alice's peephole

I didn’t think it would take that long or the moment would be so dramatic. I didn’t realise that I had been waiting 10 months for it to happen or that I would be able to pinpoint the exact spot where it did. I finally fell in love with Köln. I look now not only at souvenirs of the Dom in pride but also ones about the typical ‘Kölsche Tag’ with Halber Hahn, der FC and Karneval. Living, working and studying far away from the city centre, nestled in my own bubble of sports and dorm-mates, it had so far been a SpoHo experience and a German one, but not one to make me appreciate the light, slightly lazy Kölsch. What Kölsch did not manage on its own, that summer evening, in combination with “internationalised” Germans at Brüsseler Platz I was easy prey. Grabbing a beer at Le Kiosk with friends, and friends of friends, carrying out conversations in a drunken combination of Deutsch and English, the sudden summer showers and rushing into a pub just like the ones in Bangalore – I finally rea...

I suppose it is a little strange that when people ask me what I miss the most about home the first answer that comes to my mind is food! My dad amongst his many sermons and monologues once said something indeed wise while encouraging a certain Hungarian-German to try Indian food: When you really want to enjoy the food you must use all your senses. See the colours, smell the flavours, taste the emotions and finally, feel the warmth. I do truly believe that some foods taste so much better when eaten with the fingers. Its not only the taste of the food that I miss (don’t get me wrong, that’s a major part of it). It’s the memories that are attached to it. I believe everything we eat has a story attached. Whether it was celebrating my parents 25 th wedding anniversary, college drinking parties, cooking with my cousin for the first time and most recently lazy Sundays in Bangalore – the various types of Biryani were always the feature of the story. It’s my happy food. When Sundays roll...