When I see T-shirts saying “I love New York” or “I love Paris” on the front, with the word “love” indicated by a heart-shaped symbol, I chuckle. What does “loving a city” even mean? It probably means “I had great fun visiting the city and would like to come back again”. How does loving a city compare with loving a person? “Loving” a woman has some of the following elements for a man: he must
i) enjoy being with her;
ii) miss her and crave her company if she is away;
iii) consider living the rest of his life with her and vi) thinks that she p osse sse s some sort of magic that cannot be quite articulated. Do I love any city using this definition? Of course, I love Kolkata; but that is like loving my mother. Just like my mother, I had no choice in the selection of the city where I was born, raised and educated. Naturally there is a bond there which would last forever. Like my mother, the city provided me with all the amenities for growing up.
Falling asleep in an express train while returning to Kolkata after a trip outside of West Bengal, listening to that “jhak jhak” sound of the wheels on track was like my mother swaying me to sleep in her arms after playing all day. Coffee at the College Street coffee house was as delicious as my mother’s milk. When I was away from home, I felt homesick both for my mother and Kolkata. I love the city of San Diego where I live with gusto. San Diego is like my wife. It is a joy living around her. San Diego has ocean and beaches, mountains and valleys, lakes and rivers, deserts and farmlands. Enjoying the natural beauty of San Diego is like watching my wife in various outfits and moods.
I married my wife after relentlessly pursuing her for years. I got a job in San Diego after years of looking for opportunities in coastal Southern California. I proudly invite friends and relatives to visit my city and meet my wife. Did I love any other city? What about Paris, Rome, London and Florence? They are all great cities but none of them was inviting enough for me to embrace them as mine. Before I visited these cities, I had heard so much about them, seen so many pictures, I had a pretty good idea about what to expect.
The Eiffel tower and Big Ben looked exactly the same as their countless pictures I had seen before. They were somewhat surreal but not tantalizing enough to sacrifice my marriage to San Diego for. Vienna was different, simply because I had no prior expectations. I went there on business. All I knew was that Vienna was the capital of Austria. I fell in love with Vienna at first sight as soon as I arrived there, and the love affair only grew as I explored the neighborhoods in buses and streetcars. First there were some obvious aspects. The city was clean and organized.
It was less hectic and crowded than Paris, Rome or London. There were no homeless people on the street side or panhandlers bugging you. Everything necessary for convenient living, shopping and getting around was there without need for a struggle. Everyone spoke English, a key necessity for living in a foreign country. Also, the city was not too expensive – another necessity for day to day living. The geographic location of Vienna, in the middle of Europe, is ideal; one can go to either western or eastern Europe with equal ease just by hopping on a Euro Rail train. Vienna is rich in culture and history.
It is not only a geographical center; it is also an economic and political center with headquarters of the United Nations and OPEC located there. Natural beauty abounds if one goes just a little distance beyond the city limits. Salzburg, an hour by train from Vienna and birthplace of Mozart, is a beautiful town in the mountains. Innsbruck, within an easy train ride, is famous for its ski slopes in the Alps. There were other, more subtle reasons for my fascination with Vienna. The cityscape seemed to be a perfectly seamless transition from very modern buildings to hundreds of years-old historic buildings.
I have seen old and new buildings standing side by side in Rome and London, but in Vienna there was a harmony about it; it seemed that the city was planned and designed in a way to incorporate these buildings from different eras together in a coherent mix. Both men and women, especially the younger people, looked healthy, almost radiating a glow. I met Emily at the Belvedere museum; she looked like a figure coming alive from a Gustav Klimt painting. She reminded me of Meryl Streep from the movie, “ The French Lieutenant’s Woman”; same blonde hair and blue eyes; same vulnerable shy yet seductive look. The climate was moderate, and the air was clean.
The food and wine were exquisite and so were all the cakes and desserts. And then there was classical music. I stayed at the Marriott hotel which has a large park (“Stadt Park”) in front of the hotel; at one corner of the park, there was a statue of Johan Strauss Junior, playing violin. One afternoon there was a wedding at the park, followed by dancing to the tune of Strauss’ “Beautiful blue Danube…”. This music offered that magic and cemented my love for Vienna forever. I was not into western Classical music before this trip, but I came back as a changed man. Vienna provides a perfect balance to life. It is aristocratic, but at the same time warm and friendly.
It is rich in history but a very modern city. Its strength stems from both its culture of fine arts as well as technology. It welcomes people from the east and west alike. Vienna is inspiring and at the same time, unlike Rome, Paris and London, gives one the space and time to pursue whatever creative dream one has. No wonder, Austria has produced so many geniuses of the world from Erwin Schrodinger to Sigmund Freud to Gustav Klimt. There is always an exception to the rule though; Austria also produced Adolf Hitler. The jury is still out on Arnold Schwartsnagger. I could live in Vienna for the rest of my life leaving everything behind. I would wear a T-shirt saying, “I love Vienna” and really mean it.
(THE AUTHOR IS A PHYSICIST WHO WORKED IN INDUSTRY AND ACADEMIA. HE IS A BENGALI SETTLED IN THE US)