Checkpoint Charlie

I've been experiencing quite a few events over the last months which have been very moving. I was in India for three weeks and it all started there. Some of my very own bloodlines never seemed so unambigious. I saw them in a completely different way to what I had always. They were like an open book to me which had everything written in a horribly simple verbiage. Rather, I must have seen them in a way I wanted to see them - all the time.

The next spike came only a week back when I was in Berlin. For more than two years, it was my wish to visit Berlin - at leisure. Reason: to see and live moments in retrospect - of the fall of Berlin wall. I am happy and feel blessed for the time to have come at last.

After having done a super satisfactory guided walk tour in Munich, it was clear that I will do a similar tour in Berlin as well. Only that it was better this time - I did a Bicycle tour. Our guide was an American dame, quite enthusiastic in her part time job. After a quick briefing of the tour, we were on our way through the city, religiously following our guide and stoping at all so called points of interest. It was just another trip until we stopped at the "Checkpoint Charlie". The Guide meticulously draw a small map on the pavement and started to take us back in history - to the fall of Berlin wall.

Checkpoint Charlie - one of the crossing points along the Berlin wall, the Soviet Union had installed to control movement of people from both the sides (The checkpoint divided Berlin into East and West - ruled by Soviet union and the rest of the Allied forces, respectively). While there's no checkpoint anymore, the streets at the juncture have been serried with placards of text/and very German high definition pictures of the historic times - the times that might have been at a bare minimum - brutal, barbaric, vicious and inhuman. The checkpoint was a heavily guarded gate, people from either of the sides were required to pass through - to even just walk to the other part of their own town. The pictures themselves are very disturbing. It goes on listing the chronology of events for the fall of wall, names of the people who were killed for their attempts to illegally cross these checkpoints, the hurdles the people had if they were to visit their loved ones who lived on the other corner, the vast difference between the currencies and the impact it had on their lives, their agony which sunk them deeper and deeper into no man's land. To be honest, I was in tears to have read only a few of the placards. I am sure, checkpoint charlie is one of the innumerable checkpoints one can learn from history - from every corner of the world. Be it from South Africa, America, India, Germany, Israel, Tibet or Timbukto.

While I stood bewildered, I went on questioning myself as to who the hell is anybody to question anyone's freedom? How on Earth can anyone take it for granted the right of dictating terms without any rationale? These souls are at best a pest to Humanity - who should be castrated, beaten to death and burried deep under. Why does one bear with this torture until it turns into a volcanic outburst? Shouldn't it be nipped in the bud? I had no answers. I went on digging deep. Aren't pests inherent to any society? YES. So, who then is the bigger problem? The people who are exploited themselves? May be. Isn't it in fact the right and duty of every human soul to fight against atrocity? Shouldn't we as intelligent animals of this era fight and uphold and respect our very own freedom? A resounding Yes thundered from within. As minutes passed, the variables in the equation dwindled - the only ones remaining turning into constants - Myself. I vowed to live for righteousness and not to let my integrity succumb.
Still sunk, croseed the street to see that all the other folks back to their bikes and waiting for just two of us (myself and my friend). Running, I hopped on to my Bike, introspecting myself for the rest of the tour.

Anyways, the stop for lunch was at a beer garden and glugging a mug of Beer did put me back on track for the rest of the tour.

Hail freedom.