June 2004

Berlin,

I am walking down a broad sidewalk on my way to Arbeit or work. That is researching German ID at my old institue DGAP, previously located on Adenauerallee in Bonn, near the Rhein, since 1998 shifted to the renewed capital of Germany.

I am living at S.Guha-owned apartment on a quiet avenue, really cute 'para', with a single Lebensmittel or grocery shop called Reichelt nearby. The U-Bahn station or underground metro is five minutes walk. I shall head for Wittenbergplatz station, a junction sort of, exit and take a twenty-minute or so fast hike to my institute on Rauchstraße beyond the Landwehr Canal (where Rosa Luxemburg's dead body was found after the tumultuous events after the First World War). DGAP is near the Nordische Botschaften, a tall, imposing building, light greenish in colour.

Anyway, I forgot warnings of friends regarding footpath discipline. I do not notice the bright yellow parallel lines describing a swathe of a lane on sidewalk. This lane on the footpath is reserved for cyclists. Without noticing that lane, I merrily step into it. Immediately a cycle whooshes past me, avoiding collision. The young man, quite big, turns his head towards me and shouts in German even as he speeds ahead, "Grampa! why don't you watch out...".

It  is a double-barrelled shock, both the encounter with this cycle culture--unthinkable in Kolkata where footpaths are non-existent compared to the really abundant broad ones  in Berlin as well as his shout, "Grampa (Opa in German)!"Am I that old-looking?! But I feel like 16, not 60 plus!!