Travel Tales

“People don’t take trips, trips take people.” – John Steinbeck

Secret Destinations

June 13, 2022Travel TalesArchitecture, chola, destinations, Gangaikondacholapuram, History, secret, story, Tanjore, traveller

Secret destinations are not so secret if you are not solely focused on the destination you came after. Martin Buber stitched travel to my heart with this immortal line.

“All journeys have secret destinations of which the traveller is unaware”.
Martin Buber

We all go on our journeys. There is a said destination that a contented traveller gets to. But a real traveller goes far beyond. Because the destination is not the end point. Several story(ies) start after you arrive!

There are elements like what else you discover in a journey. Like the lay of the land and markers in its evolution. Like this glorious temple of a 1000 years. It’s historical undulations. Some scripted in stone and other new tales that are spun to suit today’s skies. The internet tells you about this land’s past glory, the minerals beneath it and the flow of the water across the hills and much else. You can drink all of it in like a voyeur with no skin in the game or like a lover who is immersed in her love.

The rich air tells you a few stories, only if you are ready to stop and take in a breath without necessarily being coveted by the dull lure of THE destination you came after. Sometimes, I infer my lessons by looking at the people and their ways. Their quick stride, the simple ways, easy smiles, the quite common afternoon snooze under the neem tree and the collective bath by the lakeside.

At night when I peruse my random notes to realise, secret destinations are not so secret if the focus is on curiosity and possibility beyond what is apparent.

Today, I make my notes sitting in the shade that the Sun and a 1000 year old wall come together to offer.

There are two others men there. Animated in conversation.

One tells another a story from history about the king and his valour. He speaks as though he has seen it first hand. Passionate. Lyrical. And filled with energy. I am hooked. The story meanders.

And suddenly, he looks into his watch and remembers that they have to be somewhere else by this time. The other agrees. Their destination interferes with a story that was building up well. Both of them get up, dust themselves up and move.

Leaving me with their incomplete story. I let the king stay within me whilst shuffling my feet and wondering what new secret destination awaits the king. And me.

Do You Know Who I Am?

May 29, 2019Travel Talesprivelege

It was a rather quiet cafe in the busy street in a big city. It had all the hallmarks of failed blitzcaling and a wretched afterlife. I liked the coffee. Every time I had been there. One of those places where they don’t have frills and shout outs. You order. You stand in the queue. You collect your coffee. Walk to a table of your choice. Read. Talk. Stare into the ceiling. Whatever.

The man in question waited for his turn. I figured quickly that his wallet ran out of money before his patience did. Without a coffee and brimming with embarrassment, he borrowed some righteous anger and thundered at the lady at the cash counter: “Do you know who I am?”

At this point the whole cafe, I mean, mostly tables, chairs and two people including yours truly, looked up. He could have been one of us. Tired look. Eyes desirous of coffee. Sparse strands of hair on his head making a feeble attempt to stand up.

The young lady at the cash counter looked at him and said, “No Sir”. That his thundering evoked such a solid yet clear message shook the chill off me and I was fully awake.

Whatever penny that had to drop had dropped with a silent clang from the empty wallet. He looked around the cafe. There were two people in the cafe. Me. And an old lady huddled in a distant corner who stayed huddled in the company of her book.

I looked at him and he looked at me. He turned to the lady at the cash counter and said, “I come here every day and you don’t know who I am?”

The young lady with a Buddha-like economy with her words and her emotions repeated, “no sir”. He turned to look at me again. I looked at him with some curiosity. He swiftly turned to look at her. She looked at me.

The wretched long arm of embarrassment seemed to have enveloped him in a warm embrace.

“You don’t know who I am. I don’t want your coffee” he said with some seriousness. With those words, he stomped out of the cafe. Holding a sputtering assortment of other words just below his tongue, giving me a quick cold stare as he opened the door and disappeared into the street.

The door closed and I looked at the young lady. She was busy adjusting her lipstick using her phone as a mirror. It was as though the tired man with sparse hair had never come in. The last shards of his coarse “I don’t want your coffee” was still floating in the room and ringing in my ear.

Perhaps she had seen enough and more of such people. Or maybe she was a brave lass. Maybe she didn’t care. Or she couldn’t tell. Or the phone and her lipstick helped her handle the tension. I was left with a bevy of questions.

I sat with my coffee. She played a good song as the coffee coursed my veins. I thought of the man. “Do you know who I am?”, he had asked. “Idiot”. I muttered.

I left after finishing the remainder of the book that I wanted to finish. The young lady was on selfie mode. Puckered lips and all that. The music played well.

