Stockholm : On the Cutting Edge

Its the Capital of a Country at the cutting edge of development. A country with one of the highest standards of living in the world, with one of the best healthcare systems in the world, with one of the best Education systems in the world, where the economic gap between rich and poor is the least in the world and also where there is unprecedented gender equality so much so that women outnumber men in the parliament. Yes i'm in Stockholm the capital of Sweden!

June 24, 2011, Friday

This is a long overdue trip i thought as i get up for the early morning train to Stockholm. Sweden was my home base and i had not yet visited its capital. The weather had aborted my previous plans and the midsummer weekend seemed the most suitable time to visit the capital. And so i went out to catch the early morning train as the clock read 5AM.

As i reached the central station the train was waiting for me. Of all the modes of transport , the train is my favorite. Although air travel saves time and bus travel is more frequent to avail it is the charm of the rail that excites me. The gentle rocking of the carriage, the smells and sounds of the towns that it passes through, the green expanses of the country side combine to make it a great way to travel. As the train started it went through some of the most beautiful natural scenery i have seen. There is something about the pastoral elegance of the countryside that soothes the mind. The lakes with their pure water glowing in the morning sun, the green expanses of the countryside littered with farmhouses, the punctuation of passing towns all made for a splendid journey.

Even as i was taking in the sights of the beautiful countryside the city arrived. The weather was just about perfect with a cool breeze blowing. As i exited the train station the first thing i noticed was how big the city was compared to Gothenburg. Also striking was the presence of the water around the city. Stockholm is made up of 14 islands and each of them is connected by several bridges. Indeed its a city floating in water. First up i headed to the Royal Palace.

Sweden is one of the most modern countries in the world. But despite that it still has connections with its royalty and hence is not a republic but a kingdom. The connection is not as trivial as in England where the British royalty has become bit of a joke. Instead its a kind of reverence the Swedes feel towards their royalty. Its a unique mixture that Sweden has got where they strike a balance between jumping into the future and also keeping their feet in the past.

As i crossed over one of Stockholm's many bridges i was onto the famed island of Gamla Stan or 'Old City' which contains the royal palace. The Gamla Stan is one of the best preserved medieval cities in the world and the Royal palace is its crowning glory. Right across the palace is the Swedish Parliament where interestingly women legislators outnumber men which is an indication of the gender equality in Sweden. The palace itself reminded me of the Hapsburg palaces i had seen in central Europe. As it was noon the Palace guards with their striking blue attire were getting ready for the change of guard ceremony. There was a bit of the famed Swedish progressiveness even there as well as the guards included women too which i had never seen anywhere else. Also new was the fact that the Guard spoke not only in Swedish but in English too in deference to the tourists present. Another great example of Sweden getting the right 'balance' of pride in their own language and also acknowledging the world around. This 'balance' is such a Swedish hallmark i thought to myself!

After witnessing the change of guard ceremony it was time to go into the palace. The palace was truly magnificent as i had not expected Swedish royalty to be so rich. Each room was beautifully crafted with exquisite pieces of art. My favorite were the amazing tables clocks that adorned these rooms. The royals must have had a great taste in these things i thought. Also present were wonderful paintings that hung on the walls. One particular painted ceiling was impressive which was not surprisingly painted by an Italian artist in true renaissance fashion. Italy makes its presence felt wherever you go in Europe i thought! Also impressive was the grand gallery of the palace which was a long richly decorated corridor which was used for royal dinners. The palace had some great sculptures too dealing with themes of Greek mythology and reiterated the belief that even though there are several different countries in Europe they are all joined by the common thread going back to the Greeks. Its as if these modern nation states are children of ancient Greek civilization!

