I don´t know in what context Ghalib wrote this famous couplet but today i experienced it, first-hand. it was easily one of the strangest and the ugliest experince of my life; something i am still trying to understand and come to terms with after almost two hours of it happening. I have been living in Berlin for last 11 weeks in a room owned by a old German lady. it has been generally a nice and comfortable stay in a tastefully decorated and well-kept room. the land lady has been decent to me uptil now and i have tried my best to reciprocate even though there is a huge communication gap between us as she does not understand a word of English and i do not understand German.
i had rented the place for 75 days ending on 15th August as i have to catch my flight early morning on 16th. Today when i came back from Paris after a long bus journey at 11 am, i was told that i have to pack my bags vacate the house by 12 am sharp. i resisted and requested to allow me to stay till late evening, say 11 or 12 Pm. But this was refused with a feroicity i had never expected. so, i started packing but it was not possible to put together the mess of 75 days in less than 30 minutes. this drove my landlady crazy and she behaved in a way that not only offended me but also left me confounded. She was behaving as if i have not rented her house but grabbed it from her. i offered to pay one more days rent just to gratify her even though i thought i had a right to stay till 15th night or 16th early morning. but she won’t budge and you cannot fight for your rights in a foreign nation. more, she kept shouting at me like only a crazy person or a high blood pressure patient could. then she gave me one more shock: that she will keep 100 euros out of the 250 euros caution money i had paid.
i had had enough by now and i thought being soft and decent were being taken for granted. So, i told her firmly that i will leave ony when i have packed my bags and that would take at least two hours. i also told as firmly as i could that i was not going anywhere till i got all my caution, the last penny of it. i went further, i said she would have to call police or physcally throw me and my wares out if she did not return my full caution. i am not sure now if i was gambling or was being firm. but it worked. She did negotiate a little more saying i would have to leave in 90 minutes and not 120 minutes and that she would return my full caution money. Not wanting anymore confrontation and live in that hostile place, i readily agreed to her condition.
but this was not the end of it. Once i had packed, a little earlier than our finally agreed deadline, she opened the door for me and made an gestured me to get out of her house with my bags and all. She had my caution money in her hand and she would pay me only once i was out of her property in the common space of the apartment i lived for last 11 weeks. i did that, followed her angry commands and moved out. i made one last ditch effort to have a rather cordial goodbye, so i said thanks to her and her son who also lives in the same house and understands and speaks english. But she would have none of my niceties. i must admit though that her son was being more reasonable to me even when working as a faithful translator for his mother.
i am out of her house now but am still shocked by her bitterness. i have really no idea why i suddenly became a persona-non-grata. i cannot remember anything between us that could have caused this much rancour, this much bitterness, this much hatred. in a way it was such a sad and unpleasant end to my relatively pleasant stay in Germany.
Till now i have been posting couplets of my choice, today i am posting one capturing what underwent and how it felt like. Anyway here goes the couplet of the day:
Nikalna khuld se Adam ka sunate aaye hain lekin
bade be-aabru hokar tere kuche se ham nikale
