Vijay Kain - A Tribute To His "Taaya" from Pratique

Pratique ( my son ) pays tribute to Vijay (my brother).I cant better it -so am making public a letter written by him to me .I am not changing a single word or correcting a single spelling.And do remember that he is writing to me -so you will find a lot of it directed towards me .

" On a Friday afternoon on July 3rd 2015, my father told me he was going to Chandigarh to meet Vijoo taaya. He has never forced me to do anything in my life. So as usual he gave me a choice of whether I wanted to come and meet his elder brother. He told me taaya was extremely unwell and it would be nice if I could accompany him – “he is a nice guy. Aa jaao if you can. It is nice to know the elders of the house”. I said yes. To this day I don’t know why. Maybe because I wanted to meet a man who I knew only through pictures and remarkable stories. Maybe because my father, even though had not forced his will on me, had never been more honest about a demand he made of me. Maybe because I was very intrigued about the idea of Vijoo rather than the Man Vijoo. Whatever it was, I don’t care today. I am glad I met him.
So we left for Chandigarh and in a journey spanning over roughly 6 hours, all I heard was “Oh you can’t meet a man as patient as Vijoo” or “oh he is so brilliant” or “listen don’t be loud in front of him – he is not like the rest of us. Very classy – be careful about what you say”. I heard all this and my father’s countless tales of a man he often associated with, not in a manner that can be defined as relationship between brothers but that between a father and a son. So, when the next day we were getting ready, and I was dressed up in my signature jeans with a round neck tea shirt and flip flops, my father looked at me, utterly annoyed and said “don’t you know who you are going to meet?!” – “please wear some decent clothes with a pair of black shoes and make sure they are polished – I always polish my shoes. Vijoo always wears polished shoes too”.

By this time I was really regretting having said yes to this trip – I was on a holiday to India and I had just come for 2and a half months out of which I had interned for 2 months and in the remainder of this holiday I was being taken to meet a man I was related to, probably just in name. I asked myself, who is this Vijay Kain and why is my father, who is otherwise never so formal, being so careful in approaching his own brother. So well, very reluctantly I did what was asked of me and there we were ready to go. Throughout the journey, between Indu Bhua’s house and taaya’s (about 20 mins or so) I kept asking myself “karna kya hoga?! – touch his feet, shake his hand? – hug him? Nahin nahin cant hug him – we hardly know each other”. So after much deliberation I told myself – “listen just go upto him and say hi sir… wait sir or taaya.. lets say hi taaya – how are you – shake hands and if people around you get too judgmental touch his feet – formality poori kar dena if the situation demands it and chup chaap sit down in the corner of the room closest to the exit”. We reached.

There it was – Vijay Kain (IAS) on the address board with a car number PIH 1. Okay now it was certain – “this guy is a huge shot”. We had been instructed by the others who were in touch with him that he wasn’t fit enough to walk and as such kept lying on the bed for the most part and didn’t talk or eat much. So I entered the house, my taayi was there to receive us. And there he was standing by the drawing room. I was seeing this man after god knows how long. My father met him like a fanboy, my bua was equally delighted to see him. I, in the midst of all this was super confused when he looked at me through the commotion and said “arey Pratique it is soo nice to see you yaar. Thank you for thinking of me and making the effort of coming here”. Nobody had to tell me what to do. I walked to him, touched his feet, hugged him and said Taya how are you feeling. He looks at me and says – much better now. It became very clear why my father and my aunts were in love with this man unconditionally. Where my brother Kunal got his humility and his sensibility from. Where my father got his warmth from. You saw Vijay Kain in everyone. He was an idea. He was an attitude. He was, what you would want to be.