From a place of regal elegance it was time to go to a place of plebeian splendor. I headed towards the famed City Hall which was right across on an adjacent island. While on the walk my mind raced back to the history of medieval Europe. Even though Europe looks homogeneous in terms of religion it is split down the middle, in fact horizontally one can say into the Catholic south and the Protestant north. The history of Europe was shaped in an enormous way by the Protestant reformation of the 16th century. The Reformation presented for the first time a serious challenge to more than a 1000 years of Catholic hegemony in Europe. Even though Catholicism grew to be a dominant force on the continent it also grew hollow from within. Corruption and loss of ideology were some of the things that were eating at the body of Catholicism. This lead to stray protests from a far back as the 12th century but these instead of correcting the course of the catholic church pushed it into an even more extreme path wherein the church resorted to such heinous things as inquisition and indulgences and committed acts that were hideous even by the standard of the common folk let alone religious authorities. The Church started to suppress critical thinking and monopolized knowledge and went after with a vengeance the people who had a different view of the world such as scientists like Galileo hence pushing back humanity by centuries. Basically the Catholic church became a sort of mafia far removed from the noble paths of Christ whose burden they professed to bear.

Things really started to move in the other direction with the emergence of Martin Luther and his Protestant ideology. As the name itself suggests the ideology was about protesting the deviant ways of the church and bringing the focus back onto the teachings and message of Christ. Also embedded in the ideology was an embrace of critical thinking and an attitude of questioning things ranging from the trivial to the sacred. Things came to a head and the whole of Europe became a battle zone for Catholics and Protestants and finally got split down the middle. Southern Europe with its proximity to Rome became a stronghold of the Catholics whereas Northern Europe became a Protestant bastion. The histories of these two parts of Europe was also shaped by this division. Whereas Protestant north embraced science and advanced the South always suspicious of critical thinking and stuck in dogmatism lagged behind. This reflected in the styles of cities that arose in these two parts of Europe. Whereas in the south cities and towns tended to be built around Churches and baptisteries the cities of the north were built around much more secular buildings like town halls and other public enclosures.

Continuing in this rich Protestant tradition Stockholm too has a City Hall and its a very famous one at that too. Its one of the biggest City Halls in Europe and hosts the annual Nobel banquet and ball. As i gaze across the water the Town Hall stands distinctly with its red brick exterior and tall bell tower. As i get inside i am informed that the architect who built it lived in Italy for some time and hence the City Hall has a distinct Italian feel to it. Beautiful Italian style arches adorn the sides giving one the feeling that he is in Italy. Soon i go to the famed 'Blue hall' of the City hall where the Nobel banquet takes place. Its a gigantic enclosure that resembled an Italian Piazza with wonderful arches and even a fountain to boot on one side. Its easy to see the Italian influence on the architect, he must have been really fascinated by Italy and hence wanted to recreate it here in his home town. The Blue hall is in fact brick red in color , however it was called 'Blue Hall' apparently as the architect wanted to paint it blue to symbolize the water around the city but he changed his mind when he saw that the red color looked better. Standing in the Blue Hall i imagined the kind of personalities who must have had dinner here. Einstein, Madam Curie and our very own Tagore and CV Raman just to name a few. Simply being in the same room gave me goose bumps.

From the Blue hall i went to the Council Hall were the elected representatives of the city assembled. The most striking feature of the hall was its ceiling which was in the form of an upturned Viking ship, a reminder of the Viking history of Sweden! It was interesting to note that Women outnumbered men 54-47 in the council. Hence it is no surprise that Sweden is on the forefront of gender equality where it has attained remarkable success hence women compete and sometimes beat the men in every sphere of work here, be it in parliament or at an office or even driving trams! Its a model that the rest of the world and India will do well to emulate, even if we attain a fraction of Sweden's success it will be quite a leap.

From the Council Hall i moved to one more great Hall - the Golden Hall. It was a beautiful Hall built in Byzantine style with Gold covered walls which give it the name. Even though the style is Byzantine the images adorned were not religious , in fact they depicted the history of Sweden and Stockholm. Its a great tribute to the country and city and was a real joy to behold. During the Nobel banquet this hall hosts the famous ball and i can only imagine what a sight that would be.

