We arrive at the top of the little hill after a short cycle ride, and the sun is playing tricks. Summer is nearing, with the days getting longer, but there is more to this than a change of seasons. The orange glow sharpens every leaf, and a few blonde heads catch fire. 

We join the sun seekers and enjoy the optics. Large steel cages filled with rocks provide seating on the incline. When winter comes, they will stop snow slides. Through the narrow gap in the foliage, we can see a few brick red roofs. Our home is somewhere in that direction.

We are not on a real hill, though. It’s what the Germans call a Bunkerberg. During the last great war, when the Britsh dropped bombs, the Nazis hunkered down in a bunker and tried to shoot down the enemy with anti-aircraft cannons. 

Thirteen-year-olds scurried with crates of ammo and kept the professional soldiers well supplied. They must have done a good job, since the houses around here are still handsome and whole. When the liberating Russians (we may never hear this phrase again, atleast in english) got through the nazis, they blew up their bunkers and covered the whole thing up with assorted debris.

And then the hill grew, burying all the unpleasantness. Wood pigeons coo in the trees, and the only things getting smashed are the beer bottles. 

We ride downhill and past grassy slopes teeming with relaxing Berliners. This is the Volkspark (people’s park) in Friedrichshain, and no one can deny the people their leisure. Everyone is either eating ice cream, drinking beer, or smoking something. It’s a wonderful sight to see a grandmotherly-looking woman indulge in some light alcohol all by herself while trying to read what must surely be an old German classic. Only on the unlucky days do you see the unattractive and naked people on the grass.

I learn that deep in the German state, there is a department for gardens. It’s officials think about which flower bed goes where and number all trees. And this park is Berlin’s oldest park, a gift by the city nobles to the commoners, a hundred and seventy years ago. Even then, the officials cared enough to have designers think deeply about garden decor and statues. At the entrance of the park, there is a horrifyingly cute assortment of gothic sculptures from fairy tales, which the nobles thought would be pleasing to the children.

One wonders how they escaped the British bombings.

Nestled in these numbered trees is a green pool with nesting moorhens. Flamboyantly wing-sailed Mandarin ducks tamely beckon to be fed. Arjun and I are tempted to pluck out its feathers, but the Mandarin duck shuffles away at the very last minute. These gaudy ducks, imported from China to add color to the local parks, have now spread over the city parks. A tale of (forced) immigration that no one complains about.

The Volkspark is so large and sprawling that it took us a few weeks to discover the large oval running track. Styled in the fashion of a Roman hippodrome, instead of chariots, there are skaters, runners, and cyclists with sickle-shaped handlebars.

In the center, there are more recreational options. Sand, from some distant sea, has been shovelled to make beach volleyball courts. Techno music blasts from portable speakers, and there are acres of grass banks to drink beer when the ball playing gets wearisome. The Syrians have their hookahs, barbeque skewers, and many kids, while the (assumed) Germans have family games involving blocks of wood.

The garden planners have perfectly placed a few large bushes and stunted pine trees in the midst. Every now and then a perfectly respectable lady squats behind one of these natural screens to take a piss. Beer might be magical, but it must be excreted like all other liquids. The men just sprint in and out. Judging by the rolls of white tissue paper that line these natural toilets, one is amazed by how prepared the Germans are. 

A spray-painted rock climbing wall sits on a bed of sand. Its surface feels and crumbles like a real rock, but to this day, I have not figured out how this came into being. The department of gardens must have a subcommittee that oversees rock climbing structures. Within a month, Arjun is able to haul himself up on a few cracks, and his courage ebbs and flows. I, too, make ungainly attempts on this.

Socialism leads to the best children’s parks. The kinders have an unending variety of slides, rope ladders, and ziplines that ricochet and thrill. Artists carve out totally unnecessary but undeniably beautiful woodpeckers on swings, and bears that make for comfortable seating.

In a less-visited corner, close to the “secret park”, which Arjun claims private ownership of, is a cemetery for the revolutionaries who rose up against the kings of old. In France, they cut off the queen’s head, so in Germany, the royalty gave in to the demands, but not before slaying enough revolters to make for a good-sized memorial. 

In the woodchips in this secret park, grows a canary yellow fungus, like the frosting on an alien ice cream. It bears the grotesque name of dog vomit slime mold. Heading back home, we glow in the setting sun that shines through our street.