......................
http://www.treeoctopus.net/yopho/-y-ScouredFlat
http://www.treeoctopus.net/yopho/-y-ScouredFlat
http://www.treeoctopus.net/yopho/-y-ScouredFlat
......................
This was, by far, the furthest I had been from the equator.
What to say about arriving to Sweden, sunshine on the snow? The
airport struck me like a space station...through the chilly, empty,
hallway to the immigration section, there were several signs saying-
"Beware of pickpockets." There was not a single other person in the
hallway. There were wooden rails on the staircase, unexpectedly novel.
The passport control officer seemed bemused by my monsoon-molded
passport, but quite soon I was riding the buses and trains towards
Stockholm city. For the moment, shiny kronors replaced rupees, and
empty forests of birch and spruce stood in place of endless cement
construction and farmfields.
More than anything, the landscape screamed "ice!" There must have been
kilometers of ice piled above where the train now sped, and it had
left only just a short while ago. Everything was scoured out flat, and
the forests were just again getting established. As the earth warms,
they'll continue their march north, but it certainly struck me how
that these trees and plants were merely one wave in an army on the
move towards the poles.
The public transport system reincarnated me in the middle of
Stockholm, on my way to find Gustav and Kinga, friends from India,
newlywed and living in the southern outskirts of town. In the city,
there were many strange sights. Clean sidewalks. Quiet. Space. Civil,
not communal, society. Counterculture clothing. Unonstentatious
wealth. Construction workers wearing safety equipment- reflective
stripes, helmets, glasses. Why were their lives so valuable? Business
suits. Automobiles stopping, at pedestrian crossings, for hopelessly
immodest ladies in skirts and winter coats... Kids, in punk regalia,
displaying they were not in with the system. Obviously not willing to
accept their duties to their families. Rubbish bins. A nice concept,
but so naive as to think they'd be used. People hurring to and fro,
without stopping to just appreciate where they were. And so much
activity midday, shouldn't people be relaxing when the day is at it's
warmest? Astonishingly, women were out on the streets, making the city
a far more feminine place than anywhere back in India. This was a
fundamental difference. Most distressing was the fact that nobody
cared who I was, nobody looked at my funny skin or light coloured
hair. Nobody looked at me with any mix of curiousity, desire, or
preconception. For the first time in more than a year, I was
invisible. I was no longer special.
But I'm lying to you, these things were no surprises, it was all
expected, and it was all eerily familiar.
Soon enough I was standing in the sunshine, crunching ice beneath my
feets, and entering a brick apartment building. Kinga greeted me, all
smiles and music as ever, and thus began a wonderful sequence of
hospitalities that would stretch across Northern Europa down into the
nether lands, beneath the sea. I had met these two Swedes trekking in
the Himalaya, and at that point had no idea that I would be visiting
them within a few months. They had grown up in the forested, flat open
lands of this scoured country, and my time with them in the steep
peaks and crowded cities of India was far removed from our quiet
surroundings. They treated me well.
It was in the first days of spring, and the glow was pulsing through
the city. While the days were still cold, the sunlight was coming, and
people were ready to turn a corner in their metabolic cycle and play
outside. Leaves were just about to bud on some of the trees, and the
light-eyed Swedes were just beginning to look around their well
decorated, nicely furnished, cozy apartments with the giddy bubble of
claustrophobia. Their-my- fair hair and light skins, attested to an
intrinsic seasonal rhythm, and there was a a giddy exhilaration as
metabolisms geared up for the sunshine. I had had an overdose of
sunlight over the last year, but was glad for the reminder of
springtime cheer.
Stockholm is tidy, and abundant with bridges and waterways. On the
spring equinox, Gustav walked me through the old city, where dense
stone walls hid steamy cafes, into the forested parks, where snow
slowly melted underneath the uniform pines, and across the bridges to
the new city, where shiny glass punctuated the stonework. He told me
about growing up in the northern Swedish woods, in a a quiet place
with few others around, and a few years before technology
interconnected the isolated homes in the snowy winter. So far from
Delhi where we had last met! But that day, people enjoyed the
sunshine, eating ice cream cones whilst sitting next to the frozen
harbour. I was content and happy to walk around, mostly aimlessly,
with my city-subway pass good for a few days of spontaneity. I had
been making too many decisions, about plans, health, safety,
destinations, motivations, for me and others during the last year.
What a delight to abandon that mindset and just say "sure!" When
Gustav asked if I wanted to see the museum of the Vasa, a four hundred
year old flagship brought up from the harbour floor- sure! When Kinga
wanted to show me the walking paths to the shore, where the ice still
crisped up against the land- sure! When they suggested we watch a
critically acclaimed (yet pretty awful) vampire movie- sure!
Kinga invited me to join her on a quick trip out of Stockholm to visit
her mother in Uppsalla. Sure! It's a famous university town, but also
notable for being home to Linnaeus' botanical gardens. The place was
closed for the winter, but I could peek through the gates and see the
location where a cornerstone of modern biology was put into place. In
Linnean taxonomy, every organism is arranged on a branching pattern
and identified in a standard Latinized way. In every aspect of my
professional life as a scientist, this model of organization has been
absolutely essential. We returned to Stockholm, and somehow it was
already my fifth or sixth day in Sweden. I wasn't keeping track really
well of the days, and enjoying that greatly. The snow had begun
falling again, dampening my hopes that I'd see the flowers would bring
out the ecstatic smile of the Swedes. But to see a blanket of white
cover Sweden added to the exotic experience- only a few days before I
had been under the diamond-sun of Jharkhand.
