Oslo: The Land of Peace makers

History is full of contradictions. Consider this. The middle east is home to not one but three of the world's main religions , each of them espousing the cause of peace in the world but now it is one of the most chaotic regions in the world. On the other hand Scandinavia was home to some of the most barbaric tribes in the world who looted and plundered the civilized world. But look at it now, each country is a beacon for human rights and stands for peaceful existence! If Scandinavia is the abode of peace then surely Norway and indeed its capital city Oslo has a prime place. Oslo in fact is the place where the Nobel peace price is adjudged and given and can rightfully claim to be the city of peace makers. Oslo then was my next stop.

October 17, 2009, Saturday

The bus screeched to a halt at the Oslo Bus terminal as the driver excitedly gesticulated that we had reached our destination. It was five-thirty in the morning and it was terribly cold outside. I quickly rushed indoors into the warm clinch of the terminal. It must have been near to day break i thought but outside it looked the Sun would take a bit longer. And finally the Sun came out slowly at eight as if even he too was wary of the cold he was stepping into.

With the arrival of morning we started our way to explore the city. As we stepped outside the bus terminal what surprised us were two enormous sky scrapers that leapt to the sky. They were the twin towers of the SAS Raddison hotel. They were mighty tall by European standards and showed that Oslo unlike Copenhagen and Berlin will offer more modern buildings.The tourist information center was just outside the central station and it was housed in a beautiful tall structure which was truly unique. As we exited it armed with city maps we felt the adrenaline rush that usually accompanies such trips.


First stop on the trip was at the Oslo Opera. Operas are such an important part of any European city, every city here seems to have one. The Oslo opera was a newly built white edifice with sharp lines marking the edges. the design was nothing i had seen before as it instantly caught the gaze of the viewer. The backwater on whose shore it stood glistened with its shadow. Then we headed to the Oslo cathedral which stood at the start of the main street in Oslo called the 'Karl Johans Gate'. The cathedral true to its Scandinavian roots had a magnificent very tall spire which leapt into the air and stood head and shoulders above the nearby buildings. It reminded one of the medieval times where it was prohibited by law to build buildings taller than churches and cathedral which is the reason why most European cities are 'flat'.


Then we started to walk down the Karl Johans gate and entered the heart of the city. Europe through its Streets is simply fascinating.Streets in Europe not only serve a utilitarian purpose, they are canvases on which layer upon layer of history and culture are painted. Hence any city in Europe has a main street which represents its distinct History. Be it the famed Champs Elysee in Paris or the Stroget in Copenhagen or the Karl Johans Gate , they tell the story of their cities if only you are patient enough to listen.

As i walked down the street numerous facets of the city came into view. Modern coffee shops sat side by side to ancient markets, Shopping districts selling the most expensive goods abutted grand churches. A little further down the road we came across the Oslo parliament building. It was a pretty strange place to have a parliament i thought as it was right in center of the main shopping district. The building itself was magnificent as its stone edifice represented the power it embodied within. Adjacent to the Parliament was the famous Grand hotel which is famous as the place where all Nobel peace prize laureates lodge when they are in the city to collect their prize. A wave from its famed balcony is more or less a ritual performed by every winner they say. Come December and we will see President Obama atop that balcony!

Further down the street you have the beautiful Norwegian national theatre which hosted and continues to host some of the greatest plays ever written. Opposite to it stood a neo-classical building with beautiful carvings of Greek mythology. it turned out to be the Oslo University whose sprawling campus lay behind the building. Its a oft repeated theme in Europe , all buildings of culture and knowledge tend to have Greek architecture. Greek still represents high-art and knowledge it seems.


The Karl Johans gate finally ended at the footsteps of the beautiful Norwegian Royal palace. The Palace was not unlike the other palaces i had seen but seemed to look a bit smaller compared to the others. However what it lost out in stature it more than made up in ambiance. It was housed in a most magnificent green expanse that sprawled to all sides. What more this Garden was the address of most of the foreign embassies in Oslo. The trees in the garden cast a golden shade on us as their leaves had turned golden due to the coming of autumn.

Although Alfred Nobel was Swedish, at the time of his death Norway and Sweden were still united. As he bequeathed his wealth in the form of the Nobel prize they continued to be held simultaneously in Stockholm and in Oslo. While Stockholm gave out all the prizes the very important peace prize was given out by Oslo as Norway was considered to be more impartial than Sweden. This is one of the main reasons Oslo and indeed Norway has come to be regarded as an important place which houses the legacy of peace. This legacy of peace is further propagated by Norway by convening important peace treaties and mediating as an interlocutor in conflict ridden countries of the world such as Sri Lanka. Nobel's legacy as well as the supreme efforts put in by Norway in the way of peace has given Norway the right to be called the land of peace makers.

The Nobel Peace center is one of the most visited sites in Oslo and we headed their next. The center is quite new as it was inaugurated in 2008 and it is housed in a former railway station. The White colored building is apt for the setting as it welcomes visitors with open arms. The ground floor was dedicated to this year's winner Barack Obama. It had a host of interactive media which covered his upbringing , his speeches and other important milestones in his life. The exhibition was titled 'From King to Obama' and as the title suggests the exhibition looked at Obama as the logical conclusion of what Martin Luther King started four decades ago. However the exhibition could still not convince me that Obama deserved the peace prize. The decision has come in for much criticism and rightly so however we should not go overboard and ridicule the institution of the Nobel peace prize as the world of ours is in need of strong and honest institutions and the Nobel peace prize could be one of them.



The second floor of the peace center was dedicated to last year's winner Martti Ahtisaari. The top most floor was the one that caught my attention. It was a dark room with small portraits of past Nobel prize winners suspended on electronic poles. Each portrait gave information of the awardee and his or her achievements and the year of their winning it. The whole setting had a blessed aura to it as i felt i was standing in a place of pilgrimage with saints all around.

As we exited the Nobel Peace center, the twin towers of the City town hall with its distinct clock came into view. It was no ordinary town hall, it is the venue for the Nobel peace prize distribution ceremony. The building was beautifully constructed and it overlooked the harbour and seemed to welcome visitors from far of lands. Numerous Nobel awardees must have been in that building i thought.

As we exited Nobel's land we took the cruise and went to the island Bygdoy which houses most of the city's museums. The Fram museum was our first stop there as it featured a ship used by intrepid adventurers who tried to reach the South and North poles. One such traveller was a Norwegian Amundsen who was the first man to reach the South pole. Norwegians are proud of their prowess of the seas and are especially proud of their ancestors - the Vikings - who travelled far of lands using their ships and were trend setters for the rest of Europe. A special museum called the 'Viking Museum' is dedicated to them which contains some really old viking ships , one of them from the tenth century which were probably the first of their king built anywhere in Europe.

Last stop on our tour was the single biggest attraction of Oslo - the Vigeland Sculpture park. This eponymous park was named after Gustav Vigeland contains more than 200 statues representing the various stages of human life. Here the sculptures illustrate aspects of human daily life like joy, sorrow, anger etc and human relationships as seen by the sculptures. A 50 feet tall monolith of 121 human figures is the center piece of the park which in the setting sun looked truly beautiful and one almost got into a philosophical mode looking at it.

With the setting of the sun we had finished our tour of Oslo. A small city with big ideals and an attitude to match those ideals. As often with other tours I take back not something material for the material thing fades off like the dew on a sunny morning. Instead i take back things of the mind that will remain long after the sun has set.

