The perception

At the age of 23, I flew to Germany.

It was the first time to leave my parents and family and friends and go so far. I would not be able to even come back to see them if I missed them badly, I thought. Being the only child to my parents and my grandparents doting on me all the time, it was tough to leave them and go to a distant country about which I was well informed, and most importantly, I knew the language which was spoken there. Yes, I could talk and understand German, and so people consoled me saying that it would not be such a problem to move around there. They were so right!

Today, many students go for higher education to distant countries for many years with great confidence and self-belief. But it was not that prevalent at that time. Or I can say that it was my first time and so I was very nervous. Being a top-ranked in the university for MA enabled me to go to Germany and take a course at the Otto-von-Guericke University in Magdeburg, which is in the eastern part of Germany, very close to the capital Berlin.

I was not actually the only one to fly there. Two more girls from the English Department at Mumbai University were also going to travel with me. They hardly knew German, and so I was going to be their caretaker, guide, and translator. I was also elder to them in age, so it was very natural for me to be protective of them. They were very nice girls, and I soon became good friends with them. We met a few times earlier and planned things and got used to each other. Our families bonded big time and were very proud that their daughters were going to a country in Europe, which they never could. You all know how fathers dot on their daughters. Our respective fathers were more emotional and touchy when it came to saying goodbye to us.

We flew on 2nd October 2002 from Mumbai and landed there on 3rd October, which is the re-unification day in Germany and a public holiday. The first thing that hit us when we landed at Frankfurt airport was the silence. Oh my god, it was so hard-hitting, and it made me so uncomfortable, and I was missing India so very badly. It was hardly 12 hrs that I was away from India, but then I wanted to go back at that very moment in my mom’s arms and grand mom’s lap. No, it was not possible for the next 5 months! So, I told myself to face this bravely and make the most of the chance I have got!

We took a flight from Frankfurt to Berlin, and a professor from the University came to pick us up in his car. We did not know him, and it was very kind of him to come all the way from Magdeburg to Berlin airport. We talked on the road, and he was amiable and helpful. We reached the hotel in which we were put up. That hotel seemed straight from some horror movie, standing alone amidst the buildings which had almost no or few inhabitants. That whole hotel was empty, and only 3 of us were going to stay there with a care-taker who was a fat, old, bald, red fellow with a look of a robber. We thought, oh, where we have landed and how are we going to survive here. We put our luggage and ran out to search for some telephone booths where we could contact our parents and tell them that we reached safely. Jayu ran in one direction and Renu and me in another and then after some time, we realized that we are lost, and we do not know the way to go back. We just kept on moving in circles and came back to the hotel thankfully. We decided after that we would never leave each other like this and go out. We had to be together in whatever we did as there was no one else to take care of each other.

Being a Sunday and re-unification day, everything was closed. Our care-taker, appointed by the university, Katharina, had got us some stuff to eat and to sustain for the next week till we got to know the neighborhood and the shops where we could buy things. We ate like pigs and slept off in the afternoon. After getting up, I went to their room and saw that Professor Mr. Lange had come to see them in their place. He was the HOD of the English department in the Otto-von-Guericke University, and Jayu and Renu were going to take classes under him. We all were surprised to see such a man of high caliber and status come down to the hotel and see us and inquire if we had any problems and if we need any help. So far, the interaction with Germans was excellent, and we all thought that all Germans would be more or less the same. But then how can generalizations be made concerning human tendencies? Every person we met was different and taught us various aspects of German culture, sense, and sensibilities.

Mr. Geier, who was the owner of the hotel, was a shrewd looking person with a mischievous twinkle in his eyes when he talked. He also offered us that we can call India from his cabin and be comfortable. We refused politely and sensed his intentions very well. He thought that these girls, from some Asian country, might be stupid and fall quickly. But then we decided to give him nicely and avoided him whenever he came face to face with us. We didn’t see much of him during the week as we got busy in the lectures, and on weekends, we went out to friends and visited other cities.

