day to day 1

N. has recovered completely. It wasn't malaria thank god, nor was it jaundice as J was beginning to suspect on account of N looking a bit "yellow". Now they are busy gadding about, shopping, inspecting speakers at Heera Panna and looking for book bargains in town.

J and N are still occupied with the Italian visa. They have been given a real run around. Get this, get that. The Italians obviously don't believe in giving all the info needed at one go. Visas are such a hassle for Indians, it makes you want to scream at them: keep you goddam visa and let me just stay home!

Amazing how time flies, doing absolutely nothing. At least it feels like I've been doing nothing. Just going through mail, a bit of translation for Samuel, checking out new music etc. Thinking of putting together new groups. Chatting with Parvati in the evenings about my grandmother.

Yesterday Parvati and I remembered the thief who had come in over thirty years ago, just crept in over the balcony and made his way to the kitchen in the dead of night. My great grandmother who used to live with my grandmother at the time, had been most indignant about the way he had helped himself to a bottle of milk and wiped his dirty hands on the kitchen towel. She seemed less bothered about the wallet belonging to my grandmother, which he ran off with. The amazing thing was that he was caught a few days later, when he tried jumping out of somebody's window on the second floor. He'd fallen and broken a leg and the police had actually retrieved my grandmother's wallet and given it back to her. Those were the days!

not much

N might be down with malaria. Help! Girish has asked for a blood test before making further decisions.

The July floods continue to hog the conversation. Yesterday at Girish and Rekha’s we talked a lot about our unpreparedness in general. How most of are so little able to cope with disasters and know almost nothing about our cars. The four management students from S.P. Jain college who died in their car, because most probably it didn’t occur to them to find a way to smash the window pane and to get out while the going was good.

Girish is a great doctor. When he meets me professionally he tells me I should lose weight because it is not good for my legs, but when we meet as friends he constantly plies me with food and drink. Fried fish, chicken curry, and loads of beer. It’s like “Eat, eat. What?! Don’t you want any more?!” Well, I am not objecting to any of that!

you ok?

Sickness making the rounds. Wherever I go people seem to be falling sick. This is getting to be almost suspicious! In Prien Thomas and two of the kids were down with a fluey kind of fever, in Frankfurt Sabine was practically writhing with a stomach infection, in Bombay now, N is running a high temperature which Girish has promised to come over and check out shortly. And I just got a mail from Champaign to say both parents were down with a cough and mother’s also slightly feverish.

Have been sitting and looking at the piles of paper and books and CD’s in my room and wondering how the hell I can neaten up my surroundings without actually throwing away anything. I haven’t even dared to start looking at what I might have to throw away!

The depressing part

J and N are here from Pune and we have been catching up on all that has been happening in our lives in the last two months. N is here to get a visa for Italy where she is going to be spending three months on a study tour before returning to the U.S.

Read a bit more “news”. More about the house collapse near J.J. Hospital (DNA carried a photo of a 23 year old woman, mother of two children whom it referred to as “the poster girl of the house collapse.”

A municipal corporator stormed a police station with his goondas and killed two people while three officers and seven constables just looked on.

Saurav Ganguly arrived late for the match against New Zealand in Bulawaye because of his wife’s birthday. There was something about a Bra war between the U.K and China and about the new lathis for policeman. The old ones made of bamboo have been replaced by fibre lathis. The four policemen in the pic, with their lathis in front of them looked a bit like Fred Astaire, about to break into a tap dance.

The most depressing part of the news, I have discovered, is not the floods and the house collapses. It is the page three news. The partying people, the inane captions, the even more inane expressions on the faces of the people. Not that I have anything against people enjoying themselves because that is what life is at least partly about. But is this enjoyment or more like, a determined looking away from reality. The depressing thing is the attitude with which we live and behave towards each other.

Bombay musings

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Back to the old routine. Wake up around seven thirty, exercise, shower, breakfast, and dive into the net. Write. Listen to all the new CD’s I've picked up on the trip. Read. Bathroom reading at the moment is Nick Hornby (How to be good) and general reading includes a variety of newspapers which land up on our doorstep every morning. Yesterday the newspaper man even threw in the "Navbharat Times" for good measure though none of us read in any language other than English.

