When it rains in Berlin

By Anomalily via Flickr

Something finally gives way. The panicked desperation for a delayed spring, still needing to wear earmuffs and thick gloves. Piles of old snow blankets, dirty and tinged with Berlin's black soil but determinedly solid, unrelenting, refusing to thaw. They cling still on tops of shrubs, collected in muddy heaps on sides of roads and sidewalks, on hidden corners of roofs and deserted patches of earth.
The sparrows still chirp, their loud cries defiant, shrill in the unseasonably crisp freeze at this time of the year.

Then, something breaks. You're too warm in that winter coat, so you switch back to your thinner jacket, still cautious, still painfully aware of Berlin's fickle weather swings.

But it stays that way. And then, out of nowhere, snow turns into rain. Not piddly no-drops like you're standing next to a fountain, but rain rain. Drops like spears, crashing on the perfectly smooth pallid roads, barraging on everyone, ratting out weak umbrellas.

You blink around and wait. For that muddy, earthy fragrance when the first drops of rain sizzle on the scorching, wrinkled, thirsty soil. For the wafting smells of hot fried bhaji, pakoras and samosas. For warm, roasted peanuts in newspaper cones. For signs of little stalls crowded with people, squinting at the rain, a rustic glass of hot cardamom chai in their cool hands, blowing on it to cool it down.

You wait for that squelch of shoes in the water rivulets born out of the downpour. For the splashes of water as people on two wheelers, late for work, irritated with errant raindrops sliding through their raincoats and wetting their backs, speed by, drenching hems of Kurtas and pants with muddy water.

It starts to rain harder. I wait for chaos. For street urchins and school children on their way home from school, jumping in puddles. For the loud croaks of hidden frogs. For the electricity cuts that don't happen.

Back in Berlin, the tram rattles to a stop and everyone gets in, irritably wiping the raindrops off their minds.

Because here, in this perfect world so far away from home, not a hair is out of place. Bright umbrellas have popped up everywhere, people scurry past me. No one's cooking food on the street, no crowds have huddled around rickety food and chai stalls and no one is cheerful at the spring that has brought warmth but rain instead of sunshine.

How could they be happy about it, how could they begin to understand, when they don't know what magic monsoon conceals in its muddy, splashing, trickling, cooling folds?

*******

I wrote this on one of the first days of spring a couple of days back, when it felt like monsoon in Goa. In Berlin.

And this song kept playing in my head on loop all day. Sigh.

-The Cyniqueen

A random list of miscellaneous things

Since I think I've sort of been bogging everyone down talking about the depressing winter that REFUSES to end, and also because it's been long since I've done one of these, I'm making a random list:

Via weheartit.com

• Snow and frosty cold in Berlin is a fuckillion times better than boiling heat in Pune or Goa.
• I'm getting a lot of great practical experience in my new internship.
• And it's in this lovely neighbourhood with just the right balance of diversity, coffee shops, cleanliness and quaintness. I've honestly never seen anything like it.
• I scrubbed the floor of my tiny apartment last weekend and it is now back to a respectable standard of cleanliness. Before that, it was so dirty (oh god I can't believe I am typing this even as I type it) that I was too disgusted to exercise on it, because I sometimes do Surya Namaskar, where it's imperative to have a clean floor *hangs head down in shame. And then sees now sparkling floors and feels less bad.*
• I don't posses the ability to pack light. Like if you took all my DNA, pried it apart or wrung it really hard to get every single essence of my traits (dormant and active), you would not find amidst the greasy juice, the trait of packing light. My bag which I carry to work (which is half an hour away from my place) hurts my shoulder because it weighs like 18 kilos. It seems that my prehistoric ancestor should not have survived on account of the giant dinosaur would have killed him if he insisted on carrying all his cave rocks and animal skin-skirts with him everywhere. But then again, I'm really good at raising each eyebrow in quick succession to a beat and it seems to me that evolution decided that the unibrowed Neanderthal should be allowed to pass on this miraculous talent to his progeny. (Okay, Neanderthals and dinosaurs didn't coexist, I'm aware. But two words: poetic license).
• I love wearing kurtis in Berlin. Besides the fact that kurti and jeans is the most comfortable daily wear on the planet, it makes me feel very exotic. I can never, ever wear a bindi on a kurta here, though. Just, no.
• For a while now, I have found this brand of ceylon-assam tea bags that taste like proper Indian chai. And then I found ginger tea bags, which is actually just ginger water. So I mixed both to make adrak chai (ginger tea). Didn't work.
•  Not being able to talk to my family regularly sucks. Internet problems make Skype impossible at times. I love whatsapp though.
• I had started reading Churchill's biography (because I like biographies) but last week, I officially and very guiltily abandoned it because it was too full of military, imperialistic jargon.
• Once, when I was extremely distracted by my own thoughts,I walked into a wall. This happened in class. Embarrassing as it was, thankfully, it happened in Germany. If it was in class in India, I would have tots had a white chuna mask on my face to add to the mortification.
• People sometimes leave garbage bags in the elevators in my building. I hope they crap their pants in public for every time they do this.

