Walking around on a cold Sunday morning — the shopping area, Central railway station and Catholic church were all located within walking distance of our hotel - and ambling past Turkish restaurants, one wondered if the burly men behind the counters had watched his movies. Having tasted success, did the Cannes award-winning director eat in modest Turkish eateries anymore? And I thought about the eight Arab youths who comprised the Hamburg Al Qaeda “sleeper” cell involved in the 9/11 attacks on the US. There were 19 hijackers in all; including three suicide pilots — Mohammed Atta, Marwan al-Shehhi and Ziad Jarrah — who were studying at Hamburg University, which gave Muslim students a room to pray in. But Hamburg has a formidable reputation for being free and liberal. So liberal, Hitler couldn’t win Hamburgers over. Mussels are the favoured plat du jour in Brussels but do Hamburgers eat hamburgers? Nein, they don’t, at least not the folks one met in the lovely port town. Our hotel had organised a special Beatles concert in a massive garage, where we gorged on German sausages.

We’d hopped on a ferryboat for a lovely sail down the Elbe river to check out the Fischmarket, which was well worth a visit, if only for the loud, dramatic sales spiel of a salesman chucking chocolates and toys.

All the interesting sights in Hamburg are not too far from the city’s well-maintained waterfront. Like the clubs where the Beatles played on the Reeperbahn. Lined with sex shops and cosy cafes, part of the street is sealed off from public gaze by a white cloth barricade, a practice inherited from prudish Nazis.

Hamburg had been firebombed by the Allies. Flattened, actually, just like Dresden, and rebuilt in the 1940s and 1950s. We posed for photos, clutching the metal and neon sculptures of the Fab Four in the vicinity of clubs where they played five hours at a stretch nightly back in 1962 before the US and the rest of the world were swept by their magic.

Hamburg’s India connection includes the freedom fighter Netaji Subash Chandra Bose, who lived here for a time, seeking support for an independent India. His grandnephew Surya Kumar Bose has been living in Hamburg for the past 38 years. Netaji’s Hamburg connection can be traced to another 9/11, back in 1942, to a lakeside hotel called the Atlantic which was the venue of the first-ever orchestral rendering of the Jana Gana Mana. Interestingly, Tomorrow Never Dies, the 1997 Bond film starring Pierce Brosnan, was shot at the Atlantic, a popular location for TV and film shoots.

The wind whistled outside the Atlantic’s windows as Bose played an original recording of the anthem’s performance, which was taped by one Narahari Ganpuley, who was arrested by the British after World War II. Tagore’s poem was set to music by Ambik Majumdar and rendered in fast tempo by the Chamber Orchestra of Radio Hamburg under the baton of Dr Eigel Kruettge. The performance was held at the inauguration of the Indo-German Association and the Free India Centre and among those present were Netaji, other Indian freedom fighters, the Mayor of Hamburg, diplomats and German government officials. (“That is,” as Bose explained, “Hitler’s opponents who supported a Free India.”)

Today, Bose endeavours to “strengthen Indo-German business ties and help broaden bilateral contacts” in tandem with a number of Hamburg organisations which, for two years in a row, have orchestrated a seven-day conclave called IndiaWeek showcasing business, the arts and culture of India in Hamburg. We learnt that as many as 500 Hamburg companies are active in India while a mere 35 Indian companies operate in Hamburg’s metropolitan area (as compared to 400 Chinese!).

“IndiaWeek 2007 was organised on a smaller scale compared to this year’s edition,” recalled Herr Rudolf Weiler of Digisound Electronic GmBH, at the Airbus headquarters in Hamburg-Finkenwerder, where the final assembly takes place of the A318, A319 and A321. We watched a lissom German fraulein perform Bharatanatyam at the City Hall. In the Chilehaus, a brick stone office building shaped like an ocean liner, we came across Tata Consultancy Services’ office and quelled the urge to drop in there unannounced and say ‘Namaste’ to fellow Indians. Also maintaining a presence in Hamburg are Indian shipping companies, besides Infosys, Satyam, Wipro and Suzlon — the last aiming at 100 per cent ownership of Germany’s wind energy sector!

We noted the imposing windmills during the bus ride to Finkenwerder, as also the many lovely houses along the way. Some of Hamburg’s most interesting buildings have been designed by an award-winning Iranian architect. The environment is protected by ensuring that buildings are never more than four storeys high. The salutary result is there’s not a single skyscraper in sight. And to think the world’s tallest building in the 19th century was a church in Hamburg!

On our last night but one, we attended a concert by our very own Trilok Gurtu, who has settled in Hamburg with his German wife. Gurtu’s band had previously played to a full house at the ‘Völkerkundemuseum Hamburg’ or the Hamburg Museum for Ethnography, one of the largest of its kind in Europe. Built in 1879, this imposing museum showcases nearly 3.5 lakh treasures from various parts of the world — from Inca gold to artefacts of Tibetan Buddhism to relics of ancient times and climes.

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