Count Down

For maybe two weeks I was sad and down, as if I don’t know whether I should sit or stand. All of a sudden Hamburg is so intriguing, Germany is so intriguing, Europe is so intriguing and I am leaving. So much moving and leaving in two years doesn’t make it easier for me to pack. I perceived the limit of time so strongly and was stunned by the passing of time. My apartment can be so quiet that I heard my clock on the wall ticking. Tick tock. Tick tock. I felt the time slipping away from my fingers and I couldn’t grasp it.

I went to Heidelberg for no good reason. Because the overnight bus costs 18 euros only in return; because the idea of leaving made me greedy for Germany; none of the reasons is for Heidelberg itself and as predicted the trip was not much other than exhausting. I took a nap under the trees beside the castle and in Philosophenweg, and returned to Hamburg feeling spent but no less greedy. I still heard it, tick tock, tick tock.

Where else to visit? Plenty of choices and all of them seem the same. Revisit the places in Hamburg that I enjoyed, or go check the passage behind my apartment where hares are insatiably nibbling? Maybe I’ll have the luck to see a hedgehog walking so slow, so harmless? The sun sets and the darkness descends, and I go nowhere for I can’t decide which is the better option. Tick tock, tick tock.

I need to complete my thesis but there is so much trivia to take care of. The necessities of life become redundant one by one that all I am thinking is to get rid of them. The criteria for purchase become rigid. Buy a small pack of rice if necessary, buy a small bottle of sauce if necessary, or refrain from buying anything if a small pack is not available. I ate without tasting and wrote without thinking; just stuffed the stomach like I stuffed the pages. Get the last word of a sentence in the beginning of a line and yippee, start another paragraph!

Listen to Anjani a lot. Blue Alert, the lyrics from Leonard Cohen and thank G-d there is no need to put up with his “golden voice”. Anjani has such a beautiful voice. She sings sober and precise. The accompaniment is pushed far away in the background and all you hear is her, minimalist vocal plus a few notes from the piano here and there. She sings as if she sees things right through but decides to be tender and serene about it. There is a quality in her voice that even when she sings “I’ve never loved before” or “there is no one after you”, it is still credible. To say it with sophistication is different from saying it with naïveté. It is definitely better when she sings, “As many nights endure/ without a moon or star/ so will we endure/ when one is gone and far”. I listened to Anjani to comfort my thoughts but when it was done, again, “tick tock, tick tock”.

The requirement for the thesis is 80 to 100 pages, so 80 pages it is. I finished it at exactly 80 pages. Months ago Katja mentioned her worry about getting behind the deadline, and I said, “It’s not that difficult. As the deadline approaches, I lower my standard so eventually I make it.” They thought I was joking but I was not.

The books go back to the library and all readings become redundant now, yippee! I reject the idea that I will read them in the future so I am NOT taking them with me. To finish the thesis before leaving is exactly the same deed as in my teenage years: staying in school, completing the assignments so no textbooks in the bag and I could go home light. People don’t change do they.

The best part of the thesis is the acknowledgements, naturally. “The joy of completing the thesis is seriously interrupted by the knowledge that it is time to leave. Two years is not long enough to have someone embedded in a different culture, but when the departure is so near, it makes people feel disembedded.” Tick tock, tick tock.

I am eager to meet my classmates for one more time before I go but the mailing list is getting shorter. Only four are left but it’s actually three; I know that Jeff was off to Bonn for his internship. It’s just a tentative pull, knowing that it’s probably in vain.

This afternoon I came across the fresh made bread and was so tempted. I gave up the idea of making pasta, had the bread with butter instead and found it so delicious. I know I survive the worst, because hours later I am hungry again and can’t stop thinking what else to eat to meet my appetite.

Europe is elegant in the eye of departure, and it is going to end soon. But what is going to end? I don’t know. Ending means that something exists now but will cease to exist in the future. Unless I know about the future, I can’t possibly know what is going to end.

The lease of the apartment needs to be terminated, the modem needs to be returned, the sofa bed needs to be sold, and more small items to be disposed, consumed or tossed. Moving is such a waste: you get embedded, no matter how shallow, and get disembedded; the soil is lifted and it’s in vain. Tick tock, tick tock. But this is the way it is. Take a rest and gain the courage to endure the fruitlessness of life. Tenderness grows again from the heart to live a night without a moon or star. Tick tock, tick tock.

Technorati Tags:anjani, blue alert, leonard cohen

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Priyanka Leaving

Before leaving Germany, Priyanka came to stay with me for a few days then headed back home in Delhi. We got up at the interface of night and dawn, moving all the heaviness downstairs and sent them away. Leonard Cohen’s Alexandra Leaving haunted me in the head when we were in silence. And somehow the song stays.

“Say good-bye to Alexandra leaving
Say good-bye to Alexandra lost”

Alexandra Leaving is adapted from “The God Abandons Anthony”, a poem by Constantine P. Cavafy. Cavafy’s poem is about Markus Antonius’s last night in Alexandria, Egypt, knowing that the city would be taken by his enemy. In Cavafy’s depiction Anthony heard music and accepted his defeat “as if long prepared, as if courageous” when abandoned by his protector Dionysus. Leonard Cohen rewrites Cavafy’s poem and turns the city Alexandria into a woman Alexandra.

A woman left, a city lost. Alexandra Leaving starts with “suddenly the night has grown colder”, but that is not the case with Priyanka leaving. The spring arrives right after she left and it becomes brighter and warmer. No tears shed at the airport and life goes on in both Delhi and Hamburg. In my room there is still Leonard Cohen playing and on my book shelf there is still William Stafford standing.

There is nothing lost but something gained. The genuine conversation is still present in the room. That’s why things are better.
“We should have done this earlier,” said Priyanka.
“Yeah we should but we wouldn’t. We would only do this when you are leaving. If you leave in May we’ll do this in May.” And we laughed.

After a cigarette outside the airport (guess who is the one smoking), we came back to the end of the queue before the security and that’s where the departure began. “I’ll write to you and you can reply in your relaxed way… now I know you.” I laughed and she left.

“As someone long prepared for this to happen,
Go firmly to the window. Drink it in.
Exquisite music. Alexandra laughing.
Your firm commitments tangible again.”

Technorati Tags:leonard cohen, alexandra leaving, cavafy,

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