and everything by herself, hats off to the spirit…

At times she messages me, even though she recently taught herself how to write an sms, “Miss you a lot” , and I can just wonder that this too shall pass..and everything has to come to an end, and eventually, we have to move far away from our own houses, our people, the warmth, our own language of spices. It’s quite strange how I can fake to be happy and smiling all the time, despite the turnmoil going on in my mind, the frustration over a “not going anywhere” thesis work, the annoyance over my professor not responding to my emails, and the daily tiresome routine of preparing food, perhaps I have turned too mature for my age, as almost all the people I look around are still under 25, and at times it feels I am ageing, the only consolation is that I have experience, more than any others, to tackle situations.

After all, now I can say, that I have been to places… and that too… too many at an exhausting pace, burning a hole in my pocket. Recently I spent a full night outside a Paris metro station, hopeless, cold, shivering and sleeping in a café next morning only to find that my mobile has been stolen. It pisses me off like hell, but anyway… I am here, In an alien land, where no one can help me but Myself, the process of making oneself strong is always the hardest, as it is full of pain.

At times, I have moments filled with happiness too, like making brownies for someone’s birthday till 1a.m in night, or just ditching everyone and going to Munich all alone, travelling aimlessly, but not all wanderers are aimless, as said in “Mona Lisa Smile”. But what’s hard is figuring out at times why I am here, and why I need to fake a laugh when on the inside, all I want is to scream and vent out my frustration endlessly….

The promise of a never ending verse ? or perhaps just the suffocation of the Aesthetics. Oh..and I remember someone telling me, it’s just the weather…u will feel good once u have sunny days…

Karlsruhe Diaries...!! Chapter 2

4^th November,2013

Karlsruhe,Germany

The reason perhaps why I am writing a blog after one and a half month is perhaps I am missing myself , and my writings, in all this hustle-bustle, the trips, the planning… and the group splits…ughhh…There is a saying in Hindi that when 4 utensils are kept together…there will be noise, but here we are…15 utensils..Oops 15 people together…so the fights.. And the so called split in the group is bound to happen.

Well..But instead of noise, all I have around me is deafening silence, for which the group split is only partially a reason; here I am, in this alien land, fighting with migraines and the bitter cold. Maybe the weather is so depressing that it has imbibed in me its gloominess. Beautiful cities, scenic surroundings, new friends, but a silence. Silence around me prevails.

At times, a foreign land is so full of hope, and at times, all you can see around you is misery. Misery exaggerated through the rain, the fog and the cold, and when you taste your own cooked food. And when your mother messages you on Diwali “Miss you beta”. The land of new opportunities, but not that easy to live in, if you don’t have that surviving spirit, at times I remember that quote from Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar “ I was supposed to be having the time of my life”

So what went wrong? Nothing. It can be just a perspective, a temporary, floating phase of time, an empty mind is a devil’s workshop, at times I feel the urgent need to break open that double window in my room. Anger..maybe… it works in mysterious ways.

Everything, each damn thing has got its own darker side. The darker side of living in a foreign land is its strangeness and silence. At times, one is bound to feel stuck inside, but unless and until one gets up and fights, this will happen.

The fall is finally here, and 5 months to go before I will be back to my country, where atleast I have got friends who miss me, and who are there for me, unlike some people over here, whose only objective is to make sarcastic remarks at other people, and to book tickets for every damn place in Europe( at the risk of wiping off the current bank balance and keeping no emergency money), as if there is a world tour competition going on. It’s a foreign land where I strive to be listened, to talk to someone, not to see famous places, but to just have a good and relaxing time.

Here I close this blog, hoping that there will be actually some “sunny days” ahead.

With dark and deepest despairs..

Comes the mettle to fight..

When this alien land beckons me again ...

Feeling like a tree which bends but never breaks...

The Silent Symphonies to be sung...

At times...deafening lullabies to be heard...

And NO Words to be spoken...

The fear of loss and the fear of defeat...

When this alien land beckons me again....

Expecting to be a Seraphic...

When i am just a Human and a Poet...!!

Writing my verses i looked upon to see:

Even he who stands

on the other side of the Mirror...

Seems a stranger in this Alien land...!!

Karlsruhe Diaries...!! Chapter 1

15^th September,2013

Karlsruhe,Germany 

Hmm.. After all those long,tiring, full of emails and notices.. I managed to land in Germany, and this happened to be my first time in flight, the first flight was okay.. but minutes before landing,my ears pained like hell… and my head got a little dizzy, that was a valid reason to have 3 glasses of red wine in my second flight and sleeping for 2 out of 5 hours of my second connecting flight.

Well.. to begin with, there has been a huge packet of stories to tell, my struggle with Language classes, and the subsequent struggle to order a hamburger in McDonalds -_-

But luckily,people are quite helpful over here, and finally I am learning to cook, of course with the help of my other Indian colleagues, its not much work. The least I can manage is to chop onions and potatoes well. One fine day, I went out to explore the city on my own after the language class, the sprawling palace, the serene streets, hustling bustling of the trams, and finally I ended up in a bookstore with my earphones on.. a lady came to me , and I realized that she was actually speaking to me, and I was being rude ignoring her. That was when I opened my mouth finally to speak. I was a little conscious whether she speaks English or not but I went ahead and asked.

“Do you have English books as well?” She smiled.

“Of course ,we have, in fact, we have two separate shelves for English books,What are you looking for?”

Which was when I realized that I need to buy the Tangram book for Learning German level A1, of course she helped me with it and inquired about me a bit, where I came from, and what I am doing here. I was impressed with her gesture and welcoming behavior.

Finally after shelling out 16 euros for that colorful book, I went back to my room.