Copenhagen: Between two Europes

Copenhagen has a unique distinction among European cities. It sits at the gateway of what essentially are two Europes - Scandinavian Europe and Continental Europe - and it inherits a bit of both. Indeed Copenhagen can be described as the most Scandinavian of all Continental cities and the most Continental of all Scandinavian cities! It was to this great city of synthesis that I headed to next on my EuroTrip.

October 3, 2009, Saturday

The Chill of the October night pierced the skin like a needle. I looked at the watch, it read, 2.30 AM. We were at the main bus terminal at Gothenburg. A familiar feeling of excitement had gripped me. As I boarded the bus the warmness inside was soothing.The bus was on its way and the journey was underway. The journey went off pretty well as the bus cut through the pretty Swedish countryside cloaked in the light glow of the moonlight. Soon we were passing through quaint little towns and finally made it to the Oresund bridge which connects Sweden and Denmark.

The bus pulled up at the central bus stand in Copenhagen early in the morning. However the rain which is a constant companion of any traveler in Europe had followed us much to our displeasure, at leaset the forecast in the afternoon was better i consoled myself. Undeterred by the pouring rain we went through to the nearby Grand Central station. The station looked more continental in nature and was very well organized so as to help travelers. Right from the tourist information desks to Forex counters to Eat outs , everything was arranged to make the visitors feel welcomed.

As we headed out of the station, i realised that the train station in spite of all the modernity inside had a really old-fashioned elegant look to it from the outside which was really pleasing to the eyes, a welcome break from all the modern glass and concrete structures we see around most of the time. It was by far the prettiest railway station i had ever seen. Outside the Grand central station the magnificent obelisk of the Liberty memorial greeted us to the city. How far the obelisk has traveled i thought to myself remembering that it was basically an Egyptian work of art commissioned by the great Pharaohs more than two thousand years ago which was later imitated by European artists around various cities. So much has it been replicated here in Europe that people consider it to be an invention of European art.


From the outset it appeared that the color Red was the theme of the city as most of the old and beautiful buildings had a distinct motif of red exterior and green spiraling roofs. this motif was repeated with subtle variations across the city much to the amazement of the visitors.

Copenhagen is one of the big walking cities of Europe or indeed the world. The city is big,however that does not discourage you from walking as each street and bend has something in store for you. So we set out on our foot through the heart of the city. First we approached the famed Town hall square called Radhuspladsen which is famous for the various gatherings like concerts/protest that happen in the city. In fact it looked it was recovering from a concert the previous night as the stage there looked fresh. Beside the town hall was the spectacular statue of the 'Lure blowers'. The Lure is a distinctly Scandinavian musical instrument which is a cross between a trumpet and a horn. The statue consisted of two Lure blowers playing the instrument in unison. Strangely the statues lacked symmetry as one of the statues seemed to be 'squeezed' beside the other. The reason for this is that initially there was just one blower before another was added for company a few years later!

As we trudged through the heart of the city we entered the main political district - rather it was an island which was formed by a beautiful canal. The island contained the Christianborg Palace which was a former royal palace now converted to house the danish parliament. A parliament housed inside a royal palace - It was symbolic of the constitutional monarchy type of political system existing in Denmark i thought. However as is associated with Parliaments around the world this did not have any strict security squadrons around and was fairly open to the general public. Of course this is the safe and assured first world after all.

Then we headed to the Danish National museum adjacent to the parliament building. In true traditions of European cities Copenhagen too had a wonderful museum. It housed artifacts belonging to every possible theme, right from stone age to bronze age to the middle ages to the modern age. And they were all arranged very meticulously. As we came out from the museum the rain seemed to have taken a break and given us a well needed respite.

Next we started on the trail of the royal area of Copenhagen. We started by going to the Amalienborg Palace which is the winter home of the danish royal family. In fact it was not just one palace but four of them. Each arranged so as to form a rhombus whose one tip pointed to the Royal Opera across the harbor and the opposite end pointed to the very beautiful Marmorkirken or the Marble Church. The setting was reminiscent of the St.Peters square at the Vatican which has a huge central square with the St Peter's cathedral at the top. The Amalienborg palace was guarded by stoic looking danish royal guards again reminding one of the royal Swiss guards at the Vatican. They were really serious looking and too serious for our liking as one of them even refused to pose for our camera!

It was noon now and it was time for the famous change of guard at the Palace as the current guards were replaced by the guards from the neighboring Rosenborg Castle. This is a routine event here but has attracted the tourists very much, so that its become sort of a marque event in the city. As we saw the change of guard one was amazed by the discipline of the guards on the one hand and the rampant symbolism that still existed in constitutional monarchies like Denmark. The guards i don't think serve any practical purpose but still they are persisted in deference to tradition.

One of the Palaces is converted to a royal museum and we went in to be awed by the richness of the danish royalty. Also striking was the reverence the danish people had for their royalty. This was in marked contrast to say England where the royal family is the butt of jokes. But here there were souvenirs being created out of the royals.

Next we headed to the Marmorkirken which looked absolutely stunning. The inspiration of Vatican's St. Peter's church was everywhere. Right from the huge dome at the top to the statuettes of saints on the parapets to the white marble construction. The dome was magnificent from the inside too as it looked as if it stood without any support and carried paintings of various biblical events. The calmness inside was a bit eeire compared to the hustle outside.


Following the royal line we headed to the stunning Rosenborg Castle which was housed in the equally stunning Rosenborg Garden. The garden was beautifully laid out dotted by beautiful trees all around. The garden it seemed competed with the palace for attracting visitors. The palace itself looked very elegant with a red exterior and tall spires. It was also attractive for a different reason too - it contained the danish crown jewels. As we went through the methodically arranged royal rooms we were again impressed by the wealth of the danish royalty. However it also raised a question as to how any person could attain this wealth by just winning the lottery of birth when other more talented persons could just gaze at them as commoners. So crumbles the royal cookie i guess.

As we exited the Rosenborg castle we were left with a tough decision to make. Either to continue with exploring the rest of the city's minor attractions or go onto see the stunning Kronborg Castle at Helsingør (or Elsinore in English) 50 KM away from the city. The castle was also called 'Hamlet's Castle' as it was immortalized by Shakespeare's Hamlet who set his tragic prince and his story in the castle. For a Shakespeare buff like me it was a chance not to be missed. But can we make the far-off distance to make the 4PM entrance deadline at the castle. As Hamlet would have said - To go or not to go that was the question!

Finally we decided to take the chance and headed our way to Hamlet's Elsinore. Thanks to the brilliant danish train system we were there at the Castle before it closed for the day. The Castle they say is amongst the best in Europe with a distinctly Post-renaissance architecture. It was placed at the edge of baltic sea resembling a fortress intimidating any opposing army that set eyes on it. As we approached the Castle we felt the real magnitude of it. The stormy weather on the outside was an apt setting for this great castle as it gave an almost mysthical feel to the whole place. The castle was surrounded by a moat which in itself was amazing to behold. Of course such a spectacular castle needed an equally spectacular moat!

As we crossed the moat i realised what an expedition filled with danger it must have been for opposing soldiers to cross the moat, the very moat we were just breezing through at the moment. As we entered the premises of the castle we proceeded to enter it through a beautifully carved gateway with couple of exquisitely carved statues. Once inside we soon headed to the central courtyard.

