I was born in a hospital in Norbury, in the district of Croydon, not too far from where His Majesty’s government had an aerodrome. This was some years before the outbreak of the Second World War. I had an elder brother named Gunar who was also born in Norbury. But he died soon after birth. So when the stork started hovering over our house, and Planet Earth was about to be regaled with another baby of mixed Prussian and Indian parentage, my father suggested to my mother that as he was a Muslim, she should try a Muslim name for a change and not another Swedish import. That’s how the I ended up being called Anwer, and not Siegfried or Tristan. Apparently, according to the Chronicles, I wasn’t a model baby. I bawled and howled and shrieked so much, that the nurses and the hospital management broke records in the speed with which they sent me packing.

My mother also couldn’t handle the incessant crying and had to send for her mother from Berlin whom all grandchildren addressed as Oma. Granny had been given strict instructions to push my pram on the pavement opposite to the one on which my mother walked. My father, who was a student at the Royal Dental Hospital in Leicester Square, didn’t approve of my incessant yells which were delivered fortissimo in the register used by the German soprano Elizabeth Schwarzkopf. He said that they interfered with his homework. And so, two Prussians of two different generations and one half-Prussian of the third generation were packed off to Berlin to irritate the German side of the family. However, the moment the train stopped at Hauptbahnhof in Berlin, the Norse gods must have smiled for the crying and whimpering miraculously stopped.

 My mother’s family which consisted of an older sister and a younger brother, their spouses and offspring, lived in three neat, small brick houses in the northern part of Berlin, close to some tram lines. By the time, I was five the only language I could speak was German and I spoke it like a native, slang and all. Summer and winter, I was up at six and walked about 0.1km to a bakery run by Frau Nikstadt who, for a few pfennigs, supplied me rolls called broetchen. For entertainment there were the parades, lots and lots of them. Some took place in broad daylight, as a band thumped out martial music and hard heels in measured tread clicked on cobble-stoned roads. On such occasions there was a profusion of flags.

Life as a child in pre-war Berlin

At night there were the torchlight tattoos, where searchlights scanned the sky in sweeping gestures. I had two cousins Henry and Christa. The three of us were told never to enter the private property of an old Junker, named Herr Stein, who used to eat young children for supper. His vast grounds were fenced in and notices posted at regular intervals stated that trespassers would be imprisoned. One day my mother joined us on our walk and we spotted the Junker walking his two dogs. He didn’t look at all ferocious to us. That evening, my mother told my sister that Herr Stein reminded her of the rambler in one of those Shell posters, complete with cap, jersey, pipe, sturdy stick and trousers stuck into his socks.

One night after supper, when the three of us went for a walk, we caught a glimpse of a street lamp, which gave out a pale leprous flush and lit up with wan, disdainful efficiency a huge poster of Leni Riefenstahl’s eternal classic Triumph des Willens (Triumph of the Will). This film described the rise of the Nazi Party, Adolf Hitler’s planned arrival by airplane in Nuremberg, where massive crowds awaited his arrival. A clutch of hardliners swore eternal loyalty to the Fuehrer. And when he drove along in his open air Mercedes, a phalanx of right arms shot upwards in a Nazi salute on both sides of the thoroughfare. The crowds were mesmerised by the goose step, and the marching columns were manicured like hedges in an English squire’s garden. The parades were spectacular and when one realises the fact that this was 1933, and cranes with high platforms had never before been used to make a feature film, Willens deserved every bit of praise that came its way.

One day after, while wolfing down a plate of sausages dipped in mustard, I complained to my mother that I had a problem swallowing. The doctor to whom I was taken was also the surgeon who was going to operate on me. He was a man of quick decisions. He said that my tonsils were the cause of the problem and would have to be removed. Surgery was fixed for the next day. The surgery was spotlessly clean and both surgeon and nurse smelled of disinfectant. The doctor had in his hand something which looked suspiciously like a flower. It was chloroform. I grabbed his wrist. There was a brief struggle. He asked me in the tart tones of repressed rage whether the chief in the room was the doctor or the patient. I said it was the patient. The nurse took the doctor’s side. I was strapped to the seat. Something sickly sweet was applied to my mouth and nose and I went into a deep, deep sleep. To this day I can still remember the dream. A clutch of telegraph poles meandering aimlessly and with no apparent purpose in a field partially filled with water.

The hot summers were delightful. We would head for Tegeler See, moored in the slow tides of flat calm afternoons. Here bright pink anatomies roasted in the sun and grandmothers in feathered felt hats and ankle-length skirts bit into sausage and bread and splashed themselves with 4711 (a German eau de cologne). Henry and I, with our toy Messerschmitts, zoomed at our war games at the edge of the lake and licked ice sticks supplied by the ubiquitous ice cream seller. Christa in her bright orange swimsuit was constantly threatened with photography. I got to know some of the boys and we became good friends. What I noticed at the time was the incredible sense of Kameradschaft (Comradeship) not just between the lads and lasses, but also among the elders. The favourite phrase that one heard everywhere was Ein Reich, Ein Volk, Ein Fuehrer (One country, One People, One Leader). There were also a few variations, and in one case Ein Deutschand had been added.

Even at such a young age, I could sense a spirit of euphoria. From Flemsberg in the north-west to Koenigsberg in the north-east, and from Freiberg in the south-west to Oberammergau in the south-east where the Passion Play, which depicted the crucifixion  of Jesus Christ, is held every 10 years, there was a feeling that something important was about to happen. My father visited us a couple of times during the Easter break. During his second visit, he and my mother were in conversation with my uncles who told them they had been conscripted, and Cousin Rudy had already joined the Luftwaffe. “The German nation is preparing for war,” said Uncle Erich. “What else can guns, not butter, mean?”

My father decided then and there that my mother, my sister Rabia who was born in Berlin and I should leave the Reich at the first opportunity. Meanwhile my father had answered an advertisement which appeared in the Times which stated that the Prince of Wales Hospital in the princely state of Bhopal in Central India was looking for a qualified dental surgeon, preferably from a British University. As soon as my father received an acceptance letter we flew to London, and a week later an ocean liner left Southampton for Bombay.

There was an amusing incident at the wharf. As my mother was coming down the gangplank she turned to my father in alarm and said, “Vali, please take me back to England. Everybody here is suffering from tuberculosis and is coughing up blood.” My father burst out laughing. “That isn’t blood, my dear. That’s beetle nut. You’ll get used to it.” Well, my mother did. What’s more … she even tried it once.

Published in Dawn, Sunday Magazine, May 8th, 2016