A Dutch painter, some Dutch tulips, A house where Anne Frank lived and A district named De Wallen, and when they all come together they tell stories of different hues. Cheese loves stories and she will happily spread them around. Chalk will support Cheese with his firm , no nonsense attitude lest she loses herself in this labyrinth of fairy tales.

“Dekha ek khwab to ye silsile huye, duur tak nigahon mein hain gul khile huye…”, I have hummed this song so many times in my life ; but never had I thought that one day I would be running between endless rows of tulips, singing this song aloud. Oh so filmy , you might say. And yes, I accept, I am Cheese and I am a foolishly romantic and filmy person. My romance is not with an individual in particular, it is with nature, myself, my reading, my feelings, in short with life itself.

Tulips first bloomed in the mountain ranges of the Himalayas in Central Asia and the Alpine Himalayan belt of Turkey. The Sultans of Turkey used to put a tulip on their turban, and the name of the flower came from the Turkish word , turban. In India, the Mughals grew tulips in their gardens. But I did not go to any mughal garden to see the tulips. One Mr. Yash Chopra had shown us in his film Silsila ( 1981) the Tulips of
Holland with Amitabh and Rekha singing a love song ..”Dekha ek khwab”. I went chasing that ‘ khwab’ or dream all the way to a country called Netherlands. The big screen had left its magical mark in Eastman colour and what I saw in those fields matched with that memory frame by frame.

I left Chalk and the group with the tour guide talking about all the how’s and why’s about tulips. I walked a few steps away , to be with myself in search of solitude ! Aah, solitude cannot be felt so easy. Soon the cameras would start clicking and people talking. But in those few stolen moments, I tried to immerse myself in the magnificence of colours and beauty of a simple flower named tulip. The vision of the brightest red, pink, orange, yellow under the sparkling blue skies of May was arranged specially for me as a gift from the heaven’s above.

From the tulip farms ,we went to the famous Kaukenhof Gardens to see more tulips. The garden was curated to hold the visitors in absolute awe with its spectacular beauty. At every turn there was a fresh bed of tulips in amazing colours. In the fields the tulips are grown for their bulbs, so the flowers are headed off at a certain time. Where as in the Kaukenhof Garden the tulips are not cut, they are grown for display alone. Therefore the variety of the tulips, their size and the mixing of vibrant colours were unparalleled.

From the bounty of nature’s pallet, Chalk and Cheese take a turn to see the painter’s pallet in the Van Gogh Museum. Vincent Van Gough ,the famous post-impressionist painter who has left behind a school of thought, of learning and experimenting with the brush and easel, was born in southern Netherlands. His work includes landscapes, still life, portraits and self-portraits. A visit to the Van Gogh Museum to see his paintings was on the list of things to do for Chalk and Cheese. But when we entered the museum our ignorance hit us hard. Each painting stopped us in our track, to admire in reverence, an art form about which our knowledge was so limited yet each frame so immensely intriguing.

This museum is a place to see, read, think, imagine, feel, understand and admire the man called Vincent. Through his paintings, the artist has left behind a story of his life and made it immortal. We see the man, his loneliness, pain, chaos, experimental phase, blissful state, and so much more, all taking shape and form in colours . Van Gogh’s self portraits had a story too, getting a model to pose for portraits was an expensive business, therefore Vincent found his own mirror image the best way for him to practice and learn portraits. Van Gough kept on painting despite his mental illness. Painting was his release or escape in a world where he would not be misunderstood or plagued by doubts. His use of bold colours and brush strokes, at times using the canvas itself as his pallet to mix colours, were all in some way, foundations of modern art.

His famous painting ‘Starry Night’ is kept in New York’s Museum of Modern Arts. Paintings of trees with flowers filled the painter with hope and joy. We saw his two other famous work the ‘Sunflowers’ and ‘Almond Blossoms ‘ at the Van Gogh Museum. Chalk and Cheese left the museum soaked with the powerful colours of life, sprayed by a man called Vincent Van Gogh.

The scarlet or the colour red was the last colour we would see on our final evening in Amsterdam. As Chalk and Cheese set out for their evening stroll along the canal, they reached the infamously famous district of De Wallen. It was around eight in the evening. In full day light the roads and houses looked just like any other canal-lane roads and houses. Only difference was the gathering public around the pubs on the street. Chalk and Cheese were in two minds, whether to wait awhile or return to the hotel. But I guess curiosity got the better of us, we waited.

Around nine in the evening the street lights and the red neon lights on the windows started glowing all at once. The red curtains were pulled to a side and behind each window stood girls wearing bright, glittering fancy clothes , posing and looking directly into the eyes of the onlookers. The popularity of this street amongst tourists is perhaps because, everyone can walk these streets. The life of these sex workers is not an unknown story, there is no discreet alluring of sensuality, it is all in the open. A profession which has existed for centuries, hidden behind closed doors and hushed whispers, had at last raised the curtain, for the show to begin. You can be scornful, lustful, and yet these women will look straight into your eyes, almost daring you to turn your back. Chalk and Cheese did turn back, but this time in contemplative silence.

No matter how well one plans , some wishes still remain unfulfilled . And that is the way of life. It is not necessary that every door you knock will open for you. I knocked the doors of Anne Frank House , but in vain. The tickets for this house are available only online and had to be booked much in advance. I learnt my lesson to make peace with disappointment. I sat outside the house for sometime, remembering the book I had read when I was in school. Years cannot erase all memories, and a good book leaves impressions for life. Perhaps some memories are best left as it is, untouched. Let Anne Frank House stay in my mind forever, just the way I had imagined it to be years back as a young girl. A house where that young girl lived in hiding for two long years, let it remain hidden from the curious eyes of visitors like me.

To be continued…..