THE GERMAN CITY OF LEIPZIG has a prestigious university and a fairly active reverberating counter-cultural scene. I, the traveller, was more interested in the latter.
The eastern district felt like fairly ghettoised. There is all the action that interests me: art galleries, graffiti-infested buildings standing tall next to each other, wild parties, to list a few.
I was fairly bemused by the underground art scene. It’s inescapable–art, music and marijuana is in the air. It all comes alive after sundown.
My friend Andreas, a part-time mail-delivery-boy-on-cycle, is an environmentalist by training. The cycle is an extension of his body, wheels are his limbs. An avid traveller–likes to paddle long distances even in the biting cold over the frozen landscapes. He took the risk of hosting me.
It was dusk, the sun was fading away, the sky turning deep red is when we stepped out of his flat. The hustle and bustle were engaging, people busy and active with nothing imperative. The buildings, tall and slender, stone-faced, unmoved and stoic, seem to be staring at each other from across the road.
Many of the walls were adorned with elaborate yet convoluted graffiti in bold psychedelic colours. Those images were compelling–the need to break free was not just palpable, even contagious. To me, they represented a certain existential frustration, mostly the youth, and there’s no escape. After a few beers down, these images started to talk to me. I felt were eager to step out of the confine of a wall and roam the streets with me.
I followed Andreas a few blocks to reach a downtown eatery that was selling burgers like hotcakes. We ordered one for each and made ourselves comfortable on the pavement nearby. The burger arrived after a long time lag, and disappeared from my plate briskly. Sipping of beer was leisurely.
Cars rush passed on the stone paved road in front of us emitting loud thumping thuds. The road was bisected by shiny tram tracks. Street lights were scattered and dull, filtered through trees. The smell of marijuana hung low in the air like the morning mist. People were constantly talking to each other, they had so much to tell. A buzz is created when humanity talks en masse, it sounded like a thousand cats purring at the same time, and that too, rather inconclusively. It was lively to be there, I felt at home.
The crowd was building up as the evening progressed to get darker. Half a dozen of Andreas’ friends joined us, most of them delivery boys/girls-on-cycle. There was one who seemed generally unhappy and couldn’t—or didn’t want to—pinpoint a reason, if he knew the reason. He came from Holland to Leipzig two years ago as a tourist and liked the ‘alternate scene’ so much that decided to stay put. He's glad that he stayed back but sort of delusional about being glad. He had striking similarity with a close German friend of mine. They weren’t separated at birth.
The gang was kind to me and eager to know my side of the story. They took enormous trouble speaking in English even when they were not addressing me, mostly. I was integrated into the gang for the night. The two prime activities were sipping beer and animated conversations made the passage of time seem fairly smooth.
My hindquarters ached after a while of sitting on the stoned pavement.
There were phases when eerie silence would engulf the gang. Something had to be said, but that was too much of an effort, but we never ceased to communicate. Mundane issues were discussed with delectation.
Someone was trying to explain that it’s not a good idea to live with the person you love. It’s like listening to your favourite song far too often and before you know it, the magic is gone.
Another guy, muscular and lean, heartbroken was recovering from a breakup, perhaps that made his blue eyes expressive. A bright face with a dull disposition was an underdog by choice. They couldn’t be together any longer, her nagging girlfriend had reached abusive levels, according to him, and she would blame him for all that was bad in her. Not just that, she called him flaky a man, fairly delusional, and escapist for sure, and out of touch with reality and his own self. We agreed that he was better off here, without her, but she had an enormous presence in her absence. I could almost see her face without ever having met her.
Then there was a migrant from Latin America who grew up in the Netherlands and now works in Leipzig. Meek and small, yet strong, wore loose trousers and a tight shirt, and walked past us a few times, as if weighing options, before settling down next to me. His contribution to the discourse how to spend quality time alone at home when the girlfriend was out working. One should make good use of the opportunity, whenever it comes, if one intends to have a lasting, healthy relationship.
There was another young lady with three tattoo dots on her chin, piercings on top of the left brow, slender smooth manly physique, twiggy yet had a weighty presence, constantly sipping barley water with the flair of an alcoholic. She's vegan and it was not just a health fad. Fairy self-effacing a person, was categorical in her pronouncements. It was her considered view that humans are pests and the worst threat to the planet. “The alternative folks, I’m a good example,” she said, “are clueless, struggling with life, have fanciful ideas, they are mavericks and iconoclasts. But I know such people bring about the necessary change if humanity is not to destroy the planet.”
There was another lad, tall, skinny with a conical face, and blonde dreadlocks brushing his bony shoulders. He had some beer with us. Jovial local, we were talking about Leipzig as an experience. I went for a walk with him before he disappeared into a crowded bar across the street.
He had been to India when he was 21 years old, that was five years ago, and travelled the subcontinent for six long months. And particularly liked the southern India and described his trip as ‘spiritual in nature’.
“I know me well enough now,” he said, “I can tell you that none of us should seek stability in life–that can be very destabilising. Music, musings, drinking, drugs, the din of life should illuminate our evenings,” he said with the flair of an orator.
“That’s poetry,” I compliment him. "At one point in time, I wanted to be a poet. But my conflicting inner voice made me a confused man, and I humbly acknowledge it,” he went on and on without even bothering whether others were listening to him or not.
We went for a short walk as I couldn't endure no more sitting on the stone pavement. “Bear with me. I’m being judgemental. I suffer from all the malice I see in others. Life is such, I feel sucked into a rut of predictability. I’m overwhelmed by ennui,” I heard him say while looking out at the street that glowed in the warm street light as we ambled past a park consumed by the darkness of the night. Spiritualism has had a strange impact on him, I felt, robbed him of delusions of life that give one some semblance of control.
Many young people from affluent Europe, like him, after school or during college, sometimes as part of the curriculum, travel to Asia and Africa to witness life without filters: how the poor lead a precarious life without any social security. Travelling to India, many of my European friends say, is an adventure, which includes dealing with crawling creatures, mosquitoes, and life in its various unadulterated forms. "All said and done, it’s authentic–in your face!" he added.
The first light of the day was turning the sky grey when we walked in at Andreas’s. He was not done and wanted to go to a house party. I decided to stay back. I don’t know if he did. To an Indian in Europe, trying to get some rest, the evening seemed like an unsolved puzzle. What’s all the fuss about?
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