The Central courtyard brought back memories of Shakespeare's Hamlet. My first memory of the play was a movie i saw in grainy black and white in the early 90s. I still remember the scene at the beginning of the movie when King Hamlet's ghost arrives to meet the young Prince Hamlet. The scene is so vividly etched in memory that i can almost see it happening in front of my eyes. I could not believe that i am at the very legendary place where Hamlet was set. A look at the courtyard set me thinking if the famous climactic sword fighting scene was set here. It must have been i thought to myself, feeling a sense of numbness that one feels when one is face to face with History. As if in a trance i was transported into the middle ages, into the world of the tragic Prince Hamlet. Alas the trance had to end as our time to depart rushed upon us. As we returned to the city the memories of Elsinore rode with us and it will be sometime before i part from it.

Back in the city it was time to catch a much needed dinner and then we started a stroll through the longest pedestrian shopping area in Europe - Strøget. The street gave a distinctly Continental - more specifically Italian feel. The winding car free alleys punctuated by beautiful buildings and squares , the mingling of streets into streets as if like the merging of small brooks everything gave a feeling as if one was in Rome or Florence. The street was essentially a shopping area and was lined on both sides by all kinds of shops, it even had a small area for musicians to show their musical skills.

Strøget starts at the main town hall square and cuts through the centre of the city finally ending at another big square called the Kongens Nytorv (The Kings New Square). As we exited into Kongons Nytorv we were surprised to find a street exhibition underway. This exhibition with the theme '100 places to see before they disappear' displayed a set of 100 of the most amazing photographs ever taken from around the world. It also included a couple from India too. We jumped from one amazing photo to another like school kids as we took in the myriad pictures laid out. Suddenly we realised that we had a bus to catch. Hurriedly we made our way back to where we started - to the central bus stand - and sat in our return bus.

As I looked outside from my bus at the city outside that sat between the two Europes it made me really happy that i was privileged enough to visit such a unique city. As the bus chugged along I closed my eyes to relive the memories of a wonderful day which will last for a long time.

Berlin: 'Ich bin ein Berliner'

Berlin has a strange liaison with History. At times History has showered it with great Kings and Kingdoms and at times inflicted it with the worst of dictators. It has been once bombed into the stone ages and at others it has rushed into the 21st century. For a time it was a city divided and now it is a city united. Berlin surely has got both the good and bad glances of history.

If there was one country and one city which defined 20th century History it has to be Germany and it has to be Berlin. At the turn of the 20th century Germany was a nation newly forged and as all newly formed nations, was brimming with energy and passion to reach the high table of world politics. When the world failed to acknowledge it as a genuine power and worst still tried to humiliate it, the world faced the wrath of German anger. Anger, that resulted in two world wars. After the wars the world saw a different aspect of Germany as it channelized its genius into producing technological innovations and finally attained the right to sit at the political high table, finally achieving its aim as the world acknowledged its true worth. The ultimate acknowledgment coming from President Kennedy as he famously said in his speech in Berlin “Ich bin ein Berliner” or “I am a Berliner” equating all the free men around the world to Berliners hence paying the city the ultimate complement of being an abode of freedom and liberty. Berlin had come a long way, from being the home of Nazi terror to being called the home of all free men.

These were some of my thoughts as I geared myself to visit Berlin. My first visit to a major European city. I was a bit nervous as to what to expect of Berlin. So with nervousness and expectations I boarded the bus from Gothenburg, Sweden. The bus journey was pretty uneventful except that we passed through a small Swedish town called Lund which gave an entirely new meaning to the word ‘sleepy little town’. This town was little alright but it looked like having gone to sleep by 8PM as the streets were totally deserted. Anyway, we passed through the town and took a connecting bus to the southernmost Swedish town of Malmo. From there we headed over the Oresund Bridge which is actually more than 10 miles long and bridges Sweden and Denmark. From Denmark to the German border we took a cruiser (with our bus parked in its ground floor!). Once in Germany we took the world famous autobahns which landed us in the German capital city by daybreak, albeit a little travel weary.

September 5, 2009, Saturday

The German city was just waking up to the morning drizzle that had come to welcome us. The central bus station where we landed looked a bit small for a big city but maybe that was due in part to the highly sophisticated train and underground metro facility of the city. As we walked a few yards from the bus station we encountered the first of Berlin’s U-Bahns – the famed underground metro. The station was called Kaiserdamm, probably a reference to the King I thought (Kaiser is King in German and a later day modification of the name Caesar).

From Kaiserdamm we took a metro to our hostel in West Berlin. The journey hit home the advantages of underground metros since we traversed the entire distance to our hostel in a matter of minutes. After we freshened up in the hostel, we embarked on our first destination – the Olympic Stadium.

The Olympic stadium was commissioned for the 1936 Berlin Olympics by the Fuhrer Adolf Hitler himself. It was built less for the Olympics and more as a propaganda tool for the Nazi administration. It apparently represented the superiority of the German race but nobody told that to the African-American sprinter Jesse Owens who made a mockery of Hitler’s race theory by bagging four Golds. Anyway, coming back to the stadium, like so many of Berlin’s other buildings was built in a neo-classical architecture resembling the ancient buildings of Ancient Greece. It is structured like a large circular citadel with a pair of gigantic twin pillars at the entrance which held the Olympic rings with thin but strong wires which gave it an appearance of being hung mid-air. The whole setting set my mind racing on a flashback, as I imagined how it must have felt marching into it in that summer of 1936. Also I remembered that this was the exact spot where three years ago Italy lifted the Football World Cup and a fortnight ago, Usain Bolt had broken the 100m World record. So this place was not just about the past but also very much of the present.

Next we headed to the centre of the city. To the Brandenburg Gate, at the Pariser Platz. As we exited the U-Bahn and arrived over ground, the magnificent Brandenburg gate rose in front of us. It looked every bit as magnificent as it looked on TV. The Gate was styled like an old Greek temple with huge columns and magnificent flanks which were adorned with sculptures depicting Greek mythology. But the crowning glory was really the statue of the Greek Goddess of Victory Nike riding atop a Quadriga (chariot drawn four horses). It looked as if the Goddess was for real and she was galloping into Berlin atop her chariot. The statue was first installed by the Prussians after a victory over the French and the square was named ‘Pariser Platz’ or Paris Square to commemorate the victory. Apparently the Goddess looked straight ahead towards the royal palace then. However the Goddess no longer looks straight, she instead gazes slightly towards her left and has her eyes fixed firmly on the French embassy there. The reason is very interesting. As everyone knows the Germans and French had never got along well and were always afoot to put each other down. In this vein Napoleon after his victory over the Prussians in his usual arrogant manner took the statue of the Goddess and had her placed in the Louvre museum. Now if you know the Germans, they do not like such an act. Hence when the Prussians

beat the French the next time around they got back their beloved statue and sat her atop the Brandenburg gate again, however with a slight modification. The head of the Goddess was lightly tilted to the left and made to face the French embassy as if mocking them in disgust. Who says the Germans lack a sense of humor!

We exited the classical elegance of the Brandenburg gate and began the trail of Nazi Germany. The Nazi’s victimized a lot of people during their time but none more so than the Jewish people. To remember their suffering a memorial has been constructed. And its not any ordinary memorial, it is different and controversial too. It is made of a seemingly random set of stones arranged next to each other. In the architect’s words, these stones are not random and they represent the Anti-Semitic mentality of the German people. Hence at the beginning the stones are hidden from view with only a trace visible over ground, this representing the deep seated but invisible Anti-Semitic mentality at the beginning of the 20th century. Gradually the stones start to emerge from the ground and grow taller and taller; this represents Germany between the wars when the Anti-Semitic feeling was at its peak. Further the stones begin to shorten again

and finally get buried in the ground, this representing the removal of Anti-Semitism from German minds post the war. Also, the ground is uneven giving the visitor a sense of imbalance and claustrophobia to give us a sense of idea as to how the Jews must have felt when hey were persecuted. I found the concept of the memorial very moving; maybe we should have similar ones in India too.

