Barcelona (Mails on a second visit made to this city in 2009)

If I remember right his name was Fransesc. This is the old man who regularly came to Passeig de Gracias back in 2006. I had talked to him that time; he has Barcelona about him in ways I couldn’t then understand. And this time, I thought I saw him once again, right there next to Placa Catalonia curled up, near a closed shop next to the huge square that has monumentalised Macia, one of the Catalonian political spearheads.

From Bergen, Ashotosh of Agra, who was met with back in 2005 as well as a new face from Punjab with a name Malayalis will pause before pronouncing was there (Pooran). The latter has a 20 acre farm in the border of UP and Uttarakhand en route to Nainital. He says his family has nearly 80 acres. There are land ceilings. But familiar, huge landowners circumvent everything, from what I could gather. They have in there everything from Mint to Wheat with a captive labour pool that can be minimal because of the most advanced machines on scene as well. We bid adieu at Amsterdam. From here Ashotosh and Pooran was to go to Delhi, and the former was about to get married.

The lower hills of the Pyrenees seemed chequered with small towns in some mountain folds with grand roads linking them and high tension lines giving them to glow in those ranges. The flight followed the coastal line from France further south after keeping itself above the clouds most on the time when above the French mainland. When it came closer to Barcelona, the flight turned its course towards the land after venturing for a while over the Mediterranean granting for a while a view from afar. Now I could see the coastline of Barcelona stretching all the way from the horrible looking Olympic village structures to Mountjuic (Jewish mount?) where the early administrative unit called Generalitat (a Catalonian pride) is situated or to the Drassnes (port).

I checked in at Centric Point on time even after the late arrival and depressing announcements that there were clouds over Pyrenees (adding more to my dislike of things French) and its overcast in Barcelona. The hotel seemed to have changed (of course it’s a travel hostel and it’s been two years!). There were now more provisions for security (a card that may be raised when asked! not a big deal). Nathan signed me in and gave me the bedcovers. I carded into room 412 and deposited my stuff on bed 2.

Now was to start the familiar course down the major thoroughfare in Barcelona. Ramblas along with Parallel were constructed in early 20th century. During my last visit, the Ramblas was for me the spine of the city replete with pet sellers. Pantomimes and what not. It was flanked on both sides by smaller Carriers (Avenidas and Passeiges seem to indicate bigger ways). 

  Barcelona was overcast ad cold, but still not as bad as Bergen. But this may be more thanks to the still big crowds that filler up spaces even on SUNDAY and the bigger crowds that may later turn up to celebrate or mourn the Madrid Barcelona match that was on at the moment. I was yet to succumb to the Xocolades or pasteries or get inside those two cathedrals I kissed across. I was not quite ready to pay the euros; after all the facades were fabulous enough and the gothic structures juxtaposed with what was described as earlier Roman left over (they are everywhere, in all cities...).
 

(By the way as Amma told me Barcelona does have bull fighting but not as much as Pamplona)

................................

The Internet was failing all the time....

Picasso Museum was distributed across four 'casa' (houses) or rather 'salas (rooms) of the fourteenth century (fourteen to fifteenth century structures are the most common ones around in Barri Gothic). The ceiling of many of these rooms resembles our 'Machus'. Here I became a haute couture guy, turning flaneur through the formative stages of Picasso, starting from the themes starting from his own dad to those called the blue (sad, melancholic) and pink stages, and finally to the ones in which he focussed on the works of Velasquez (the cubist ones are more in Paris). Picasso also did some ceramic work in the meantime and worked in Barcelona, Madrid and inevitably for those of his kind in Paris. One of the cafes he frequented in Barcelona has now become the focus of modern pilgrims.

I don’t exactly know why, but this time I seemed to be more drawn towards the faces in carrers (my earlier conceptualisation based on size to avenidas and carrers don’t seem to be right as I was later to find Sunday night- a huge Carrer!), and Passeiges or to the 'familiar' faces like that of Francesco(saw him again the night) or even to those Himachal people who ran souvenir shops (Indian establishments about, especially those of Punjab and Himachal Pradesh; A Gurudwara at first seemed quite strange).