Yesterday saw DNA for the first time which doesn’t look bad. I prefer the look to the Times. The contents … well I read about the house crash in Tardeo (which I had heard about from Asha in great detail), about Sharad Pawar’s attempt to free the sale of wine (what a good idea – imagine being able to buy wine in a supermarket or from your local grocer along with the milk!) and the after effects of the Big Rain. Had a vague feeling somehow that by not reading the papers for two months I ... hadn’t missed much.

My mother had already told me when we crossed each other in Paris, about the floods in Bombay and people being trapped in their cars and dying and when I came back Asha told me about her nephew Santosh having to walk miles in almost neck deep water before coming across a guy who offered a bunch of people a lift. Santosh apparently felt that the catastrophe brought out the best in people and for the first time in his life he got the feeling that people in Bombay had a heart.

I realised that hearing news first hand makes a big difference and touches you much more than when you get it from a newspaper or from TV.

Have been trying hard to clean up my room but after all the effort it still looks a bit of a mess. Must make an effort to get rid of stuff – I am such a hoarder!

Right now responding to emails from Germany - from Ayse, Ariela and Marlis.

Back in Bombay

Back home and still in the process of settling down. It was good to see everyone again. Saru and Parvati filled me in on my grandmother's last few hours. Parvati came over in the morning and wept and wept over her death and I sat and comforted her. Yes it does feel a bit strange visiting her flat with her not being around. And I realise that even if a person is ninety six and vague in the head they can still leave a kind of vacuum behind when they depart. Maybe it is just their presence. Maybe all of us, regardless of age and intellectual ability and other things by which we judge each other have what one could call "presence" and this is the essence of who we are. Maybe this is what you mostly like about someone and miss when the person is not around. It is difficult to describe.

Mishi is still acting a bit uppity. She came and sniffed around my bed last night and sniffed at me and lay down near my feet for a while but not for long. Busy converting the music I've brought along into MP3 format. Things seem generally okay.

Lunch Time Conversations

Uma and Basia in Frankfurt

Basia and I met yesterday for lunch at an Italian restaurant close to where Sabine lives. I had a pizza with artichoke and salami, which was quite good and which had a thin crust which I far prefer to the thick one. As usual we chatted about family and Samuel`s workshops and Basia`s own attempts to start a group in Frankfurt especially now that the group room which she is renovating is almost ready.

Not for the first time we spoke about Samuel`s "money workshops" (Workshops based on the theme of money). How money is really a "taboo" between us and how little we like to really talk about it or look at it honestly. Most of the time pretending it doesn`t exist and that it doesn`t affect our relationships.

For example, Basia said, it is not done to say "I have enough." You have more than you can cope with and say, an uncle or aunt dies and you inherit their wealth. It is unimaginable to say, "I don`t really need it, let someone else enjoy it."

Money is somehow an embarrassing topic for most of us. Maybe we need to look at it more carefully.

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Sabine who was down with a bad stomach infection (mainly throwing up) all of day before yesterday, has recovered now. Yesterday evening she wanted me to make my famous fish curry, which I did, and which she relished. We sat out on the balcony for quite a while, me with a bottle of wine and a cigarillo, catching up on all the happenings in our lives. At some point Dwight called from Toronto though the traffic noise was so penetrant that eventually we agreed to follow up on our conversation the next day (today).

The Last Lap

Back in Frankfurt with Sabine. It`s the end of the trip and boy does it seem like a long one. A kind of weariness has begun to creep in and basically am looking forward to getting back and back to work. What I will miss is being able to get around so easily on my own – the smooth clean streets, easy shopping, and all the rest that I experience when I am in Frankfurt.

Spent the whole day for example, in town yesterday, wandering around, sitting now and then on a street side bench. The pedestrian zone is full of them, and they are well used by weary folk who have spent hours on their feet – or by people just wanting to sit and watch the world go by. For quite some time I watched a girl with a punk haircut – sides shaved and a mane of blond and pink hair in the middle – dressed in ragged blue jeans and a sleeveless T-shirt playing the guitar and singing a Spanish song. By her side on the ground where she was sitting, was quite a large bottle of Sangria. Don`t know if she was really drinking but she was certainly singing passionately, in Spanish, at the top of her voice. She was so impressive, I couldnt help adding to the mound of coins which she was collecting in an upturned cap, for which she very sweetly thanked me.