Experience at the university was excellent; lecturers were good, well-read, and ready to answer questions. The class was usually of 10-15 students, which was so less as compared to the lectures in any Indian university. It is a different matter that only 4 of us were there for the MA (German) course at the Mumbai University, but that was an exception. I knew there were 100 students for Economics and the more or less the same number in other streams. So, the number 10 or 20 was far too less for me to sit with. And the table was round, no benches in the classroom. So, the lecturer sat at one end and students all beside him/her in a circle.

One thing I noticed in the class was that none of the German students looked at the lecturer who was teaching them. No eye contact at all, that was very new to me. We, back in India, were so much used to looking at the teacher and acknowledging their teaching by nodding. If we did not understand a particular point, our facial expressions would immediately convey our feelings to the lecturer, and he/she would stop and ask us if they should repeat that point again. We thought it to be a boon bestowed to people who taught. But here, it was just a one-side communication, and there were hardly any questions or doubts or problems of not being able to understand a particular thing. Most of the people would catch the lecturer after the lecture was over and get their doubts cleared. Maybe they did not want other students’ time to be wasted. I really did not understand why there was such a cold atmosphere and hardly any interaction in the class, maybe the outside weather had to do something with it too!!

Once while waiting for the lecturer, I took out an orange and offered it to a friend of mine who was sitting next to me. She refused and said, thank you. It suddenly struck me that I was in Germany and not in my class with my batchmates in India. I also observed that most students there sat alone, ate alone, and hardly offered anything or, for that matter, smiled at others. I decided to break that trend and offered an orange the next day to the same girl. She hesitated for a while and then took it, smiled at me, and said thank you. I was happy that at least she came out of that hesitation, and the ice between us was broken. Then she became a great pal of mine, and we had a good time on the campus that year.

Magdeburg was a city where there were a lot of foreign students and old people. It was ruled by Russia after the Second World War, and so most of the old people there spoke Russian and German. English was not very common to talk there, and people hesitated to talk in English to a great extent. Maybe they thought that their English was not good enough and so they did not like to speak English more often in public. I had no problems with the communication part as I was trying to speak whatever German I could talk to. It was a good chance for me to improve my language there. So, I tried my best to talk to local people in German.

I also noticed one thing that most of the people in the trams, trains, or on the roads stared at us many times initially. Was it because of the skin color or something else? I was not really sure, but it made us uncomfortable at the beginning, but later on, we got used to it. Once, one fellow passenger in the tram asked us if we were from Greece. And further said that people from Greece are wonderful and he thought that we are from there too. When we told him that we are from India, he said ok and just left. I do not know if he thought Indians are not beautiful, but then how could we ask him? I also observed that no one really came and sat next to us in the tram if the seat was empty. They would stand, but not go and sit next to us. I thought it to be bizarre, and the experience was quite different in Stuttgart (West Germany) where I went in 2010. I was pleasantly surprised to see people smiling and also sitting next to me. Times have changed for good, I thought!

Later, when we got to know a few of our German friends better, they told us that the Europeans loved the brown color very much, and they think it is really cool to be tanned. I was stunned to know that people here want to get tanned, and in India, the color brown or black is not liked by many, and a typical Indian bride has to be fair and white in complexion if she really wants a right family and husband. The Colour crisis still is very much prevalent in Indian society. And I also got to know that they pay 25-30 Euros per hour to get tanned in the sun. I offered them to get them tanned for free when they come to India. It was so hilarious to know that people really paid to change their skin color from white to brown, and people in India spent money or creams and treatments and what not to become white and fair. How true it is that we are never satisfied with what we have, and we always think that the other person is better off than us! I never rued of my brown color after knowing how much this color is sought after in Europe. I then started flaunting my brown skin and did not feel awkward that people looked at me.

