He caught me as I tried to enter the General Post Office, no doubt scenting easy prey. "You must be wanting to send a packet abroad! Give it to me, I'll pack it for you in cloth, for only twenty rupees!" I looked up and saw a middle-aged man whose figure barely filled the threadbare jacket he was wearing. He grinned tensely and straightened the baseball cap on his head. I answered hesitantly, "Well, all right, but I won't pay you twenty rupees for it, that's too expensive!" We sat down to bargain under an old fig tree.
He promised to do a first-rate job, I tried to get him to reduce his price by feigning impatience. I finally offered him fifteen rupees. He pulled out a misshapen piece of cotton cloth and began to measure the cardboard box. My suggestion that he use a larger piece of cloth went unheeded. His botching made me nervous but I tried to control myself because this was probably the only rag he possessed. To distract me, he started narrating his life story. Earlier, he used to assemble grenades in a weapons factory in the North; then he was a watchman for many years in Mumbai. However, he was fired because he was caught sleeping on duty. Now he can't find a job because he had never attended school. When the post office closes for the day, he peddles smuggled medicines, illegally distilled liquor, porn videos. "After all, one must use every opportunity to make money."
The cloth finally proved too small for the box so he was forced to rip up the seam again. The measurements began afresh. But I had lost my patience by now. My voice grew louder, I called him a good-for-nothing fraud. Passers-by stopped to watch and smiled with amusement, seeming much entertained. I protested and appealed to them to bring this dilettante to his senses. But they just grinned. Finally, just before I could explode, something dawned on me. All of a sudden, I too saw a funny side to the story. With each new patch, the packet was beginning to resemble a masterpiece. Its creator didn't show any signs of despair, rather he took every new failure as an opportunity to narrate humorous anecdotes and make surreal promises. I forgot the packet-packer and started listening to the storyteller. Slowly the smiles of the passers-by were reflected on my lips too. A spontaneous solidarity was established under that fig tree, bonded by the absurd humour of a petty scoundrel. "If a crow bombs your head, then be happy-it's lucky. My palm is itching again-money will come-I'll get lots and lots of money!"

India: myths and reality from a German point of view

"You've been living for five years in India!" German acquaintances remark with incredulity and a touch of concern. The assurance that I like it here is taken with a pinch of salt. From a German point of view, India often seems to be a poorhouse, a colossus crippled by outdated attitudes which is done for. For most Germans India is associated with political chaos, obscure customs and fatal diseases. "The special characteristic of the Indian image for Germans is that, on the one hand they observe a certain respect for the traditions and culture of the land, but on the other a deep contempt is also evident," writes Rajan R. Malviya, an Indian entrepreneur who has been living for many years in Germany. He has come to the conclusion that Germans at every level of education evaluate India in terms of clich‚s: the mentality and the caste system are to blame for the widespread poverty; the Indians should slaughter their holy cows so that they can eat their fill; an unchecked libido is responsible for the population explosion. Very few Germans might be willing to say this out loud, but they think it all the same.
Indian journalist, Pankaj Chattopadhyay, also resident in Germany for many years, holds the German media responsible for this state of affairs. According to him, the reports on India revel in sensational stories of poverty, violence and corruption and simply gloss over the deformation of Indian society during the colonial era and the discrimination against India in the international economic system: "Instead of awakening solidarity interest in India, the reports tend more towards conveying the feeling of 'a hopeless case' and thus evoke unthinking resignation in a majority of the readers."
Private conversations with German residents in India always lead, as if by remote-control, to the great lament: people in India are no doubt very warm and helpful, but one just can't rely on anything here. The telephone lines and electricity supply break down all the time, the bureaucracy is steeped in corruption, the natives are too laid-back and hence unreliable. Certainly nothing works trouble-free in India, but that is the very reason that people are cordial and tolerant in their dealings with each other. When I visit an Indian friend unannounced, he drops everything else and offers me tea. The work just remains lying around a little longer. Friendship and neighbourly help are a hundred times more important to him than the mechanical performance of duty.

Hitler and the Autobahn: How Indians view Germany

We met on a night train to Bangalore. "Good evening, are you German?" the young Indian asked. "Allow me to introduce myself, my name is Adolf!" "Pleased to meet you!" I replied as a reflex. Thereafter I began to ponder. An Indian named Adolf? During the course of the conversation it turned out his father was an ardent admirer of Hitler and had therefore bestowed upon his son Hitler's first name. The wretched dictator is still the most famous German in India. He is admired as a statesman who led his country to power and glory and weakened the colonial might of England. Like no other, Adolf Hitler symbolises German discipline and will-power, traits that many members of the Indian middle-class miss in their own country. Rumours that Hitler supported the Indian freedom movement stubbornly refuse to die out.