As I stepped on to the posh street of a business district, many bobbing entitled heads walked by. I merged into it with ease. Carrying my questions and the words that I drank in with the coffee. After a couple of minutes, as I shuffled my feet along, I wondered if I should have taken a selfie at the cafe.

Picking on memory

July 14, 2018Daughter Diaries, Travel TalesBay Area, Books, California, Daughter Diaries, Experiences, Mark Twain, USA

Books have a way of growing on you. Sometimes when you read an old book again, you see new things. It is but obvious that the book is the same but you are new. Some books evoke memories like most others don’t far they embed themselves deep into the mind. Here is one: The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain.

Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. I remember them from school. My school life resurfaces every time I chance upon someone with a name Tom or with a chance reference to anything remotely connected to the fascinating novel. A white fence is one of them.

The incident about the white fence goes something like this. Tom skips school and is meted out a punishment: paint a fence white. He goes about enlisting a bunch of friends to partake some of their prized possessions to be allowed the privilege of the fence. It is a fascinating read and over the years ‘Paint Fence White’ has stood in for several things as I moved roles, managers and teams:).

What is exciting to one is a chore to another. With skill and some luck, you can make what is exciting look like a chore. And with some imagination and a sense of play, it can indeed be so!

We went Strawberry picking in somewhere close to the Bay Area. The little miss had a giant whale of a time. Yes.
Giant. Whale. Of. A. Time.

The set up is simple.
You drive to the farm.
You pick boxes.
You pick the produce.
You put the produce in the box.
You bring it back. ( You eat a few as well)
You weigh the produce.
You do the math of how much you need to pay.
You swipe your card.
You pack your stuff.
You leave in joy.
And then, when you come home, you ask for more.

I mean, isn’t this awesome.

Sure, strawberry picking is not something that you do daily and it is one of those things that you do once in a while. To seek different experiences and tell stories to ourselves ( and to the world) about those experiences make our lives. Or so I think.

And as the Pacific Ocean’s blustery moods rearranged the clouds above us in a hurry, kids punctuated the moves with shrieks of joy. Strawberries were the bright red trophies to take home along with a fresh coat of pride on tired parents.

Speaking of parents, I remember running about amongst paddy and sugarcane fields with my dad just letting me and my brother be. We didn’t have anything to pick those days except a fight or two between us. I recall the sweltering heat and the odd steady rain. We were free to do as we liked. Even as I wonder why we did precious little, I realise, we grew up.

Or so I think.

Of Borders and lines

September 25, 2017Travel TalesArt, border, DMZ, Imjingak, Korea, peace, People, story, Travel

For a trickle of Korean Won, we could peer through fixed telescopes and look into North Korea. To the clank of the coin settling into the metal box, I peered on. Blue skies. An occasional soldier. Green mountains, and fluttering birds. It could have been some nature reserve. But I was standing at the Korean border at Imjingak and staring into North Korea.

The Demilitarized Zone ( ‘Dee Emm Zee’) is a strip of land running across the Korean Peninsula separating the two Koreas. It is 250 kilometers long and 4 KM wide. With wire fences, watchful eyes and guns on either side its brought with it a side benefit. There are no apartment complexes, flyovers, malls with their attendant parking lots and the like. You get the picture, don’t you? Who doesn’t know the rampant poverty that ‘development’ ushers in the world over? The DMZ though is green and lush. Perhaps no other piece of green is as protected and watched by the rest of the world as much as this strip! Dark cloud, silver lining and all that.

Beyond the Demilitarized Zone is one of the heaviest military presence. And heavier posturing perhaps. The posturing and the promise of war have given life to some of the most endangered species thriving. DMZ plays host to some of the most exotic and endangered species. Like cranes, leopards, tigers, and bears. Perhaps these species, have over the years, learned to live under the gaze of the guns in the air and landmines beneath their feet.

That silver lining apart the DMZ is a dark area. It stands as a bright testimony to the limitless potential of human avarice, greed, and one-upmanship. The two Koreas have shouted at each other with loudspeakers ( actual loudspeakers belting out propaganda) across the border. They have tried to outdo each other building tall flag poles and sent balloons with leaflets across the DMZs. All these of course, when they weren’t busy staring each other down. Incredulous it seems. But from 1953, peace has reigned. By and large.

The Korean border at Imjingak which hosts the telescopes offers may a pointer. ‘Mangbaeddan‘ is one such. It’s an altar to pray for ancestors and their families. People from across South Korea whose origins were from somewhere in the North, come here to bow down. It’s a bowing down to their parents and ancestors as a sign of respect during new year and other important festivals. Parents who stayed back. Or could not be contacted. One whole country that is a black box. Not even a snail mail service.

