Sanctuary Of Random Keystrokes

I recently finished reading Aldous Huxley’s The Devils Of Loudon. While the main subject of the book was the chain of events that culminated in the burning of Urbain Grandier at the stake, there were plenty of insightful asides that paint a vivid picture of the life in a 17th century French commune. I found this passage morbidly fascinating:

M. Adam and his fellow apothecaries sold Perpetual Pills of metallic antimony. These were swallowed, irritated the mucous membrane as they passed through the intestine, thus acting as a purgative and be recovered from the chamber pot, washed and used again, indefinitely. After the first capital outlay, there was no further need for spending money on catharitics. Dr. Patin might fulminate and the Parlement forbid; but for the costive French bourgeois the appeal of antimony was irresistible. Perpetual Pills were treated as heirlooms and after passing through one generation were passed on to the next.

We now look at the medeival doctors’ understanding of the human body; their bloodlettings, clysters and humors, with a sense of pity mingled with horror. Considering we began figuring out anitbiotics less than 90 years ago and that we were still discovering vitamins till as late as 1941, I wonder how much there is that we still don’t know. More importantly, will the generation 200 years from now look at our present medical practices and shake their heads in disbelief at our ignorance?

Within a day of writing this post, the fog in Amsterdam went away and so far it hasn’t shown any sign of returning – not even early in the morning. This is the view it had been cutting us off from:

The houses across the river look like carved, lit-up Halloween pumpkins. It’s hard to imagine sometimes that each distant illuminated window is a house with people, lives and stories. I can stare at the lights of moving ships and ferries and their colourful reflections for hours without tiring.

The last day of a vacation is always an uneasy one. You are torn between the desire to visit another new place and the necessity of getting to the airport in time for your flight. And this while not wanting to rush things.

We wanted to visit the observation tower at the Petřín hill. By the time we checked out of our hotel, caught a tram and reached the hill, it was already noon. Bells tolled at the cathedral on the otherwise quiet hill and as we started walking towards the tower, their distant echo could be heard.

There were parks on the hill and benches under shady trees. We saw a local climb one of the pear trees there and throw pears on the grassy ground below for his partner to collect. The wife approached the couple, asked if she could pick some of them and returned with four juicy specimens of the fruit. By this time we had realized that we wouldn’t have time to make it all the way to the tower so we just grabbed one of the benches and munched on the pears.

Sometimes memories of things completely unrelated to the place that you are visiting linger the longest. One such memory that’s still with me is of an old man walking past us with a loud radio. The song on his radio was familiar – Johnny Cash’s Ring of Fire – but in a language I didn’t understand (given where we were, it must be Czech).

On our walk from the hill to the nearest tram station we came across some fascinating buildings…

…street cafés…

…and other interesting things.

We stood for a few minutes staring at this ornate gate of the German embassy:

At the tram stop we turned around for one look back at the streets we had been walking through.

All along our stay in Prague, the light had either been too dull or too harsh. On the tram ride back to the hotel I saw Charles Bridge illuminated by the most perfect light that a photographer could ask for. Pity it wasn’t our first day here!

As October approached, the days here began to get shorter. The sun, which used to rise right in front of our window, began its south-easterly journey. Within a few days it had moved past the window’s frame. It was all very welcome. Dawns became a protracted, festive affair. At first you’d only sense the approach of dawn by the glowing contrails of airplanes that looked like tails of comets.

And then the sun would rise with a lot of theatrics.

Sure, on cloudy days the sunrises would be a vapid affair – like a dimmer gradually being dialed up. But there was always a chance that the clouds would clear up in time for a glorious sunrise.

From the past few days, Amsterdam has been enveloped in a thick, impenetrable layer of fog. I am no stranger to fog. Having grown up in Delhi I am used to fog, smog and other flight-disrupting variants thereof. In fact there is a certain charm about a foggy morning. The old becomes a shade newer, the familiar becomes a touch mysterious.

And a city like Amsterdam with its numerous canals, bridges and old houses, becomes all too fairy-tale like.

But the fog of the last few days has been in a different league. It swallows everything in its wake. The view from our window in the morning is no longer a river but an opaque, white wall in which we only see our living room reflected. Despite this virtual doubling of the floor space, it feels a bit claustrophobic. Like being hemmed in by walls contracting inwards.

I stepped out yesterday to take a few pictures and it was like stepping into a post-apocalyptic world of a Philip K. Dick novel.

Thankfully for us, we invested in a big, bright lamp a few days ago. It’s going to be our private little sun in the coming days. That and Haydn’s Sunrise and Sun quartets will see us through.

But they’re three!