Close by we reached an empty parking lot covered with grass. Looked pretty calm on the outside but in fact underneath it hid Hitler’s infamous bunker. The last Nazi lair. Just standing in that place sent a chill through my bones. Right next to it is a recycle bin which experts say was the place where Hitler and his partner Eva Braun were burnt in after they had committed suicide. It was a study in contrast, the Jewish victims had a memorial erected and next to it the chief perpetrator did not have even a trace of memorial, in fact his memorial was a recycle bin which was perfectly appropriate. Moving on we found some of the former Nazi offices which now hold departments of the German government like the Luftwaffe head quarters which now houses the German Finance ministry. Also in view was the office of the notorious Gestapo. One look at the grim old building was enough to imagine the dread it wrought on its victims. Simply chilling.

Then we entered the Berlin of the cold war era. Again history came back racing into the mind and I imagined what it might have been to live in a divided city. This part of Berlin contains remnants of the Berlin wall and also some checkpoints which were hot beds of activity during that era. Talking about Check points we came across an important one called ‘Checkpoint Charlie’. As you can guess by the name it was a check point manned by the Americans and was witnessed to numerous border skirmishes, escapes, stories and what not. Either side of the checkpoint we had tall buildings which believe it or not housed the spies of West and East Germany. Imagine what a West Berliner might have felt 25 years ago to walk at this checkpoint and being spied on by the notorious East German Stasi. Strange times they were!

After a quick lunch at a nearby eat out we entered another Berlin. This was Royal Berlin. I almost felt a sense of surrealism. We were entering and exiting different eras of the same city, each one looking completely distinct from the other but still right next to each other. Truly amazing.


I have to admit, I was not expecting Berlin to have a royal side to it. But I was pleasantly surprised. After all Berlin was the capital of the mighty Prussian Empire and before that of the Holy Roman Empire. Any way we first headed to the Gendarmenmarkt which was a beautiful square bordered on three sides by beautiful churches. It looked so elegant with beautiful Baroque statues in the middle. The architecture of two of the churches – one German and the other French with the German one slightly taller! - looked post renaissance whereas the third had a classical style to it.


From one beautiful square we went to another one. This square was called the Bebelplatz. It had a church at one corner which looked to have been modeled on the Pantheon in Rome with circular exterior and a dome. Adjacent to it was the famous German Opera which apparently Herr Hitler had a liking to; so much so that he ordered it to be rebuilt as the war was still raging on! As pleasant as the square looks it has an infamous history, so infamous that it is named after that infamous incident. It is the shameful ‘Book burning’ incident. This incident happened during the peak of Nazi domination when students Humboldt University across the road were so incited by the talk of Joseph Goebbels – the chief Nazi propagandist – that they came out of the university onto the square and burned 20,000 books written by Jewish authors. This is a testament to the almost hypnotic power the Nazi’s held over the German people, even the brightest of minds could not resist their brain washing. A plaque on the square quotes a German scholar of the time prophesying “Once you start setting books on fire it does not take long to start setting people on fire”. How tragically true he was. Strangely however this story has a happy ending and shows an important facet of the German psyche. Later Students at the university felt so ashamed by what their predecessors had done that they vowed to set right their mistake by selling books outside their university foot paths to make up for the insult caused to books and knowledge. Till date they have sold close to half a million copies. This shows the true repentance the German people have for the deeds of past. They did not shut their eyes on the past as some of us would have done; instead they recognized their mistakes and gave their all to set it right. That takes a lot of courage and we have something to learn from it.

Adjacent to the Humboldt University stands the memorial for the German soldiers who died in the great wars. As with the Jewish memorial even this ran into controversy with some people seeing it as a way of condoning German war crimes. However that argument was refuted by the German government most notably the current chancellor who has argued for the memorial on grounds of humanity and that it in no way tries to endorse German war crimes but remembers the innocent Germans killed in the war – both armed and civilian. The memorial is not very extensive; it just contains a compelling statue of a mother holding onto her dying son. A truly remarkable way to remember the people deceased in the war with the message being - whatever the politics of the war the man killed by the war was somebody’s son after all.

Across the war memorial we step onto a small bridge which takes us to the Museumsinsel which is a small island formed by the Spree river which houses the best of Berlin’s museum. In addition to the museums it also houses a magnificent Church. Across the Museum Island there is the famous Alexanderplatz TV tower, the tallest structure in Berlin, just near the TV tower there was a beautiful fountain which was a tribute to the Greek God Poseidon or Neptune as the Romans would have called. Greek God of Sea, who better to have a fountain dedicated to I thought. Water gushed from Poseidon as beautiful carved Sirens enjoyed the ambiance taking up the gushing water. Some how, I felt the fountain more compelling than the gigantic TV tower. Maybe my fascination for all things classical I guess!

By the time the Sun started to end his day, we seemed to complete the Circle we started in the morning. We were back at the Pariser Platz. This time however we headed to the last spot of the day. The German Reichstag. A building no wonder everybody saw on TV everyday. Now that it’s got the glass dome atop it has become a prime tourist attraction here in Berlin. We marched along the trail of the Reichstag which had been trodden by countless Kings and Queens and diplomats and sooner than we realized the supreme edifice of the Reichstag came into view.

Bathed in the golden light of the setting sun, the Reichstag looked almost floating in another world. It welcomed the visitors with the slogan ‘Dem Deutschen Volke’ – To the German People – etched on its entrance. Our high spirits were dampened by the long queues that lined up the entrance. Any way we waited patiently for about an hour until we were permitted inside the building. The air inside felt heavy with history. Numerous diplomatic battles and power struggles have been fought in these corridors, many a borders have been drawn and redrawn, fates of Kings and Kingdoms decided in these premises. No wonder the atmosphere looks solemn and serious. We were then cramped into a huge elevator and taken to the terrace to view and indeed walk the famous glass dome.

The dome was a huge glass structure resembling a circular ramp with people jostling along its way. As one went higher and higher one got the best view of Berlin. All the places we had travelled in the morning were clearly visible now. But the dome was not constructed for looking out; it was meant for looking in. Yes, the dome gave a good view of the German parliament beneath. As I looked below I saw rows and rows of empty seats with an image of a huge eagle – the German Emblem - hanging in the background. As the architect Norman Foster explained his master piece, when ever the members of the Reichstag forget the reason they are inside, they just have to look up and see the people on the dome. What a beautiful thought.

The tiresome day ended there and we all got a well deserved sleep. We were off early the next morning to cover the last and arguably the single most famous tourist spot in Berlin. The Berlin Wall.

September 6, 2009, Sunday

Walls are not pleasant things. They create physical barriers and more damagingly mental barriers. For almost three decades the Berlin wall did just that. It was a ploy devised by Stalin to usurp West Berlin into East Germany but it failed and became the prime flash point of the cold war. It was not very popular as can be judged from the numerous graffiti illustrations painted along its length which decries it and calls for it to be broken. However as the cold war raged on, the foundations of the wall strengthened and no amount of deaths and protests could shake it. However with the cooling of the cold war towards the end of the 80s the wall showed cracks for the first time. These cracks were then broken open by Berliners from both sides as the wall came crashing down. Now that the wall is finally broken, one can see the absolute absurdity of it and can only wonder at the human talent for self-deceit and self-destruction. As one of the graffiti’s of the wall flashed ‘The world is too small for walls’.