There is a plaque that captures the sentiment than my words can. “After 36 years of Japanese colonial era rule, our country was liberated on August 15, 1945, thanks to the sacrifices of service personnel who fought for the nation’s independence and for an end to the Second World War. Before celebration could break out, however, Korea was arbitrarily divided into north and south according to a unilateral decision on the part of larger powers regardless of the desire of our people. Mangbaeden is a permanent alter established by the government at a cost of 500 million won (supervision by the Ministry of Home Affairs 5 North Korean Provinces, execution: Paju Country Office ), at Imjingak, overlooking the lands of North Korea.

Five million people left their home in the north, where they had lived for generations, to avoid the Soviet army and the North Korea Communist Party’s persecution and brutalities. The refugees built a temporary altar at Imjingak on every Chuserok (Korean Thanksgiving day ), held an event to honor their ancestor and parents who had been left behind in North Korea, and longed for a permanent altar. In terms of scale and form, the censer and altar are located on a 400-m site. The Mangbae pagoda at the center represents the earnest longing for the reunification of the country and prayer for the welfare of those in North Korea. The characteristics of the historical remains, institutions and customs and mountains and streams of the 5 North Korean Provinces, and the non-reclaimed area, Gyeonggi and Gangwon were carved in seven granite stone-folding screens around the pagoda to ease the homesickness of the refugees.”

A friend who was with us spoke with eloquence about her mom, who several years ago, had to be held back by border guards. As she dashed towards the border at Imjingak, sorely missing her mother who got left behind beyond the border. I listened to the story with a keen ear and a pounding heart. The cruelty that permeates several lives in the planet needed explanation beyond borders, flags, and territory.

Madmen fire rockets and ramble from podiums around the world about destruction as though it were a lollipop. Even as the rest of us duck for cover, there are some who wonder if there is a silver lining somewhere.The dark clouds sprouting to the sky seem imminent. Costly, ghostly dark clouds. Will there be silver linings or will it too little, too late? Opinion is divided but hope springs eternal.

There are citizens who yearn to be united. The “We are One” installation in Imjingak for instance, portrays this yearning for a peaceful reunification. “Installed by the Paju Government on February 14, 2006. This sculpture embraces our desire to achieve peaceful reunification. The joining of the two separated parts by the figure of 8-knot embodies the unification of North and South Korea. The height is 280 centimeters which represent the 28 metropolitan cities and provinces in the Korean peninsula”

Nothing perhaps captures the tragedy of the separation more than the bullet-ridden testimony that the engine of a steam locomotive that plied between the North and the South. The tracks from that time remain. The station names call attention to the staid tracks and lost ways. The bullet holes stare with vapid eloquence amidst the cackle of tourists, selfie sticks, and cameras. Somewhere in between the point of all suffering seems distant and removed from the priorities of the present day.

As I try to pack my memories from Imjingak into a neat stack, I realise they elude fitting in. They spring in different directions. The tears of separation and sadness seem to take away the sheen off the silver lining. That leaves me with a simple line and a dark cloud.

Ever since visiting Imjingak, any image of leaders and armchair commentators waxing eloquence on twitter or from podiums gets me ever more present to what it is on the ground. The stories that are not told. Stories about living through separation and war. It is 2017 and the world has made serious progress in several dimensions from electric cars to space travel. But can there be a greater travesty that vast tracts of the human mind continue to let the future to be held prisoner by the mistakes of the past?

Must not the imagination that has fuelled ‘progress’ also help us extricate us and co-create a better future? Even if it meant a slow, painful extrication? As I sat in silence at the Mangbaeddan, Tom Brokaw‘s commencement speech to the class of 2006 wafted in from memory. More than a decade old now, but has relevance.

Here is one part of his speech.

“So, welcome to a world of perpetual contradictions, welcome to a world of unintended consequences and unexpected realities. Welcome to a world in which war is not a video game, … in which genocide and ancient hatreds are not eliminated with a delete button. You won’t find the answer to global poverty in Tools or Help. You cannot fix the environment by hitting the Insert bar. You cannot take your place in the long line of those who came before you simply by sitting in front of a screen or at a keyboard.

The pace of change in your lifetime is at warp speed. We live now on a smaller planet, with more people, many of them on the move these days in a desperate search for economic opportunity and political freedom, a world of ever-diminishing open spaces, disappearing natural resources, with great seismic shifts in political, economic and cultural power wherever you may be on this planet…..

