Tags:
Journalism of Courage
It was to be my first trip abroad over two decades ago, and my first port of call was to be Germany. Travelling with a husband who swore by everything German, their professionalism, sense of perfection, sturdy, dependable products, et al, I was reasonably reassured. But since he was essentially on a business trip, I knew I would be spending a lot of my time discovering places on my own. Most of my preconceived notions of the country and its people came via American and English writers and Hollywood 8212; needless to add, they were hardly positive!
Anticipated horrors and what do you know? You are confronted with them! I was sure the painfully thin, blonde immigration officer was going to find something wrong with my passport and visa by the way he kept peering at it through his steel-rimmed glasses and then glancing at me only later I learnt that all the while the document was being photocopied! Though this was years before 9/11, we had to still walk through metal detectors and while I was about to cross, the beeps went on an overdrive which led to a female officer taking me aside for frisking. She could find nothing objectionable and after a hurried consultation with a male colleague, she pointed to the zari on my sari and asked, 8220;Iz zat metal?8221; I nodded and both of us sighed in relief.
I was stupefied. I spent the rest of the hours in Bremen, mulling over this. To be told by a German that Aryans in southern India had names with a preponderance of 8216;A8217;s! Over the next few days and after my return, I listed every single Brahmin name in Tamil Nadu I could think of, or gather 8212; from Akhileswaran to Yagneeswaran 8212; and, sure enough, while there were other vowels, the most predominant and prolific vowel was 8216;A8217;!