A train, sleek and hi-tech and far removed from my much beloved
sleeper class (upper berth), brought me to Sweden's southwestern edge.
After 10 minutes running around the town of Malmo, I was on another
train which brought me into Denmark, and Copenhagen.
It's impossible to understand my relationship to Denmark without two
critical elements, which are intrinsically inconsequential yet have
somehow become close to mythological. First, 6th grade, Hollenbeck
Elementary school, Sunnyvale, California: my school paper on a foreign
country was on [randomly chosen] Denmark. So visiting was the
culmination of almost twenty years of anticipation. Second, Mary, now
Princess Mary. Our first Royal!, as the Tasmanian newspapers declared
proudly. She had married the crown prince of Denmark and thus
fulfilled the fantasies of many an Australian tabloid magazine. My
connection to her was precisely zero, but my enthusiasm multiplies
that connection a thousand times over!
I don't know many Danes, and despite that school report I don't know
much about their country. One of them, Liv, was living in Copenhagen
and graciously hosted me for a few days. She treated me well. We had
met some years back, at the start of New Year, on the edge of Canada's
evergreen stormcoast. She set me up with a map, and a bike, and sent
me off into the chill sunny days to explore (sure!) Immediately, of
course, was the Little Mermaid, the sad girl with the fish tail and
the blue heart. She could never be part of our world. She is, as they
say, a small statue, but certainly she is amongst the world's
treasures.
To prove to myself that I was indeed a tourist, I spent three days in
a row visiting the Danish National Museum. This sprawling place is a
gem- no admission fees, free lockers, warm corridors safe from the icy
rain outside, and several days worth of exhibits. There, you can see
such curiosities as prehistoric amber carvings, runestones, 10,000
year old plaits of women's golden hair found in a peat bog, Viking
weapons, church statuary, 1980's stereo equipment, old executioner's
swords, ancient bones, old artwork, and treasures and trinkets from
around the globe. But outside the museum there were other sights, all
deliciously touristic. The Danske Geologiske Museum, for rock nerds
only, the Botanical Gardens, for tree nerds only, the pedestrian
malls, for shopping fiends, and the Roundhouse tower, the castle and
courtyards, the canals and streetways. The bicycle was key to the
whole affair. I could pretend that I was one of the illustrious,
incredibly fast and focused bicycle commuters of Copenhagen. And when
I was done with that, I could go back to my locker, lock up the bike,
and visit Liv, working literally across the lane from the Museum's
entrance.
Like Stockholm, Copenhagen is incredibly expensive city to spend
evenings out in, and in both cities this made for pleasant warm
at-home dinners during cold outside nights (you can even drink the tap
water). Inevitably, India and my experiences there came up with my
hosts and their friends. But it's too complicated to analyse easily,
and the comparison deals with global issues of the present day. I
think I've adapted pretty well to India, I can keep myself happy and
healthy there, but I'm not sure that everyone in Scandinavia, or the
US, or Australia, could do the same- or would want to do the same. I
couldn't have arranged a stronger contrast between two regions of the
world. Only an blind person could fail to be moved by the
differences. Few in Scandinavia starve to death, people are happy and
healthy, and they live a good life. People live good lives in India,
and are often happy, and often healthy, but what a reality check to
wee what refined conditions in which the Swedes and the Danes are
living. They've figured out a great many things- how to build a
pleasant city, how to take care of each other- that we still deny in
the USA and Australia, and that India simply can't be bothered with as
it hurtles to live the unsustainable dream of a Western lifestyle. The
culture shock- the poverty shock, the gender shock, the street shock-
was far stronger for me coming out of India for this brief vacation in
Northern Europe than it was when I entered India. In one afternoon in
Delhi, I can go into a 5 star hotel and be fawned over by a dozen
waiters in a fancy restaurant, and I can walk past the irredeemably
messy and crowded areas that are tucked out of sight of India's
aspiring middle class. There are Sony hi-fi stereo shops, and lepers
on the streets. This type of variability simply doesn't exist in
these two icy countries, and I think the core of the matter is that
they are nation-states, Danes and Swedes, and they will take care of
their small populations in a way that crowded and communally
fragmented India can accomplish only with massive changes. These
changes might come, but I think there will be ecological limits to
growth too soon. I am simultaneously optimistic and pessimistic about
India, and America, and Australia-this balance swings back and forth-
you've got to love the good and hate the bad- but the best thing I can
say about Denmark and Sweden is that... I'm mosly optimistic.
Also, like Stockholm, I wasn't keeping track of the days very well.
From Copenhagen, lovely Liv helped me to arrange a train to Hamburg,
Germany (sure!). I had learnt a great deal about Germany at a very
young age, almost entirely dealing with death and genocide and war.
But I woudn't let that shadow my trip. Ten days passed in Scandinavia
had brought forth those bright little leaves, and as I entered into
Deutschland the winter had fled- spring had arrived.
-y-
......................
http://www.treeoctopus.net/yopho/-y-ScouredFlat
http://www.treeoctopus.net/yopho/-y-ScouredFlat
http://www.treeoctopus.net/yopho/-y-ScouredFlat
......................
sure!