As i came out of the City Hall i was struck by the sociological contrasts between this place and say Italy even though they were architecturally similar. Whereas in Italian society God and Religion seemed to be the centerpiece of existence, here God was missing and the people were the center of all things. This is the more evolved attitude of Northern Europe i thought, focusing on the people and thinking about their welfare rather than paying respect to a God who in all honesty may or may not exist. Religion at the end of the day hinders thought and for all its professed 'high morality' does not make us any more moral and in some cases makes us commit the most immoral and inhuman acts. This is precisely the reason why Northern Europe has progressed after dumping religion and has developed into a far more progressive and more people friendly society than the South. This is a big lesson for us in India where religion plays such a big role in public life and not only that, it has created numerous conflicts which drain our energies which could have been used in something more productive. For this reason , in India we should remove religion from the pedestal we put it on and replace it by the aspirations and needs of the billion people. The lessons of history is right in front of us in the form of the North-South European example and we better learn from it. If you are a bad student and fail to learn the lessons taught then you cannot and should not succeed and deserve to be mediocre. As simple as that.

Next i took a canal cruise around the islands and saw a great deal of other city attractions like the house in which the band ABBA created music, the sports showroom opened by Bjorn Borg and learnt a great deal about the history of the city. The most interesting attraction for me on this cruise was the house of Alfred Nobel where the great man invented dynamite. It was in a secluded island as expected and was covered with lots of trees and i could just get a brief peak. It was amazing to imagine those old days when Nobel carried out his experiments here and eventually made a discovery that changed a lot of aspects of humanity ranging from warfare to construction.

After the cruise it was time to set foot on land again and i proceeded to the charming old town of 'Gamla Stan'. As i said earlier its one of the best preserved medieval towns in the world and the streets are as expected small and cobbled-stoned and a joy to walk through. After going through the main street of VastraLanggatan i came to a place where people were peering into what looked like a small staircase. But it turned out that it was in fact the smallest street in the city. It was called Mårten Trotzigs Grand and believe it or not had room enough for only one person to go through at a time. After going through few more wonderful street i came to the central square of 'Stortorget'.

The Stortorget was a wonderful square with three sides covered with colorful buildings packed tightly together with bars on cafes at their feet. The fourth side had an elegant old building with the famous Nobel Museum on the ground floor and the Swedish Academy on the top floor. The Swedish academy is one of the great institutions of Sweden which is responsible for the upkeep and maintenance of Swedish language and culture in the face of continued external influences. For example if a new word came into Sweden due to a new invention or discovery it was upto this institution to find out an equivalent Swedish name for it and hence integrate it into Swedish culture. In that way new things are absorbed into the Swedish ecosystem without compromising on its existing language or culture. Fantastic idea isn't, the Swedes have a wonderful way of dealing with the world!

After wondering through the Gamla Stan it was time to call it a day as it was almost 10 in the night even though the sun shone brightly in the sky. The joys of travelling in the Summer!

June 25, 2011, Saturday

The bright day of the day before was replaced by a gloomy one. The weather in Stockholm is extremely fickle and could change very instantly and i hoped the sun would break in soon. As i strode out onto the city i headed to the Nobel Museum. I was a great fan of the Nobel awards and keenly followed it so the museum was of great interest to me. The museum is quite recent and is housed in a former stock exchange and is quite small too. I remembered going to another Nobel museum in Oslo about a year and a half back. Oslo as the world knows gives away the Nobel peace prize however the remaining prizes are given out here in Stockholm. This split is due to the fact that Sweden and Norway were one country during Nobel's life time and for reasons known to him alone he decided to split the prizes in this way. One other reason for this split is the common perception that Norway was a much more neutral country than Sweden and since the peace prize was the most political of the prizes it was decided to give away the prize in Oslo.

As i enter the museum, the first thing i notice is the procession of placards running over my head. Each placard contained the picture and a brief biography of a Nobel Laureate. This ingenious idea was struck in order to commemorate the laureates of the Nobel prizes over the years and they are in random order and keep circulating over the ceiling for the entire day. A great way to remember great people i thought. There was a room also depicting the journey of Alfred Nobel, his upper-class upbringing, his interest in science, the tragedies he suffered during his discovery, his eventual discovery, the empire his discovery helped him build and finally his iconic will to give away his wealth as prizes for achievements in various spheres of humanity. It also contained the four paged will that Nobel had drawn up. Curiously the bit about the prizes was just two paragraph's in length and i thought it must be one of the great wills ever drawn out by a man!