-The Cyniqueen

Ain't no sunshine when you live in Berlin

So cute I can't even

There's a strange glowing light in the sky right now, and it feels...different, a little like biting cold, but extremely pleasant somehow. Oh wait, that's the sun. No wait. Nope, never mind, its gone back into the butt of the clouds where it has been residing for the last few months. Seriously? I'm not even exaggerating. Remember how I started off my last post? I don't always do that.

Usually, I'm not the sort of person who sits with my chin in my hands, pining away when it's a cloudy day. I mean, sure, it's really pleasant when the sun is out. Except in the summer in India when it just stops short of searing into your skin and makes you want to wear an unmeltable ice-outfit at all times.

So anyway, over the last few weeks, since January actually, the sky has been a dirty mix of ash grey mingled with a pale dying blue. All the time. And I thought may be I was making too big a deal out of it, but then I read that this winter has been the darkest since 1950 something and it's been the second darkest winter in Germany since they started keeping records. So I'm not paranoid.

After all of this hopelessness, we had a glorious four or five days of sunshine and *gasp* warm-ish weather last week. Everyone hastily packed away their winter things, made plans to go sit in the sun with closed eyes and idiotic grins and started shaving their legs in anticipation of short, springy dresses (I mean just the women and our transgender friends, obviously. And cross dressers. You know, in a city like Berlin, this list could go on for a while, so I'm going to stop here).

But then, before you could say Betriebswirtschaft, it started snowing again. And it didn't stop all weekend. Out came the winter coats, the fancy hand creams and everyone's grumpy winter faces.

Now I really find myself craving some sunshine. At this point, I absolutely insist that you go here and see this one in particular. Someone at my office where I'm doing my current internship discovered it and everyone was laughing for like five years. Makes most sense for people who live here, of course.

So. That was the weather report for this quarter. Next week: Could your house plant be killing you? Stay tuned.

Suspiciously,
The Cyniqueen.

Image via google.com

Kickass cloudy procrastination

Berlin has been having a LOT of these days lately. On most days, it doesn't bother me me much. But I've slowly started waiting for the morning a splendorous shining sun just bursts through the clouds like an arrogant rock star and tells winter go to shove off. That would be nice.

Operation clean up, as I had called it in my mind because it sounded kickass, has in fact, not been kicking as much ass as I thought it would. But I try doing a little bit here and there when I have time from watching movies, which has been my main task lately. 

As Utopian as it sounds, it's true: I have to begin writing what is called a Master thesis for my course soon, and I'm looking to do something with movies and the portrayal of journalism. So everyone I know has been obligated to produce a list of movies they can think of with journalists in them. I really want to do something with the movie Chicago, one of my all time favourites, but I watched it again last night (for research, you understand. The cookies were merely a tasty aid to get my intellectual juices flowing) and I have a feeling I'm going to have to let it go. So any suggestions or ideas are welcome.