We cannot ignore them, and as the last four years have demonstrated in tragic fashion, a military response is inadequate. If … hostility is not addressed in a more effective manner in the West, and in the Islamic world as well, we will live in a perpetual state of terror and rage on both sides of the equation.

So a primary challenge of your time is to bank the fires of hostilities that are now burning out of control, to neutralize that hatred, to expedite not just global competition economically and politically, but also global understanding, and especially global opportunity.

To do that requires more than a fresh political strategy or imagination.”

The full text is here. The context has shifted a bit. But the fundamental contradictions remain. Only exacerbated by a new crop of leaders who whose jingoism and sabre rattling divides people even further.

Imjingak is a reminder that we need to look beyond the narratives that the unreasonable madness in the political leadership of the modern day. We need to search for and connect to a deeper humanity in each other. Cliched it may sound. There aren’t easy solutions. But the absence easy solutions must not get us lean towards letting the dark clouds loom from the ground. We still have several silver linings today. The capabilities that are present in us to operate from ‘imagination’ is one such. Perhaps we could start there.

Earlier Post on my Korean travel is here

I went to Korea

September 10, 2017Travel Talesair travel, Korea, Travel

Travel opens eyes in ways that alarms that go off early mornings can’t figure how. In its range of new stimuli, there is more than ‘attention’ that you give up. You give a piece of yourself for unknown to you, a piece of yourself shifts. Or so it does for me.

Bill Bryson says it like none else.

“But that’s the glory of foreign travel, as far as I am concerned. I don’t want to know what people are talking about. I can’t think of anything that excites a greater sense of childlike wonder than to be in a country where you are ignorant of almost everything. Suddenly you are five years old again. You can’t read anything, you have only the most rudimentary sense of how things work, you can’t even reliably cross a street without endangering your life. Your whole existence becomes a series of interesting guesses.”

Last month, I went to Korea. I guess I have been jumping around and exclaiming to every moving object that whizzes by: “I went to Korea”. Perhaps laced with a tone of stupendous achievement. That’s the only explanation I have for the question that some well-meaning friends posed: ‘North or South?”

For the money of an air ticket and the visa to the South, I also checked out the North. By going up to the border and gazing at the skies of North Korea. That point’s mention has been like a noisy trinket in a solemn conversation. Always attracting attention beyond its worth!

That was the trip. Time spent in walking about the streets of Seoul. Discovery. Conversation and of course, some work! Many GB of photographs and many multiples GBs of memories that were soaked in with a resolve to share. As has been the case with every trip.

Shedding some laziness, thanks to gentle arm twisting of well meaning friends who declare ” I love to read your travel account “, there will be a few posts here. Over the next few weeks, hopefully.

For starters, Korea is an awesome country. The seamless mix of modernity and tradition. The distinctness in the culture that taste buds announce with no scope for ambivalence. The exacting polite ways of people. The diligence and the work ethic. And several such will vie with my default procrastination and an up to the brim calendar to find a way here.

I didn’t go to Korea with a list of places to see. I wanted to go there and figure out what do through conversations and ambling around. It was worth the adventure. Lucky breaks, lovely people, and google helped in hordes. I saw some fantastic palaces, trudged across streets, gazed at mountains and at a time or two was overcome by emotion. It is a place to go to and I hope to do so again.

One last thing about travel. When you travel the world and come home, the home looks different. Nothing has changed at home in itself, but the lenses you wear shifts the horizons of your imagination. There are new questions of the ‘why not’ variety that emerge. Base assumptions that are hidden beneath layers of time resurface. Home is never the same place for the person who travels, at the end of each travel. For that reason, I hope to keep traveling and discovering as much about myself as about the places I travel to.

Bill Bryson said, “I could spend my life arriving each evening in a new city.” I couldn’t have said it better. Maybe, I would wish that it extends to a few more lifetimes too.

For there is so much to see.

Both outside and inside!

Thailand Diaries

May 19, 2016Travel TalesBangkok, markets, Pattaya, People, pictures, Thailand, thailand travel, Travel

The American author John Steinbeck wrote a line that left an indelible imprint on me. “People don’t take trips, trips take people”.

After yet another trip, as I download my pictures, dust my shoes, clean up my suitcases and unpack my memory, how small the world is. How similar we are and yet how different. The richness in our differences gives us numerous opportunities to learn and rejoice. This time around the trip was to quieten the mind and take the opportunity to reflect and renew. Much of the trip was spent doing nothing. Or just shuffling my feet to street corners and vaguely staring at the world go by.