Had lunch at a cafe where I usually eat, with a very nice outdoor sit-out from where you can just observe the world. And also spent a while at “Saturn” – the chain store which deals in music and electronics and everything that fascinates me. It is difficult not to buy stuff there and I imagine it would be easy to go broke doing that.

Getting any work done on Sabine`s computer is challenging – to put it very politely. It is an archaic piece (in keeping with her TV set which works at will - when it doesnt want to, just remains blank). The comp has no ostensible USB port – so downloading photos is not possible at the moment. Also it takes forever to open any document and the internet too moves at an equally tortoise like speed.

Basia is coming over today. We plan to visit the new room she has been doing up, which is in a sort of go-down, which she plans to use for workshops.

Reflections

Every workshop or shorter session seems to me, to offer an opportunity to look at age old questions. Shasha`s being here for a music and stillness session with us has once again brought up the usual themes. Whatever you say and however you phrase them, those themes boil down to this: what do you want out of life and what do you want out of relationships? Yesterday evening, when I put those questions to Shasha, Ariela said that perhaps one could phrase the first question the other way round too. For example, "What does Life want from me" . Indeed!

When I thought about it, I saw that it was in fact a much better way of putting the same thing. "What I want out of life" seems like a typical consumer oriented attitude, as if life is some kind of commodity which I am trying to get something out of. The other way around is more "real" because I suddenly see, that what we call life, is a process of unimaginable dimensions and who and what we are is dictated by the way it flows around us and whether we are willing to be part of the whole movement.

At times when one is required to go deeper into such questions, even one`s evironment starts to acquire a kind of intensity which is lacking under normal circumstances. You become aware of sounds and noises, of the "feel" of the day (eg. Right now, I am aware somehow of the greyness of the sky which seeps into the atmosphere and even as I write this the sun has suddenly decided to peep out from behind the clouds.) You become aware of something underlying the whole process of thinking or seeing and hearing which is difficult to express and you then also become aware that THIS is the reality that very subtly guides us. If it is contaminated by anger or envy or competitiveness then this is what dictates our words and actions. So the main message as usual is very simply: be aware of it all.

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Flu seems to be doing the rounds. Feli was quite sick yesterday, burning with fever, which didn`t prevent him from now and then running around and playing football with Michael - Ariela`s cousin who visited us yesterday - and in the process spilling a glass of apple juice which someone had kept on the floor and forgotten about. Michael, among other things is also a musician and had brought over a CD which he has just put together of twelve songs. I liked the sound of it very much although the lyrics were in the Bavarian dialect which I could barely understand.

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Read Chandran`s mail just now (the dodomail) in which he writes about the difficulty of meditating and being still, without the help of a group. Well, I think a group definitely helps in being still but maybe one of the reasons that it is difficult to do on one`s own is that one of the underlying reasons for much of what we do is the approval we hope to get from others. When for example, you are able to meditate and give the impression of being still and you get feedback from others in some form, it encourages you simply, to go further with it. One solution might be to take the trouble to meet in a group even when the "official group" is not meeting until such time as you can make it on your own. And simultaneously it would be good to examine what the real gains for you are, of being still and in a meditative state. When you see the deeper gains you begin automatically, to want it for yourself, group or no group. It feels good to be still within, and not to be constantly enmeshed in a complicated thought process.

Sunny Prien

Marlis left back for Berlin yesterday evening and we both sat and sighed about the fact that we wouldn`t be seeing each other most probably for at least a year - unless she decides to make it to India before March `06. During her stay this time we discovered we are both avid shoppers. That we love walking around, love bargain shops and are constantly on the look out for good deals of the 99 cent variety. After she left Ariela and I had a light dinner of toast, cheese and ham, and watched a movie which A. was seeing for the third time, which she liked very much. "Sleepers", featuring among others, Robert de Niro. About a bunch of kids growing up in the part of NY known as Hell`s Kitchen, and how their idea of harmless fun leads them to a penitentiary with pretty grim consequences. Mostly I dont like thrillers and suspense films but Ariela is trying to get me to change my mind. (Sleepers, which I now remember having seen on TV in India, a couple of years back) is in fact a good film).