The case of Nobel gives us an opportunity to think about the concept of wealth and its relation to the world around. Nobel sincerely believed that the wealth he had earned belonged as much to society than to him. Even though it was he who discovered dynamite he knew it would not have become a reality if not for the society around him that gave him the opportunity to do his discovery. And also when he was out with his discovery it was the society that embraced it and made him rich. Hence he thought he owed society a great deal for his wealth and hence decided to give it back to society by instituting these awards which could further spark and fund more and more discoveries that would benefit mankind. In fact even mahatma Gandhi had a similar view on wealth where he said the wealthy man was simply a custodian of the wealth on behalf of the society and should use it for the benefit of the society. Sadly this attitude to wealth has changed overtime thanks mainly to the hedonistic attitude of corporations and individuals around the world who believe they owe their wealth to nobody except themselves and go about on a crass and vulgar display of it. This is especially true in India where rich men seldom do good to the society around them and in some cases try to steal from it by evading tax. The case of a rich man like Mukesh Ambani for example building a 27-floor palatial home for his family of 4 from his wealth he got by dubious means in the first place even as 60% of the city lives in inhuman slums comes to mind here. If this is not insensitive i don't know what is. The life of Nobel should act as a lesson for such individuals who should learn to respect the society around them and do good to humanity at large instead of flaunting money in their faces.

The Museum itself was small and contained a collection of items from past laureates. One interesting aspect in the museum was its celebration of the 'Cafe culture' of Europe. This was commemorated by framing a cafe chair inside a glass case. This was apt i thought since the age of enlightenment was ushered into Europe by philosophers and thinkers discussing radical ideas sitting in Cafes. Voltaire , Rousseau and other prominent thinkers debated their view of the modern world in the great Cafes of Paris. They even had a poster of the great Paris Cafe the Deux Maggot to pay tribute to this fact.

After spending some time at the Museum i came out of the museum to sunny skies and headed straight to the island of 'Djurgarden'. Its the greenest of Stockholm's islands and the most beautiful too. It also hosts spectacular museums. It had the Nordiska museum that explains the Nordic history of Sweden and Scandinavia. It also had the very famous Vasa museum. The Vasa museum interestingly has only one exhibit. But what an exhibit it is, it is a 300 year old Ship that sank off the coast of Stockholm. The Ship you can say was the titanic of its time and it represented the naval might of 17th century Sweden. The Ship was pulled onto dry land 50 years ago and since then has rested at the museum astounding its visitors. Going through the Vasa museum one got a sense of how important the sea was to Sweden and indeed to Europe. Control of the seas was seen as a sure way of controlling trade and thereby the riches it brought with it. Also noteworthy is the restoration work that has been carried out on the ship which was very detailed and precise. Its not an easy exercise to restore a ship that has been in water for 300 years and their effort is there for everyone to see.

Right adjacent to the Vasa Museum is the beautiful open air museum of Skansen. Skansen is the world's biggest open air museum and hosts some of the best flora and fauna in Sweden. Also persisted here is the traditional way of Swedish life and its various traditions. As if to suit the occasion the sun had come out from the gloomy clouds and had started to shine brightly and lit up the whole place. Entering Skansen was like entering a Sweden of the 17th century , so accurate was the whole setup including the very traditional Maypole in the middle to celebrate midsummer. The houses were all made of wood and the people inside them dressed in traditional Swedish attire. Inside they even were doing things that the Swedes did all those years ago like, baking cakes and making pots. It was a great example of how tradition can be persisted and showcased in today's modern world.

Once out of Skansen i went to the newer pat of the City. The new city was bigger than i thought and had a look of all the other big cities of Europe. I made my way to the most famous street in Stockholm - Drottninggatan. It is the biggest street in Stockholm and runs right through the new city until the entrance to Gamla Stan. It had all the trappings of a shopping street as it was covered with various shopping complexes. However what i found most interesting was the Concert House building that was present off the street. The Concert House is a beautiful blue building which is famous as it hosts the annual Nobel Prize ceremony. Just sitting on its step thinking about that December day when all the prize winners assemble there was thrilling.

After a few hours of walk through the city it was time to call it a day and for the trip to come to an end. It was amazing to come to this great city and enjoying all it had to offer and more than anything being able to experience its progressive attitude was truly memorable, one that i would never forget!