Green

There is something nice about being invited to a Czech household during the weekend. Because it is a weekend you can be sure that you will be going to their home town which is generally not in a city. Being in a small town or village here is a beautiful experience and one you must not miss if you get to spend time in Europe. Almost untouched by modernity these small towns pretty much present the picture you imagined while reading a Jane Austen novel. There is the town centre which, as the name suggests, is literally in the centre of the town with plenty of shops around it. And I´m not talking about the Zaras or the Vero Modas but bakeries, cheese and wine shops that are run and have been in families for decades or even centuries. If the town happens to be on a higher ground level then you get to see the entire country side from the fringes of the town. 

Enough talk about the beauty of a small town. On to the families and their houses. Like you would expect, people here are way more friendly and involved in each others lives. For example, my first memory of going to a village here involves friendly neighbours of my hosts poking out their heads from their doors and windows, expecting to be introduced to the strange creature with dark skin and black eyes. My favorite part about being here is going through their gardens. In their backyard they grow a lot of stuff that are pretty looking to the Indian eyes. We are used to trees in our backyards. The mango trees, the guava trees. And didn´t we love playing around and on them while growing up? For many of us these memories form a big part of the summers we spent with our grandparents. The gardens here are full of apple trees. They also have beds of strawberries, lavender, aromatic herbs, potato, garlic and what not! People here are way more enterprising than we ordinary people of India as far as garden farming is concerned. And it is an activity that the entire family is involved in. For the kids it´s like a chore that must be done. My impression is that as much as they are reluctant to do it, these common gardening moments become a part of their memories when they grow older. You would find them talking very fondly of these memories. Pretty much like we talk about ours, the only difference being, for us these memories are part of play while for them they are as much of a routine as doing homework is. And I appreciate that. Among the many good things that I am going to take back from Europe, someday if I have a family of my own, this is something I would try to emulate.

Last morning I woke up with a sad news and found myself unable to do anything for the first half of the day. I had lost my grandfather. It was a strange feeling. I was not deeply sad probably because I was unable to bring back memories of him. It was like my mind had frozen. Around this time my friend invited me to her hometown and mentioned that she is going to need some help with gardening. Not wanting to sit at home fretting while my family gathered in my native place for the funeral rites I accepted the invitation. It was a good decision. While tilling the soil the memories finally started flowing in. Memories of how I used to do the same with my grandfather, whom we call Daddy, flooded my thoughts. Spending time with him was mostly about cocoa or nutmeg picking or putting out coconut, pepper or a variety of other things out for drying, all this if we were not trying to squeeze out money from him for various things. So after several hours of working with soil (something that would have highly pleased him), I was ready to say goodbye. There would be no more Daddy to give those Melody or Lacto King chocolates or to complain to my mother "Marymma, your daughter does not say her prayers properly" but there is a time for everything. 

Coming back to the point, those in India who do not live in big cities and thereby are not deprived of land space could do well by investing a little bit of their time and energy into home gardening. The Malayalam movie How Old Are You? which was recently made taxfree sets a good example for the benefits of doing such a thing. Knowing from experience I think that it is better for our future generations to have memories of planting trees and feel rewarded by their produce than have memories of them playing GTA, Max Payne or whatever youngsters play these days and gloat among their peers about the level they have reached. What say?

Five Hundred Twenty Five Thousand Six Hundred Minutes

(In) Five hundred twenty five thousand six hundred minutes
How do you measure the life of a woman or a man?

In truths that she learned
Or in times that he cried
In bridges he burned or the way that she died

It's time now, to sing out
Though the story never ends
Let's celebrate
Remember a year in the life of friends

- Jonathan Larson (Seasons of Love-RENT)

Five hundred twenty five thousand six hundred minutes make a year. And that’s exactly how long ago I set foot in Czech Republic. Walking through the streets of Pardubice today I was reminded of the thoughts that went through my mind when I first saw these buildings and so many white people at once. While the thoughts have become vague I clearly remember the expectations I came to Europe with. I was convinced that I was here to learn. Not just about the things I had come here to study but about people, cultural difference and how to go about in the world. Looking back, I can say that had his year not happened I would not have known what a roller-coaster ride really means.

Time really flew. When I went to Bombay this time, at first it felt like I had not left at all. Everything seemed to be the same but before time I started noticing the little changes that had crept in owing to either my short stay abroad or the kind of insights you gain when you realize that you are not the young lady who you used to be before.

I had thought that other than the cultural difference that I would encounter in Europe, living here would be a piece of cake. Like many women of my generation I have lived away from family for over a decade now. And unlike many of them I have absolutely loved it from the very beginning and never felt homesick. I would not call what I experienced in Europe a rude shock but it is a shock nevertheless. You see, when you set out living alone anywhere in India, the kind of relationship you build with even the girl who sits at the reception desk of your college/ workplace speaks a lot about the land we come from. The tight bonds that we form do not let us feel lonely even on the loneliest of days. I am not saying that Europeans are incapable of forming such bonds but you would see them making that place only for their partners or spouses. They have close friendships too but you need to see in person and study them for a while to understand that the depth of those friendships come no where close to the kind of bond they share with their partners or the ones that we share with almost every person in our smaller circles.

Certain things finally began to make sense. I always wondered why Indians living abroad formed social groups and barely ventured out of them or why Indian friends living abroad put up pictures on Facebook only featuring them with other Indians/ Asians. We naturally gravitate towards people who have experienced and are capable of providing the same kind of closeness that we are accustomed to. It is not that Europeans are not warm towards us. It is just that they have drawn so many walls around themselves and educated us on how it is not proper to percolate those walls unless they give us the permission to. Their set rules apply not just to foreigners but to people of their land as well. Even the parents and siblings! Because right to freedom and the concept of personal space actually mean something here. And the sorry part is that we urban Indians see this as something desirable. We are like the Communists of Kerala who think no end of Communism and have no clue about the disasters that it can manifest. To them the people of the previously Communist Czech lands can say “you know no shit”.

Well, on the upside, there are so many things we need to learn from these people. Let me give you the example of a friend, who almost a decade ago decided she needed to gain some experience of independent living. So she applied for a job at Subway in Canada and lived there for a few months. Now a lot of my Indian friends have worked at Mc Donalds too but it was only to earn money to fund their tuitions. I cannot imagine any person of my age in India waking up one day saying lets go see what’s in the world out there and make plans to go live and work in Norway for a while.  We study, get degrees, jobs, slog and slog and hoard savings for a rainy day that in most cases never comes. The saying “live life like there is no tomorrow” is something we understand only because Shahrukh Khan immortalized it when he said Kal Ho Na Ho. Yes, blowing up all your savings is not a good idea but investing a part of it in things that would add to making your life memorable is worth it, no?

Let us learn the many things that they can teach us and add our Indian touch to it. Let us not condemn them for using toilet paper. Instead, learn to use them as well, only after the washing part though. It is necessary to keep it clean. But equally helpful if we keep it dry J