Stuttgart Revisited
We were directed to pick up our car at Sindelfingen, a neighbouring hometown of Mercedes Benz Factory, 15 km away.
Arriving a day earlier was to ensure that we are there at the right time to take delivery of our coming directly from the assembly line.
Also, it provided an opportunity to learn more about Stuttgart which I was visiting for the second time.
Stuttgart is situated in a lush valley surrounded by vineyards and forests.
It is one of the most well-known cities in Germany, prominent with its cultural and economic importance.
When the Allied Forces took control in 1945, the city was a serious contender to become the federal capital of West Germany. But finally Bonn had succeeded.
However, Stuttgart has steadily bloomed and achieved great economic prosperity during the post-war years.
I had stopped here the first time in 1959 when I broke my journey from India, to visit Devinder Naag, a friend from Amritsar where I had worked as forest ranger for three years prior to leaving for advanced studies in USA. At that time some parts of the city still showed the scars left by the extensive bombing it suufered during the second World War.
Devinder was enrolled as a post-graduate student at Tuebingen University near Stuttgart. He had selected the renowned institution without knowing much about German language. An army veteran had assured him that German language was "easy to learn", as experienced by him while serving there near the end of hostilities.
That was not what Devinder found when he arrived at the Stuttgart railway station. His itty bitty German, as spoken by him at that time, was not understood by anybody that he tried to talk to after disembarking the train.
It was almost midnight. When every body left, he ended up being contacted by the railway station master who spoke to him in English. He was grateful that somebody came to his rescue.
Devinder was taken to the waiting room lounge to spend the remaining hours of the nigh, and was advised to wait for the first bus scheduled to arrive at dawn for travel to his destination.
