A Brave New World

First Published on February 18, 2012, here it is again. I am silenced. At the enormity of my own life, sometimes.  As I take in the reality of how much land I have covered in my travels and how many people I have had decent, and often times deeply meaningful conversations with. How many of them have shared their lives with me. This deep desire for human connection.  That gives meaning to it all, the working, the living, the struggling.  
In between, it is the human connection, that I see myself in the other. 
Sometimes, sometimes, as said the author, my life is beyond my imagination!!

From the Left:  The little boy, the Hungarian man, the German man, little boy's father. 

Berlin, July 2010. 

The  last few years, have brought me a realization that I use travel to bring a sense of peace and rest to my restless soul.  That right before I travel I get all nervous, but I truly rest when I am in trains, in planes, and buses.  In these places I am stuck and cannot be anywhere else.  That is the time to truly enjoy, being in the moment.  However, I must say that in the last few trips, I have brought work with me.  Computers and constant availability of WiFi usurp our peace or beingness.  We feel obligated to continue with the mindless activity that constant link to the world provides us.  It is like being connected to all the 'going-ons' in the world that are of no consequence to our immediate life.  

    Ever since I can remember, 'volunteering' has excited me.  So when a friend asked me to volunteer for the World Culture Festival in Berlin, especially with putting together a documentary, I could not resist.  I knew I had to be in Thailand by middle of July and yet I decided to go Berlin for three days.  Thanks to Ryan Air, and a friend who let me crash at her place to make the early flight, I could make it.

'You have a wanderlust, and you need to acknowledge it' my friend said to me the last time I was in the US. 

    I never did, but for some reason, I do have it now.  May be, as one gets older one fears that the world needs to be explored to be understood.  May be because  there are too many of us who live outside the norm, and want to legitimize our existence by knowing trivial details that will never make it in literature and popular culture.  Whatever that may be, I do feel that places call me. I can hear their whisper.  I can hear them call my name.  And I feel a sense of newness every time I step onto a new land.  I breathe the air very deliberately, as if it will infuse a new life in me.  And hope that it will push some of the restlessness, resulting from the existential angst out through my pores. 

    But, beyond that  travel-addiction or 'wanderlust' as my friend defined for me, I have the need to talk to strangers. To know of their lives, to understand the human condition.  And for the last six years I have been rewarded very well.  Some of those strangers have ended up becoming e-pals, some I have shared some deep emotions with, many I  have taken pictures of, but most I leave behind. And more than most, because of lack of time, hardly even get mentioned in my journals.  

    However, what I have realized in the last decade is that there is a new world that is birthing.  The process is slow, excruciatingly painful, but it is happening and very welcome.  And here is how we recognize it.  We cannot tell (or even right guess) simply by looking at people, where they have come from?.  The way they talk, the way they live, has little connection to the way they look. 

     I have met Korean Germans, African Swedes, Iraqi Kiwis, and many many more who have moved through several countries before settling in one.  I am certainly one of them.  And I always get asked, 'So, where are you from?" 

    This world that is birthing is very brave.  It is unpredictable, and unlike the one before has no rules.  While all that is scary and unsettling, it is freeing in the sense that it has little expectations of us, and often is less restricted than the times of our parents.  But its unpredictability does not ensure equality or happiness.  We still have to work at both. 

Following is the account of my first evening in Berlin, when I was returning to the hostel, after having spent a day helping out with the organization of World Culture Festival. 

July 1st--- arrived in Berlin in the morning.  Finally made it to the Prasier strasse, based on what Eduardo from the hostel told me.  In the train met Paulina, a french girl who is moving to Germany to study.  I could hear some Indians who had come for the World Culture Festival as well.  Only they were coming from Moscow.  As usual, I arrived at my hostel, after getting lost, and asking a few questions…just as in life…

My dorm was a mixed dorm. After all these years, I still get quite nervous in mixed dorms.  Interestingly this time there was a young boy from Brazil, J, staying at the same room.  May be because I am older than he is, may be because he is so polite and kind, I was quite comfortable talking to him.  This was his first time to Europe.  Unlike others he had decided to stay only in Berlin and see the entire city for the next three weeks.  And to my surprise I met, R and D, two boys from India.  The boys, who were brothers, were are little more worldly than I was at their age, even though I had travelled a bit by their age.  But the difference is probably that I did it all on my own.  One of the brothers was actually looking into studying in the US, including PSU.  

