From Rotterdam, we started our journey back. Chin would be heading back to Bremen, after dropping us off at Amsterdam. Amsterdam, the most liberal place on earth, where prostitution, gay marriage, drugs are legal. Amsterdam, which had once been the capital of the world, not unlike what Ney York is considered today. We reached the Stayokay hostel in Amsterdam at 7pm. We bid Chin adieu at 7 15, and H and I headed straight in search of the Neuwe Markt, which borders the famed red light district of Amsterdam. We roamed around a bit on the streets there. Almost naked girls, gestured, postured at us from shop gallery windows, gyrating hips, in a manner more suitable to animals, than humans. Girls of all shapes, sizes, race, color and age stood in the display windows, waiting to be used, f****d in any manner for petty cash. Cost: 30 euros for a quickie, or for oral favours, 50 for both.
Prostitution, and prostitutes have fascinated me (and a million others, I guess) for quite some time now. Women willing to sell themselves, their most intimate selves, physically, to some frustrated, self hating male – would they not have reached some kind of Nirvana, some higher state of giving, to be able to do what they do. Do they think about all this? Are they not the providers of the most basic human pleasure? Are they something akin to charity to the poor? Do they think about all this? Or are they just animals, incapable of thought, just doing what they do, unmindful and ignorant of the higher spiritual and moral plane that we tend to attach to physical act…
Again, all of this selling was unappealing, and a tad over-rated I thought, maybe coz I had seen Pattaya. In Pattaya, there was no pretence, nor any show. Nor any shops. There was a long queue, 4 km long, of Thai girls, waiting to be picked up by mostly Western tourists. Quiet, mute to all that they would go through physically. Here, it was much more glamourous, maybe more suited to a western style, than to the Orient.
Not too impressed, nor amused by what the city had to offer, I was already skeptical about Amsterdam the next day when I woke up. I went for a long walk, again at the city centre, to see the same windows deserted, shorn of all the glamour, and vice (to the god fearing, maybe) that they had to offer the previous evening, and for every evening since times immemorial, and for times forseeable.
I guess legalization of the ‘business’ would have its benefits, giving the girls some protection, and atleast legalizing their status in society. In the short time there, I did not figure out the social acceptance that the profession would have. It is likely that they are day-time students, looking for quick money, or in case of the more mature women, mothers, with kids and families to fend for. But that is not affected by legalization, is it? I read that just 5% of them are Dutch, with others coming from other lands…
After breakfast, we headed to the Main station to pick up Minu, Payal and Varad, who would be arriving by train from Bremen at 1 pm. After a coffee, we made plans to go to Madurodam the next afternoon. The exciting part about this would not only the enticement of Madurodam, but also that I would be driving again!
That afternoon, we went to the Van Gogh museum. Van Gogh, the Dutch master, who lived an extremely troubled life, fighting his demons for the most part, apart from painting some of the most exciting canvasses that I have seen (although that is just a few). The Dutch master never learnt art formally, at first learning from the paintings of past masters that he saw, treading conventionally in the early years, before exploring his own brilliant style of art. He was miles ahead of others, and maybe unlike any other genius in the field. Pointillism, impressionism were a few of his styles. I particularly liked the Pointillist paintings. Pointillism, is where the painting is created from dots of different colors, the overall effect observed from a distance, is what is desired to be a complete picture. Impressionism is where the artist is not bothered with the accuracy of the depictions he makes, rather concerning himself with the image he leaves on the mind of the viewer. These art forms were used by Vincent van Gogh, to create a effect far surpassing that of what could be achieved by forms developed earlier.
Van Gogh was born in Holland, and lived his early years there, before shifting to Paris. He painted from nature around him, from city scenes, in his own demented manner. The paintings in his last years especially look to be created under the effect of some hallucination, or dement, that he was suffering from. The forms are weirdly contorted, without much regard to perspective. I felt Van Gogh was to art what Pink Floyd were to music. Works of both appear to be created in some drug induced high, simply not conceivable by a sane human mind. Paintings which I remember off-hand now include the view of his room in Paris, a painting titled the Wheatfields, where he shows a farmer harvesting his wheat field, and shows the wheat as a devil, a raging and advancing fire, huge and monstrous, capable of swallowing the farmer in one giant leap. The peasant continues fighting with this devil, untiring, and unflinching. The colors he uses for his field are shades of yellow, and the sky is almost green. The emotions his painting created in me are indescribable. Lets say, I could relate to his genius, far different from the world he lived in, and more troubled by it, than what is good for his own good. Towards the end, he cut of a part of his own ear, saying it was done as a command from God, before admitting himself to an asylum voluntarily. His paintings from the asylum, at times depict the mental agony of his fellow sufferings… At times, he has painted brilliant nature scenes from his memory. After leaving the asylum, he committed suicide within two months. His last paintings, show his melancholy, his impending sense of doom, that of approaching death. By now, you must have guessed that I am a big fan of his, and I think, after visiting two museums with his paintings, I might be able to recognize his definitive style any time I see it. I especially like the way he yellow, and blue, and orange, in contrast to create a surreal effect.
Enough said about van Gogh. He was well worth the 18 euros we spent on him!
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