Shasha (Suhail`s wife,) came in from Paris this morning and when she had settled down a bit after her journey, she and I walked down to the Thai cafe in the pedestrian zone. As usual it was full but this time I asked a lone woman sitting and reading at a table if we might join her and she politely agreed. So Shasha and I spent a very agreeable hour and a half in the sun, sipping Chardonnay followed by carrot and chicken soup, in turn followed by a spicy Thai chicken dish, cooked with veggies and bean sprouts. At some point the woman sitting at our table left and we were joined by a couple taking a lunch break, who were from a neighbouring town. They seemed very friendly and asked a lot of questions about what I did and where I was from and how come I spoke such good German.

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Last night Ariela had been feeling unwell so when she failed to appear at the usual time in the kitchen this morning, I decided for once to clear out the dishwasher and to put back the crockery and cutlery. Ute, the woman who helps with the household stuff came in around nine and made some appreciative noises to see me fiddling around the kitchen. I told her the truth - that when there was nobody around to do the requisite work I could somehow summon up the resources to do it. Most often though, seeing people manage their lives and their kitchens with brisk efficiency tends to make me want to merge with the wall paper out of sheer anxiety - which a lot of people mistake for laziness. Ariela who had turned up at some point, asked me what I was scared of. I said I was always afraid of dropping dishes and breaking glasses and other stuff, I felt like such a klutz. Ariela said that was quite all right, the dishes they had were very cheap, because of the kids so I could go ahead and ruin their crockery. THAT shouldn`t prevent me from contributing to the domestic front if I WANTED to.

But I have to say that once I got started on the job I didn`t mind it at all and after about five minutes even started to enjoy a sense of self importance as the kitchen began to look visisbly neater and more attractive.

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Doctor!

Yesterday afternoon I found myself in Dr. Norbert Filous`clinic. Just around the corner from where Ariela lives and situated conveniently between two drugstores. Had to finally pay that visit because the night before my thumb was horrendously painful, and both Ariela and I knew that something had to be done about it. (Thomas was away in Munich). So off I went to Filous`clinic with Andrea by my side (who also happens to be a nurse and was visting us on her day off).

We stopped for lunch on the way at a cafe in the pedestrian zone. Actually we had wanted to lunch at the Thai fast food joint which has a sunny sit out but it was overflowing with customers so we moved on to the next eatery which is also quite nice except that their outdoor seating is in the shade and it was a pretty cold day. (By Bombay standards). Fortified myself with a beer and with a pizza which I shared with Andrea before moving on to the clinic.

The doc somehow lools like a fiery evangelist - Billy Graham type - but is actually quite nice, At least he didm`t cause me any pain. The moment he undid the plaster on my thumb and saw what was underneath he gasped - and so did Andrea. As usual in such situations of suspence, I held my breath. The doc then disaappeared for a minute and came back with a small scissor like instrument with which he pierced the skin next to the nail on my thumb to let out a fat trickle of puss. (It didn`t hurt at all.) When the goo was all drained out we all three gasped at the sight of the abcess underneath, a small but impressively deep hole from where the yellow goo came out. The doc showered the spot with antiseptic powders and gels and bandaged it good and proper and then told me that if I had waited just a while longer to get it treated, the infection would have reached the bone and he would have had to cut off a bit of my thumb. Aaaaaaaaaaarggggghhhhh!!!!!

So I had to buy a strip of antibiotic capsules which cost a bomb and which I am still swallowing three times a day. The good news is that I visited old Filous this morning and was told that the wound had healed wonderfully and that he had not expected it to happen so quickly. We both peered at my thumb and there was no hole to be seen. The skin has grown around it once again and there is no more pain. Miracle of nature!

back in the sun

What a relief to be back in the sun! It was so miserable yesterday, we were all freezing until Ariela turned on the heating at night as she, Marlis and I watched a movie (Gilda). An old Rita Hayworth film in which she stars with Glen Ford. One of the most sexy scenes we all decided was of the cabaret in which she sings and dances and removes nothing more than... the glove on her right hand!