      Shortly after the introductions, I headed to meet F, to ask for my volunteer assignment.  I had been in touch with him for over a year and this was the first time to meet. We had no time to talk, but I was happy to be of service.  So, during the day, I met B, a young documentary maker from NZ, P from Brazil, who had been living in Spain for the last 6 months had hitchhiked from Spain to Germany to attend the event.  She showed me a bag of nuts and raisins, which was all she had eaten since she left Spain a few days ago.  P currently teaches English in Spain, and told me that the Art of Living has changed her life.   And Nati, lovely Nati from Poland.  (After two days of me praising her earrings, she came up to me a few minutes before she left and put her earring in my hands.  I had just met her, and have not talked to her since.)

     However, the highlight of the day was when I was walking back from metro to the hostel at the end of the evening.   I saw two grown men, probably in their fifties if not older, sitting around a small coffee table, playing chess.  After I stopped, said hello, I found out that one was originally from Bolivia and the other from Germany.  I wanted to record their voices, but instead ended up taking just taking one picture.   The gentle man from Bolivia said that he had been in Germany, 'mas de curenta anos'  More than 40 years.

       ‘Cansada con alemania? Oh, are you married to a German?"'  I asked.

       ‘Ungarian' 'Hungarian' he chuckled.

       'Nem todem madyar', I said, and they laughed.  (I don’t know Hungarian. (I used to have a Hungarian roommate. And my neighbors in Fiji were Hungarian. So I remember a few things, including ‘Seretlak’ –I love you in Hungarian).

      ‘Do you know a little Finnish too?  said the German guy, sort of impressed by my one line Hungarian.

       ‘No, men lite svenska.  No, but little Swedish.’ I showed off without really stating that my Swedish vocabulary is only good to converse with two year olds.

        The Bolivian man told me that he was fluent in German since he had been living in Germany for Forty years. I had met someone in Dresden, in 2006, who was a Bolivian and was married to a German.  His child was the blondest boy you could imagine, and one would never associate fluent Spanish with him.

         The German man told me that he had been to India many times.  He thought India was beautiful but something was missing.  And when he arrived in Africa, he said, ‘I thought, that is where life started.’ He explained, ‘India was all tea.  Africa was beer and dancing.

        ‘Beer and dancing all life?’ I thought.  For me, I would switch Beer for ginger tea!!

        The German man told me that his son is a good chess player.  The cute boy with a soft-afro, who was fluent both in German and French, blushed when his dad talked about him.

I had walked towards them only because I saw them playing chess on the street.  But that mere stopping for a few seconds and taking a picture resulted in such a beautiful human exchange.  It also reaffirmed my faith in this ‘Brave New World’ of no rules, and no expectation that is scary as hell, and knows no limits on the joy it can create.

All in all it was a good conversation.  Good for me --to confirm that I am right in thinking that sometimes people just need a good conversation.  It was a joy to talk to both of them. I had to pull myself away because I was so tired and had an early day.  On my way back to the hostel, I could not help but think that  this mixing and blending of races and cultures is unstoppable and happening at an unprecedented pace.  While one place will maintain its culture its culture and might be known for artifacts, history, cuisine.....and racially it will become so diverse that one will not be able to predict what people living there might look like.  Racial difference will gradually reduce, hopefully bringing more beautiful people, and sturdy homo sapiens ...Africans looking people will spout German, dark haired boys will sing in Swedish…and hopefully some day North Indians will be fluent in Tamil…..and language will not be a barrier for people who hold the same passport. 

That evening I spoke with J about Brazil, and all that my friends and students from Brazil had told me about it.  We were talking deliberately, using English and Spanish words.  While we were chatting, he waved his hand, asking me to wait ….ran to the room and brought me back a Brazil’s rugby team shirt.  Bright yellow and green.  Probably not my style, but I was so touched by his gesture. I could not refuse it, because he offered with such genuine love.  I will keep it for a long-long time, as a beautiful memory of the young polite Brazilian boy I met in Berlin, who had just acknowledged his wanderlust and was ready to experience, the Brave New World…..