Also, Pinterest is threatening to destroy my life with its magnificent procrastination inducing powers. 

And, I miss India.

Love and warm, glittering sun rays hitting you like pew pew pew!,
The Cyniqueen 

Dirty talk

What's brewing, Netizens?

I've been feeling very positive about writing recently. Turns out, a figurative kick in the creative part of the brain helps.

Until a few days ago, no amount of proverbial kicking and prodding seemed to ignite my will to clean my tiny apartment, though. It was not a pretty picture, let me assure you. I kept sliding down a spiral of disillusionment. See, I always figured that at some point in your life, you stop acting like a child and kind of get your shit together and have this efficient household.

Getting your shit together means being a grown up. It means becoming the kind of people your parents were when you were a kid. It means that things in the house progress smoothly and efficiently. It means bills being paid properly, the subscribed paper actually being read everyday, pets being fed at the right times and having a well stocked kitchen at all times. It means periodical cleaning and never running out of milk in the house. It means taking out the garbage every day and changing the sheets and pillow covers every week. It means the laundry getting done before you have to reach into the laundry bag to retrieve dirty socks because there aren't any clean ones. Thank God, at least I have a laundry bag and not some big old plastic shopping bag whose mouth wobbles every time you throw something in.

It really scares me to think what will happen if I never grow up and have like a baby or something. I have these really disgusting thoughts -- will I forget to change it, will I lose it in a pile of papers or forget where I put it? What if I have a family and I can never teach them that you're supposed to fold your clothes, keep them in the cupboard and pick them out in a civilized manner everyday? What if they think that the norm is to keep a knotted pile of wrinkled albeit clean clothes in the laundry basket (or in my case, one of those big, blue, brilliantly shapeless IKEA bags) and wear them out of the bag till it's empty and that's how you know it's time to wash the clothes again. Small saving grace, though: I always, but always, make sure my kitchen counter is clean, because I grew up with the 'food is sacred' philosophy and I end up feeling really guilty when it's dirty.

When I was a child, and then when I got older, I just figured somewhere down the line everyone kind of 'adults up', stops messing around and starts living like someone's watching them. I was still waiting for my imaginary beobachter (*watcher/observer. But it sounds so much better in German). But I guess they're not coming.

So after this horrid phase of disillusionment, I admitted to myself, very grudgingly, that there is no magical, springy moment where you learn to be grown up -- you just have to do it.

And that's how my week's been. Other things? Cooking chicken curry for friends over a really fun dinner, landing a very promising internship, beginning to be able to see a still-hazy but certain end to my student-life a few months from now and really, really wanting a cat, thanks to this NGO in Mumbai who's doing such a commendable job and posting the most adorable pictures of animals for adoption on Facebook. Which makes me break into a string of incomprehensible, mushy baby talk. Which  makes for some embarrassing moments when I'm out in public, with sane, functional people around and I realise that I can't control the mushy squeals.

Eeeeeeeeee,
The Cyniqueen

Smokin' mad

I love that in Berlin, you can go out of the house wearing literally whatever you want and not get stared at in the U Bahn. I love how the roads are full at 3 am on a Saturday morning and the delicious smell of soft, hot french fries wafts from little eateries that would probably sell batatawadas in India.

What I don't like about Berlin, besides the Crazies, is the smoke. I don't mean weed, although you don't chance upon its sweet-ish smell very often in Berlin. Just sometimes, when wisps escape from under the Studentenwohnheim doors or at underground pubs. The smell of weed doesn't bother me. Nicotine does.

The fact is, for all of Germany's love of rules, they go easy on Berlin. Which is may be a good thing when it comes to breaking the pedestrian signal or for people with the aforementioned weed. But Berlin missed the memo on smoking being hazardous to your health. Berlin, my Berlin of the fat birds, the Schrippe and the alternative culture, encourages smoking.