After the wall it was time to trace our steps back and bid Berlin adieu. As I sat in the bus to head home, a multitude of thoughts and images engulfed me. The deriding glance of Goddess Nike at Pariser Platz, the claustrophobic stones of the Jewish memorial, the chilling air over Hitler’s bunker, the beautiful royal squares, the pose of Poseidon, the majesty of the Reichstag, the solemnness of the Berlin wall. In response all I was able to do was look back and say Auf Wiedersehen.

Off the Ground

From the edge of Iberia in the west to the frontiers of Siberia in the east, from the Baltic in the north to the Balkans in the south, Europe sprawls the center of the earth almost demanding destiny its central role in the world. For countless centuries it has been the proverbial ‘west’ which has competed against the ‘east’, sometimes beating it and sometimes beaten by it.

Europe is the crucible of cultures, the home of great discoveries and inventions, the land of great men and their deeds, the leader in the pack whom every one wanted to beat. Personally for me, Europe was the promise I made to myself when I was a kid. And finally the time has come when i visit this land of my dreams.

August 22, 2009, Saturday

The car zooms past the avenue leading to the Bangalore International Airport which appears almost fleetingly outside my window. It is the first time I have visited the new airport and it looks sparklingly new. As I step outside with luggage in my hand the whole experience seems surreal, almost dreamlike. I have arrived five hours before the flight which is at 2.05 AM. This gives me an excellent opportunity to look around the place and I am mighty impressed by what I see. To be honest I had not seen many airports. The only one I had memory of visiting was the old Bangalore airport which was small and cozy. Compared to it this was a giant leap. Travelling for me always meant chaos, used to as I was with railway stations and bus platforms. Hence standing in this brand new airport was a shock to my system.

Soon the initial shock was worn off by the reality of the impending travel. I had never travelled alone, never ever. Let alone outside the country not even out of town. I was always around people and was always in my comfort zone so to speak. What I was embarking on was truly novel and nervous for me. Once I bid everyone good bye and crossed the line and went inside the check in area of the airport I felt lonely. It was the loneliest I had ever felt.

In my nervousness I mumbled and fumbled through the check in and all the other procedures and then sat in line near the port of my air plane. Seeing fellow travelers around me I felt easy. As I waited there I watched around with curiosity. There were Indian couples, there were foreigners, single travelers like me, toddlers who played around as if in a playground. After an hour’s wait the Lufthansa cabin crew came along and everyone gazed at them as if they were the performers for that night, in a way they were! Soon everyone was in a line to board the plane. The novice that I was I did not realize the call for queuing quickly enough and was relegated to the end of the queue. I rushed to the end of the queue lest I miss the flight. Then eventually the line wound down and soon I found myself inside the belly of the massive Boeing 747. The inside seemed a bit crammed by all the passengers wanting to board the flight. I eventually settled at the penultimate row at a window seat.

This was my first flight, I was growing nervous again. How will the take off be? Should I take some precautions? As I juggled with these questions the flight made a steady start. Like a fast bowler sizing his run up the plane was slowly getting into its groove. It built momentum and speed and suddenly there was an announcement by the captain ’30 seconds to takeoff’. My heartbeat went up a notch. 30 second seemed like 30 minutes. As the big bird lifted its head and spread its wing it cut through the air and dived into the sky. Finally it was off the ground.

The ground seemed to be moving away rapidly. First the magnificent airport and then the city came into view. The city sparkled like a jewel in the dark crown of the night. Soon we were enveloped by the clouds and the ground became a distant memory. The monitor read the height as 30000 feet; I was literally on cloud nine.

The rest of the night went by quietly with me tossing and turning in my seat – I can never sleep in a chair even if it’s in an air plane. When day broke I lifted the hood of the window to find what seemed like land bordered by sea. I looked up at the monitor for help and it showed that we had just passed the black sea and had just entered Eastern Europe! I kept thinking about the travelers of the past who would risk their lives and spent years traversing Europe and Asia. And here we were lesser mortal hopping across these vast lands as if it were a child’s play!

Soon Bucharest became Sophia and Sophia became Budapest and eventually we were knocking the doors of Germany. Germany arrived and soon our destination of Frankfurt seemed almost in front of us. Soon Frankfurt came into view as the descent began. And what I saw was truly breathtaking. The weather was clear and the morning sun kissed the German city which glowed in a golden color. It was like a picture postcard with neatly cut roads amidst green fields and beautiful houses. It almost seemed like an aerial view that I saw of the tour de France. It was one of the most beautiful scenes I had ever seen. Finally our plane touched down on the run way and I set my foot on German soil.

23 August, 2009, Sunday

Just the previous night I felt I was in a dream and clearly after landing in Frankfurt I hadn’t woken up from it! The German city looked quintessentially German, very precise and very clean. The airport seemed like a world fair with people from almost all nationalities in its premises. As I had four hours of transit I decided to checkout the place. I roamed far and long inside this huge airport which made the one at Bangalore seem like a dwarf. The people seemed to be in different moods. Some like me were happy to be there while others were anxious about their next flight while still others went about their business as if it was a routine. The airport looked almost like a mall as it was dotted with innumerable shops and stores. I went into many stores and was shocked by the prices on the items there. This was no surprise as I kept multiplying everything by 70!

I went into what looked like a bookshop and found the morning editions of some of the legendary German news papers I had heard about, the Bild and Die Ziet. As I browsed through the airport I came across a huge eating place called ‘Goethe’ presumably named after the great German philosopher Goethe I thought. And sure enough it was, with the statue of the great man at the center.

As I roamed around the place I had something to drink which cost me a whopping 3.4 Euros. This is Europe after all I consoled myself. The port of my flight was announced and it turned out to be a port innocently named A40. Being early to any place was a habit of mine as I am paranoid of being late. I headed to this port a good one hour prior to the boarding time. What a good decision it was! As I followed the signpost towards A40 I realized that the size of the Frankfurt airport cannot be overstated. It felt like I was being deported to another city. I must have known as soon as I saw the elevator towards A40 as to the distance from it. It was huge, I kept going and going and going like the energizer bunny and A40 never came. By the time I hit A27 I was exhausted, I felt compelled to take a break but I soldiered on. A35 was my next pitstop where I paused for a minute before moving on again. As it turned out A40 was the last in its line of port and by the time I reached it I was totally exhausted and ready to tumble into the flight. Tumble in I did as I boarded the flight to Gothenburg which seemed a tad puny compared to its burly Boeing 747 cousin which I had boarded early that morning.

This flight was pretty uneventful save for the burger and the sweet Swedish lady I met on board. She was very friendly and as is my wont dragged her into a conversation which ranged from the weather of northern Europe to the lakes of Scandinavia to the archipelago of western Sweden. I was pleasantly surprised by the casual nature of the Swedes and their remarkable ability to strike conversations with complete strangers like me. The flight headed along without being disturbed by our friendly conversation and buzzed through Hanover and Hamburg. Cities that I had always heard about and seen on TV were passing right beneath me!

