- The sights, sounds and symphony of a Metropolis
Berlin loves black. Berlin is black. It has beauty of a beast, vengeance of a teenager, faith of a child, zeal of a fanatic, boredom that never gets satiated, life that keeps on coming back after every tired night, night that keeps on eating away days. Berlin is all this and more.
Berlin embraces everything and everyone. All sensations are groomed. All images are caressed. All noise is music. All oblivion finds its way back to memory. All wounds turn into flowery tattoos. All pain gets its voice in piercings. All happiness is transitory. All sadness is drowned in drugs, parties, student jobs, company of friends, literature, graffiti, long walks, train rides, double-decker buses, trams and small acts of innocuous rebellion.
Between the savagery that was the First World War and the monstrosity that was Nazisim, Germany had Weimar Republic. The decadent, self-obsessed, always-partying, always awake Berliners back in the 1920s and early 1930s, lived as if there was no tomorrow and yesterday was always a blur, a haze, a fog. It would be nice, if you just Google Weimar Republic, and delve deep into the roots of all that was Berlin. A history-ridden, sleepless, wondrous, ferocious place where the past hugs the present as the future takes a peek at this ever-present sight. All three; past, present and future, have a hearty laugh with tears in their eyes, sorrow in their heart and hope in their heads.
From being divided in two halves, East Germany and West Germany, where East was all high to prove its communist credentials and West selling its capitalist utopia to reunified Germany. Berlin has seen a lot. It has seen destitution. It has seen division. It was reduced to rubble. It rose like a phoenix. Only to become a Sisyphus, condemned to live the same reality, same ordeal, same travail, same destiny, over and over again, until the end of eternity.
Berlin discards nothing. The sewer and serene exist side by side. The homeless with trolleys filled with plastic and glass bottles they can return, get a refund, buy more alcohol and get wasted. The sorted-out, affluent, rich, moneyed ones who buy their Bombay Sapphires and expensive designer wines from Galleria at Alexanderplatz, drive around in their unpretentious cars i.e. Audi, Volkswagen, Mercedes and BMW’s, least bothered to brandish their wealth, exist amidst a sea of humanity trying to solve itself, resolve its doubts, transcend its limits, go beyond all that is and towards something that could be.
Berlin is where even anarchist’s respective red line. You can be whatever you want in here. Your sexual orientation-no what it is, your religion-or lack of it, your color-black, brown, white, your ethnicity-Turk, South Asian, Chinese, your language-English, German, Turkish, Hindi, your culture-and your love or hatred of it, your past-one you cherish or one you want to escape from.
Berlin worships the potential of every individual to ruin and/or become who they are destined to become. Berlin is a mirror. A mirror showing every individual their inner demons, their deeper desires, their rhyme, the color they are inside, the shadows they are scared of, the realities they aim to escape, and the lies they live over and over again.
Berlin is where even anarchist’s respective red line. You can be whatever you want in here. Your sexual orientation-no what it is, your religion-or lack of it, your color-black, brown, white, your ethnicity-Turk, South Asian, Chinese, your language-English, German, Turkish, Hindi, your culture-and your love or hatred of it, your past-one you cherish or one you want to escape from.
Your world views-conservative, secular, libertarian, socialist, anarchist all take a back seat as you roam aimlessly around Brandenburg Gate to see the glory of the past, Alexanderplatz to get a feel of East Germany meeting West Germany, Zoologischer Garten for food or shopping, Charlottenburgh to feel good, Kurfurstandem to see every and any brand from Tesla to Louis Vuitton, Warschauer Straße to behold the decadence of youth, queers, techno-heads, and folks looking for good times.
Berlin is a demigoddess, who nourishes you and makes you feel life in all its glory and gore. Like a mother who just can’t scold her favorite son. Like a Dad, who just can’t stop loving his only daughter.
Berlin is a microcosm of what is best, worst, rotten and worth celebrating in humankind. With the history it had, the present it lives in and the future that is promising and bleak, its summers are heaven and its winters are gloomy.
Berlin has a long memory, but a short memory span. You can live a thousand lives, die a thousand deaths, live again, live more, die again and die some more. And every time, you start all over. Berlin comes with a restart button, that you keep on pushing until the push comes to shove. What do you get? Many perfect nights, many beautiful days, many sad evenings.
Berlin forgets its nights the moment it wakes up in the morning. All that happens in the night vanishes the morning after. Whatever your poison is, Berlin has it in abundance.
Black, black Berlin. A Phoenix-turned-Sisyphus which roars only to become silent, catch its breath and roar again.
And it roars again.
