Munich Memories: Life's precious
Pengba Aruuba Eshingee *
Hitler is long gone, but his brutalities are still alive in Manipur..
The old suitcase needed a bit of a dusting, having been lying there at corner unused for sometime. And when time came to use it again, poor thing .. it seemed to have declared "I am old and out". The zipper was no longer willing close its mouth and the handle no longer willed to be handled.
So the preperation for the trip to Munich began on a rather strange note. Starting with shopping, just the reverse of what usually was done in other trips.
Nevertheless the idea of going there and witness a historic place, a country where a man called Adolf Hitler changed the course of mankind's history, kept the mind ticking.
A quick Google search showed temperature hovering around two degrees celscius at the destination, which meant all the warm clothes made their way inside the new suitcase.
All set, and even before one could realise, the Lufthansa flight was already about to touch 30,000 feet for the cruise control mode.
Europe in March is perhaps at its ugliest. The snow is gone but the chilly winds made their presence felt. So did the drizzles. The dry trees stood still to remind the winter blues, like the survivors in Schindler's List living to narrate their tales of the holocaust.
Yet, Munich with its perfect blend of the modern era with the old world charms had a lot to offer to even short-trip tourists.
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Places like the Mareinplatz, the heart of the city, with its Old Town Hall, the New Town Hall, St Mary's Column told stories of the days of Middle Ages, when the locals used to come to the square -- better desrcibed as a market, not only for shopping but also for festivities and tournaments.
On the other hand, the Four Cylinder BMW building stood as a proud reminder to the world of the engineering genius of the Germans, their gift to the automotive world. The Munich University, in the meantime continue to churn out those brilliant minds.
So far so good. And the experience of coming across number plates like 'MNZ 4529', brought about a familiarity, of those days in Manipur, when one was in the process of attaining adulthood and dreamt of owning one's own car.
The nostalgia was, however, cut short by flat world of Internet. A peek at www.e-pao.net in the midst of a packed schedule broke the news of the gory killings of non-Manipuris back home. Miles away, far from the once "Heaven on Earth", there was this chilling feel that perhaps Hitler must have taken a rebirth there to continue his unfinished business.
Without any political affiliations, any sane mind would not have understood why lives were taken so mercilessly. In Hitler's land, standing in front of the Munich Olympic Stadium, where Israeli athletes where gunned down in 1972, one wondered does human existence have to be so intrinsically linked to race, colour, caste and creed?
Perhaps Hitler and his descendants in Manipur think so.
* Pengba Aruuba Eshingee, a pseudonym, is a regular contributor e-pao.net. You can email the writer at penbga(AT)rediffmail(DOT)com. This article was webcasted on March 21 2007.
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