First, the background. My husband and I have always wanted to visit Europe, and I admit that we considered a Euro-trip as our official entry into the travel scene. Traveling to Thailand or Malaysia from India, does not really amount to going anywhere at all. In fact a ticket to Bangkok is a lot cheaper than a ticket to Calicut, my home town. After our initial years of travelling around the said places, we felt that the time had come to cross the Arabian sea. We had heated arguments over where to go and what to do. We changed dates, budgets and locations so many times; that this friend I was to meet in Berlin, decided it was best to make her own plans and not wait for me. So when we finally got there, we had the key to her room, a warm bed and a well-stocked pantry – minus her.
It doesn’t cost much
to save
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| Backpack of memories |
Ours was a backpacking trip. We travelled on foot, by
trains, in buses and boats and all through our journey came in contact with
travellers and locals, with whom we enjoyed long conversations.
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| Wind turbines a common sight |
Most often,
after the initial exchange of pleasantries, they’d ask us if we were in Delhi
during the three day black out. This lone incident had catapulted Delhi into
the front page of newspapers in countries as far away as Germany and as small
as Slovakia. How the Capital of one of the world’s fastest growing economy together
with cities around it, could have a blackout was beyond them. It so happened,
that one such person worked in the field of renewable energy. According to him 25%
of energy used in Germany comes from renewable sources of which 16% comes from
wind power.
A single wind turbine can light up as many as 2,000 homes, he said. And
even though it is high on investment, the returns are quick and sustainable. In
India, solar and wave energy can be used to power cities and if every consumer
is cautious about their electricity usage, shameful blackouts like this can be
avoided. His words, not mine. What he told me were all lessons I had learnt in
school and practised at home for a while at the insistence of the missionary
nuns. But like most us, these lessons were soon forgotten and light and TV
switches left on, until I found time to reach over and switch them off. When he
put it in perspective with the Delhi episode and in the context of many
wind turbines I had seen all across Germany, I wondered why I had stopped doing my
bit. And why we left things half done, like the Vizhinjam wave plant project.
The level of awareness of a European citizen extends beyond
engineering. For instance, they have organised car share agencies for
travellers. www.mitfahrgelegenheit.de
is one such website, where registered and verified users update their travel
plans with maps, and in case you are looking to traveling in the same direction,
you can connect with them and share a ride, for a nominal fee. People who have
used these services have told me that it is perfectly safe, but not the best
means of travel in case you have a flight to catch. The point I am trying to make is that, apart
from saving money, most Europeans are also worried about leaving carbon
footprints, and so intense is this fear of damaging the eco-system, that almost
all of them use the public transport (reliable and frequent) or car shares while
going on vacation or even while going to work.
Another growing trend in these cities is the use of bicycles. Every
road, in every city has designated cycle paths, and traffic lights are
applicable to cyclists. Trains and trams have special sections reserved for
people traveling with their cycles. Helmet wearing is more a habit than a rule,
and it is a beautiful sight to see families riding together one behind the
other, the youngest trailing far behind on their smaller bikes.
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| Cycle your way to good health |
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| Recycle, Reuse |
It is common knowledge that tap water in Europe is
drinkable, but we did not want to take any chances, so we bought one, every
couple of hours. A 250ml bottle of water cost us between 2 euros to 2.75 euros,
and this went on, until a fellow traveller, suggested we buy at supermarkets
and not from small stores. In the super market, we were again faced with a
problem. Most of them stock three kinds of water - sparkling, mildly sparking
and still, and they are colour coded for better understanding. In Germany the
pink one is sparkling and the blue, still. In Hungary, it’s vice versa. We were
now able to buy a litre of water for 50 or 70 cents, and if we returned these
recyclable bottles we were paid back 25 cents!
If I am repaid half the price of a water bottle, (Rs 7 in an Indian
scenario) why would I ever dump one on the streets?
The Politics of
Public Behaviour
Did I mention that our entry point was Munich, Germany? As
we walked around the airport we wondered why an international terminal was this
tiny. It was only towards the end of our journey, when we met up with a common
friend, that we found the answer. While political parties and airlines had
campaigned for a third runway and a larger terminal for this Bavarian capital,
the residents had voted against it, citing ecological reasons. When we were
walking in Munich’s Englischer garten, volunteers were gathering votes, this
time on the issue of garten expansion.