Only that the world doesn’t go by vaguely, if the world happens to be Thailand! Its sights, smells, voices can be arresting to energise every pore. The world comes to experience ‘Amazing Thailand’ for that very reason. The land has much to offer. Especially so, if you are able to go past the richness that is on offer and dished out on a plate to anyone who lands there. To be able to transcend that richness is an ask, I must confess!

But beyond what lies on the surface, there is true pageantry to the soul. A wistful energy in the eyes and an authenticity in the smiles. Talking to people on the road will expose the smiles in their heart and somehow a certain unpretentious completeness in their way of life and livelihoods.

My Thailand Diaries are full of random scribbles and rapid notes. Deciphering them is going to take a while. Few pictures are here. Over the next week, I hope to have at least a couple of blogposts up on my experiences.

As always, do let me know what you think! 🙂

Locks of love

April 3, 2015Travel TalesGermany, Heidelberg, Locks, Travel

To see locks on doors and gates is normal. But to see colourful locks, on a bridge, serving no ostensible purpose can trigger a dash to the nearest WiFi spot and wake up the browser on the phone.

Travel often offers a warm sprinkle of moments when what the eyes absorb is both new and interesting! The nudging of the browser leads to images and passages springing out and shining a torch on slices of culture that fuels a travelers quest. These discoveries are accentuated by how much these are a way of life in one part of the world while remaining dark, distant or taking other forms in other parts of the world.

Locks. The moment you hear ‘LOCKS’ what are the first images that rush to your mind? To me, locks haven’t held any allure. Sure, they are useful and are necessary in modern society. Perhaps pointing to the ways of the world we live in. Locks and the need for locks has only grown exponentially!

These locks affixed on this bridge, held enough intrigue to consume my thoughts for a while. I soon figured, these are called Love Locks.

A while later, my curiosity knew no bounds as I soaked in the story of Love Locks. A relatively new phenomenon originating in Europe about couples in love attaching locks on bridges and throwing the key into the river! Fortification of love, in some form. Tourists did it usually, I read. The bridge across River Neckar in Heidelberg seemed to hold quite a few locks.

But that was a number that paled in comparison to what the internet threw up as examples. Like this bridge in Paris which caved in under the weight of these locks of love! That Love Locks themselves could be affixed in different bridges for different reasons. Or the website that came up against ‘Love Locks’ as a category! Or the website that came up to send Love Locks : Choose your bridge, choose the lock, pay the money! If I had been on the topic for some more time, I was reasonably sure of finding a start up working on moneitsing this phenomenon. And there, I stopped.

I recall standing there, taken by the pristine river, the quiet expanse and the immediate contrast of colourful locks on a historic bridge! As my eyes surveyed the locks, fresh rain drops ran off them onto the bridge. As the drops hurried on and disappeared from the parapet wall, I wondered if they held any clue to the people who affixed the locks. Who were they, I wondered. What hopes did they harbour? And what fears? I shook my head and hoped they still were in love!

Just then, one large bird flew in, settled amidst and walked about the Love Locks. With cackles and calls adding colour to the quiet scene. Interrupted otherwise only by the soft pitter patter of scattering rain. Within minutes, he was joined by his companion.

They seemed to survey the locks, and the river. With some level of detached interest. Perhaps they laughed at human kind’s ways. Perhaps. In a while the rain intensified. And as I ran for cover, the pair flapped their wings and flew away.

From a distance, only the bridge remained. With Love Locks, and dripping rain. Holding a bunch of hopes and prayers. Thoughts of the ‘locks of love’ ran ignited new thoughts and a fresh round of questions in my mind for a few days. The next day morning I woke up and wondered, after all, What is life without hope? And love?

Any object which helps have a shade of hope and a sliver of love opens up the future just a bit more. So be it, if it were just a lock and a river! Perhaps it helps the flow and in the crossing over to a joyful future.

What else is there?

This post is the last in the series (for now) from a travel to Heidelberg. Earlier posts are here, here and here! 🙂

Bridge Monkey

March 23, 2015Travel TalesArt, Germany, Heidelberg, History, Legend, Myth, Travel

The internet has powered travel like a turbo charger fitted onto an otherwise placid car. This grand marriage of a placid car and the turbo charger is of little use if after the marriage, you gift the car to a chap who firmly believes that flooring the pedal is a new age sin! When God sits on the dashboard, flooring the pedal is a good thing to do. Especially, if its about harnessing the power of the Internet before you visit a place. Yes, before the trip.

