An evening in Brussels / Dec. 2004

Bingo ! It really existed in the middle half portion of Belgium! In fact I had seen the atlas (to which my daughter hardly refers) and had located this Belgium country on left upper-side of France. I could also see a small dot on the map, which was labeled “Brussels”. I had also heard that Brussels was a capital city of Belgium and European union main offices existed there since 1958.

We were visiting for exhibition. When we landed in Belgium and were driven to Stalingrad Avenue by a taxi driver, I engaged him in conversation with me. He (initially rather reluctantly but later full-heartedly upon experiencing my enthusiasm) narrated the things he knew about Brussels.

We talked in English (my Hinglish and his Flemglish or Fringlish). Two languages are spoken in Belgium he said : Flemish/ Dutch and French ; Brussels had 50:50 population he further said who use these languages. As we headed to our Hotel, which was in the process of being transformed into a Hotel, we drove on clean roads often flanked by trees with or without leaves. Some roads were not cement concretized; they wore these small brick like pieces all over and car made a humming sound. Temperature was hardly 10 deg. and the super-warm cloths worn by our export manager looked quite ridiculous but who will bell the cat!

Surprisingly there was not much of human existence I could see when we drove. When asked, our driver said that most of the people were hiding in their offices (it must be around 10 o’clock morning, still no rush and I said to my-self look at Dombivli, my home town around same time and one would see hundreds of people) and he said that around noon–time he expected some rush of folks collecting their school kids.

By the time we reached and settled in our rooms it was 3 something. Some of us (not me !) had planned to go to the exhibition hall to check on our stall etc. Seventy Euros had been spent on the taxi, so only four people decided to visit the stall by engaging one taxi (hoping that expenditure will be around seventy only)

I had decided to walk on the Brussels streets without any purpose (I of course wanted to see the best museum in the city, but for some strange reason that was not the only objective to roam on the street).

By that time may be because of gusting wind, the temperature felt on the skin was much less than 5°C. I checked up with the front desk fellow in the hotel to find out the best museum in the city and of course the Manniken Piss. The fellow was white/ possibly French and slightly absentminded. He was apologetic somewhat because the rooms were not adequately warm, the heater in my room was not working at all. When I fired him for this inconvenience, he promised me to make a call somewhere and get the god damn heater fixed by next morning. He offered an electrical heater as an alternative to heat the room, which again made a horrible clink-clank noise coming from the fan. He knew I was pissed and for right reason, but somehow his face reflected a funny albeit hope-less expression. Later he became a buddy of mine and embarked on describing to me the locations of museums on the city map spread in front of us.

In short what he told was : I had to keep walking on Stalingrad avenue toward east. And in that direction I was going to find the Manniken Piss and museum. That museum was Old and contemporary art museum, situated on a road right across the Cathedral. I pretended that I understood the locations, thanked him and returned to the room. Got my-self all dressed-up to hopefully face 2°C , some four hours from then.

I wasn’t hungry surprisingly. Only light snacks were served on the flight and there was every reason for me to be hungry. But I wasn’t. May be body clock was not co-operating. I confirmed the whereabouts of three hundred Euros in the pockets (there were so many pockets you will not believe on the shirt, pant, jacket and the over-coat I was wearing, I had to make sure which pocket carried the passport and which carried the money and the street map).

Don’t know why but they say you have to carry your passport on you all the time when you are in a foreign country. But I did not feel I was in foreign country. I thought I was going for shopping on 82nd street in Edmonton (in those days(1984) I could not afford the fancy overcoat I was wearing in Brussels, I used to wear a parka – picked up in the Army Navy shop in pre-Christmas sale).

Got out on the road.
Must be around 4:30 ish in the watch which I was not wearing in any case. In fact I had no wrist watch on me. I am used to using time on my cell phone. No cell phone in Brussels for me and hence no Time for me in Brussels.
First I ensured which one was the East before started walking. Streets were still not crowded. I did not know that the same roads will start flooding with people by 10 o’clock in the night. Climate was fantastic. I had nothing to carry on me. A scarf was needed I realized, but then it was too late. I had not carried any scarf on me. The roads were made of small bricks. The roads appeared too narrow to qualify as Roads. It’s not that wider streets didn’t exist but for that I had to walk for half an hour to get to the Brussels Central alias Brussels down town.

Whole city appeared to have various levels on which gardens, churches, buildings and roads were engraved. Small roads were again made of bricks so to say. I had earlier walked on the streets of Zurich, Basle and Frankfurt. But this brick-road impact has been more pronounced on my mind after that Brussels evening. In Manhattan or in general in New-York city, one notices the fire/emergency staircases hung on the residential buildings. So when somebody would ask me to describe New-York city, I would draw a street, name it as 42nd street, draw a building and would hang couple of staircases on that building. Like wise if somebody to ask me to draw a European street, it would be brick-lined!

So much for the impressions left by a short time exposure to a city !

