Dining Table Conversations
The power of resolution, communication, and food
As I grow older and continue to evolve as a person, my travels continue to evolve as well. While I still enjoy seeing new places, I have come to regard people as the heart of my travel. A lot of times, this leads me to places I wouldn’t go to as a tourist. One such place was Dresden, Germany. I only spent a day there but it’s a day that will stay with me for a long time to come. My friend Frida took me to meet her parents, whom I will refer as uncle and aunty (because our friend’s parents can only be referred to as uncle and aunty. I’ve realised it isn’t just an Indian thing, it’s a practice followed in most ex-British colonies).
I want to write about the 24 hours I spent in Dresden and the conversations I had. There won’t be a lesson, a moral, a plea or even a question at the end of this post; it is merely my attempt to hold on to those 24 hours forever because they made me look at life differently. They made me realise the importance of owning up to our history and how to forgive ourselves while continue to create positive stories. They taught me the importance of preserving our culture and made me think about how I would like to raise my children someday.
Frida and I know each other from our days in Buenos Aires and I was very excited about meeting her again in Berlin, where she now lives. On a warm and sunny Saturday afternoon in mid-October (while we enjoyed a sunny day in October, we couldn’t help but recongnise the effects of global warming), we took a Flixbus from Berlin to Dresden after having take-out Chinese for lunch. We reached Dresden in about two hours and thus began the 24 hours that I want to hold on to. Uncle and aunty picked us up and we started off by hiking by the Elbe. In the next few hours, we did a lot more than hiking — we ate cake at a cafe on top of the hiking trail (Germany, you know how to make hiking likable), we took a ferry, and took some great photos. When Frida and I reached the highest point as the sun was setting, we made a promise to always push ourselves because there’s beauty on the other side of working your hardest. That night, Frida and I painted the town red and ended up at a Latin party (and of course danced to Despacito). At the end of the night, Frida told me that aunty was going to make us a traditional German Sunday lunch the next day.
Despite sleeping at 3:00 AM, I woke up at 8:00 AM the next morning excited for a day of cooking. It was a beautiful Sunday morning with the sun flowing into the kitchen. As aunty led the cooking, we sat around trying to help her and chatted as laughter flowed. I was sampling German food while we were debating whether tea or coffee was the better beverage. I probably took more than a dozen mental images of that morning. There is nothing more beautiful than a family cooking together.
Lessons from the dining table
While Frida and aunty were making their famous potato cakes, uncle told me about how the family had moved from the West to East Germany after the wall fell and how they came to call Dresden home. He told me how it wasn’t easy for them in the beginning just as it wasn’t easy for the people in the East to accept anybody that wasn’t theirs. I learnt management lessons from his experience and our conversation that morning.
Uncle told me that a team from the West was brought to work with the East in his organisation. Because of the way things were set under the Soviets, a lot of changes were going to be made. His team and he knew that they had tough decisions to make and the first thing that they did was to create a team from the East that would also be a part of the decision making. They wanted to know what was the situation on the ground and not take decisions based on their understanding alone. He told me that they spent months analysing the pros and cons but it was also important that they not overthink their strategy and take the plunge. There was never going to a perfect time.
My favourite lesson from the conversation was how he used coffee to break down the walls that still existed after the wall fell. His most effective tool was his little espresso machine. He was able to connect with people on both sides over hundreds of cups of coffee. That is how he was able to rise above the situation and make a human connection. More proof that food has the power to solve the world’s problems.
The Power of Empathy and Thoughtfulness
We were done with the cooking around 11:00 AM and as Frida and I were setting the table, I saw a lot of souvenirs the family had from all over the world. Uncle and aunty had sent each of their children for exchange programs to different countries and had invited children from different parts of the world for an exchange experience. They believed in the importance of children seeing differences between their culture and the rest of the world and learning empathy by experiencing life.
After having one of the best meals of my life, we headed out into the city to see Dresden. On the way, we stopped by aunty’s incredible toy store and I got a special tour from the owner herself. As we approached the city center, Frida and her parents told me about the Dresden bombing and the rebuilding that happened later. Between the 13th and 15th of February 1945, Dresden’s city center was all but destroyed. After the war and again after the reunification, a lot of effort went into rebuilding Dresden. Throughout the conversation, I noticed that Frida and her parents did not shy away from admitting the role Germany had played during the war and saw the bombing as a casualty of the war. I also noticed that they emphasised on the rebuilding of the city and the country, the thought behind it, and how they believe in the power of knowledge in avoiding a situation like that again.
A lot of things I saw and learnt that weekend revolved around rebuilding and reconciliation. I’m sure things weren’t always easy and it wasn’t always smooth sailing but to rise out of darkness needs a special kind of resilience. Thinking of that weekend and recollecting Frida and her parents’ stories fill me with a sense of warmth in my heart. It was during this weekend that I truly realised the power of hate, the power of love, the power of resolution, the power of learning from the past, the power of communication, the power of empathy and thoughtfulness, and the power of food.