Berlusconia

A few months ago a Portuguese friend of mine insisted that Europe is neither Islamophobic nor racist. And if a foreigner feels he/ she is an object of prejudice, it only reflects the growing frustration of the populace in the face of their crumbling economies. He was responding to my narration of an incident of mistreatment at the Lisbon airport. Only a few days ago in Macao I heard and old lady rant on and on as to why she thought Indians were a dirty uncivilised lot who ate with their hands and never took bath.

But I have so far had a better deal than many others. I hear of a school mate, who dreads each assignment in Europe that his multinational software company puts him on, for his last name is Mohammed. As a rule he is harassed at each airport . Every time , my brother Mathew flies to Europe, he is stopped and questioned at the airport and a couple of days ago was accused of carrying a fake visa. Incidentally Mathew has a beard. But, says my friend, Europe is neither Islamophobic nor racist!

My stay in Italy has till been smooth. There are no overt signs of prejudice. But like the rest of Europe, perhaps at a greater pace, Italy is changing. That was why I was waiting with Cecilia and Archie, a student from Indonesia at the immigration section of the police station on the morning of the second day of my arrival.While the Schengen agreement is said to have opened the borders of Europe further, with my Portuguese permit of residence, I am still required to register before 9 days into my arrival in Italy with the police. And the maximum period of stay is to be three months, with its reasons validated by documents.

The First Impression

I love the first day in a new city.You get out of your place of stay and you can turn and walk to any direction. Every single street is a 'road not taken.'And if you have come to live in the city, what catches your eye are different from what you would see as a tourist. You notice the supermarket, sees the post office, looks at the bus numbers and memorize their routes. And from the centre of Ferrara I noticed at least three buses that could take me to the railway station, which in any case is a one half hour walk from my first floor studio apartment in via Ragno; and I relaxed. I am a born claustrophobic. Lifts scare me. so does closed windows.I realized that all through these months in Mação there was a knot in my chest that has now come undone. And, it had to do with the fact that it is not easy to get out of the place.

Soggiorno Italiano

Alvega-Ortiga

Journeys invariably unsettle me, especially the ones undertaken alone. I am thrilled at the prospect of travel, excited with the anticipation of seeing new places and meeting fresh faces.And if I am forced to stay at one place for a few days at a stretch like it was in Mação, I grow morose and dull. But invariably, the night before the trip panic sets in. And I wish I could stay on where I am and not budge.

Sure enough, after the first half an hour into the trip things are back to normal. But here I am at the beginning of the half an hour pulling my bag across the rails on to the platform of Alvega- Ortiga station on my way to Italy. The mood is enhanced by the wind and the cold. The platform is deserted, there is an eerie silence except for the distant barks of a dog. The moon is so large today that it looks artificial and the platform is bathed in moonlight.

The One- way Street : Part III

At five o' clock it was already dark in Wasserburgh. We, Daniela, Elisa and me wrapped our shawls over our faces against the bitter cold as we walked along the bank of the dark still lake on our way into the town centre. Betty and Bruno walked alongside magically insulated to the cold and feeding us in with tales from the town. Betty told us how one day from inside a shop she heard someone on the street speak in Portuguese in a Brazilian accent that was endearingly familiar to her. And how she rushed out to meet them just as I would in the unlikely event of hearing someone speak in Malayalam on a street in Macao. It was one of the grandson of the Maikafers' who had come in search of his grandfather's story.And Betty joined the search.

The One- way Street: Part II

(Story of a man who left)
There never is a story of one man alone.There is a family gathered for dinner around a few meager plates, there are friends and beer glasses and the bar man across the counter,there is a sister who has long grown out of pillow fights. And in Franz's story 700 miles further north there was a young woman.

If Maria loved anything rather more than her fiance it was her homeland. For her that was where life was meant to be. So when Franz left in search of a new world, on board a modest vessel, with a cheap passage which meant he had to work his way through the voyage, Maria was in a struggle of a different sort. In the end she realised she could not choose between the two and set out on the same road herself, resolving to bring back the man she loved to the land she loved.I am rather more in awe for Maria. Over eighty years ago, for a young woman to undertake such a journey, required something more than ordinary will.

The One- way Street: Part I

(Story of a man who left)

The time was the 1920 s. There lived in the Bavarian town of Wasserburgh a young man named Franz Maikäfer. Franz strongly disliked his surname; for, Maikäfer was the name of a bug. Its picture was drawn into the red walls of his modest house in the heart of Wasserburgh. But the name was at the time the last of Franz's worries.

Post World war I, Germany was plunged into a deep economic crisis . The nation experienced hyperinflation in 1923 and chronic high unemployment throughout the 1920's.The death knell of the Weimar republic was ringing. And, Franz could hear it from the first floor window of his family house in the quiet town. I imagine him sitting with his unemployed friends in a pub downtown, where they met each evening,worry lining their prematurely old faces. One evening, banging his fist on the wooden counter in frustration Franz shouted "I need to get out".