Finally Gothenburg arrived wrapped in a blanket of cloud and the plane touched down. I collected my baggage and was wished a happy stay in Sweden by my good Swedish friend. Here I was finally in Europe and the Euro Trip I had always dreamt about had started. What happens next? Stay tuned…

Kings without Kingdom

There are no more audacious sixes over cover off the backfoot, no more scorching 'perfume balls' at batsmen's throats and no more chants of 'Knock-his-head-off-mickey' from spectators. The decline of West Indian Cricket is the greatest tragedy of modern day Cricket. The World of cricket is missing the West Indies - big time. The once triumphant Caribbean Kings who steam-rolled the best of sides are in danger of losing their Kingdom.

Cricket without the West Indies is like Football without Brazil - It simply isn't good to look at. When the West Indies played they reduced the game to what it was always meant to be - a game of supreme skill and ability. Hence this collective hurt felt around the cricketing world, for like Brazil the West Indians are the second favourite team of most cricket fans after their own teams. Their latest debacle - albeit as a second string team - to Bangladesh seems to indicate that the West Indians have reached their nadir. It cant get worse than this.However to find out the malaise infecting the West Indian team you have to delve into their past and understand their present.

Cricket came to the West Indies as a byproduct of English colonialism in the 19th century. It started out by being played by the black local 'slaves' in the sugarcane plantations owned by English masters. As opposed to other countries the West Indies were not a single nation, in fact it was a team made up of more than 10 individual nations. Each of these nations had and still continue to have distinct governments, currencies, passports etc. So the West Indies were a peculiar sporting team in this respect.

At the turn of the 20th century the West Indians had found their own style of play suiting their physical attributes of being strong and athletic. The batsman were generally hard hitting with a flair for the audacious and the bowlers had a knack of hurtling the ball at pace. The skills were there all right but needed refinement and was referred to condescendingly by the snobbish British as 'Calypso Cricket'. Basically meaning Cricket with only flair and no substance.

Also, at the time Cricket was still a white man's game and had a severe colonial tinge to it as was evident by the name of the presiding body - Imperial Cricket Council, which was a precursor of the current ICC. The West Indians were inducted as a test playing team but up until the 1950s were barred from having a black captain. Instead a white man was in charge irrespective of his playing ability.

What the above factors meant was the West Indies developed a post-colonial angst to prove the world a point that a black man can play a white man's game and beat him as well. Cricket became a part of every day West Indian life, be it in music, food or politics. Cricketers achieved the status far greater than Presidents or Prime ministers. The captain of the West Indies team was regarded almost as the President of whole of the Caribbean. Cricket in the Caribbean became a metaphor and a medium to break the colonial yoke.

This post-colonial angst was powering the West Indians to great heights and in the 50s the Empire struck back with a vengeance. The West Indians beat the English in England in 1950. With the emergence of players like Sobers, Worrel and Weekes the West Indies emerged as a leading test playing team. They played an entertaining brand of cricket but more importantly produced results. This was the tectonic shift in West Indian Cricket - Results with flair.

The passion to prove a point to the white world drove the West Indian team from strength to strength and eventually culminated in probably the greatest team ever assembled on a cricket pitch- the West Indian team of the 70s and 80s. The West Indian team almost carried a 'black man's burden' and represented black pride in the cricketing world. Every time the West Indian team beat the Englishmen a black worker slogging in the working class factories of England felt proud of himself, he walked at least a feet taller than his English employers. Such was the importance of Cricket for the West Indies. As the great West Indian cricket writer CLR James says in what should be the best sports book ever written and aptly named 'Beyond the Boundary' - 'What do they know of cricket who only cricket know?' Cricket in the West Indies couldn't have been explained better.

However with the coming of the 90s, the generation that harbored the post-colonial angst to succeed had slowly receded back and the newer generation that replaced them did not have any such angst and were comfortable with their black identity. They did not need the vehicle of Cricket to ride their ambitions. Newer, greener pastures were being opened closer home in the United States in the form of basketball and athletics and Cricket felt like a poor grandparent lying around in the house. Hence Cricket suffered and save for rare moments of glory inspired by Brian Lara or Walsh/Ambrose the Caribbean did not give the Cricketing world any reason to enjoy.

This is where things stand and it is really sad for lovers of the game. Still, whenever there is a rare moment of what could only be called 'West Indianism' like when Dwayne Smith flicks a ball over mid-wicket effortlessly for a six or when Fidel Edwards produces a toe-crushing yorker you remember the great West Indian teams of the past and their spectacular play.

Hopefully the West Indians can ignite their cricketing spark once again and find a new reason to play the game. If they do, the cricketing world will be the better for it. For no Cricket team on earth can entertain you as well as the West Indies.

Behind the Mike

The first time i saw a live cricket match was the memorable quarter final between India and Pakistan in Bangalore in 1996. In spite of the vociferous crowd what caught my attention was the deafening silence in the middle, sans the commentary i was used to while watching on the television. The players seemed to be in their own world doing their own thing and the voices i was used to were missing. No voice to enthuse me when a wicket fell or a boundary was hit, no voice to tell me the excitement that wrapped the stadium. It was then that i truly understood the role of the voice behind the mike.

Cricket more than any other sport is played between silences. A canny silence creeps between a bowler's deliveries, in between overs, in between wickets. So it presents a commentator with a good opportunity to fill in these silences with descriptions of the goings on, anecdotes of bygone days or plain old banter. For an avid viewer of the game its simply fascinating. Before the advent of the IPL which reduced commentary to buffoonery and made sane looking commentators into cheap salesmen it was and sometimes is a serious business.

Me and others of my generation in India have not been exposed to radio commentary which was and still is popular in England and Australia. Hence I sometimes regret missing out on radio as its a different and more engaging medium than television. However the flip side of being in India is that you get to witness cricket and hence television commentators from around the world.

I always thought that the Australian Channel Nine commentary crew was a benchmark in terms of bringing cricket to the television viewer. Maybe its the impact of the Kerry Packer era or the fact that Cricket is always facing stiff competition from rival sports or plain old Aussie stubbornness to succeed they have managed to be the best commentary team in the world for a long time. Two of my favourite commentators of all time are present there - Richie Benaud and Bill Lawry. Benaud is most economical in his words in an increasingly verbose profession and always seems to have the right word for the occasion. Bill Lawry on the other hand - unlike his dour batting in the 60s - is very excitable and brings a sense of occasion every time he's on air. In fact the best piece of commentary i ever heard was delivered by him along with Mike Procter in the memorable climax of the tied semifinals between Australia and South Africa in the 1999 world cup .

The English Sky Sports team over the past decade have made huge improvements. They have moved away from the dry English commentary of the past and have infused excitement. With new faces likes David Lloyd, Michael Holding and Nasser Hussein they have turned the corner and are more entertaining than ever before. Sample this years Ashes for a sneak into the Sky sports team.

The Indian Commentary scene has also come up in the past decade with the emergence of India as a true global power with a billion eyes. Like everywhere it has been dominated by former players like Sunil Gavaskar , Ravi Shastri et al. Ironically the best Indian commentator is a non-cricketer : Harsha Bhogle. He brings a certain artistic touch to commentary and is a great user of words. It was very disappointing though to see him fooling around in the IPL all for the sake of money. Anyway that does not make him any less a commentator. The most promising voice over the past few years has been Sanjay Manjrekar. He has real potential and has joined the ESPN-Star Team recently. He is one to look out for in the coming days.

