Enroute Bohemia

As the train rolled into Copenhagen Central I once again read the writing on the wall. AggstockGravid spray painted in white against industrial red brick- “Man has the right to do his will.” My bright yellow bus to Budapest was waiting by the curb outside. As I trailed a jaunty old man with a receding hairline and a robust belly, he made way for me to the window seat. “Tack”, I said, hoping it would be all the Swedish that I needed during the journey. “You must be from India”, he said in crisp English as the bus hit the highway. “I am, and you?” Speeding past typically Scandinavian expanses of greyish brown, we approached the Baltic Sea within an hour. By then I had learnt that my charming co-traveller was a Professor of History at Gothenburg and a political prisoner fled from Turkmenistan. The bus entered the ferry and we climbed up to the deck. At a kiosk selling Polish zapiekanka, he helped me assort bits of red and green peppers, chopped-up bacon and salami and oozy molten cheese for my topping. “In my country they screen Raj Kapoor movies on the streets to protest against censorship”, he grinningly said as the wind lashed drops of salt onto our faces. In my country Raj Kapoor is extinct, I thought to myself. We bit into our warm snacks. At night I found him sleeping peacefully in sheets of old newspaper on the aisle of the bus. The dawn seeped in through the translucent blue curtains. I opened my eyes to Bohemian dales of pale golden and lustrous green with the dewy, silvery road ribboning through them. Soon there were spires and domes, conical rooftops with metallic sculpture. The city of Prague steadily emerged on the horizon. “This is where I get off”, he said dusting the dirt off his back. “If there was a longer halt, I would invite you over for tea”. We said goodbye hoping to meet again someday. The bus drifted back into the wakening streets of Prague. Looking at the shimmering waters of Vltava I thought of journeys and the myriad liberations they bring.