I couldn’t help but juxtapose the myriad faces and the social corners of the parts of the city I got to against the well crafted and narrativised Barcelona of Sites and Cathedrals. Suddenly I thought may be the Cathedrals and histories themselves were the facades for the many 'faces' of the city that escape me. I don’t really know whether this is so. But despite everything, I still enjoy the ambience like the one at Don Fernando's where I ate earlier, the spontaneous talks that arise here, as well as a certain friendliness that at least seem to transcend professionalism.

.......................

(I have to be really fast with this net!)

The alarm did ring on time for me to go and get the breakfast but I didn’t get up until I had to rush into the common room two minutes before the shutters came down. I got the all familiar flakes as well as a cappuccino. I hadn't met as many as I had during my last trip, but I made acquaintance with Althung from Istanbul. He is a teacher as well as a PhD student who came here after meeting his sister who studies south of Barcelona, a place called Tarragona. And he is going back tomorrow.

The museums were closed on Monday and after all I was thinking of taking in another side of the story. So I walked to the North East of the city in the direction of the Platjas (Beaches). Here I was thinking of being around La Ciutadella peak. It was not the idea of park which many described as the green lung of the city, but many other aspects that led me there. I walked through the streets flanked by more towering apartments and saw even more towards the Olympic city. Before that there was Ciutadella. The park was once a fortress kept by the French after having their good times here when after the Spanish were deciding things in the wars of successions. After the French was borne enough the Castilian rulers converted this into a prison house for Catalan dissidents, before the Catalans themselves , with the inevitable touch of Gaudi made this into a part with their Parliament on one side. Thus the space, together with the Catalan history museum I had been to before, materialised Catalan identity. With a zoo on the other end things were more evident perhaps!

But parks are for me always symbolising some form of Excuse. It’s an excuse for different forms of dehumanisations outside. Gaudi's was no exception to this,

Towards the Barcelonetta side, or more towards the beach things began to get a lot colder. The sea breeze was intolerable and more so was the ominous business structures that propped up everywhere, the trade centres and the gas companies. The graveyard like side of urban life was more alienating if the gothic narrations last day were confusing. In the present case I just wanted to run away, towards the south where I can get to Ramblas. No one gave me any good suggestion as to how I can get here until I came to the India shopkeeper. He pointed the way and reassuringly said,' Agar mushkil hai to vaapas aa jaao phir dikha dege'. I was more relieved. Even the people who walked by seemed different. They were embodying the respective tones and tenors perhaps.

After almost seven kilometres of tiring walk I was at one end of the Ramblas where the structure of Columbus stood, that many Barcelonans describe as outlandish. For me he was at the moment the right guy!

.........................

From the seaward end of the rambla beyond the silhouette of Columbus could be seen a small mountain called Montjuic. The name is said to have come after the buzzling business centre run by Jews it once was. The inquisitions during the Castilian regimes resulted in an exodus when the Catalonians themselves is said to have been better towards the Jews. Right side of where I stood starts what is called the Raval. This used to be the earlier industrial parts with cotton mills and other things. Afterwards the industries went in disrepute or moved further north. Instead Raval started hosting the several floods of immigrants; the first major inflow was from southern parts of Spain like Andalusia when Franco got desperate to de-Catalonise Barcelona. The part and several ones towards the sea these immigrant colonies got to be known as Barrio Chino, the oriental name people here resorted to when the Chinese never even contemplated to land here. Later in the twentieth century Arabs Africans as well as Asians like Mussafir who was full of Urdu Shayaris (who worked at a Kebab joint) became the new wave.
The city itself kept expanding and the new expansion came to be known as Eixample, a district, stowing away the narrative continuities of Barri Gothic as well as the Barrio Chinos at Raval and elsewhere.

The walk towards Avenida Diagonal tonight was in order to take a few snaps of the Gaudi building on the wayside. I was extremely exhausted and couldn't walk fast. After taking a few snaps I moved further north into Eixample. Here waited another face of Barcelona
It started with the man who identified himself as Spanish asking me the route to Ramblas Catalonia. I knew it well and explained this to him. He took a lot of time to understand and kept dancing with his map in the streets. Now came two men in plain clothes who told us that they were police. They showed us the card, but I couldn’t read it well. They wanted to see the passports and then asked what currencies I carried. Satisfied they left. Meanwhile the man also might have left. Whatever the whole scene was I didn’t quite rule away the chances of being just tricked by three Spanish men. But I had all the pockets as they were and the confused Spanish guy might well have been genuine.
But then I thought of another possibility. I had read in a Lonely Planet guide or the author of the guide expressed his happiness at the new Policing norms that he says will put a better scene especially in the Raval and Barri Gothic. It probably does for him. But for me Policing seem to be more a need for the gentrifying zones like Eixample who could be very wary of Brown men like myself...
Gentrification itself is never a problem for the authorities.