Apart from commentators from these three major countries there others whom i like. Tony Cozier of Barbados is one that comes to mind instantly. He is almost Benaud-like in his commentary and seems to be around forever and is a true representative of West Indian Cricket. Ian Smith and Jeremy Conney from New Zealand are quiet good on occasions. The South Africans Mike Proctor and Robin Jackman are good too.

However in an era where cricket has become a 'product' and the fans 'consumers' and commentators forced to belt out 'Citi moments of success' and 'DLF Maximums' I don't know how far cricket commentary will be affected by rabid commercialization. For the sake of sanity lets hope Cricket commentary will remain as it has always been and enthrall fans the world over.

The Magic that was Michael

The last quarter of the 20th century saw America usurp the rest of the world to become the most dominant country in the world. This domination was both material as well as psychological. By psychological i mean, even people thousands of miles away from American shores felt its domination. Three brands especially led to this impression of American dominance. The ace basketball star Michael Jordan who brought basketball to millions around the world, the IT giant Microsoft which revolutionised the Personal computer and Michael Jackson.

The death of pop icon Michael Jackson breaks a link America had with the rest of the world. A link that connected America and the rest of the world for four decades. No matter how unpopular America became people still acknowledged it as being the home of the greatest entertainer on earth. When MJ danced , people felt America was not such a bad place after all. He in a way took America to millions of homes around the world. He became a unit of measuring dance and entertainment.

When i heard the news it shocked me as it must have done for millions of his fans. I personally am not into Western pop music but the aura and talent of MJ broke all barriers and he was the only artist i admired and followed closely. I felt sad on his death but not too much, because a man who had lost himself was half dead anyway. So the feeling was more remorse than sadness. Like a fan said on radio that morning, it was the day Music lost its 'M'.

The death of the great is paradoxical in a way. They go away from us on a physical level but they remain immortal in our collective consciousness through their legacy. That is the reason great men are lucky as they live even after their deaths. Hence even though MJ has died he will live on because of the great legacy he has left behind. He will be a testament to the extent of talent humankind is capable of possessing.

MJ revolutionised pop music and gave a new definition to dancing. He was the ultimate entertainer who had a hold over his audience though his voice and dance steps. His dance moves - the 'moonwalk', the 'robot', the 'lean' - were trend setting and were and are being copied all over the world. Every bollywood star worth his salt has been influenced by his dancing in some way or the other.

He changed the business of the music industry by changing the way music videos were filmed. No more were they used for promotions alone but they became works of art. Anyone who witnessed his videos could sense a story in each of them, a plot with real characters who brought out the essence of the song. The jazzy, slick videos we see today are a legacy that MJ left behind. He was also a consummate performer who started the trend of world tours which thrilled his audiences the world over and which allowed him to emerge as the first truly global icon.

The life of MJ is a great mirror to the good and bad of American society. An admirable society that gives opportunity to its minority so that one among them will raise to the very top of pop culture not just in that country but the world over. A society where talent gets rewarded irrespective of which color it is. A society where an individual can dream of world fame. But it also highlights a society which is overtly seeped in materialism so much so that material pursuits overrule basic happiness. A society where family values are constantly under threat. A society which over-commercialises every aspect of existence making its people lose touch with reality. Yes his life mirrored American society, warts and all.

Even though in his later years MJ turned himself into a public joke, the world will remember him for the talent he possessed and the joy he provided to his fans the world over. The world will remember the magic that was Michael.

Right-of-Center, Please

Seething in the furnace of the French revolution, the great court of the bourbons gave the political world two everlasting terms - left and right. The nomenclature was incidental as the liberals representing the revolutionary masses sat on the left side of the king whereas the courtiers and nobles representing conservative values sat on the right. Ever since that day political parties round the world tend to fall in one of these two categories.

Left and right are terms that are very broad and can present various options ranging from far left to the far right. However parties that stuck to either extremes of the spectrum have never achieved mass appeal proved by the failure of extreme left politics as in the former USSR and extreme right politics as in Nazi Germany. Therefore most successful parties on either side have tended to come to the center leading to the proliferation of center right and center left parties.

However, in India's case owing to the diversity such classifications become very difficult to make. If anything the Congress can be described as a left-of-center party leaning more towards people centric policies. But the absence of a corresponding right-of-center party has been one of its biggest tragedies. This was an ideological space tailor made for the nationalist BJP but due to their bad company which provided it with irrelevant ideological gibberish and its own incompetence lost its way and showed up as a hard line right-wing party. Hence it ended up practicing anti-minoritism and neo-fascism and the sensible people of India rejected them outright not once but twice. The BJP now stands at the cross roads seeking directions. For the good of the nation the BJP must now realise the aspects of a strong right-of-center parthy and align itself with it.

Generally, a strong right-of-center party displays three important characteristics. One, they support a socially conservative order in society by supporting age old institutions like family, marriage etc. and shy away from 'modern' tendencies. Second, they stand for a muscular state which aggressively guards national interests internationally and takes a hard line against enemy countries. Third, they favour the market oriented approach to the economy as opposed to the pro-people policies by supporting big business which they hope will indirectly help the people.

Also the BJP can look at modern successful right-of-center parties in the west to gain inspiration and relevance. The modern right-of-center parties the world around tend to follow three prime examples. Either the Christian democrats of the various European countries or the Conservative party of UK (tories) or the Republican party in USA.

Personally i think the BJP would be better off going the way of the Christian Democrats of Europe. For just like India, 19th century Europe was deeply steeped in religion and cultural nationalism and this over time fostered a slew of extreme right parties which became overtly aggressive. Eventually, this ended up in the rise of various fascist parties around Europe - most notably in Germany and Italy - and this lead to not one but two world wars in the 20th century.

Post-World War II the right-wing parties of Europe found themselves in the same position as today's BJP - defeated and confused. This is when enlightenment dawned upon them and they morphed themselves as right-of-center parties - with strong religious and nationalistic views but tempered by past events and plain old practicality of inclusiveness and moderation. The Christian Democrats have steered Europe away from both Socialism and extreme religious bigotry and have engendered a sense of shared history and religion throughout Europe and thus have helped forge a united Europe. They are a perfect right-of-center model worth emulating the world around.

As i write this the BJP is in a huddle to discuss reasons for their defeat and chart the future course. For India's sake let's hope sanity prevails and the light of enlightenment radiates on them and we get a strong right-of-center party we deserve, the BJP we deserve.

History meets Federer

Some people are lucky enough to meet history during their life time owing to their endeavours while most others don't get this chance. However there are still fewer people for whom history itself waits for a meeting. Finally after numerous failed trysts, History finally met Roger Federer last Sunday as the latter won his record-equalling 14th grand slam and more importantly his first French Open at Roland Garros to become only the sixth man in history to win all four grand slams.

In over a hundred years of tennis only five men have won all four grand slams. The big serving American Don Budge, England's Pride Fred Perry, The genial Aussies Rod Laver and Roy Emerson and the supreme shot maker Andre Agassi. Quite naturally any man with such a rare accomplishment can argue to be claimed the greatest of all time. Ironically some of the game's greatest player's have never achieved this rare feat. Pete Sampras for example was a legend in his own right but could not lay claim to being the greatest ever as he failed to win the French Open. Sampras realised that for him the words 'Great' and 'Greatest' were in the end separated by 5 millimeters of Parisian clay!