It's not just the second hand smoking, which is bad as it is. It's that ugly stench. The smell of nicotine clogs your nose, fills your lungs with a burning, singing smell. It hits you straight away. And worst of all? It stays. It slinks into your clothes when you're not looking, and sits in your hair and on the inside of your coat - which means almost every time I go out on a weekend in Berlin, I come back smelling like the smoking room at airports. I then proceed to hang my coat, my scarf, my top and jeans (and several other layers of clothing I'm wearing because it's winter) on a hanger and hang them in various corners of my tiny studio apartment so that they air out. I do this even before I remove my make-up, before I go to the bathroom. before I start foraging for a very early morning snack in the kitchen. Then I sleep, with nothing to do for my hair and skin at the moment, which the smoke does not spare, drilling its stale odour into my very bones. 

Pretty in pink, but still you stink. Sigh.

Now look, I can give you this much: when I whiff some smoke as I'm walking past somewhere or someone, because of its cultural context, it pulls me into a momentary happy place, with friends and good times and relaxing, even though I don't smoke myself, as anyone must have figured out at this point. But it does not mean that the smoke smells good. Worst of all are the pubs that let you smoke. And in Berlin, that includes a LOT of the pubs and bars.

What do you do when most of your friends smoke? What do you do when you're in a smoking bar (because of your friends) and your friends start to light up and look at you and go "Oh I'm sorry, do you mind if we smoke? Would that bother you?" You look around at the hundred other Berliners in the bar smoking around you, and what are you supposed to say to your friends, with their half rolled cigarettes in their eager hands?

Are you supposed to be the uptight one that won't come out unless they're going to a non smoking place?Are you supposed to meet them only at cafes for heiße Schokolade and sit huddled in your apartment in the evenings? Because once you tell your friends that it bothers you when they always pick a smoking bar, you can't un-tell them. And then every time you go to a smoking bar, they'll probably be thinking that you're horribly uncomfortable the whole time. And if you go to a non smoking bar, you'll be thinking what a bitch you are for making them go out in the cold every time they want to smoke.

Look, I know what you smokers might think of me. It's how some people might think about vegans or people who never drink or dance at parties or people who aren't friends with people because they smoke or drink. I get it. But why should it come down to choosing between your health or your comfort level and having a good time?

*****

The unpleasantness with having to air out my clothes happened several times over the last few days. I figure I can write best about things that are really getting to me right now, even though it will probably mean my friends reading this. Oh well.

The Cyniqueen

Image via google.com

Ennui et all

I've let my mind and my thoughts take their own course for a while: no leash holds back ennui, no sieve filters the muteness of my brain.

I'm being vague, I know. Doing that thing I don't like. But my mind has been stagnating of late, as have I.It doesn't matter much why I haven't been posting. It has been a sort of letting go, a sort of going wild. To put it a lot less dramatically, I've been lazy :P 

Well, that's not entirely true. See, I've been going through this excessively diffident phase(which began somewhere around here), and it has poured over, quite profusely, shall we say, to my self-worth as a writer (or someone who writes, to sound a lot less pretentious). Having been extremely busy with university and the such, the aforementioned laziness refers to a sort of giving up after a defeat, of lying where you fell, not heaving yourself up, dusting off the mud and saying 'let's try that again'.

But I must try and I mustn't let diffidence get the better of me, as it almost has. So here, in this little digital space I'd like to think of as my own, where no other voices sound except the echoes of my own thoughts, I'd like to say that I'm making a start - back to writing, back to hoping, back to trying, back to being ready to fall again. And stand up again.

Back to reading more, thinking more. And not letting my mind slide back into that happy, languid silence of creativity, too indolent, too satisfied, to want to lift a thought.

I'm going to try. 

Capiche? capiche.

Resolutely,
The Cyniqueen