But of course, I have my own share of adventures wherever I go. This weekend I happened to visit a friend in Heidelberg, reaching there was pretty smooth because my friend was well acquainted with the city, and the train routes, but while coming back, he left me at the station and I boarded the train.

That was a slow train,(slow according to Germany standards), but I managed to reach in 40 minutes flat.I had to go to Karlsruhe Hauptbahnof, which is the last destination. I again plugged in my earphones and got lost in my world, admiring the architecture from the train windows. Then I fell asleep…

When I got up, the train was deserted apart from another lady who was sitting to my front. I stammered, and lost the track of time. The station was indeed, Karlsruhe but all the doors were closed. For one second, I thought that now I will end up in the yard maybe, but I asked that lady “Is this Karlsruhe Hauptbahnof?” She replied “yes” and questioned me back “Will this go to Frankfurt?” , I was too shocked to answer her, and I went to the door, when one guy signaled me to press the button to open the door.I did that and landed safely on the station.

But .. there were other things destined to happen.

Now, I needed to take a tram. Using a tram ticket machine can be a little complicated for dumb people like me, but as usual, there was someone to help.A woman, who happened to know English quite well.She told me that “Even I am new here, but I can help you”.

After the ticketing was done, the machine showed 1.30 Euros, and a message “Exact money please” . I put a 2 euro coin but it came back, then I put a 1 euro coin, and was unable to find any change, that woman even offered 30 cents from her side, but I realized that it will be too much of a favor, hehe..

Then she told me, “Okay..now you need to take tram S1 which goes till Marktplatz , which is the center of the city, I was so full of gratitude for her. “Thank you so much” I replied back.

S1 came… and I went in,stamped my ticket and sat down comfortably, then I realized..

“Wait a second..” I had a tram route map in my hand, I realized that I boarded the right tram but it was coming from MarktPlatz, not going to MarktPlatz. Three stations in the opposite direction, and I got down and went to the opposite platform, where again, a lady helped me with the directions. I smoked one cigarette to help me relax a bit…Ghosh…!! How dumb could I have been!! I would have reached the outskirts of the city.

Finally I took the tram and got down at MarktPlatz, after having a burger and coffee, I sat down again to smoke, with my packet lying at the table. This time a guy came with 50 cents in his hand, and asked me in German  “Kann ich einen kaufen cigarrette von Ihnen?” (Can I buy a cigarette from you?) .

Thinking it was too cheap to actually sell one cigarette, I offered him one for free, and another old man, taking advantage of the situation, took 2 cigarettes from me :-/

Finally I decided to call it a day, and realized that it was too much adventure for a day, and I better head back to my room and have tea.

Well.. well.. here I am…finally updating my blog after so long, and falling in love with the city…the palace, the roads, the campus…the people… J

Ich liebe Deutschland !! J

Being Iyer… Part 4

28^th June,3

Being Iyer… Part 4

Well..its really been a long time since I sat down to write something, but the atmosphere around me persuades me to write and awake the forlorn writer inside me.

Recently I started learning and writing tamil before coming to Auroville,Tamil Nadu for my internship. Of course, mom and dad were elated, and helped and encouraged me, I made several notes of vowels, consonants and so on… and now I have a considerable grip over a language whose script was alien to me.

Auroville is nice, peaceful …serene and what more with altogether new friends and new things to talk over, but for that, I would have to wait till I write again for the details of it.

But let me continue with the woes of a Tam Brahm.

To begin with, the same story continued here, of being a Tamilian,but hailing from Kerala, but born and brought up in North, the first day, when I reached my accommodation, I was asked to fill up a form, which was a formality, the lady care-taker asked me- “Neengal eppudi Tamil pesuranga??” To which I replied “Ennodu sondha oor vandhu Palakkad thaan, aana porandhu valandhadhu ellam North-la..Delhi”

(How do you know Tamil? My own village is Palakkad, but I have been born and brought up in North)

Then before they assume that I was a Malayali, I told them, “Palakkad Tamil ellam konjum vityaasam irrukkum” (Palakkad Tamil is a bit different). Ghosh…!! But over a few days, I have got used to the “Nasalised Pondicherry Tamil”. And it surprised me , how people could recognize from the way I talk that I was a Tamil Brahmin.

It so happened that I was talking to dad over phone sitting at this “Morgan Café” in the Town hall of Auroville, I started my conversation with the usual “Enna Samacharam” (Tamil Brahmin version of What’s up? ) . After I finished my phone call, the café person asked me,you are a Tamil Brahmin right??

I said yes… “I am a Pattar” :D  He started explaining that he easily understood because the terms like “Enna Samacharam” and others.. have disappeared from Pondicherry Tamil.

I still have a hard time explaining to others specially my fellow interns , what my origin is, and of course, I had to go back 300-400 years to tell them the stories of Mass migration of Tamil Brahmins to various parts of Kerala.

Well… it didn’t end here, the guy who lends out two wheelers to everyone sits at a desk near to me, Laxmanan as he is called, he was all praise for Palakkad Tamil , which he said was pure tamil, and not adulterated one like that in Pondicherry, well..i don’t know what is pure and adulterated, but still proud of the mixed origin that I have, (becomes easy and fun to confuse people I guess) :D

Apart from this, there was one uncle in a restaurant, who was impressed when I told him that I am from Palakkad, he was all praise for Palakkad “Romba nalla edham” (Very nice place)

Everywhere I go, the mixed origin will stay with me, it only gets more mixed and “adulterated” hehehe…

A Tamilian hailing from Kerala, but born and brought up in Ghaziabad, graduated in Greater Noida, then worked in Noida and Delhi, and then going to Post Graduate from Roorkee..

Ghosh… that’s an interesting tale to tell my Grandchildren…..!!