I had been to Vienna for the first time some thirty five years back with ma. She had gone there for presenting a paper at the World Sanskrit Conference. I was a girl of about nine years then. It was the first trip abroad for both ma and me.

In those days, travelling abroad was almost once in a lifetime event. First of all it was hugely expensive. Ma I remember had applied and obtained a sponsorship from UGC (at that time that was almost the only way to get funding from some source). I was too young and could never imagine staying without ma. Neither could ma. So baba took out his savings from GPF and financed my trip.

We took the British Airways flight from Kolkata to Heathrow and then from Heathrow to Vienna. I remember when the flight took off from the runway, I had turned to ma and said, “I wasn’t feeling sad for baba, ma” (baba’r jonno mon kyamon korchhe na, ma). I am sure I didn’t mean what I said.

What strikes out amongst the memories that far back is that we had no idea how cold it was. September in Vienna was, well, freezing, to us. Forget about coats and proper shoes, we didn’t even have enough sweaters. The only woollen we carried was probably my school cardigan, because that’s what I see in all the photos which I dug out some days back. The only shoes I see myself wearing are my school shoes (black ballerina from Bata). Ma is always in sarees in the photos.

I vaguely remember that baba has said something like if needed, buy a coat. We obviously had no idea how expensive these could be and having converted rupees to foreign currency for daily expenditure for a few days, it was impossible to afford one.

I also remember that ma got me used to having buns with jam and butter for breakfast. She would cut the bun latitudinally and spread butter on one side and jam on the other. Pretty much everything else was not tasty at all to our Indian taste buds. During a special dinner in some fashionable restaurant, they served red wine in small glasses and the waiter seemed very surprised that we refused to take them.

We went to Vienna again last month. It felt strange going back to the same place after so many years, with ma no more around to share my photos and experiences. I came back and dug out the photos that we had of my trip with ma. And Google helps you search  with photos, so I could actually make out what these places are.

This is the University of Vienna (German: Universität Wien) in Vienna. Founded in 1365, it is the oldest university in the German-speaking world and among the largest institutions of higher

learning in Europe. The university is associated with 17 Nobel Prize winners including Erwin Schrödinger who taught Physics at the University. It was the birth place of the Austrian school of economics heralded by Joseph Schumpeter and Friedrich Hayek. Sigmund Freud is amongst the many illustrious alumni of this University.

Ma’s conference was the 8th World Sanskrit Conference held in Vienna from August 27 to September 2, 1990 (courtesy Google I could find that out). And the venue for the conference was the Postgraduate centre of the University housed in the magnificent glass building.

That’s ma with Agehananda Bharati (and his student). I had heard that he was a great Sanskrit scholar. Looking up the internet, I found that he knew 15 classical and modern Indian and European languages. And I’ve seen it first hand myself – I vaguely remember that at some point after coming back from Vienna, he had come to our house (small flat of 400 square feet where we used to stay then) and ma had served him radhaballabhi. On hearing “radhaballabhi” he had laughed and said, “Radha’s ballabh wouldn’t be happy if she ate this” (implying that she would put on weight if she had such fried food which Krishna, her ballabh or lover wouldn’t like… ma of course, explained all that to me… I was too young to understand such subtle sarcasm). One can imagine the kind of grasp he must have had on the languages he knew. How many Bengalis could think of a joke like this with the word radhaballabhi. And a commendable sense of humour of course. The conference was in 1990 early September and he passed away in spring 1991, so during those six or so months he must have come to our house.

And of course he was a man of huge built even by European standards (as is evident from the photo), probably 6’4” and about (136 kg). Please see this link for more information on him. https://www.maxwell.syr.edu/research/moynihan-institute-of-global-affairs/regional-centers/south-asia-center/about-agehananda-bharati-and-his-work.

That’s ma with Biljana Parvanova (Biljana is pronounced as Bilyana… j as y). She was also a delegate participating in the conference and ma had become good friends with her. She was from Bulgaria and she hadalso visited us in Kolkata at some point later on. Banana is a very favourite fruit for the foreigners and I remember Biljana having only bananas the whole day, one of the days during her visit to Calcutta.

