Remembering the past

It has been a while since he saw Pune last; in fact,since leaving the city in the late seventies,he has been here just once,almost a decade ago. The city that Dirk Angelroth,former director of the Max Mueller Bhavan (1974-78),sees now has changed radically,but he still has a lot of affinity for Pune. Angelroth,who launched the English translation of his book Die weiße Frau im Baum (The White Woman in the Tree) on Tuesday at the institute,has written all the humorous memoirs from his time in Asia. Also present for the launch were Mohan Agashe and the translator of the book,Hem Mahesh. “My book is basically a collection of anecdotes from my time in South Asia. I have stories from India,Philippines,Indonesia,Pakistan,and even Australia. The cultures in these countries are fascinating and completely different from what I had experienced back in Germany,” says Angelroth. One of the stories talks about how,while transporting monkeys to Mumbai,the animals escaped at Chennai Airport. “It was utter mayhem,with half the people getting scared and the other half feeding the monkeys bananas,” he recalls with a grin. The eponymous story deals with a tree in Indonesia and how it was supposedly haunted by the spirit of a white woman. “And though the tree was in a bad shape,I was not allowed to cut it down. For all I know,the tree is still there,” he says. He is also very nostalgic about the city,as it was 30 years ago. “Pune as I remember it was a very quiet city,very open,but today,it has become very crowded. But it has also become very modern and artistic. The vehicles here are clear indicators – earlier,there used to be only fiats and ambassadors,if at all. Today,one will be hard-pressed to find these cars,” he smiles.