Germany

Coincidentally Germany happened to be the first country I set my foot on outside India.

Coincidence because that was the first country I wanted to go even when I was a small kid.

When I was in 3rd standard I had a lesson in English prose. It was a story about a boy, set in a rural area in Germany. Though I don't remember the exact story now, I remember very well the effect the story had on me. The kid's mom would send him to his aunt's place in some other village and he would take walk along the woods to reach the place. The naughty kid would carry a cheese bar to his aunt, but how? He would tie it to a string and pull it with him like a god. This scene and the sketches shown in the pages presented a very beautiful image of Germany to me.
In fact, that story would have fitted well even if it was set in India, Brazil, China or any other country in the world. It just happened o be Germany. (for some reasons?)

Later on someone told me that Steffi Graf and few other tennis stars are so rich that they even own some islands. I always imagined islands to be like a paradise. Steffi happened to be a German. This again increased my interest in Germany.

When I learnt about Adolf Hitler, Munich olympics, Berlin wall and all, my opinion about Germany moved drastically southwards.

Sigmund Freud in his 'Interpretation of dreams' said, "every dream will reveal itself as a psychological structure, full of significance, and one which may be assigned to a specific place in the psychic activities of the waking state."
Thinking slowly, i realise how true it is. All our dreams are result of what we see, what we read and what we think about in real life. It is magical that somehow somewhere they connect and make sense. He meant only about dreams and how they can be reasoned out. Not how dreams in turn becomes live. This is a mystery and will always remain one.

Okay. Coming back to Germany...

Well, you might wonder what did i do in Germany!

It was only a one-hour transit in Frankfurt, on my way to Helsinki ;-)

--S--