Brussels Diary

City of Godiva

Brussels, the capital of Belgium, is one of the richest and most orderly cities in Europe. If you were to visit the city today, you couldn’t tell that, for nearly a year, Belgium has not had a government—and no one seems to mind too much. Or at least, no one is protesting about it in any of the three languages they speak here: German, French and Flemish (Dutch).

Brussels has the swankiest airport in the world, but beware the duty free section, especially if you’re looking for single malt whisky. Beer, chocolates, potato fries, waffles, crystals and diamonds are what Brussels is known for. As also statues of a little chap called Mannekin, who pisses streams of Godiva chocolate or, at some places, Leffe beer.

I am neither the touristy nor the culture-vulture sort, but I got mixed up with a group of high-end Japanese tourists, armed with cameras to discover Brussels’s many cathedrals, museums and palaces. For the Japanese, being out of their country must be miles better than being in it right now—what with magnitude 9.0 earthquakes and their aftershocks going around.

A Bagful of Trikha

There are two Brussels; the old part, nurtured and preserved over centuries, that attracts millions of tourists; and the new, boring Brussels, capital of the European Union and home to the European Parliament, the European Council—the high council of 27 EU countries—and nato. When the European Parliament is in session, hotels in the vicinity are overbooked—with even their ordinary rooms costing anywhere up to ¤250 a night. Prices plummet to less than half that amount during the weekend when the square opposite the Parliament, usually bursting at the seams with revellers, is virtually deserted. I find a mournful Sardar Trikha Singh, from Moga, complaining about his kiosk’s declining sales, especially the sale of alcohol, which is what he makes his money on. He gives me a weekend discount on peanuts, but not on the wine. Clever, Sardarji!

Agit-Prop Avenue

Our India-Pakistan-Afghanistan trilateral delegation had several useful exchanges with the European Commission, which is taking an extraordinary degree of interest in Afghanistan. In addition, not a day goes by without some lobby group passionately advocating anything from a plebiscite in Kashmir, self-determination for Gilgit-Baltistan, women’s rights in Burkina Faso to protecting rare earths in Timbuktoo—all outside the Parliament.

Mussels in Brussels

There is this incredibly nondescript restaurant in old Brussels, Le Pre Sale (Salted Grassland). It’s even more ordinary inside with the menu plastered on the walls and a beer tap in the centre. The owner has one hand on the tap and an eye on the bill dispenser. It is a weekend, after all. We have staked a table for five; two vegetarians and a halal eater. The house specialty is mussels, a bivalve mollusc since you ask. Disposing of a bucketload of mussels and collecting the shells in another bucket takes a good half-hour, after cracking each shell, eating the mussel and chasing it with a sip of chardonnay. At the bottom of the bucket is soup and vegetables, to be consumed with Belgian fries. We’re so caught up with eating our mussels that we don’t notice the dozens who are turned away since they do not have a booking.

Where an Emperor met Hubris

Thirty kilometres south of Brussels in the direction of France is a historic, man-made landmark: Lion Mound, site of the battle of Waterloo. On June 18, 1815, Napoleon Bonaparte fought and lost on the Waterloo plateau, attacking the opposing coalition of British, Dutch, Belgian and Russian forces head on, with a smaller and weaker army. Repeated cavalry charges by the legendary Marshal Ney could not rupture the coalition’s defences. When even a desperate assault by his famous Old Guard failed to break through, Napoleon retreated, abandoning all his artillery. He escaped to Paris, but died in exile at St Helena.

A Napolean Complex in the ’Loo

Napoleon met his Waterloo at the hands of Lord Wellington, who earned his spurs on campaigns in India. Waterloo, like Dien Bien Phu in Indo-China, where the French were routed 140 years later, has become synonymous with disaster. Every phase of the battle has been carefully recreated through films, a wax museum and a cyclic panorama that resurrects, with son et lumiere, the cavalry charges and hand-to-hand combat. The battle is re-enacted on June 18 every year to much fanfare and a packed Lion Mound. Exactly 226 steps lead up to the summit from where one has a breathtaking view of the battlefield. A notice warns the faint-hearted not to attempt the ascent. As the French don’t acknowledged the defeat, they too celebrate the victory every year. Such is the lasting glory of Brand Waterloo that it still adds to the state coffers and creates such derivations as a 15 per cent alcohol Waterloo beer.