We caught up for hours that day. It is said that wiser of the two men always listen more. So it had to be. He listened to me while I told him everything there was to know about me. I wanted this person to know who I was. I wanted him to remember me. I wanted to make sure he would want to be related to me by more than the just a surname that we shared. He listened intently to what I was doing and what I wanted to do further – “Acha you stay in Halifax – I have been to Halifax. Lovely place. The people are so warm”. “Master of Global Affairs seems very interesting. Have you thought about the UN – maybe you might want to work for them”. We discussed what we liked to eat. I listened too for a change – he told me of his travels. Told me of his love for fish and cricket. Told me of the time when he was just a young civil servant. I can go on and on about my meeting with him and my later interactions with the man, but you knew him better than I did. We finished our dinner that day and we went back home with a promise taaya made to me “once I am fine I shall share a glass of wine with you”. Do come back to meet me if you have the time.
It is human nature to reduce an idea to a man. We are no different and hence we are extremely disturbed about his passing. But shareer, the body, literally translates into something meant to decay. It is but inevitable. Take comfort in the fact that you all are in part a reflection of what he was much like he was very much a reflection of what you are.
As for me, he still owes me that glass of wine. I will have it with my father. I will have it with my buas. I will have it my brothers. And I will end up drunk because let us face it I am just a short little kid who looked at his father on his way back home after meeting his taaya and asked - dad when do we get to meet him again…""

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Salzburg - I can hear "Do Re Me" ( Part 1)

Much of what I am going to write –is going to be nothing new .Salzburg has been photographed and written about more than a average city .What I am going to write about is slightly different in the sense that its going to be about my experience about Salzburg .I am going to divide this write up into 2 parts –one the travelling part of it ( the drive to Salzburg is exquisite !!), and the second part about the town itself .
Salzburg is a town on the river Salzach –which dissects the town into two parts .A beautiful quaint bridge connects the two parts of the town .As you walk over the bridge – you fill find thousands of locks on it .!!( more of that in my second part). At various points of time in history –it was a part of beautiful forested Bavaria , part of Nazi Germany( Hitler persecuted the Jews in Salzburg and sent them to concentration camps ,and also converted it into a camp where prisoners of war were housed) ,and is now the 4th largest town in Austria .It is heavily German speaking and Munich in Germany is only 150 kms from it ( Vienna is twice the distance away at 300 kms ).Just 25 kms away from Salzburg is Berchestegaden – which was Hitlers favourite hangout .Leaders of the world rushed there in the 1930s to meet and convince him not to precipitate the Second World War by agreeing to some of his demands .Its a 20 minutes drive from Salsburg .Salzbur is also the birthplace of Mozart and the setting of the legendary movie –The Sound of Music .!! As my student friend ADITI KATARIA wrote to me – THE AUSTRIANS DID A GREAT JOB IN CONVINCING THE WORLD THAT HITLER WAS A GERMAN AND MOZART WAS A AUSTRIAN!!!( Great one Aditi –see how students teach school Directors !!)Both were born in Austria !!