Trawling the internet for tidbits about places that I would see gives my wanderlust as much power as it gives the love for waddlesome sloth, a new meaning. Trawling for tidbits about Heidelberg lead me to the ‘Bridge Monkey’. Monkeys (and for that matter, any ape) hold human kind’s (read ‘my’) attention like none else. I leave it to you to mull over reasons.

Heidelberg’s Bridge Monkey I read, was a ‘tourist attraction’. Clangs of the keys on the keyboard absorbed what otherwise would have been a garrulous tirade on ‘tourist attractions’. I continued to indulge in the insoluble appetite for finding more and soon there was a pile of information that showed up on the screen.

The present day Bridge Monkey is a bronze sculpture that took its place at one end of the famous old bridge called Karl-Theordor-Brucke across the pristine River Neckar. The bridge by itself deserves a separate post. Perhaps many bound volumes of an encyclopedia. Any structure that is as pretty, or as resilient ( it was rebuilt nine times since 1742 ) deserves much more than a passing mention. But this post is about the Bridge Monkey. So there.

The present day Bridge Monkey showed up for the first time 1979. The work of Professor Gernot Rumpf . One website talked about the existence of a similar statue in an earlier time. An installation that disappeared as war and bloodshed punctured the pretty sight and the brilliant air. Sometime between 1689-93.

The idea of the ‘Bridge Monkey’, looked like one nice package and as though that wasn’t enough, it had a legend thrown in as well. Now, with a legend, even a passing gap in a mountain or pile of brick amasses a cloak of righteous importance.

One website told me that “..the Bridge Monkey is intended as a symbolic reminder to Heidelberg’s citizens that neither the city-dwellers nor the people who lived outside the city of Heidelberg were better than the other, and that they should look over their shoulder as they cross the bridge to remember this”.

By now, the Bridge Monkey had grown in stature in my mind. It had morphed from a ‘tourist attraction’ to a ‘must-see’

So, on a cold rain-soaked evening in Heidelberg, just as the pebbled streets of the old city radiated their stately presence in luxurious understated elegance, I saw the Bridge Monkey. And was instantly aware of the surprise that enveloped me. You see, the trouble with trawling for tidbits is that it surreptitiously provides for constructing an experience in the mind. Often times, what turns up on the ground, can be quite different to what the mind constructs.

The Bridge Monkey in reality presented itself as a structure that is much smaller and simpler than that one the mind had drawn up. Plus, it is unmarked and shows up just like that, at the end of this street.

I must hurry to give some context. If at all this was to be in India, signboards which said something like ‘One Kilometer to world famous Bridge Monkey’ would be the norm from 357 kilometers! Stores selling sugar cane juice to Super Computers would carry the name of the Bridge Monkey as their names. Photographers lugging cameras would try and entice you into clicking a snap with the Bridge Monkey and hand it out to you in a jiffy.

A customary board that would say ‘The World Famous Bridge Monkey is closed between 2.00 PM – 4.00 PM. Please queue for tickets’. I would have queued as the Sun bristled and beads of sweat marked their presence and as a listless man from behind a dark counter hands over a ticket to enter, I would already be prepared to soak in for whatever follows with a degree of awe.

As much irritating I may make all of these sound, they provide life to the statue and livelihood to a zillion people in the neighbourhood.

In forlorn loneliness it stood. Much smaller than what my mind had conjured up. (Can you spot the Monkey’s tail in the picture above? Peeking amongst the umbrellas)? An average Ganpati mandal organised by a the local auto drivers would have three times the size an infinite quantum of more noise around it and a scale of fervour that is indescribable. Especially so, considering the fact that the Bridge Monkey had its own prowess too.

Legends and myths invariably have a ring of things to do as well. Action items if you will that perpetuate the myth plus, make the visit seem purposeful! The Bridge Monkey is no exception.

Infact its awesomeness comes three pronged. It is believed that you could run your hands over the mirror to be blessed with fortune, touch the fingers of the monkey for a return to the city of Heidelberg. Plus, touching the accompanying mice, would get you more kids! From whatever little I saw, people go for the mirror and the monkey’s hands, but are cagey about the mouse.

A monkey with a cat face, who can bless you with wealth, travel and kids would be an alluring business proposition. The city of Heidelberg doesn’t seem to think so is obvious from the fact that the Bridge Monkey is left relatively untouched by commerce around it!

In its understated yet active presence, the city seems to showcase its own character. Of a simple, stately and rich presence. A presence that is unobtrusive. And in that unobtrusive solitude, he grew on me.

As time sped by in reckless haste, matched only by tiny flakes of snow that the rain seemed to bring, I found my hands involuntarily touch the fingers of the Bridge Monkey.

