Illegitimate

Just be there
You won’t have to talk
You won’t have to hold me
You won’t have to smile
Just be there
This once.

Just watch me
No need to say you’re proud
No need to support me
No need to lift your thumb
Just watch me
This once.

I know that you’re proud
And you would like to hold me
I know that you can’t.
I understand.
Please be there
This once.

Big*B*log

Once more, a little bit of Bollywood has found a way into my life.

Amitabh Bachchan is not only an actor, but one of the greatest heroes of Indian cinema - a superstar since the early 1970s. By chance, I stumbled across his blog on its first day. For almost a month now, "Big B" (as his fans call him) has been blogging. Daily! And his blog has countless readers. Hundreds of comments of his ardent fans appear within a few hours of each of his blog entries.

I could not resist posting a few comments, too, although I am not his 'fan ' in the sense of the word. 'Fan' comes from 'fanatic', and I'm too much of a skeptic to be fanatical about anyone. But he writes very interesting - sometimes fascinating - posts. I am surprised at the vulnerability of this superstar, his touchiness whenever some tabloid or magazine writes a critical comment - but then, "Big B" strikes back in a witty, ironical and sometimes cynical way, which reminds me a lot of my late father. So human, tender, and endearing!

Thus, I'd like to recommend the "Big *B*log" as great reading to everyone who's interested.

Hard Work

Today, as most Sundays lately, I have spent in the garden. Digging, planting, weeding, cutting trees, building paths.
When I was young, just out of school, I was a professional landscape gardener for some time. It was my job, my daily routine, and I did it for a living. It was hard work, tiring and monotonous. Maybe that is why I did not enjoy working in the garden for so many years.

But now my mother's garden needed some attention. My mother is wonderfully fit for her age, and she still does a lot of work around the house and garden herself. But that garden is quite big, and during the last decade, weeds, shrubs and trees have taken over much of the spaces that once were a vegetable garden, flower beds and a lawn.

So, some weeks ago I started going there every weekend, and fighting a battle against nettles, ground elder and other weeds that formed a thick, green carpet in the former vegetable patch. Square meter for square meter, I dug it up, pulled at thick mats of nettle roots, carried buckets full of weeds to the compost heap, and planted strawberries, raspberries, and currants in the re-conquered ground.
Then I dug up another patch for potatoes. And in the sunniest part of the vegetable plot, I planted tomatoes and courgettes.

The plants are growing fast now. Of course, this summer there will only be a couple of handfuls of berries, and just enough vegetables for a few meals. But they will be mine - the result of my work, my own harvest. Ever since humans became farmers, they must have felt this same anticipation and satisfaction. And suddenly, I found out about this simple bliss. Just now, I want to forget about my efforts in scriptwriting and filmmaking, and be nothing else than a gardener.

Maybe the hundreds of generations of farmers in my DNA are stronger than just three generations of intellectuals.

The Greenest Time

My life is not really a happy one, these days. I feel lonely a lot, and I don't have work.

As a free-lance journalist and filmmaker, I often went through phases of overwork, followed by a lull. I was used to a roller-coaster life - like a boat in a storm, then a calm and then another storm. But since a couple of months, there's no storm in sight, and the endless calm begins to fray my nerves.

So, am I going to spiral down into a full-blown depression? Not in springtime! May in Germany is the most beautiful month of the year. All the migrating birds have come back to nest, and they fill the air with song every morning and night. Wild flowers thrive in every meadow, all trees are in bloom, and the forests are so intensely green, it seems almost unnatural - as if someone took a digital photo, and boosted its colour saturation to the limit.

I go out for a walk every day, just to see it all. I watch squirrels, butterflies, birds and bumble-bees, and forget to feel lonely and jobless. Every day I am amazed at the speed of growth in all that greenery, at new flowers and different colours.
It surely beats Prozac!

A Trip and an Ending

It has been a long time since I blogged last.

Jackie, some time back you asked how my trip was. Honestly, it was not a big success, and it may have been my last visit to India. It just wasn't any fun. The friend with whom I went there was sick (because of some rotten food) for about two thirds of our trip, and many of our Indian 'friends' were acting very strangely.

Both my travel companion and I had (or thought we had) about a dozen friends in Mumbai. Only, most of them did not act friendly in any way. It may have been another of those cultural misunderstandings, but to me it is insulting if someone assures you (before you make the trip to another continent) "Great you are coming, lets meet, let me know if you need anything, you can stay with us!" - and when you get to Mumbai, the next you hear is, "I am in Delhi/Goa/Bangkok/Australia today/ this weekend /all week, but let's meet later and catch up! I'll call you when I am back". Then you never hear from them again until your flight home takes off. What kind of friend does that?

And this happened not with one person, but with seven, at least two of whom have lied about their respective business trips - one was seen and reported to us by another friend (thank God one of them remembered her offer and really let us stay with her, otherwise we would have needed to find a hotel room in a hurry), and we actually bumped into the other one when we visited Mehboob Studios in Bandra. There the person (who had SMSed us that he was in Australia) worked at a film shoot. He saw us, pretended to have come back just now, and disappeared again because of some "urgent work" somewhere else. Yeah, sure...