The punctuality of Deutsche Bahn (German trains) amazed me a lot. They were never late and always ran as per the schedule. Once when we were visiting friends in Berlin, the train got delayed by one minute and the lady actually announced and said sorry that the train got late for a minute. I explained to Jayu and Renu about the announcement and we all started laughing. We were never used to such treatment when we traveled in local trains in Mumbai and delays were so much a part and parcel of life. But then I should commend Indian Railways for one thing. If we want to go to any part of the country, there is a single train available to go in most of the major cities and towns. I mean, if we spend 2-3 days traveling in a train, we still reach the destination, however far it is! But here, the DB was a big disappointment when it came to travel to another city or state. I remember changing 5 trains to reach from Frankfurt to Berlin which took me around 13 hrs. There were fast trains available to reach faster but then they were so damn expensive that students like us couldn’t afford to travel in those trains and had to take the cheaper options that took a much longer time! I never blamed the Indian Railways after I came back from Germany and was proud that they have such a vast network with limited resources and a huge population. The less usage of DB in Germany was also due to the excellent roads all over Germany. Germany is the pioneer of automobiles such as BMW, VW, Audi, etc. So people can easily afford a car there and travel with their cars to long distances easily. But middle-class people in Germany or foreign students cannot afford cars and have to travel to cheaper trains.

Some peculiarities of the German trains:

1) All trains are usually red in colour. Some are even black and some are white too.
2) There are no separate compartments for ladies and gents. All have to sit together.
3) Almost all trains have a toilet
4) There are options to work online on the train. Internet connectivity is there
5) There is a Bistro in almost all long-distance trains
6) There are time tables placed at the back of each seat and the further train connections are mentioned in it.
7) A ticket collector usually comes to check tickets and greets you with a smile and punches the ticket. They always come in uniforms.
8) The person who operates the train greets you when the train leaves the station. After every main station, he/she greets the passengers and gives the details of the journey, how long it will take, etc.
9) The exact time of arrival and departure is generally abided and in case there are any delays, they are mentioned in exact minutes. No minute here or there is taken to reach the destination.

We had once gone for dinner with a German couple friend in a nice hotel and we ordered things separately and they also took the time to arrive. As soon as their dish arrived, they started eating and did not even ask us once if we would like to taste it. We offered them when our food came and they were pleasantly surprised. The same thing happened with them as my friend in the lecture. They said no in the beginning and when we insisted and told them that it is our custom to offer food to the people with whom we are dining and then they tasted some of our food. After that whenever we met, they offered us their food before beginning and we also did the same. The custom of paying our own bill was also new to us and we realized it there in Germany. Everybody paid for what one ate and it was not like in India, where one person generally pays the bill and then later if at all collects the share of other people too.

When we went to the supermarkets there, we were totally confused. We had never seen 10 types of different loaves of bread, 20 kinds of yogurt and chocolates and biscuits, and whatnot. We could eat only one thing at a time and so much of abundance actually made us look lost in that huge supermarket. We tried every kind of bread and yogurt possible and chocolates were always welcome and on the top priority at any given point in time. Fruits were not juicier and tastier than as in India, milk was extremely sweet and of different fat percentages. This was also something very unusual for us. We knew milk only in plastic bags and had never seen it in tetra packs which can last for a month or so. Fruit juices were in abundance, natural fruit juices, not the ones like Rasna, etc. Ice-creams were of different fruits and did not contain any artificial flavors. We tried all the berries available here and which we never see in India. We loved pomes with mayonnaise sauce and literally had it every day. On our way back to the hotel, we found a Chinese outlet which prepared noodles and fried rice in 3 Euros. We were a regular customer there and found it as our saving grace in the hotel. We had also taken "varhadi thecha", which I am sure all Maharashtrians would know about. It is a mixture of red chilies and many other ingredients. It tasted heaven with bread in Magdeburg! We did not have a kitchen facility daily and we could cook once a while. Our friends, Raghu and Rashmi who were here to do Ph.D., came over sometime for the w/e cooking sessions. There were separate plastic bags to dump the garbage and we had to be careful in putting the garbage in corresponding bags. The segregation of waste was a very good concept, I found. But then also contrast to such a nice concept were the beer bottles strewed everywhere around, which then forced me to re-think if people are really aware of cleanliness here? I found out that water was costlier than beer in Germany! No wonder!