Well one of the advantages of the cold is that you dont have to shower every single day. In fact you can go for days without bothering to, and nobody can tell. (At least with me).

This morning at breakfast, taught Hindi numbers to Feli who obediently and parrot like repeats everything anyone tells him to repeat. A dangerous phase because as Ariela says, listening to him will immediately reveall Ariela`s own thoughts and reactions.

Rainy day in Prien

I`ve discovered I´m slightly dyslexic when it comes to reading body parts. It is not my right forefinger that is hurt, as I wrote yesterday, it is my thumb!! Still bad. But Thomas says the fact that it is not too swollen is a good sign. He`s bandaged it again this morning and I can only hope the pain will subside. Meanwhile am learning to use my left hand and left thumb, which is not a bad thing.

The weather is dreadful, cold and rainy. During a dry patch when the sun peeped out Marlis, Feli and I walked to the station to buy me a ticket to Frankfurt for next Monday. There are so many ways in which one can save money. For example if you buy your ticket a week or more in advance, you pay fifty per cent of what you would at the last minute. Also if you buy it from a machine you save a good six or seven euros - which I discovered too late this morning. I had already bought mine and as it started to pour while we were there, Marlis suggested we wait at the station. To while away the time she started to fool around with the ticket machine and said she would find out if it were possible to get a discounted ticket. There was this sudden indignant shriek from her at one point, which is when I discovered the truth about ticket machines.

Meals here are always entertaining because along with the food there is always a hot topic under discussion. This morning at breakfast we sat around for hours talking about one´s "calling in life". Ariela had seen a TV show about a Swiss woman living in South Africa who had everything she wanted, a family, a life of leisure, more than enough money. But it wasn`t enough and she started working in a hospice. This led to her starting her own project in a place far away from home where she now lives, meeting her husband and children five or six times a year. She had to give up her family for what she wanted to do but Ariela swears that she radiates happiness and contentment. The trouble, as we said, was that it is difficult to decide what your mission in life is, because most people are so influenced by their desire for acknowledgement and recognition that rather than look at what they want to really do they try to find work that will get them recognition.

Lulu - Ariela`s daughter is watching the movie "Chocolat" on DVD and I am half watching alongside. On rainy days it seems there is little to do, besides read or watch movies.

Resting

The weekend workshop is just over. This afternoon, most of the participants left though Marlis and Michael are still around. It was a good effort all round. The theme Ariela had chosen (partly influenced my grandmother`s death last week) was: Death. How we react to it, what role it plays in our lives (if any) and what death has to do with life. (In other words the ability to let go). More tomorrow hopefully. Right now there is an interesting conversation going on in the kitchen so I am off.

The weather has been cloudy and wet for the last couple of days. Also I am down with a minor infection on my right fore finger which Thomas (who is a doctor besides being a musician) has bandaged for me. He says it is minor and should clear up soon. Hope it does because it hurts quite a lot and even using the keyboard is a bit uncomfortable.

patience

Ariela has been rushing around reorganising furniture and re-arranging the house madly for the upcoming workshop. Dragging tables from one room to another, shifting people (I am now to sleep in a bedroom upstairs instead of where I am at present on the main floor) and generally cleaning up. In between all the activity she takes a break and we sit at the dining table and chat, with Felix madly rushing around us and knocking his head against my stomach every five minutes with the sheer excitment of being alive. (He has a really hard head and it hurts when he butts it against any part of your body which he does frequently!)

We make desultory conversation. Ariela tells me I am very patient. Too patient, she says, seeing me try to ignore Feli and I help her out, "You mean disgustingly patient?" She nods. "Yes." Then adds, "You know, you can afford to be more angry,"

I think of the times when I have been angry and thrown tantrums and how I´ve willingly left that part of my life behind. But yes, I do also feel that there are times when it is not a bad thing to shout and scream and exhibit your temper. Maybe it is okay as long as you are in charge of your feelings and not the other way around.