..........................

Ramblas is well known for its pet sellers and here some of the pets that are sold look the stranger than strange. I was shocked to see the most outlandish of animals here named Marmoset; this one clang to a plastic ball with its suckers and neither looked like a rat not like a hamster. For my relief I found out later that this one ran on batteries. But then there were others that were nearly as strange. Today was the last day in Barcelona and after the English breakfast spiced with Irish accents, Turkish, and at times musical Spanish (as long as I didn’t understand), I was on a very easy stroll. Midday, at the Pasteria at Carrier de Colum, I got into an accidental conversation with Michelle. She is a painter from Paris who has been to Pune in order to meet Osho in the 70s. She is now in her seventies and among the many things she told me she said that the pets on the Ramblas will be history in some years. There were some that were on the banned list like the turtles, the town wants to clamp down on the trade. She told me to enjoy Barcelona when I am here and to study well and said that the old ladies who worked at this Pasteria are wonderful people.
Michelle is among those souls with whom one can enter into spontaneous talks here. There were many others from the streets who remember you among the thousands and thousands who they see everyday, there was the young lady with a sweet girl on her lap whom I met last day who said hello, there was the urdu poet who worked in the Kebab shop...certain things that I missed in Bergen or was I not to expect these after all elsewhere

I don't like seasons...

..........................

Seasons never helped me associate with anything and when people went along with seasons I found this ever more difficult. Barcelona though still had its share of still green trees, people who talk and the Pigeons on the squares were same as the ones in UC Chapel. All help to thaw the winter and Barcelona even with my aching knees and freezing Mediterranean wind did bring in a lot of cheer.
But I was more confused this time than I was before, probably it’s also because this time I felt that Ramblas was not just a thoroughfare but also a border for the Barrio Chinos of people's mind, that Eixample and Olympic cities could be alienating or worse still, gentrifying...or may be its also because I was still waiting for more of those interesting conversations.

.......................

I washed my face and was almost ready to come to the common room (from where I mail you all, it’s also the canteen as well as the Bar...where I once met Roisin, the musician from Ireland as well as the Ecuadorian squatter traveller; this was 2006). Then, standing near his dormitory we started a conversation, which went on for more than an hour. Gian Carlos as well as Norma were both from a place on the Caribbean coast called Barranquilla. They told me this was for many the most violent places in Columbia. Norma gracefully disagreed. There is the FARC Guerrilla as well as the paramilitary and for Carlos the latter did represent something better (perhaps...after sometime into our conversation). This was also because with a second Italian citizenship he kept a good regard for the European and American stand on issues. So the guerrillas were to be guarded against and president Uribe had indeed made things more secure.
But after sometime into out talk the guy who did finance undergrad as well as Norma who just finished high school were talking about European ignorance, the Drug corridors as well as the social life both of us parties from the Tropics craved for. Carlos with his Italian name and five generation citizenship guarantee roamed around in Valencia and Italy (as a third class citizen after the respective originals as well as the newer EUs...his card was more a penance for the loot from Columbia) for a job, but could find any. Now he plans to go back to Columbia.
Carlos and Norma gave their internet cards when they knew that I was left with no card for the day’s mail. They said they have their laptops on the Wi-Fi. These are also gestures that I missed a lot and the questions they asked about India proved why we in Kerala like Latin America, even if in the case of Carlos he was more with the Paramilitary
Now I run for a dinner at the Urdu Poets place. Hope it’s not closed.

After a few hours from now I walk to Placa Catlunia and take the bus to Terminal 1 of Prat de l obregat airport of Barcelona.
Carlos Norma Michelle and Althung along with the radiant Catalonian faces make me feel better at the moment