alice's peephole

Back home I am good at sport. I’m better than most girls at hand-eye coordination, stronger and have more endurance than the majority. There’s also many boys I can beat at a few sports and even my bowling in cricket has been called ‘tricky’. I really love to play – whatever sport it is, it beats any other way to burn calories and get high. But in Germany it’s a whole new ball game. When I went to play football with my classmates, I was even picked after the guy who had not even arrived yet! In all fairness I never was a footballer, so I let myself off the hook for my horribly embarrassing 90 minutes or so. I applauded my stamina for having survived pointlessly chasing after the ball (and thankfully never catching up to it). In the end I did manage to score one goal, but it just didn’t seem so spectacular since no one even tried to get the ball from me, even though I received right in front of the goalpost. I am not sure who was the more surprised when it careened through the keep...

The dream. Getting that sweet acceptance to the ONLY sports university in Europe. I tried to capture and preserve in my mind (read my camera) every pore on the face of my loved ones. I celebrated by eating a year’s share of oily, yummy, spicey food (the names of which it is too painful for me to pen here) and downing thums up and old monk at every given opportunity. I shopped and I packed. Ok my mom packed, but I helped! And most of all, I waited. For my visa to arrive. Leaving is overwhelming. But this post isn’t about stating the obvious. What surprised me in fact, was that I felt strangely numb. Except the flood of tears once I checked in, I didn’t quite know what I felt or have the words to express it. And it’s taken me some time to find them. I landed at Frankfurt, and I was cheerfully greeted by an empty hall and even emptier conveyer belt. I did however manage after an hour or so to locate a help desk, and thereafter my luggage – which they had helpfully transpor...

I got kicked out of my house unceremoniously by the landlord – ok that made for a good dramatic beginning but I basically just had to leave the house because he decided to come live there. Now I’m someone whose helplessness at packing is so pitiful that even my German host mother took over the job realising I might just miss my flight back to India if she didn’t. Someone whose brother spent the day after his own wedding packing my suitcase since I was moving to a new city. And this someone now faced the Herculean task of fitting about 2 years of stuff into 2 suitcases. That’s a year per suitcase, and it boggles the mind. Especially since that same suitcase had been carted home empty and brought back full of stuff on every monthly visit. I reserved a weekend to get this done, and I spent the whole of Saturday fretting over the task and ended the night by drowning my apprehensions in beer. The next morning I woke up groggy but determined. I knew I needed reinforcements and set of...

2 Dasslers and a Knight Contrary to popular belief, Adidas does not really stand for ‘All Day I Dream About Sports’. Anyway if that was the case I figure none of us would require much equipment beyond a bed and a fluffy pillow. Way back in 1924, 2 German brothers returned from World War I to the Bavarian town of Herzogenaurach. Following in his father’s footsteps, who worked in a shoe factory, Adolf Dassler, a skilled craftsman, began making athletic shoes from the military remnants left behind by retreating troops in his mother’s laundry room. His brother Rudolf soon joined him as a persuasive salesman, and the company ‘Dassler Brothers Shoe Factory’ was born. The exceptional shoes quickly became popular among athletes and were worn by the Germans at the 1928 Olympics in Amsterdam. Amidst a rapidly changing political landscape, the Dassler brothers signed up with the Nazi party in 1933. In the 1936 Berlin Olympics, they went against the party’s philosophy and persuaded Afric...

  “A white blank page, and a swelling rage.” You, you and you, out there! You need rehab! I do too!  A little box that casts a spell over your mind, you are always obsessed with it. Waiting for it to make a little beep, blare out your favourite tune this week or to wink at you. Your main objective throughout your waking and non-waking hours is to keep it dry, warm, charged and safe. So that you may ignore your family and friends to chase trains and hack fruits. So that you may pay 10 times your monthly rent just to hold it in your greedy paws. The bigger, the better. Slimmer is finer. Anything works, as long as it is outrageously ‘cool’.  I’m scared for my children. Things like pollution and the earth running out of resources don’t worry me as much. Far though the day is, when it comes, I wonder who my kids will ‘play’with? I definitely will throw them out of the house every evening to go outside and play. No wii, tv or whatever gadget has been invente...