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Walked through the town this afternoon past the station from where the toy train starts. A train had just got back and a lot of elderly tourists and parents with children who had disembarked, ambled down the road towards the main street. I continued walking and discovered a Thai fast food joint, in the pedestrian zone close by, with tables laid out on the street so I stopped and had a clear carrot and chicken noodle soup with a lot of ginger and bean sprouts thrown in, which was quite good. A couple of foreign girls seemed to have decided to share a table and were exchanging notes about who they were and from where. They spoke bad German but managed to communicate. One of them the younger one (said she was twenty three though she looked older) said she was Italian. When she asked the other woman her age (I couldn`t make out where she was from) she shied off the question at first. "Very old," she said. Then added after some time that she was thirty two. (She looked younger than that). Found a wine shop on the way back and decided to buy a bottle of Merlot for the evening. Once the workshop begins we`ll have to go dry.

A bit about Prien

A little bit of the history of Prien which is one of the attractions of Bavaria. Bavaria is quite a special region in southern Germany, (the northerners would probably hmmmph at the word "special"!) - very picturesque with its hills and snow capped mountains, parts of it resembling Switzerland or Austria. The houses with their sloping roofs and little balconies filled with flower boxes, the costumes worn by the people during festivals, all add to the local colour. In fact I keep hearing from the Germans that Bavarians dont consider themselves part of Germany, they see themselves as an independent land, almost.

Prien itself, situated on the lake, is quite old and was founded around the twelvth century by the nobles of the region. The town settlement was named after the river Prien (or Brigenna as it was then known). In the first few centuries Prien developed into a centre for arts and crafts. Till the nineteenth century however it remained a relatively small town with just about 300 residents and it was the introduction of the railway in the mid nineteenth century wihich led to its subsequent expansion into a tourist town. Apart from the picturesque setting which attracts outsiders, Prien is also known for its branch of the Goethe Institute which has attracted as many as 35,000 students in the last three decades or so.

From where I`m sitting in the drawing room I can see the sloping tiled roofs of the neighbouring houses, a square plot of land across the road, bordered by a yellow green hedge, and filled with wild almost knee high green grass, next to which stands quite a large house with green shuttered windows against a cream and white facade with a row of colourful potted plants on the ledge outside the balcony.

It has been raining the last two days though now the drizzle seems to have let up a bit and the sun is peeping out from between slightly grumpy looking clouds. Felix, having shot me dead several times in the last half hour (following lunch), hysterically amused to see me topple over sideways on the chair with my tongue hanging out in typical dead man fashion, has been dragged off by his mother, possibly for an afternoon nap.

About three or four days a week, Ute, a woman who works for Thomas`s mother across the road also comes in and helps out with housework and with Feli. Household help in Germany is of course not too common as people, regardless of what work they do, are very well paid and most ordinary individuals can`t afford it. But Ariela is quite occupied at the moment with her script wriiting (which pays very well) and can`t afford not to hire someone I suppose.

People Watching

One of the things I love to do is to sit and watch people and the best place to do it in Europe is from a streetside cafe. (Although a streetside bench also serves the same purpose and it is free). In a cafe though is where I found myself the day I arrived in Munich. Thomas met me at the station. My train arrived a few minutes late and so did he which was just as well. He was a bit upset because he said he got stuck in a traffic jam for fifteen minutes right in front of the station, which was most unexpected. But that`s big city life for you. We passed various large, stately buildings on the way, one of which was the university. Another building, Thomas said, was where Hitler had moved in following the suicide of his favourite cousin who happened to live there. (When we later talked about it Ariela said, "If I had been Hitler`s cousin I would have committed suicide!"

We drove to the cafe where Ariela was sitting with a fellow script writer - Harald ("call me Harry) Gronkrimsatz or something that sounded like it though even Ariela was not sure when I checked with her. They were busy exchanging notes about movies and plots and books about scripts and movies. He`s supposed to be quite a well known writer and has won prizes for his scripts. He must be in his fifties I guess, grey haired, with glasses and pleasant looking. He told me he had been to Sri Lanka and liked it very much but hadn`t been to India. He has seen some Bollywood films though, and just thinking about the two or three he had seen in Sri Lanka made him laugh.