So far, nothing. Lets see. 🙂

A lady & her passion! At the Heidelberg Castle

March 10, 2015Travel TalesCastle, Germany, Guide, Heidelberg, History

There was a mischievous twinkle in her eye that seemed to light up the evening sky, sparkling incessantly the first time I spoke to her. She looked abjectly interested in where I was from and what tales I brought. It was kind of ironic for she was present to tell some to us. Some people have this raw beauty. A beauty that comes from staying genuinely curious about everything and every person they meet. She was one of them. There were several other pluses. She was beautiful. She personified passion. Often times she spoke of love and lucre with a sort of equanimity that would cause a balance to ache. I could have spent hours speaking to her. Time can be a cruel spoilsport. Limited time, is even worse.

We were at the Heidelberg castle. She was our tour guide. She did a swell job of guiding us through the ruins. In a cold weather that the insides of my bones were becoming present to, I became more and more aware of the prescience in her stories and the near perfect timing with which she shared them all. It was not as much the depth of the story, but the intensity of her sharing that brought alive a few hundred year old ruin.

More of the lady, later. The Heidelberg Castle first.

Every city boasts of a few places that are a ‘must go’, if you ever want to tell that world that you indeed went to that place. The Castle happens to be that place for Heidelberg. Now there are tons of notes on the internet starting here, about the Heidelberg castle starting here. What follows now is an incomplete recounting from random notes. Standard disclaimers apply!

For one, the castle is genuinely old. The first mention of this structure is circa 1214 AD. That’s a long time, even by Indian standards, where ‘this is a 1600 year old structure’ can be said with a matter of routine matter of fact, monotone. The structure has survived wars, destruction and even a couple of lightning strikes. A second lightning strike in fact knocking out a structure that was built in place of a structure that was knocked down by the first strike. Some persistence there!

There were stories of Kings and Queens running away. Falling in love. Fighting the enemy. The Vanquished. The Victors. The armies. The victories. The flags. I couldn’t help think of this quip, standing amidst the ruins there : We learn from history that we don’t learn from history!

Irrespective of all the philosophy stuff, the place presents the visitor with some wonderful objects to construct in the mind how life would have been many years earlier. Exquisite art adorns every corner. In an understated quiet, that you would miss if you didn’t have an extra moment or just that extra dash of curiosity. Here is a door handle as proof. Certainty runs amuck in my mind, that I have missed much! Which is reason enough to want to go back there again.

There were a few moments during the entire trip when I rued not carrying a camera that would do justice the richness that was there for the taking. Standing amidst the ruins of the castle, hearing the stories that were being told, every crevice, every nook and all corners seemed to heap scorn on my lazy idiocy of not carrying the right equipment. But in the soaking in of the raw beauty, there was an immersion in the moment. That was a bold silver lining.

No trip the castle is complete without seeing the huge oak casks built to house wine! 130 oak trees, the lady said, as I gawked at the heady number. Just that fact could have well given me a solid hangover, as I surveyed the huge casks. What seems like sophisticated plumbing with pipes and taps dart across the barrels. Wine on a tap, could have been cool stuff! Man’s foresight to satisfy his thirst hundreds of years ago is commendable!

I turned to check if my good friend, Mark Twain had anything to say about this opulence in inebriation! Here is his inimitable take. “Everybody has heard of the great Heidelberg Tun, and most people have seen it no doubt. It is a wine-cask as big as a cottage, and some traditions say it holds eighteen hundred thousand bottles and other traditions say it holds eighteen hundred million barrels. I think it is likely that one of these statements is a mistake and the other is a lie. However the mere matter of capacity is a thing of no sort of consequence, since the cask is empty, and indeed has always been empty, history says. An empty cask the size of a cathedral could excite but little emotion in me. I do not see any wisdom in building a monster cask to hoard up emptiness in, when you can get a better quality, outside, any day, free of expense” – Mark Twain in A Tramp Abroad

The castle seems to have been brought down by a combination of natures prowess, man’s greed and neglect! But then, it is said to to be still standing because of the fact that it is a ‘ruin’. Surviving a full question of whether comprehensive restoration was required or otherwise, the decision was to leave it a ruin. Ruins make some interesting read and conversation.

The castle itself, except for some portions, the rooms and such else are fully in use. There are administrative blocks, restaurants etc. Plus you could get married here. In the Summer Festival (July-Aug), the place is supposed to come alive and adorn a different avatar that the quiet persona that we were introduced to is an inadvertent mistake.