In Munich and later in Berlin, we noticed that the trains,
buses and people were all part of a well- timed and oiled machinery, which
worked without screeches and halts. If the time printed on the timetable read
11.10 am, it meant that the train leaves at the said time, not arrives like it
is supposed to in India. On trains, people sit respectably apart. The 'packed-like sardines' concept is alien here. Of course you might bring up the
population count argument, but wonder who is to blame for that? Would you
rather have a Hitler or the Soviets go on a killing spree or will it be easier
on you if you followed the single child or no child concept that is now gaining
prominence in inflation struck Hungary?
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| Canine friends |
No one, absolutely no one, talks on the cellular phone while
traveling. So you can forget about eavesdropping into never ending
mother-in-law battle stories or the giggles and cooings’ of new found love.
Families talk amongst themselves quietly, single travellers either take in the
sights outside or read, some listen to music – their headphones firmly plugged
in, puppies sleep peacefully in the baskets kept on the owners lap, bigger dogs
sit obediently at the heel - barking is unheard of. After we had had an overdose
of irritatingly well-mannered dogs, my husband joked that the dogs here were
better behaved and smarter than most kids back home.
Now this reminds me of another incident. My husband and I
were sitting near the entrance of a subway, drinking in the European sights. A
young boy of about nine walked out, sipping from a juice take -away glass. When
he finished it, he dropped his school bag, and stuffed the used glass into its
right side pocket. He mounted the bag again, and continued his walk. This action
had caught my attention; my eyes followed him as he continued his walk. A few
meters ahead, when he came across a dustbin, his right hand reached for the
glass, dumped it into the bin and continued walking. A long forgotten nursery
rhyme played in the back of my mind. “Bits of paper, lying on the floor, make the place untidy, pick them up!”
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| Look who is eating |
Another time in a park, a woman sat reading a book while her
1 ½ year old toddler played at her side. After a while, the little one walked
up to mom and said something that I did not catch. Mommy took out a coloured
tiffin box from her bag, opened it and wordlessly handed it over to the boy. He
sat there on the grass, box in hand, and with tiny plastic forks, ate his fill
before handing it back to her. I was in shock. Image of desi-mothers running
after their children with steel plates filled with their favourite dishes and
that of grandmothers sitting them down and telling them wondrous stories just
to get them to open their mouths, flashed in my memory like a film in fast
motion, complete with intercuts and expressions and background scores and
noise.
A whole new world out
there
In Central Europe, beer is a social drink, much like wine is
in Italy. It was first brewed by religious monks and it is part of their culture.
Canned beer is also cheaper than water. So they drink beer during lunch, after
dinner, when you feel like it, as they walk past by or when they want to have
long conversations. I am used to looking at beer as this alcoholic drink, to be
consumed in dimly lit pubs or bars, with loud music that will drown the sound
of my drinking or in moving cars with tinted glass windows, which is sometimes
referred as ‘karobar’, and almost always without adult supervision. Here,
children as young as 12 and 13, drink beer with their parents. The quantity of
their intake is of course monitored, but it goes without saying that all of
them can hold their drink, so no drunken slurring’s and lewd comments from
anyone here.
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| Biergarten (beer garden) in Munich, where families get together |
I did meet a drunkard though. We were on an overnight
train from Budapest to Munich; in the compartment with us was David, a model
turned fashion co-ordinator and another chap with a never ending supply of
canned beer. While the former engaged us in conversation about the world of
fashion and styling, the latter just kept chugging beer. When, after a while, he
decided that he had had enough, he switched on his phone and played some music
- minus the headphones. Though I am used such anti-social behaviour in the DTC
buses here in India, I found this man’s behaviour offensive. And I guess so did
David. He fished into his bag, brought out a headphone, and smilingly handed it
over to the man, who quickly realised his mistake and switched off the music.
Without exchanging a foul word, David had shamed him into obedience. Something
definitely unheard of, where I come from, though Mahatma Gandhi had tried this
trick before - but then again, he was dealing with the Brits.
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| Mahatma Gandhi with the Brits |
Do you now agree that the joke might be on us?
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