Anyway, Ariela and Harry`s intense discussion gave me a chance to look around the cafe which was quite full and to indulge in my favourite past time - just watching people. Everyone seemed to be drinking chilled white wine though Thomas and I ordered beer and Ariela and Harry downed several glasses of cranberry juice.

Sitting a couple of tables away was this couple, the man had a very Japanese looking face though I dont think he was, with soft brown hair and wire rimmed glasses and seemed to be very much in love with the girl he was with, at whom he couldn`t stop smiling. On my way out I sneaked a look at the girl friend who seemed friendly enough but not quite as much enamoured of him as he was of her.

Yesterday evening I strolled down to the town centre. I almost decided to stay home because it was drizzling, then changed my mind, put on my multi coloured raincoat and set off. There is a little church not far off, with a long verandah with benches around it where one can sit and observe life. Which is where I sat, sheltered from the rain. Next to me was a fat woman scribbling something in a notebook and who continued to sit there and scribble as I walked away.

Prien is actually quite a sedate town, a holiday resort, beautifully located, on a lake - the Chiem See (or Chiem Lake, pronounced Kiem). Along the lake front there are the usual cafes, restaurants, ice cream and hamburger stalls and a green park facing the lake, with benches all around. Generally good for "people and children watching."

One of my favurite people at the moment is two and a half year old Felix whom it is quite easy to entertain. He goes around with a long stick of wood which is supposed to be a pistol, goes bang bang bang - at which you`re supposed to drop dead with a loud scream. And when you do he laughs and chuckles madly for quite some time. Ariela says this is a fall out of some dreadful TV programme he`s been watching about a gun wielding robot although from experience I know he does more or less the same thing when he watches Tom and Jerry cartoons.

When Ariela said she was going into town Feli and I decided to tag along and on the way down, as Feli saw me manouvre the steps, he very generously offered me his hand saying, "Come let me help you!"


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Just returned from our jaunt into town. After the chores were over Thomas dropped me and Ariela at a nearby cafe where we spent an hour or so - one of those places which is also a souvenir and photo shop. I had a hot chocolate which was a shade too sweet and Ariela stuck to coffee. On one of the shelves I saw a bottle which was packaged exactly like a wine bottle except it said "Chai". On closer examination it turned out to be a kind of chai concentrate made with ginger and various spices, like cloves and cardamom, to which you add hot milk. I would normally have liked to try it out but this one cost more than a normal bottle of wine. 17 Euros! Close to a thousand rupees, so I promptly put it back on the shelf.

Brrrr. It`s cold and rainy - not a good day at all for going out and am glad to be back.

Prien

There have been messages from various people in the last two days, about my grandmother - from people who knew and loved her, like from my old school friend and classmate and punching bag Rani, whose daughter Aparna took that last photo of my grandmother which I used in the blog. And others which were good to read. My own feeling is that this great old lady did reach a ripe old age and it was logical that it was time for the next move in her life. The only regret like I mentioned before was that I was not around but now that too doesn`t seem to matter because there were other people with her and she was not alone.

This entry is made in Prien, where I am staying with Ariela and Thomas. Quite a contrast to the Sedlacek`s house in the back of beyond. Here we are practically in the middle of the city with cafes and shops about a ten minute walk away. (I must say I like it!) Traffic sounds surround me as I write, and every hour (or is it half hour) there is this toy train which runs from the station to the lake shore which hoots and toots and hurtles right past the house.

As Ayse and Heinz`s house was sparsely furnished the B`s home is crammed with stuff - with books and cassesttes and CD`s and clothes and you know, even if you dont see them, that there are kids involved. This morning Ariela and Felix have gone out. She to the gym and he to the babysitter. Last night we sat up late chatting over a drink. Ariela was most apologetic about not having red wine around but then she unearthed a bottle of Greek red wine which she opened. It was rather sweet and perfectly horrible but I managed to down a couple of glasses and slept very well after that!

Am working on a Mac right now, with which I am not too familiar. The usual settings and icons are missing so uploading photos will not be possible.

last thoughts on Cologne

The patio outside the renovated farm house where the Sedlaceks live. I believe this part of the house used to be the stables, around 200 years ago.

