Dutch delight

From brash bikers on the roads to picnics in a Parliament courtyard, from the tracery of canals to the angst of immigrant identity, we bring you snapshots from the Netherlands

The road in amsterdam is a plural place. Running down the middle, cleaving it into equal halves is the tram lane. Each half of the road is further divided into the cycle lane and the path for pedestrians. You may drive your car on the remaining strip of road, if you must. The corridors run mostly separate and parallel. But the impression of tight discipline 8212; a Dutch stereotype and also said to be a practical necessity in a country with one of the world8217;s highest levels of population density 8212; fades at the crossings. Every encounter is an unequal one. A helmeted species on two wheels claims right of way.

Bikers are brash and domineering as they whiz down the road; car drivers are on the defensive. In drawing room conversations, a politically incorrect backlash may be brewing in a country where the bicycle is a serious form of transport 8212; high-flying executives in black suits cycle to work and there is approximately one bicycle for each inhabitant. But for now, on the road, the biker wins the argument.

IF AMSTERDAM is the multi-coloured city of people, canals and museums, The Hague is instantly recognisable as the seat of government. Even the spillover of the cafeacute; on the street can be deceptively irreverent in The Hague. The city centre is still by 6 in the evening; all shops and many eating places close down.

Especially in The Hague, it has become fashionable to talk of the distance between government and the people. On paper, the evidence does look formidable. Incumbency has recently become a hazard in this traditionally complacent country, politics has been especially unstable in the last five years or so. Now every election sees major swings in vote.

But walk into the Parliament complex in The Hague and there is an unselfconscious neighbourliness between people and their representatives. The Parliament building is imposing but there is no forbidding gate, and no frisking. They say things have changed since 9/11, but you could probably still saunter right up to the prime minister8217;s office.

On some days, free access to Parliament may be denied for security reasons. On most days, it is routine for the ubiquitous bikers to speed through the small courtyard that stretches between the two wings of Parliament, to the road on the other side. People laze on the benches in the courtyard. On Sundays, they bring their lunch and make it a picnic. Inside the two Houses, the debate is said to be polite; voices are seldom raised.

IT8217;S THE same matter-of-factness at the Noordeinde Palace, the Queen8217;s working palace in the heart of The Hague her living palace, the Huis ten Bosch, stands on the city8217;s rim. Right outside the modest palace gate, the road is busy with passing vehicles, drifting leaves, a smattering of pigeons and uncurious pedestrians.

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For all the remoteness of Queen Beatrix, head of the Dutch Royal House of Orange-Nassau whose ties with the Netherlands go back 600 years, there is no lonely splendour here. The palace is set in a largely residential neighbourhood, flanked on one side by a shopping complex.

WATER IS everywhere in the Netherlands. It flows through canals in the cities. It criss-crosses the countryside, dotted with windmills and dressed in colours borrowed from a Van Gogh canvas.

But water wasn8217;t always the aesthetic presence in the Netherlands. The Dutch had to reclaim land from the water to build on it; nearly one-third of the country lies below sea level. The shared fight against water has given the Dutch their earliest social contract in the form of the regional water boards; to it can be traced the most abiding metaphors of the 8216;Dutch way8217;.

Having done battle with it, and after domesticating it, the Dutch are romantic about water. They swim in the canal and park their boats along its sides. Large houseboats are used as alternative homes for some months in a year, a nostalgic nod to the more free-floating life-styles of the 1960s. In winter, when the water freezes over, children skate on the canals.

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FROM THE outside, Sarnami House in The Hague is indistinguishable from the other buildings on the street. Inside is a rare ambience. Immaculately preserved artifacts 8212; old manuscripts, photographs, clothes, tools and utensils 8212; tell the fascinating story of a double displacement, or a double homecoming. This is the story of the Surinami Indians in the Netherlands 8212; about 160,000-200,000 in a country of 16 million.

From 1873 to 1916, 34,304 men and women traveled in 64 ships from UP and Bihar to work as contract labour in plantations of the Dutch colony of Surinam. They came on a five-year contract and stayed on. Many opted to settle in the Netherlands when Surinam became independent in 1975. The discussion in Sarnami House echoes the escalating disquiet on issues of identity and immigration outside, especially after 9/11.

Though it is the Moroccans and Turks who bear the brunt, a palpable discomfort hangs inside Sarnami House. There is talk of the growing toll of 8216;integration8217;. A generation is growing up with a heightened sense of its own difference. Interestingly, in their search for roots, young Surinamese Indians often skip a beat. India, not Surinam, is their country of longing.