Linden trees and conversation

29. Tell us about a conversation you’ve had that changed your perspective or was otherwise meaningful to you. (Stanford)

The green linden trees where in bloom. The delicious scent of Schnitzel wafted out of the kitchen. Grey thunder clouds were gathering in the sky. The scholer was fizzing away. The Biergarten was filled with life.

A regular customer would have walked in, taken a seat at one of the wooden benches, order their regular meal, and not noticed anything particular about the day, except perhaps the ladies sitting on one of the tables. One of them often ate at the Biergarten, but the other three had never been there before.  The four women gave a spectator a glimpse into three generations.

But this all seemed irrelevant to the women at the table, as they were captivated by their own conversation, especially the youngest- me.  We had gone to meet one of my mother’s friends and role-models, I will simply refer to her as W. Despite the age gap between them, they still got along remarkably well. My aunt and I came along as it was a great privilege to meet W.

W had started her own NGO, after retirement, and then went on to wholeheartedly dedicate over 30 years of her life to this project. I have immense respect for her. But the conversation under the linden trees in the Bavarian Biergarten did not have much to do with her NGO. Instead, it was about her life, and childhood.

She grew up in a world very different from mine, in a time when carriages were still sometimes seen on roads, when food was grown in farms, when the map of Europe had just been re-drawn after the Great War, and when India was still the crown Jewel of the British Empire.

The conversation left an impact on me. I realized how little we could truly take for granted in this world.  I personally believe that my country will always be there, and I will always be part of it. In some ways that may be true, but then again, a country is constantly changing. Wars redraw political maps, and nations fight for independence.

Once upon a time, Prussia was an essential part of Germany, yet today a great part of Prussia belongs to other countries. Someone might have once been German, and today they are Polish. They belong to a new nation, and have a new identity.

Sitting in the Biergarten that afternoon, I realized life might change, there may be good times and there may be bad ones, but as long as you have an optimistic attitude and try to be the best person you can, everything might just turn out to be alright.

It is easier to say such things, than actually put the words into action. Being in the presence of person who achieved this, made me realize that it is possible.  As W went on telling her stories, I found myself imagining what it must have been like to live through a World War, and then start-up a new life.  It must have been no easy task, but W never showed any of the burdens that her life had presented her with.

Instead, she helped the people around her, and her NGO was another way through which she was able to go on handing a helping hand to people. The conversation was meaningful to me as it inspired me to live my life in a more purposeful manner. It is easy to be consumed by one’s own troubles, but there is so much one can do with one’s life, therefore one should try to do as much as one can with it.

A spectator may have just seen four women eating lunch under the linden in the Biergarten, yet for me it was much more than an ordinary lunch. It was an inspirational afternoon that influenced my views on life. As the scholer was fizzing away, my perspective on life was being influenced by a remarkable person, W.

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