While I am exchanging several emails with scientific background with an Indian colleague from Stuttgart, I am getting surprised by another message of her. If I would like to join her wedding, she is asking – in Kolkata. As I am finally sitting in a plane to India, I have to smile at the exaggerated esoteric traveling reports of India I am going through in my mind.

Once arrived in Kolkata all my senses are required to handle the crowded streets with all its people, colors, odors and sounds. “You have seen too many photos of India already, this trip will be a disappointment”, I was telling myself before. Finally, I have to realize once more that the impact of things seen with your own eyes becomes an incomparable experience.

During the days of the wedding we are accommodated in the guest house of the “Saha Institute of Nuclear Physics”, because it is physics that connects us. The contrast between the research institute and the vivid street life in the city center with its markets, rickshaws, train stations and temples feels surreal.

 


 

 

Despite of all exciting moments, it feels good to leave the noisy life behind and to climb up to the heights of Sikkim. Surprisingly cosmopolitan Buddhist monks show their laxness in the only restaurant of the village and I feel comfortable sitting in-between them. Instead of escalating discussions about religion and attitudes they show other interests beyond this, which becomes obvious as one of them says, “Hey guys, check out my new ring tone!”, followed by some hip-hop dancing, while others are discussing the bugs of the latest Windows version. After a conversation about the diversity of our way of living I am finally taking a whiff of esoteric experience home with me.

 

 

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