After spending a month or so exploring the city a bit, we met our first friends in Magdeburg. Raghu and Ankita met us at an exhibition where we had gone, and we were happy to see Indian faces among the crowd. We exchanged each other's numbers and decided to meet again. We had a small phone for three of us, given to those two girls by a German friend. We used it to give missed calls to our parents in India so that they knew everything was fine with us. And the calling was very occasional, maybe once a week or maybe not. We had discovered an internet cafe in the city that was in a central location, and we started going there two-three times a week. Sending mail to family and friends was cheaper and easier than spending euros or INR on calls. Who had imagined that 20 years later, the scene would be completely different?
So, with Raghu and Ankita, we went to many places in and around Magdeburg. We went to Leipzig and a few other towns near Magdeburg. We were like one big family. Raghu, being the eldest, took care of us and cooked delicious rice varieties for us. He was doing his PhD there and intended to also do a post-doc. He was a brilliant and funny guy and often cracked jokes in his not-so-great Hindi. Ankita, on the other hand, was from North India and spoke excellent Hindi. She was bubbly, talkative, and very loving. She was also doing her PhD at the university. I don't remember how they both met, but they were doing their doctorate degrees in two different areas. Raghu stayed on the university campus, and he had a small room and a kitchen. He told us that he had gathered the furniture in his house from the roads. We were astonished. All the things were in good condition. And then we realised that it was very common in Germany to leave unwanted pieces of furniture on the road on a particular day of the month, and if others find it good and useful, they can just take it home! We often spend our evenings in Raghu's room. We played cards and Antakshari, and cooked together. It was a comfort to be together with fellow Indians, though we didn't know each other well enough.
The next friend we met was a German named Susanne. She was a student at the university too, and we were both attending the same classes on teaching German as a foreign language. No one else came to speak to me in the class, but she did. I often shared fruits and my tiffin with her, and she was very surprised by this behavior. Maybe she was not used to it or it was different in their culture. We slowly started talking and meeting outside for a coffee or just a stroll in the park. I had the advantage that I could speak the German language quite well and the language barrier was no longer there between me and her. She invited me to her house one evening for coffee and showed me her dad's DVDs of Raj Kapoor's films. Her dad was a fan of Indian movies, and they often watched Indian movies with German subtitles, but on DVD. There was no Netflix at that time.
Annika walked into my life just like that, thanks to the other two girls from the English department. Annika had come to Mumbai as an exchange student, and those girls knew her from then. She took us under her wing and showed us around. We often cooked Indian food at her place and danced to Indian music and songs. We staged plays, wearing different costumes, and we played dumb charades. We often watch Hindi movies together. She loved Hindi and was practising it quite a lot. Sometimes she said some funny things, which made us laugh like crazy.
Michael and Sina were the people who literally saved us from dying of cold in the winter. When they came to meet us at our place in the initial weeks, they brought a lot of woollen clothes for us and also got us a phone, as it was easy to move around and fix appointments with friends etc. They stayed in Hamburg at that time, and they came to Magdeburg, especially to see us. They invited and hosted us in Hamburg for a week and showed us around. They took us to fairs, to see the famous prostitute street in Hamburg, and to an Irish pub later for drinks, where we just had coffee and water! They loved my creation of a mixed onion and tomato curry with lots of mozzarella cheese in it. Annika knew them too, as Michael had also been to the English department in India and that was how he knew the other two girls. They also took us to Berlin for a week at their friend's house and showed us around Berlin.
Sadly, I have lost contact with all of them except for Susanne and Annika. Thanks to them, the five winter months in Germany were not dreadful, and though I was away from my family and friends, I knew that they were all just a call away. I wish them happiness, health, and peace wherever they are in the world. Because of them, I started trusting people more and became outgoing and confident!
to be continued...
No comments:
Post a Comment