Generally, I observed that people in Germany were shop alcoholic. Every w/e people were seen all over the shopping areas with 100s of bags in their hands. It is said that the buying capacity of the people in a country is determined by the economical prosperity of that country. So, I could easily decipher that Germany is one of the most stable economies in the world and the per capita income is much more than an average Indian.

During our course, we met many other international students from other countries as well and the university often conducted tours to different cities on a weekend. In one such trip, we met a person called Isaac Mate, who was from Ghana. He was a very nice decent and kind fellow. We both know him better on the trip and he expressed a few things to us, which I will never forget. He told me that no one talked to him very freely as we did with him and that he would be always thankful to us for this friendship. I would like to mention here that Isaac had a skin color that was neither white nor brown. I think you understand what I mean, he was very dark and only his white teeth were visible in case you happen to see him in the evening or night. But that color did not make any difference in our friendship and maybe we felt closer to him and could understand him what he is feeling because even we were stared here and were considered to be outsiders or someone who would rob the local people here of their money or house or whatever. I could sense that feeling of hatred in a few people’s eyes, but then it was very natural for a city like Magdeburg who was always in the news for riots between different groups of punks and skinheads! We never had to face any problems as such due to those groups. One of our German friends, Annika had given us a pepper spray. She had told us that we would not need it during our tenure in Germany, but in case, something happens, this would come handy. Thankfully, we never had to use it on anyone as no one passed any remarks on us or followed us or frightened us even at 12 o’clock in the night. I must admit that the city was safe in spite of being in bad books of many people.

Isaac met us often at the campus and on weekends. We talked about the situation in Ghana and India and wished that we could visit each other’s country sometimes. After observing me for almost 4 months, he told me that he found me very motherly and caring and a person with a good heart as I was constantly taking care of Jayu and Renu. I was happy to know that a friend appreciated me for how I was. I told him that I am generally like that and I like to take care of the other person and see to it that she/he is not having any problems. I am in touch with him even now on mails and I told him about my trip to Germany this time and he was very happy. He sent me his regards and blessings and we hope to see each other sometime in the future. Skin color did not prove to be a hindrance to becoming friends and boundaries and countries did not stop us from keeping in touch.

Once while going home, we had stopped by our favorite shop of Pommes (French fries) and I saw a blind person there. He was very independent and was moving around without problems. He bought some eatables and wanted to cross the road and go to the tram station. So, I decided to help him and caught his hand, and started escorting him to the tram station. He touched my hand with the other hand and asked if I was not from this place and not a German. I was taken aback. How could he not see and recognize that I was not a German? I told him that I am from India and he smiled to himself. I left him at the tram station and said goodbye and left. I kept on thinking about it the whole time. I realized that blind people are extra sensitive and know many things through the other senses. I was very surprised by this incident and it is forever etched in my mind.

An average German family consisted of a couple and a dog. This joke is prevalent even today. Yes, I did see so many people with dogs who were their sole companions and friends. The dogs were even dressed up in nice warm clothes during winters. There was a dearth of kids in Germany and the country was under-populated. People hardly get married here. They stay together with each other for years, without kids. Those who want to have kids had them on their own responsibility and were not bothered if the father would support them till the end. They got help from the government and it seems if a couple has a third child, they get the largest amount of money as compared to the first 2 kids. This was in great contrast to the problem of over-population in India. But then each country has its own set of problems and the over-population in India also was helpful to the IT boom in India, which put India at the forefront.

Now, when I look at India and the purchasing power of Indians, I am no longer surprised at the German behavior. There is a variety of bread and yogurts and chocolates and almost everything and an average middle class Indian can afford himself a car. Just that Germany or to be precise Europe is far ahead than the 3rd world countries like India and I am sure India will reach there, though slowly and a little later.