When I first came to India in 1977, I cashed one D-Mark for three Indian rupees at the bank counter. Since then I have become rich because today the exchange rate is one to forty two. Just the colour of my skin makes me a rich man in India, attracts beggars and provokes businessmen to request me for assistance in the export of their products to Germany. Street-hawkers demand more from me since they know that I am in a better position to pay than most of their Indian customers.
In an opinion poll, Indian students who had enrolled for a German language course at the Max Mueller Bhavan in Pune marked diligence and honesty as the outstanding qualities of the Germans. These were felt to be the reason for their prosperity, manifested in Autobahns and Hi-Tech. The traits "friendly," "sensitive," "generous," were however generally not associated with Germans by the interviewees.

"I remember Germany as being cold," complains 20-year old Naznin, who worked for eight months as an au-pair girl in Frankfurt. "Many people there were sad, lived withdrawn and lonely lives. Germany is no doubt rich in luxury and material wealth, but it is poor in humaneness and sociability. It's exactly the opposite in India!" This opinion was expressed even before foreigners began to be beaten and murdered in Germany.

Learning from India

Germans love to think of themselves as achievers: achieve something in life, change the world, enjoy life actively up to an old age. We are proud to be leaders among the "industrialised nations" while the rest of the world strives to emulate us. Machines make our life easier, never have we enjoyed so much prosperity-for us! But today we know that "progress" has its own price. In a collective mania of "nothing is impossible," we have declared war on nature all over the world. We gouge immeasurable wealth from the depths of the earth but we cannot distribute this wealth equitably. Violence thus permeates an increasing number of areas in public and private life. In a daily struggle for money and career, human emotions and qualities are left by the wayside. The westerner trains himself and his environment to be efficient. He calls this "progress".
In India there are limits to this progress. The cultural and ethnic diversity refuses to be unified in the name of efficiency and rationality. Attachment to traditions and religious customs opposes science's manic omnipotence. In the city, I have often observed a group of cows, chewing their cud and resting calmly on a busy crossing, oblivious of horns and engine noises. The motto here is live and let live.
Whenever I went to the post office, I found I wanted to quickly finish what I thought to be my priority of the moment. This obsession with goals almost made me lose out on a wonderful acquaintance and one that allowed me to perceive a humourous way of dealing with problems of efficiency. It opened up a new reality to me.
I think Indians go through life more relaxed than we Germans. Their perception, their feeling is more strongly oriented to the "here and now," because they believe that this life is only one of many. Till the attainment of Nirvana, the soul will pass through thousands of lives more and hence one does not need to achieve all goals at one go. Meanwhile, in Europe, each moment passes irretrievably and history moves forward linearly into an unknown future. Indian time advances in circles. Everything returns to the origin at some point of time or the other. The Hindi-word kal means both "tomorrow" as well as "yesterday." The movement of time is slower in India. Outside the big cities, life is generally unhurried and free of stress.
In German households, the skin on heated milk is thrown in the garbage; Indian housewives collect the cream and make clarified butter (ghee) out of it. Ghee is said to be a gift of the gods and can be stored for weeks even without a refrigerator. Long before the Germans discovered the "Green Point", millions of Indian families were habitually collecting glass bottles, newspapers and scrap material and selling them to second-hand dealers. It was only in India that I discovered how we Europeans squander foodstuffs and natural resources.
Upon conversion into rupees, my mark-earned in Germany-acquired ten times its purchasing power. I feel all the more ashamed when I again stand, helpless, face to face with the outrageous poverty of many Indian families. Give alms, yes, of course, but how does it help? I gladly give a little more than what is usual in the vegetable market or for favours, but that is just a drop in the ocean. I feel fortunate that my profession allows me the opportunity to give poverty a public voice.
My Indian wife works as a teacher. She and her relatives are willing to make do with old utensils that have often been repaired several times, while my German consumer habit tells me: "Throw away and buy new!" Consequently, it's not very uncommon that a discussion on a new purchase leads to a serious marital quarrel. India now teaches me to be more modest and frugal. A very useful lesson because if all 900 million inhabitants of this huge country were to squander their limited resources in the manner in which we in our "civilised" western world are accustomed, humanity would be soon extinct.