A Swedish Christmas, some saffron buns and a warm winter

#Scurf208: On the little new things in life and walking the winding lanes of this dazzling city

On to a post-Christmas lunch walk at 3.54pm.

Many years from now when I will look back at my first Nordic winter here in Sweden, I will remember that it went very well. I will remember that I was incredibly nervous at the start of it, but the warmth of the winter (thanks to the climate crisis) really helped me find my feet. I will recall distinctly the sweaty post-Christmas lunch walk I’d take down to the nearest supermarket. I’d remember how I had worn a jacket from my Indian winter wear. I’ll recall so clearly how I had dialed my beloved aunt and spoke with her about all manner of things. All those years later, I will distinctly recall being out in the elements of the earth, the gentle wind grazing my cheeks, the slight mizzle swaying with the wind, landing like a sweet mist on my eyelids. I will noticing the dirt from the curbside gathering on the open laces of my Adidas sneakers. I will remember feeling a mix of frisson and something like sadness. Frisson at the beauty of the Scandinavian Christmas with all of its golden, glitzy lights and sadness at the warmth of it all.

I will recall that on my walk after my aunt hung up, I had wanted to pull out the phone and instead of dialing back to a Karl Ove podcast, I had wanted to be able to dial him directly on the phone and speak with him. It’s no secret that I fell in love with his writing exactly one year ago when I read the first volume of My Struggles. I was in Delhi then and so, so far away from everything that he wrote about. I had only imagined Norway from his pages, and now here I was. To say that I admire his writing a lot will be selling it short. Anyhow, we all know how difficult his books are to read, but last year I picked up one of his books on an idle weekend like this one form The Bookshop and had started reading it almost against my whim. And the book had yielded so profusely, so beautifully. Flowering in my mind, making me remember things from far away childhood lanes.

That’s the thing with reading in general, I guess, it is never just about what you read and how badly you want to read it, but also about the dynamic between the two of you — the reader and the writer. That ever so unpredictable, invisible tension. Cutting through the frisson of it to reveal a much loved fondness for each other - that’s what happens when you find a book that you feel is written for you. There are a million ways to find your way to a book, but it is an honor when the book also finds its way to you. I have felt that often with books and writers, and I’ve never, not even for a single moment, taken that for granted.

The neighborhood covered in a golden patina on this mizzle-y evening. This is 4:21pm on Dec 25, 2024.

Anyway, back to my walk and its memory. If you are even remotely a curious person like me, you will know what it feels like to be living in a place almost in the Arctic Circle. While now in the fag end of 2024 it can be said that we have exhausted all the snow and the chill and freezing temperatures and all that remains here is a puddle of darkness with a little more number of people as there might’ve been let’s say 40 years ago. I’m totally besotted by the topography of this place. During my walks on sunny days the shadow feels 3x longer, seeming to have been clicked from a 2x wide angle lens. The sun goes down at around 3.30pm these days and rises almost at 9am. I always text friends saying that it feels like I’m inside a joke, an experiment for the rest of humanity to follow suit on.

Looking at the rest of the world (India, America, haha) from my corner of the world has seemed like a bit of an exercise in restrain. Restrain from some kind of smugness, restrain from a different kind of fomo, restrain from the temptation to completely disengage. It’s so entirely possible, to be able to disengage when one is living their lives in these places. A place you’ve only ever read of in the print edition of second hand Brittanica your cousins from Delhi handed you down. The seaport, the largeness of this small city, the trams, the houses, their gardens, the midnight mass, the catholic church’s lucia celebrations! You get the picture?!

These days my order in life is simply to wander around and admire the lovely gothic architecture of this city in southern Sweden, called Gothenburg. Instead of a flashy, blingy, noisy city, I seem to have been booked into one posh floor of a chintzy B&B in a city where absolutely nothing seems to happen, nothing at least of any consequence. For quite a lot of my time, I feel like one of the two moody tough guys from In Bruges (2008) who is having to mill about aimlessly, trot these winding lanes, walk up and down the supermarket aisles figuring out food labels in Swedish, do my daily crossword and spelling bee and wordle, stupefied and exasperated beyond endurance by the simple, mind-numbing nothingness that make up my days here in Gothenburg.

That could be one way of looking at it. The other, which is also my way of going about it, is seeing this city wrap itself around my pinky finger as I stand at the end of my street and point at the Torslanda district to the north, the city centre to my east and the heart of this bustling, warm little city — Majorna — to the west. Down south is Santholmen, with its sea and port and its wind and trams and expensive vegan pizza joints. Walking around these parts of Gothenburg I feel as if I am in a trance. Advertisements are almost absent from the streets, as are people. It’s almost as if my mind is in total peace, a kind of relaxation that my news addled, AQI tracking, people fearing Delhi-mind had almost forgotten to get used to.

Before Sunset’s (2004) Celine’s recollection from her time in the US comes back to mind:

One day, as I was walking through the Jewish cemetery, I don't know why, but it occurred to me there. I realized that I had spent the last two weeks away from most of my habits. TV was in a language I didn't understand, there was nothing to buy, no advertisements anywhere, so all I'd been doing was walk around, think, and write. My brain felt like it was at rest free from the consuming frenzy. It was almost like a natural high.I felt so peaceful inside. No strange urge to be somewhere else to shop. It could have seemed like boredom at first but it became very, very soulful.

The city feels like a continuous, mute, running miracle, as I wake up each morning and continue to be puzzled at the view from the window. Sometimes I sit for long minutes unblinking, as my partner jokes about being worried about me. There’s a Beckettian sincerity to the people here, there warm smiles, the joy in their eyes, their endurance for rains and the cold and the darkness. Just like any European city, remembrances of the past are littered around in the city in the form of busts of people from a past long ago, to tiles on the roadside and benches marked in memories.

Walking this narrow strip connecting the main street to the local supermarket always makes me giddy with joy.

The moat that still encircles the old part of the city is the starkest reminder of what once was here. Then there’s the cathedral and the Kristine Church that sound as landmarks. But most of all was the entirely pedestrian neighbourhood called Haga. It is also one of the oldest neighbourhoods in Gothenburg and where I visited a bunch of times to frequent one of the bigger Christmas Markets of the season. The long, fully-pedestrian street Haga Nygata is calming to look at with its line of well-preserved old houses, that resemble the architecture of cities in the Netherlands, with one floor made of brick and the rest of wood. With its independent cafes, museums and roadside restaurants, the market crowds remind me of Dilli Haat during this season.

After my walk today, when I got back home, I listened to the end of year happy news wrap up podcast by the BBC. As the episode wrapped up, the newscaster was beside herself with the joy of having brought continuous stream of happy, joyous news to people across the world for a little over 30 minutes. My mood lifted at her effortful glee in this world we live in today. That we try this much to make ourselves look pretty in these dull, grey days, wear a smile that lasts longer than three seconds, actually look a stranger from a faraway land in the eye and mouth the words “Hey! Hey!” — that unto itself is a victory! A little bit of God Jul (Swedish for Merry Christmas!) joy and heaps and heaps of Swedish lights, saffron buns and simple coffee with whipped cream ✨🎄

Now to watch that season finale of Bad Sisters tonight 📺

From a walk a couple of weeks ago in Majorna.