The memories are in sepia. With a sound track by Ultravox, interspersed with buskers’ music in a pedestrian street at night. It was many years ago, but even if I’d been to Vienna yesterday, it would still seem like many years ago. Vienna has that quality about it. Old. Ancient. In the best way possible.
The people too. Old. Young couples people weren’t making that many babies anymore, and the younger people were leaving for more ‘exciting’ cities. The self-sufficiency of jobs and independence of lifestyles took precedence over such mundane things as marriage and children. So that when the senior citizens saw a baby in the streets, they all turned parental and protective. God save the mother, who dared to raise her hand at her children, from the wrath of Austrian matrons.
They particularly adored Anjora. All of a year old, with huge melting black eyes and black hair coming down in a fringe, and golden brown skin, she was the rarest of sights on a Viennese street: an Indian, and that too, an Indian baby. The usually reserved Austrians gushed over her unashamedly, and struck up conversations [with liberal doses of recipes for Austrian home remedies] with her parents Lisa and Allwyn, old friends from Goa whom we were visiting.
Somehow, one of the most beautiful memories of Vienna was a trip outside it. To Grinzing, a wine drinking region where people come each year to taste the new wine, not the old; and where Beethoven composed my favourite symphony of all time, The Pastorale. I made it a point to carry it on cassette in my Walkman [the compact disc hadn’t been invented yet], excused myself from my friends for an hour, walked up the very hills where he composed it, and had the experience of my life. Even the Grand Opera Hall in Paris could not compete with the backdrop of those Austrian peaks. Not so surprisingly, besides picturing Beethoven lying there listening to the birds and taking down notes, I was also juxtaposing the Von Trapp family fleeing the Nazis and singing Edelweiss in syncopation with The Pastorale.
The robust Austrian beer afterwards, served by equally robust and pretty, rosy-cheeked Austrian waitresses in traditional low-necked blouses hugging generous bosoms, in a rural restaurant where everyone sat together on long wooden benches, was the perfect sequel to The Pastorale. The accordionists broke into good old Viennese waltzes, everyone intertwined their arms and swayed together to the music, beer mugs in hand, and the whole restaurant suddenly felt like home and family. The succulent Austrian sausages and potatoes that followed must have nourished many a Beethoven composition.
Oh, Vienna… I’d love to return to you one day, even though I’ve stopped drinking and turned vegetarian since I saw you last.