All this was in my mind (infact , ever since I started seeing movies and studying History), as we boarded a beautiful two decker bus from the Opera House in Vienna .The buses are a pleasure to ride in – you don’t feel a bump and you don’t hear a sound .You have wifi which is very powerful and hence one is connected to the net and whatapp etc ). It was early morning – the traffic was less ( even at the worst of traffic hours ,Vienna has less traffic than the best of traffic hours in India !!).Very soon – the bus was travelling through fabulous countryside .
I have travelled a lot in buses , trains and cars in Europe ( I include Turkey in Europe – I travelled the length and breath of it in car ,not once but twice. I have travelled in Scotland ,England ,Paris ,Czecch Republic- Praha to Karlovy Vary by train is postcard pretty as well- ,Hungary ,Slovakia ,and many more ).But the stretch between Vienna and Salzburg is very very pretty .We cut through thick forests and lovely countryside .We passed St Polten and Linz .In between we passed several villages .The house are so colorful and so well maintained .We passed through areas with castles dotting the landscape .Suddenly , we we would see a temple spire jutting into the blue sky , or a crystal blue colored lake !!. We saw lovely ,well maintained trails taking off from the main highway into forests –and then reappear after sometime near a house on a hill .The open fields had hues of different colors –for the first time I saw swathes of purple amidst rich green ,light green ,yellow and brown fields .I had seen something like that in Frankfurt – but the colors and hues were out of this world .Luckily ,Sangeeta and me got the first seats on the top deck –and we had the large glass in front and on the sides .We had the drivers view .
We stopped at what are called Landzeits – resting places on the autobahn ( highway ). Amazing places .You can get everything in a Landzeit –from fruit ,to any kind of food ,drinks ,pastries ( strudels always there!), beer .The Landzeits are situated in the most beautiful areas .They overlook lovely forests ,and open spaces .They are quiet .You pick up your food and sit anywhere .The second of these Landzeit is at the Mondsee Lake ( where parts of “ Sound of Music “ were filmed .We ate our normal croissants and had lovely cup of coffee .We paid .50 Euros to use their 5 Star washroom facilities !!
Our next halt was inevitably the Mondsee Lake( moon lake ) It is among the last of the privately owned lakes in Austria .It on the outskirts of Salzburg and is famous because of the filming of the movie ( part of it ) ,The Sound of Music .It is also mentioned in Ian Fleming book of James Bond “ Thunderball” .Aside from the lake ,it also has a Cathedral in which the wedding scene of Chirstopher Plummer and Julie Andrews was solemnized .Both of them are alive –and so are the men and women who acted as kids in the movie .There is something about the place ( its psychological ), that gives you goose pimples .I am sure one would not get them if one did not know enough of the place .But it’s a visual delight –whether you know anything about the place or not .The Landzeit ,overlooks the Lake which is surrounded by forests ,mountains and beautifully built town and villages .We took a lot of photographs here – everyone did !!
We had one last look at the Mondsee lake –when comes another chance to repeat a destination when there are so many places yet to see?!!!- turned our collars to howling breeze and made our way towards Salzburg .Very soon -the city rushed towards us –or was it the other way around ?!!.Anyways – we embarced each other !! Like long lost friends . We stepped out of the bus – our guide welcomed us and said “ Welcome to the town of Mozart and the Sound of Music !!”