I hit the Manniken Piss by accident. I call it an accident because I had already forgotten the road directions given by the hotel fellow. I was taking serious diversions from Stalingrad avenue. This Stalingrad avenue it-self was not a great street. I was peeping through various shops and was doing frantic window-shopping. While doing so, I experienced a slight commotion on a street corner. When I went closer I saw that celebrated statue pissing coolly in a corner with plenty Chinese and Japanese (Yes I can distinguish) tourists photographing that statue furiously. If Sagar (my childhood friend) would have been with me we would have laughed at the top of our voices in that cold semi-crowded evening street. I expected that statue to be in the middle of the road in a huge square at a very prominent place. If it were not for those tourists I would have missed it completely and rather blatantly.
I found it necessary to enter one coffee shop at that point. I did not do it though since one shop on a corner there had some small affordable things to be purchased for my daughter. I did that and then entered the coffee shop.
Again not many bodies inside. If I had seen any women sitting in the shops that had to be a grand coincidence. I really didn’t see a single. For the record, I must write that I was not looking at only women but was just curious as to why streets were so deserted. And even if I were looking for women that would have been statistically normal since they make 49% (give or take 1%) of any population.
The coffee shop owner had a funny accent and so did the customer, who asked for a coffee and struggled for next 100 hours to be understood as café, not Coffee. I also purchased an item which looked and tested like a sandwich. This time I was clever. I just pointed at the item and the shop owner realized that it was best to offer that to me fast before I opened my mouth. I sat on the chair next to a table inside the shop. I ate the sandwich very slowly as do the characters of John Grisham.

Back on the street and walking toward Brussels Cathedral.
Probably I did not mention that my Indian habit of crossing the road without giving a xxxx about the traffic almost killed me couple of times on that evening. Thank God I don’t understand swear words in Flemish or French, plus the car windows were closed and if the driver inside the car swore at me, I didn’t hear it.

The place where I reached was beautiful. The buildings had this old European architecture, which I have been used to see in history books (and off late on TV). Yes the museum was there, but was closed since it was Monday. It is kept open on Sunday for the tourists. I saw the statues at the entrance of the museum, which were looking like some angels in Greek mythological books. There was a museum of musical instruments too which again was closed due to - Monday.

From the vantage point of the Cathedral, I could see the city spread on both sides. Gardens, brick-roads and the quiet traffic is the gross impression on my mind. Horse meat, mussels and French fries made of Belgium potato are the delicacies. I could try only French fries.

That evening I returned to hotel around 8 o’clock. Walking back to hotel was not much of a problem since I knew the general direction and the not too famous Stalingrad Avenue. My eyes had perceived the roads as branches of Stalingrad Avenue. So I had to only get back to “main” road without getting too much distracted by my own window shopping, cool chitchatting with the old-book-sellers and of course without getting run over by the cars when I inadvertently crossed the road at wrong places.

I reached the hotel to find another guy at the front desk. He was a black guy speaking in English with very hard French accent. He was supposed to guard the night-shift. A tall, friendly and little hesitant character who refused next morning to allow me to use his PC for accessing my e-mails. He said ‘after fixing the break-fast he would allow me to use the PC’. I didn’t understand the logic behind his position but then he boiled the water for us “early” ie. at 5 o’clock so that we could seep the coffee (sorry café). His very methodical and standardized mind could not comprehend Indian customers waking-up at 4 o’clock in the morning and very modestly requesting for a cup of coffee.

Now we are into next morning 4 o’clock. I shared the room with my colleague. Both of us snored like hell during all 4 nights without disturbing each other. Used to get up early for some reason and used to go out for a walk. Main reason was my colleague wanted to smoke the cigarette which had to be preceded by the tea or café. Since the standardized European mind of hotel staff did not allow for such deviations, we decided to frequent the nite-shops. There were many of them on various corners. Some served café some didn’t. One of them manned by an Egyptian fellow suited us well. In fact that guy was from Morocco. Obviously all these nite-shops were served by either Pakistanis or by Immigrants from Morocco. This Morocco connection was quite interesting. I had heard of this Morocco on TV and might have read in history books. It must be some kind of country in Africa. After returning home , I have found no time to look in the world map.

These nite-shops had a fabulous food boiling hot and ready to be served. I must confess that the thought crossed my mind to taste that hot food at 4:00 am, but my gut would not have allowed this deviation. But with second thought now, I feel I should have tried that food. (food probably comes next to sex in terms of haunting the human mind, even my mind).

Early mornings were quite beautiful.
Brick-roads, lazy cars parked on both sides and surprisingly not a single bird heard giving a food call. I could of course cross the roads without worrying about cars passing by.

All these night experiences on Brussels roads were pleasant. I haven’t left my heart in Brussels, not even in the Palace, which we saw on last morning there on our way back to Airport.

The day-experiences were typical. All business , all money talk and white lies for the missed commitments to our customers.

Due to sub-optimal planning, we had no time left for sight seeing or shopping in the city. May be next time we should plan properly.