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It`s my last morning here in Cologne. (Well not really Cologne, but we`re in more like a suburb, called Pulheim). It is over a month since Ayse and I arrived here from the workshop in Switzerland and although we have been a lot on the road and I have only spent a few days here in between our travels, this feels pretty much like home.

The Sedlacks (Ayse, Heinz and their two kids, Timor and Aylin, aged 18 and 15 respectively) live on a huge old farmstead sectioned off and converted into about six apartments. The down side is that it is in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by fields, mainly cornfields and the nearest bus or train station is miles away. The good thing is that it gives you such a feeling of spa…aaaaa….ce. Not only is the apartment huge it is also sparsely furnished, which makes it only look bigger. And there is also a garden at the back full of trees and singing birds and a patio where one can sit and meditate.

Here and there, in the house, you find a painting on the walls. In the living room a huge, colourful piece of modern art behind the TV and stereo, with slashes and blobs of red and yellow. In Heinz`s room which could accommodate two or three Bombay apartments, a portrait of Marilyn Monroe by Andy Warhole hangs on the wall near the door (Warhole? Right spelling? No, I`m sure not). Anyway, next to it are two small speakers on stands.

The only clutter around the room (apart from my suitcase and everything spilling out of it) is Heinz`s stereo equipment and he will kill me for saying that because he treats it like a beloved baby. It consists of numerous boxes, amps and other related gadgets which I have not been able to quite identify in spite of it all having been explained, a turntable and CD player, and numerous speakers. The biggest and most impressive equipment which he recently acquired are these two enormous horns on legs, coloured a deep maroon, which Heinz sits in front of and constantly drools over.

“Say something,” he pleads with me one evening, after plying me with detailed info about why they are the best speakers in the world and when I do, he turns to me with an exasperated, “What do you mean? Just hmmm? Go on, is that all you`ve got to say?” And I sit there feeling quite stupid and tell him, well, it sounds good, this new speaker set. Really very good. (I mean what more can I say!) And I can see that although that makes him feel better it doesn`t really console him too much.

Anyway, back to the house. The vast expanse is relieved by plants. All over the place. Plants in small pots and in huge pots. Creepers along the central pillars. In fact come to think of it, most houses I`ve visited in Germany are so nicely done up. People really take trouble over their homes. There is such attention to detail, to the way some figurine is placed, candles for “atmosphere”, crystal thingummies hanging by the window reflecting sunlight, colourful cosy looking rugs on the floor.

The Sedlacek`s kitchen too, is vast as any other room and done up in chrome and wood and glass. Very chic and very Heinz. The cooking range is bang in the centre of the room, a large platform with a ceramic (electric) cooking range and more than enough room for pots and pans and chopping boards and sundry other knick knacks to be kept. So, in fact, most often they are. Packets of Kleenex, keys, mobiles (which are then misplaced so that at any given moment two people are busy searching for their phones or for some other accessory), glasses, someone or other`s bag. But then Heinz comes along and with a determined flourish sweeps it all away and the place recovers its look of pristine elegance once again.

Recently Heinz went and exchanged his old TV set for a new one – a flat screen which is huge (in keeping with the rest of the house) which has completely bowled me over. (Oh god, and I have to get back to my 14” set back home!) We`ve been watching quite a few movies, the last three being The Aviator, then one whose name I`ve forgotten which is about this guy in the south American jungle who is initiated into a Ayahuasca ritual which helps him to look at his life clearly and to get over his fear. Shit, I must remember to get the name of that movie from Heinz.

That`s it. This afternoon at 2 pm I take the train to Munich where Thomas will pick me up and then together with Ariela, who is meeting some big shot in Munich this evening, to discuss her movie script, we will drive to Prien after dinner - the town where the Bogenbergers (Ariela, Thomas, Luisa, Julia and Felix) live on the Kiem Lake, and where I will spend two weeks.

Uma and Heinz on the patio, at night. Unfortunately this was the only half way decent photo of Heinz I could lay my hands on. After the movie he was bugged by something which Ayse and I said (even forgotten what it was!) and refused to sit for another portrait.

And this takes us down memory lane, back to Turkey and to Istanbul - to a hookah cafe overlooking the Bosphorous river - just for you to get a glimpse of Mme Sedlacek.