Time, as I said earlier, is cruel. Especially when it shortens the possibility of what seems to be presented on a platter with a flourish. I just wished I had more time. Especially between me and the lady.

Now for the lady.

I have one gargantuan aggregation of a wish. It is this. When I am as old as her, if I have a fraction of her passion, a portion of her curiosity, a whisper of her voice, a dose of her knowledge and a cut of her elegant countenance, I would count myself amidst the truly blessed. While the tiniest of quivers in her voice punctuated her sentences, the imprint they left on me, as an example of a life that is truly alive and purposeful, is striking.

My travels often put me in front of people and places. Some people just stay long after the dates of travel recede into the calendar archives. She sure will be one of those for me.

Heidelberg diaries

March 2, 2015Travel TalesGermany, Heidelberg, History, Tourism

My travels took me to Germany. Again. Now, if a place beckons you again, sans notice sans fanfare, maybe there is a deeper connection. Who wouldn’t love a deeper connection with Germany anyway?

This time the flight landed in Frankfurt and a train ride helped me set my sights on the city of Heidelberg. A wonderful, serene city that offered far more than copious ‘romantic city’ that it gets talked about, on the internet.

Heidelberg is a beautiful place. It has pebbled roads. The brilliant clean river Neckar. Buildings are bridges that snatch the breath out of your lungs. Plus of course, a picturesque castle tempts the camera like a lollipop would tempt a haggled toddler’s parent! All of that is part of the old city. And the old city, bristles with pride, shoulder to shoulder with the new city that has all trappings of a developed nation. Add an indelible stamp of a German skyline, where squares, right angles and order have a pervasive presence. Roads filled with cars, buses. Trams. Trains. Traffic Lights and beautiful people with heavy overcoats and other denominations of ‘winter wear’!

Needless to mention, you must have heard about the Heidelberg University, that ranks amongst the best! There are 55 Nobel Laureates that have a Heidelberg connection. FIFTY FIVE! Almost as thought the whole Nobel thing is rigged in its favour.

Here is something else that caught my attention.

In 1907, as a worker was digging up a sandpit, he spotted a jaw. Thankfully, he didn’t view it as a joke and turned it in to a professor at the Heidelberg University. Pretty prescient of him. For that was a fossil of someone who then got named the ‘Heidelberg man’! That fossil proved that the place was inhabited for a very long time. ( The fossil itself is called Homo Heidelberggensis that dates from at least 600,000 years to 1,300,000 years).

The earliest history of Man, having a Heidelberg connection wont have much allure to the selfie clicking-posting-on-facebook tourist, except when there is an opportunity to click a picture with the open jaw in the background! I don’t know if such an opportunity exists though. For some odd reason, the ‘dropped jaw’ as I called it, excited me no end. Unfortunately, I didn’t have the time to pursue it in person and click a jaw dropping picture of our forefather!

In the meanwhile, here are some pictures of the city.

I hope to rustle my Heidelberg memories and get a couple of more posts in soon. Of the castle and the city. And before I get drunk on the memory, I must write about the oak cask that was designed to hold wine! If I don’t, please nudge me.

The oldest description of Heidelberg from 1465 mentions that the city is “frequented by strangers”. It is a tourist destination that holds great allure for people around the world. During WW-II, Heidelberg was one of the few major cities in Germany that wasn’t bombed much. America had a base there, that it vacated in 2014! Yes, in 2014! Talk about long stays! Of course, the Americans staying on there, helped spread the word about Heidelberg’s beauty. Now it a busy global tourist destination with Japanese tourists and American tourists dominating the scene.

Heidelberg has played hosts to a variety of celebrities. From Mark Twain (who wrote about it in The Tramp Abroad ) to Goethe to Victor Hugo and several others.

Such a stunning scenery which caused Mark Twain to remark

“The town lay, stretched along the river, its intricate cobweb of streets jeweled with twinkling lights. Behind the castle swells a dome-shaped hill, forest-clad, and beyond that a nobler and loftier one. The Castle looks down upon the compact brown-roofed town; and from the town two picturesque old bridges span the river. I have never enjoyed a view which had such a satisfying charm about it as this one gives.

One thinks Heidelberg by day—with its surroundings—is the last possibility of the beautiful; but when he sees Heidelberg by night, a fallen Milky Way, with that glittering railway constellation pinned to the border, he requires time to consider upon the verdict”.

That was Mark Twain for you. Now, with my limited prowess, I will only go as far as saying that the city retains the essence of Mark Twain’s verse.

Make your plans people. Its a good place to go!

( Previous posts on the visit to Berlin are here, here, here and here )