Federer seemed to be going Sampras's way until last Sunday when he exorcised years of frustrations and winning the one slam that eluded him. Yes, critics might argue that Nadal's absence helped him but they also forget that he has been consistent on clay by reaching the French Open final 4 years in a row. Also he had beaten Nadal couple of weeks earlier in Madrid on clay , in the final. In spite of a few cribs here and there the world over has rejoiced in Federer's success which proves his popularity which he has achieved through his entertaining game. In an age of baseline belters he has plays a blissfully magical brand of tennis and turns the game to what it is always supposed to be - a game of sublime skill.

Born in the German half of Switzerland, Roger Federer had no compatriot to look upto. For all time, the only thing Switzerland produced was cuckoo clocks and Chocolates not Grand Slam winners. Martina Hingis was the first to break ground but quickly faded away after being muscled out by the William's sisters. However, Federer quickly rose in the rankings and by the beginning of the century was among a handful of youngsters waiting to take the mantle over from Sampras and Agassi. The initial break through came at the 2001 Wimbledon when he beat Sampras to end his 4 year winning streak. But it was a false dawn as the weight of expectations broke him momentarily as he was reduced to a racket thrashing frustrated young man on court.

Wimbledon 2003 changed all that, as he won his maiden grand slam and finally met his destiny. That was his coronation and it was the start of a juggernaut as he rolled all his opponents to ground winning slams left, right and centre. In fact in three separate calender years he won three grand slams, a feat never achieved before him. But all through the French Open eluded him. With the emergence of Rafael Nadal who dominated the clay courts Federer found it increasingly difficult to win in Paris losing in three straight finals to his nemesis. What more, he was creepily acquiring all his possessions.First his beloved Wimbledon crown, then his number one ranking and then his Australian Open crown. The world was talking about the end of the Federer era. However the ploys of History are strange and in an amazing twist of fate handed Federer a chance to fulfill his destiny. To Federer's credit he made use of the chance and fulfilled a long made promise - a promise made to himself and to History.

As legend goes, when Alexander saw the breadth of his domain he wept for there were no more worlds to conquer. Probably Federer is feeling the same at the moment. Looks like a great moment to set eyes on slam number 20!

Hitting the Lines

Clay Court tennis has its own distinct charm. The slipping, the sliding, the dusting of muddy shoes, the long rallies - all this gives a distinct ring to tennis fans around the world. The red clay does not have the glamour, tradition or old world magic of its grassy cousin, however its got its own legion of fans and even quite a few players who swear by it.

Tennis is one of those unique games that still maintain a role for the playing surface. Cricket being the other such notable sport. Indeed its a welcome break from other sports whose playing surfaces bore you with their monotony. However, the love-all game does provide a whole array of playing surfaces for the fans to enjoy, ranging from the very fast Grass courts to the less faster hard courts to the slower clay courts at the other end of the spectrum. Hence the surface becomes as much part of the contest as the players themselves. The variance in surface poses the players myriad challenges to overcome and the one who succeeds on all surfaces rightfully claims to being one of the greatest of all-time.

Personally I am a big fan of the grass courts. As much attracted by its rarity and history as much as for its favour for skillful and elegant players. However watching the surfeit of Clay court tennis overtime i have come to appreciate its beauty too. Its like learning to appreciate a Vinci after witnessing a divine Michelangelo.

Clay courts offer a different challenge to the players. It offers less speed and high bounce which makes it very difficult to hit winners. Hence most attacking players usually struggle on clay as they cannot make the pace to force winners and end up with a lot of unforced errors. Also there is no easy way out of a tricky situation, for instance on grass , an attacking player when he is say 30-40 can come up with couple of big serves to get out of the hole even as his opponent is helplessly stranded. None of it will do on clay as you have to slug out relentless rallies to win most points. As someone rightly said 'Clay allows the story of a match to unfold like the plot of a good book'.

On the other hand the players who consistently hit the ball deep and who have a wide repertoire of shots gain a distinct advantage. It is also a real test of endurance and agility. In a way there is a levelling of the ground or court rather whereby both attacking and defensive players come on the same plane and the ensuing long rallies ensure a fascinating game for audiences. The recipe therefore for success on clay is consistently 'hitting the lines' at real pace. Rafael Nadal keeps doing that all the time and has since emerged as the best clay courter of his generation and arguably of all-time.

If Wimbledon is the haloed turf for grass courters , French Open is the ultimate price for any clay courter. But due to the various challenges mentioned above some of the greatest players in the game have never won at Paris in spite of many attempts. Pete Sampras is one who springs to mind instantly and the French open was the one trophy that came in between him being a great player and the greatest of all time. Well what do they say, you can't win everything.

As the red clay in Paris glows as radiant as ever and tennis superstars battle on it to be called the 'King of Clay', its time to sit back and enjoy the spectacle. Vive la Fête.

Vox Populi

When the people of India voice their verdict, the noise is deafening and its echoes can be heard for a long time. Just as well because, sometimes "it takes a loud noise to make the deaf hear". The 2009 election verdict has been sounded by the people of India and it has made people sit up and take notice and the deaf among them too are straining their ears to hear it.

The most fascinating aspect for me of any election is the fact that among all the cacophony of politicians the masses await in silence and then on election day deliver their verdict and finally on the day of results their verdict is sounded to the politicians which finally ends their cacophony and hubris.

This year's verdict was definitely for a stable government hence the total rejection of the third front "spoilers" and a rally for stable central parties which in this case were the UPA and NDA. However as one identified this shift and geared up to take advantage the other was blinded by parochial thought and missed the opportunity. On paper both the UPA and NDA had similar things to offer - same economic, foreign and domestics policies. So why did the UPA succeed in winning the election whereas the NDA lost out?

The primary reason i feel is the approach they took in connecting to the people. The Congress spoke of equitable development and youth oriented policies on the other hand the BJP raked up communal issues (read Varun Gandhi's speech, Kandhamal, Managlore pub fiasco etc) and in a disgusting way tried to make capital on it in the elections. Though the UPA had put up a decent performance it was not spectacular, hence the BJP could have highlighted the UPA's inefficiencies and made it a political issue. But they didn't and went back to regressive identity politics. The voter rejected these regressive issues and backed the Congress's development agenda. The BJP had a similar strategy in 2004 by misusing the Gujarat riots but it failed miserably. They repeated the mistake and the people too repeated the dose and handed them defeat.

Another reason was the fact that Advani knowing that this was his last chance at the top job desperately tried to create a direct match-up with Manmohan Singh and in his desperation made unilateral personal attacks and effected a personality contest. Manmohan Singh in spite of his perceived shortcomings was largely seen as a decent man who heralded the economic resurgence of India and add to the fact that Advani's own contributions to India polity were at best dubious made it a no contest as far as the people were concerned. Also, Indians do not like a decent man humiliated in public, hence this was a major factor in turning the people away from the BJP.

Also significant was the young face projected by the Congress in the form of Rahul Gandhi who inspired the youth not least in UP where the Congress made an astonishing comeback. The BJP did not have any such young face after the octogenarian Advani. Shockingly, the youngest face projected by them as a Prime Ministerial candidate - in the middle of the campaign at that - was a mass murderer!

A tight slap was also reserved to the Left wing comrades who in their zest for their archaic ideology kept India's national interest on the line. Thankfully their deranged adventure did not work. However the Indian people watched all their shenanigans and have now given a fitting reply by reducing them to their smallest tally in decades. One more party given a lesson to learn from the people.

Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. So the winners have to be careful to stay grounded and not to gloat over their victory. Instead its a time for them to get their hands dirty in the task of taking the country ahead. The vanquished too have an obligation to learn the lessons thought by the people and gear themselves to serve the people better.