Salzburg - I can hear the symphony of Mozart !! ( Part 2 )

The first thing that strikes you when you enter Salzburg is the fact that here the tourists outnumber the locals .There are people moving around looking at buildings ,shops ,gardens .There are a number of luxury tourists buses which are parked in a very orderly way .There are men and women who have cameras hung around their necks –the Japanese go a step forward ,they carry with tem their movie cameras and tripod stands!! Undoubtedly ,Salzburg is a tourist favorite,but there is no hustling ,pushing and frantic crossing of the roads .One sees very few vehicles in the form of cars .They never blow their horn ,don’t make sound ,and don’t emit gas.
The building that dominates the skyline of Salzburg is the –Hohensalzburg Castle .It sits atop the Festungsberg. It is one of the largest medieval castles in Europe and is situated at an altitude of 506 m . A funicular takes you upto the castle at a cost of 5 or 10 Euros .One can also walk upto the castle .We did not go into the castle because of shortage of time .I am told it is a awesome castle
As far as I am concerned –the most beautiful building in Salzburg is the Salzburg Cathedral .Its the first baroque church built in this part of Europe and has some exquisite statues ,paintings and frescoes .In one of them , a Marian figure is surrounded on four sides by allegoric figures representing angels, the devil, wisdom, and the Church. According to a plaque on the side of the cathedral, the figure group shows reactions to the mystery of the Immaculate Conception—the angels are delighted, human wisdom vanishes, the envious devil growls, and the triumphant Church rejoices.The building is made of dark grey stone .Its exquisite .The bells are as old as 1628 !! It’s a Roman Catholic Church built in the 17th Century .During the Second World War a bomb ripped through its Dome – however by 1959 ,it had been restored .And Salzburg Cathedral still contains the baptismal font in which composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was baptized.
There are many beautiful sights in Salzburg.Mirabell Place is one of them where some shots of the Sound of Music were filmed .In particular there are a row of steps on which Julie Andrews and the kids sing Do Re Me .These are not filmed as steps –what is there to film about steps ?- but in the film they are used as rows of Piano on which children keep hopping of and on in line with the musical notes !! I also tried to hop –so did many !! On ones way out from the castle –one passes the house in which Doppler lived !!
The Getreidegasse near the Cathedral is Salzburg′s busiest lane: one super-expensive boutique next to another show that the average tourist visiting Salzburg is definitely not the type of person that keeps the city going. The stores in the Getreidegasse make most of their money with the rich guests of the Salzburg Festival. Sangeeta and me kept looking for the brands which were NOT there rather than the ones which were there !! From Omega ,Versace , Mont Blanc etc etc –they have it all .The difference between this street and lets say Oxford Street in London is that these stores are housed in quaint little buildings and narrow cobbled streets and squares .
The Getreidegasse winds its way towards a yellowish colored building where everyone seems headed – this is Mozart birthplace. The Mozart family had rented a flat in the house of the wealthy merchant Lorenz Hagenauer.We were finally looking at the house in which the great man was born .!!We were confronting history !!" There was studied silence .It was clear that his reputation was following him .We took a number of photographs 
A very interesting part of the street is the way a shop is advertised .We were told that in olden times most people did not know how to read or write .So they could not figure out lets say a cobblers shop .So what did they do – they hung a shoe outside the shop to denote that it was a shoemakers shop .!! Same for watches ,clothes ,carpenters ,bricks (hang a brick ), etc .Absolutely fascinating .!1 Beautiful street .
There is a pedestrian bridge that connects the Old Town ( where the Castle is ), to the New Town .This bridge is built over the river that separates the two parts of the town – Salzach.The bridge is called the Makarsteg Bridge .But it is a bridge with a difference .A sea of of padlocks are attached to the fence just below the railing of the bridge.What are these padlocks doing there ? Actually, according to some sources the practice was fueled by the Italian movie, I Want You, based on the book of the same name by Federico Moccia. Apparently two teen lovers attach a padlock engraved with their names to a lamppost on the Ponte Milvio in northern Rome, then throw the key into the River Tiber. The days of hearts carved on trees with a arrow piercing, with names like “Cintoo loves Bunty”, it are over !! 
Isn’t love grand! I stopped to try and read some engravings on the locks .But then I felt , it was like unexpectedly interrupting two lovers on a park bench, coming across all those locks of love. I smiled knowingly, recalling the sweet magic that comes with falling in love. I moved on .For all of you who are in love or “think” they are in love – take a trip to Salzburg , lock a padlock and throw it into the Salzach River and whisper – “till someone can retrieve the key from the river and open our lock –it will last !!”.
Salzburg is seeped in History ,Music and Romance ! Don’t miss seeing it .It will just cost you the price of a Iphone or Apple laptop.You must choose spending your money judiciously !!

Ellie Wiesel -Even Death Cant Silence Your Voice .

Facebook is a great platform that has brought millions together .Its a great platform to express oneself  .It is heavily populated – probably the most populated space in the world today .However – at some levels , it smacks of artificiality .A lot of people log onto facebook to see the amount of “likes” , a particular photograph, dress or achievement  evokes .At many levels it is place to show off – your foreign travels ,your kids achievements ,your celebrity friends, your writng skills , and so on .Its like a Page 3 of a newspaper –interesting but in most cases not too serious .Majority of  its members wouldn’t care less whats on the editorial page !! That’s why – Facebook does not seem to have noticed the demise of one of  the greatest voices of the 20^th century .And even if they have heard his name –they know very little about this remarkable human being

He was Ellie Wiesel , a Professor of Humanities at the Boston University and a Nobel Prize winning human being .But that is not what he is famous for ( he was called a “ Living Memorial’’ ).He was among the few who survived a Nazi concentration camp and lived to tell its tale with a moral fibre that made everyone believe  what he said and wrote .