So despite a nice trip to the spectacular sights of Agra and Rajasthan, and some truly sweet encounters with the remaining few friends, India will remain a country of misunderstandings and broken promises for me.

Oh, and last but not least: On my very last afternoon in Mumbai I also bumped into "him". There is fate for you: You travel to a city with 20 million inhabitants, and you accidentally meet the one you try to forget.
Luckily, he had grown a not-very-attractive paunch and beard, and all in all I was too surprised to react emotional in any way. So I smiled, asked him how he was, and if he was happy. But he could or would not say much. Later that night I received an SMS from him, (in fluent English, which means it was written by someone else), calling me "Darling" and asking me to stay and meet him. But I only answered I didn't want him to play games with me again, and wished him a happy life. Even if I had been tempted: The same night my flight left for Frankfurt.

So now I am back in Europe with all my heart. The whole India episode has lasted almost one year, and it is over.
Bollywood is meant for the big screen, not for life. Not for mine, anyway.

India Again

In a few hours I'll be sitting in a plane to Mumbai again. Just as a tourist this time, for three weeks; to visit friends, go sightseeing, and to make my peace with 'his' country. 'Him' - meaning the guy whom I went to see half a year ago with hope and trepidation - I will not meet. I did not hear a word from him in all these months. I understand he doesn't want to speak to me or to meet me, so I won't try any more.

I'm not going there on my own this time, but traveling with a friend. Together we will explore unknown places and enjoy to be in a vivid, warm, lovely and chaotic place of the world - one that's very unlike our own orderly home, that's cold, gray and dark at this time of the year.

A Small Life

She was my father's cat until he died eight years ago. She was my mother's cat until yesterday.
When she came, she was a shy little thing, who appeared out of the blue one summer's day in 1995. Where she came from, we never knew, nor how old she was then. She was mortally afraid of brooms and sticks, so she must have had bad experiences before she discovered my parents' home, and decided to stay. My father named her Susi.

She never liked to catch mice around the house, but she became a devoted companion to my father who was sick and unhappy at that time. When she grew older and stayed in the house most of the time, my mother doted on her (more than she ever admitted). Sometimes when I phoned, my mother let me listen to the sound of Susi's happy purring over the phone, and then I knew: All is well at home.

Susi even purred when I petted her the last time, day before yesterday. She was a sick, old cat then, hardly able to move and finally beyond help. Today my mother and I buried her little, light body in the garden, right where she used to sit and watch birds - she stopped chasing them years ago, but even in old age loved to pretend to be a great hunter.

She was only a cat. But we have lost a loved one with her.

Breathing space

Working as a freelancer has its ups and downs - sometimes there is hardly any work at all to be done (and very little money coming in), and sometimes work comes raining, pouring and flooding.

I was inundated in work for weeks. Gladly so, because it gave me no time to think about missed opportunities, or regret whatever mistakes I might have made in spring, when I was hoping for love. By now, all of it seems long ago and buried under a thick layer of sensible thoughts and much more important things - at least more important moneywise.

Now, for the first time since two months, I have a few free days coming up, and I am going to spend them in the mountains.
I feel drawn to mountains in times like these, they give me breathing space in every sense of the word - clean air, lots of space, calmness and beauty. It clears my head and gives me a feeling of freedom to hike up a mountain; just to be there, on top of the world, overlooking the valleys and their bustle...
...I can hardly wait to get there.

Hangover

Pink clouds
throw the blackest shadows.
After flying high
I'm falling deep and dark.
On the other side of happiness
is nothing but pain.

Getting drunk on happiness
left a hangover of self-pity.
My colourful dreams
fade into a gray dusk.
On the other side of hope
is nothing but despair.

Fallen from clouds and dreams
only loneliness is left.
Again a bittersweet poem
in my diary
pays tribute to another failure
in my life.

Falada

How familiar are you with the brother Grimm's fairy tales?
They are truly grim tales mostly, full of blood and gore.
If I had a small child, I'm not sure if I'd want him/her to read those stories. But the name I chose for this, my weblog's, identity came from Grimm's Märchen.

Falada is a horse who can speak. He's a princess's horse, and that princess (who has no name but 'the Goose-Girl' in the tale) is betrayed by her maid. The maid takes the princess's place when they set out to meet her royal bridegroom; she steals her mistress's dresses, jewels and horse, and poses as bride when they reach the prince's kingdom - the real princess is forced to herd geese, and her mount Falada is slaughtered as by the intruder's orders. But Falada remains loyal to the real princess even after death. His head (that's been nailed above the castle's door) still talks, and answers the princess's questions. Because they're talking every day about their cruel fate, finally the princely bridegroom finds out who's his real bride, and he punishes the intruder and marries the real princess.

In that fairy tale, Falada always stays faithful to his mistress. His life is needlessly sacrificed, but still he remains loyal and unwaveringly so. There is a Happy End to the tale - but not for Falada, who had long since been slaughtered, so he can't be rescued or revived.