On the day of her return, she preferred to take a bus to the airport and ma had helped her take the right one. From the airport though she called ma and told her that at the last stop when she was alone, the driver, conductor, helper and whoever were there took away her coat (like most people from those countries, she carried a very big and warm coat which must have been quite a fortune). We felt ashamed beyond words as to what impression she would be carrying in her mind of Indian hospitality – being robbed in a bus. Though we thanked god that it wasn’t anything worse.

That is ma presenting her paper with Prof Nanavati as the Chair. Prof Nanavati is a famous Sanskrit scholar.

And right after her presentation, I remember we had gone to a mall for some shopping. In those days, we didn’t have escalators everywhere the way we have now, so none of us were that used to riding escalators. But in the mall, ma must have been forced to use one when ma’s saree entangled in the moving stair while getting on, and she fell and immensely injured her foot. I just remember her tripping over and the escalator still continuing to move and me shouting “my mother my mother”.

Soon after however, the escalator was stopped and since she couldn’t stand up, people came and carried her to a room. I don’t remember much except that they put her foot in some kind of big air-filled bag and put her in an ambulance and I accompanied her to some hospital where everyone was white-clad. And then some doctor came and examined and gave her an injection right where she was hurt in her foot. I absolutely had no idea what was happening but my mother kept telling me that I shouldn’t tell anything to my father when he called at night (he used to call once every night – given he was in telecommunications and could make international calls).

They also gave a written prescription but it was in German so we couldn’t understand what it said. Later on, at the airport, we met Prof G B Palsule, another stalwart oriental scholar, who kept in touch with ma for a long time (on whom ma has one of her monographs, see picture of the cover). This is quoting from ma’s monograph: “I am reminded of a small personal incident that speaks tonnes of how humility is a mark of greatness. When I was in Vienna in 1990, I met with a small accident in which the medical report given in a Vienna hospital was in German which I could not read. Later on when I was waiting at the airport, I met Prof. Palsule and happened to be talking about my medical report in German. “Sir, do you know German?” I had inquired. “I knew a little bit of German language”, he had smiled and replied, and had happily summarised my medical report. I had later come to know about his commendable work “Sixty Upanishads of the Veda” which was a translation from German and was greatly acclaimed and praised. It is indeed humbling to see how someone who is a genuine expert could claim “little bit” knowledge – I shall forever remember his down-to-earth demeanour and characteristic humility that probably is a hallmark of all great men.”

Though ma didn’t have a photo with Prof Palsule in Vienna, she met him quite a few times afterwards and there was a bond of affection between them, far surpassing academic interactions. He even invited ma to visit his house in Pune (the photo is at his house).

Ma later recalled that the injection was very painful, but doctors here (given the translation of Prof Palsule) confirmed that the treatment was exactly what was needed and ma was cured without any further procedure here.

We discovered later on that Vienna has one of the best medical facilities in the world, which also happens to be one of the most expensive, but in ma’s case, the Indian Embassy had taken care of the expenses incurred.

It was very nostalgic writing this piece and it’s painful that I couldn’t ask ma every now and then to fill in the details. I am sure she would recall many more things about the trip than I can. For example, either our flight was late or it was scheduled to arrive late, but in any case, when we reached Vienna, it was quite late (as per local timing) and the organisers who were supposed to receive us at the airport, had already attended an earlier batch of participants attending the conference, so wasn’t there when we arrived. With no one communicating with us in English, there was a lot of trouble just reaching the venue where our accommodation was arranged – but somehow we must have reached it.

I have sprinkled the memoir with photos from our Vienna trip last time (notice how ma is holding me in every photo that has ma and me).

We visited Vienna again, a couple of weeks back, this time with me having an academic engagement and my daughter accompanying me, in almost what is a repetition of a journey ma and me undertook some thirty five years back. And Vienna was just as beautiful. If impression could be painted on a canvas, I would have painted it white and green, in the most pristine and cleanest way. In fact they said Vienna was ranked the most liveable city in 2024,

2023, 2022, 2019, and 2018 (for  its quality of life based on assessments of stability, healthcare, culture and environment, education and infrastructure. (This according to The Global Liveability Ranking which is a yearly assessment published by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), ranking 172 global cities.)

Moreover it has over 2000 parks making it a verdant green city, with parks having sprawling greens, trees, benches, water bodies, fountains statues, birds, ducks etc.

Soumyanetra (Bibul)