Meenakshi Shedde: Anyone can change

Illustration Ravi JadhavIve usually been at the Berlin Film Festival in February mdash this is my 20th year as South Asia Consultant to the Berlinale But I was additionally invited to attend the Rolex Arts Weekend also in February in Berlin this year So rather than go back and forth to Mumbai I preferred to stay on visiting friends in Berlin and smalltown Germany savouring the delights of dialling down Especially after the thrilling privilege of lunching with author Pico Iyer during the Rolex Arts Weekend Im more inclined than ever to follow his advice and enjoy sitting still Dont laughThe German language comes back to me slowly my colleagues at the Berlinale have spoilt me as most of them speak English The first time I came to Germany was on a Goethe Institut scholarship to study German in 1994 I was disarmed by the language mdash not so much by the sound of it but by the words Some of my favourite words in the German language include Handschuhe and Gluumlhbirne The German for gloves is Handschuhe or hand shoes And the German for electric bulb is Gluumlhbirne or glowing pear from gluumlh glow and birne pear So charmingThis time I also visited my friends Dorothee and Uli who have chosen to fall off the map After years in Frankfurt they have moved to the tiny village of Oberwalgern in Marburg an hour from Frankfurt This is an exquisite Hansel and Gretel kind of village with a population of 510 The biggest annual event the village Christmas party is organised by the fire brigade which is run by volunteers Dorothee and Uli live in a spacious 19th century farmhouse sprawling around a yard with a walnut tree The house is on one side and Dorothees office and Ulis photography studio is on the other The house is built in the fachwerk style with brown crisscrossing timber frames holding together white walls made from a mixture of clay and hay that have survived centuries They go across to Ludwigs next door to get freshlylaid organic eggs directly from the hens and when Ludwig isnt in they just leave the money in an egg crateWe go for a long walk in snowy woods The thing about snow is that it covers everything in white and it absorbs all sounds into a deep silence Soon all I can hear is my own heartbeat After walking alongside the tracks of a man and his dog we finally walk in virgin snow without any footprints just the occasional tiny claw marks of birds who have pottered there that morning Dorothee has seen deer rabbits hares and foxes in the woodsOne evening they take me to the farmers marketturnedmakeshiftcinemahall to see Dead Donkeys Fear No Hyenas a documentary on land grabbing in Ethiopia Chinese and Indian investors have bought vast hectares of forest land in Ethiopias national park to grow basmati rice for export displacing the locals and increasing starvation The journalist who exposed the scam has been forced into exile in the USA Following a postfilm discussion Oberwalgerners contribute money to pay the journalists lawyer to help him return I am humbled by this smallvillage activism feeling connected with the world and actively trying to help find solutions to its problems In this it connects with a core belief of another Rolex award given for enterprise Anyone can change everythingMeenakshi Shedde is South Asia Consultant to the Berlin Film Festival awardwinning critic curator to festivals worldwide and journalist Reach her at meenakshisheddegmailcomCatch up on all the latest Mumbai news crime news current affairs and also a complete guide on Mumbai from food to things to do and events across the city here Also download the new midday Android and iOS apps to get latest updates