 Wiesel  was born  in Romania, and  was 15 when he was sent to the Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland with his family in 1944.

The future writer was later moved and ultimately freed from the Buchenwald camp in 1945. Of his relatives, only two of his sisters survived.

Wiesel said  that Auschwitz was "to this day, a source of shock and astonishment."

Wiesel survived the concentration camp ,and wrote a book which everyone should read .Its called “Night” , and is barely 115 pages or so .In the book Wiesel describes how the Nazis picked him and his family ,along with all the Jews from his home in Sighet. In his own words

“One by one, they passed in front of me,-teachers, friends, others, all those I had been afraid of, all those I could have laughed at, all those I had lived with over the years. They went by, fallen, dragging their packs, dragging their lives, deserting their homes, the years of their childhood, cringing like beaten dogs.”

“Night” recounted a journey of several days spent in an airless cattle car before the narrator and his family arrived in a place they had never heard of: Auschwitz. Mr. Wiesel recalled how the smokestacks filled the air with the stench of burning flesh, how babies were burned in a pit, and how a monocled Dr. Josef Mengele decided, with a wave of a bandleader’s baton, who would live and who would die. “ Women, and children below the age of 15 to the right , others to the left”  Mengele barked .  Mr. Wiesel watched his mother and his sister Tzipora walk off to the right, his mother protectively stroking Tzipora’s hair.To the right –meant the gas chambers ,to the left meant that men would be made to do labour and finally shot or gassed .

“I did not know that in that place, at that moment, I was parting from my mother and Tzipora forever,” he wrote.

In Auschwitz and in a nearby labor camp called Buna, where he worked loading stones onto railway cars,  Wiesel turned feral under the pressures of starvation, cold and daily atrocities. “Night” recounts how he became so obsessed with getting his plate of soup and crust of bread that he watched guards beat his father with an iron bar while he had “not flickered an eyelid” to help.In silence .

“Never shall I forget that night, the first night in camp, which has turned my life into one long night, seven times cursed and seven times sealed,” Mr. Wiesel wrote. “Never shall I forget that smoke. Never shall I forget the little faces of the children, whose bodies I saw turned into wreaths of smoke beneath a silent blue sky. Never shall I forget those flames which consumed my faith forever. Never shall I forget the nocturnal silence which deprived me, for all eternity, of the desire to live. Never shall I forget those moments which murdered my God and my soul and turned my dreams to dust. Never shall I forget these things, even if I am condemned to live as long as God himself. Never.”

 Ellie  Wiesel long grappled with what he called his “dialectical conflict”: the need to recount what he had seen and the futility of explaining an event that defied reason and imagination. In his Nobel speech, he said that what he had done with his life was to try “to keep memory alive” and “to fight those who would forget.”

“Because if we forget, we are guilty, we are accomplices. You kill a person again by forgetting  how he died him” he said forcefully .

"If I survived, it must be for some reason," said Wiesel. "I must do something with my life. It is too serious to play games with it  anymore, because in my place, someone else could have been saved. And so I speak for that person. On the other hand, I know I cannot.".

Death snuffed out that remarkable voice. In an interview to Oprah Winfrey he had said "What is abnormal is that I am normal. That I survived the Holocaust and went on to love beautiful girls, to talk, to write, to have toast and tea and live my life -- that is what is abnormal." .

Ellie Wiesel died yesterday .

But his voice will continue to reverberate. And all  you kids who go on the much touted NASA trips which schools organize – please do visit the Holocaust Memorial in Washington .Ellie Wiesel has contributed hugely to its set up. There is so much to learn from America apart from eating burgers ,drinking Coke ,Bloomingdales, Macys, Times Square .!! I would like to end with my favourite quote of his

"The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference. The opposite of beauty is not ugliness, it's indifference. The opposite of faith is not heresy, it's indifference. And the opposite of life is not death, but indifference between life and death.”