A Walk Around Prague, Where Every Corner Tells A Story

Oiswarjya Basu, 29, usually gets into a bad mood around her birthday. So, she did not have any great expectations from the day, December 30, 2019, when she found herself in Prague, the capital of the Czech Republic.

"We were staying at a hostel in the centre of the city for EUR 7 a night," recalled the assistant professor of law at O P Jindal Global University, Sonipat. "Besides the two of us (Basu and her cousin, Sayantani Ghosh, 33), six French boys were in the room. Only one of them knew English."

When the boys learned it was Basu's birthday, they went to the Burger King nearby, stole a large menu card, and inscribed a birthday wish. "They also got a lot of liquor," said Basu. "I got quite drunk and then threw up in the bathtub. But the receptionist at the hotel did not make me clean it nor charged me extra—all because it was my birthday."

Basu and Ghosh took a cruise on the Vltava River the next day. "Everything was so bright," said Basu. "I think it was the brightest day of my life."

The two young women stayed in the Czech Republic from December 24, 2019, to January 2, 2020.

Basu, a frequent traveller in India and abroad, believes that Prague is probably the most beautiful place she has visited. "The only exception would be Vietnam," she said. "But Vietnam has natural beauty. Prague is beautiful because someone made it so."

She also recollected spending Christmas and New Year in the Czech capital—often described as one of the best times in the year to visit the city. Unlike many European cities, such as Berlin, Paris, or London, Prague had endured less damage during the cataclysms of the 20th century, like World War II. Its medieval spires, clock towers, opera houses, and cobbled streets are lit with a thousand lights.

Snow adds a touch of magic.

Basu's description reminded me of novelist Nirmal Verma's "Ve Din." Set in Prague—an uncommon landscape for an Indian novel—in the early 1960s, it narrates a doomed love story between an unnamed Indian student and an Austrian woman. The events in the short novel occur over three days during a cold Christmas holiday when other students have gone home, but the Indian remains in the city.

Both the student and the woman are acutely aware of how short their relationship—if it can be called that—is destined to be. "The very temporariness makes it more intense," writes critic Jai Arjun Singh in a review of the English translation of the novel by Krishna Baldev Vaid.

Verma went to Prague in 1959 at the invitation of the Czech Institute of Oriental Studies to initiate a programme to translate Czech literature into Hindi. He lived in the city for much of the 1960s, witnessing the Prague Spring uprising led by students and workers against the Soviet-backed communist regime. The brutal suppression of the uprising by the Soviet Union and its Warsaw Pact allies left Verma disillusioned with socialism.

Verma was on my mind when I reached Prague on an early morning train from Vienna in the summer of 2018.

Besides Verma's book, the other one I had carried in my bag was Milan Kundera's "The Unbearable Lightness of Being." Kundera, arguably the most well-known post-World War II Czech writer, also set his novel during the 1968 uprising in Prague.

Later, in a piece for Granta, Kundera wrote about how the Prague Spring led to a flowering of Czech literature and culture: "The films of Miloš Forman, Jiri Menzel, Vera Chytilova, the theatrical productions of Otomar Kraja and of the brilliant Alfred Radok, the plays of the young Václav Havel, the novels of Josef Škvorecký and Bohumil Hrabal, the poetry of Jan Skácel and the philosophical works of Jan Patočka and Karel Kosik all date from the 1960s. European culture has known in our country few better or more dynamic decades than the Czech sixties."

One of the first places I visited in Prague was Wenceslas Square, the central town square of Prague. It has witnessed many historical events, such as anti-Nazi demonstrations in 1938 and anti-Soviet protests in 1968. In 1969, when Czechoslovakia's ice hockey team defeated their Soviet rivals, there was a massive celebration at this venue.

As I walked up the gradient, I muttered a line I remembered from "The Unbearable Lightness of Being": "They may crush the flowers, but they can't stop the Spring." On reaching the top of the gradient, I came across a Bata showroom. I had always imagined that Bata was an Indian brand.

If you are of a literary bent of mind, like I am, you will look up everything to do with Franz Kafka, who was born in the city on July 3, 1883, and lived there for many years.

American artist and writer Renée Reizman describes Kafka as a brand in Prague, where his face can be found on t-shirts, postcards, coffee mugs, wall paintings, and anything you can imagine.

"The Kafkaesque feeling of seeing Kafka as a tourist attraction," she writes.

But I was a tourist. I took great pleasure in identifying everything to do with Kafka.

But those who do wander into Prague, Bratislava, Budapest, or Krakow are often rewarded with an out-of-the-ordinary experience. These cities are less crowded with tourists and accommodation is usually cheaper, as is the food. As post-communist urban centres they often have excellent public transport. Also, they are often much safer than their Western counterparts.

It is like walking onto the set of a Wes Anderson film—slightly kitschy, full of nostalgia.

Know Before You Go

Visa: Indians need to take a short-term Schengen visa (up to 90 days) to visit the Czech Republic. The visa fee is INR 7,200.

Currency: Czech Koruna

Exchange Rate: INR 1 = CZK 0.27

Getting There: You can book a connecting flight to Prague from Mumbai, Delhi, or Bengaluru. Fares are approximately INR 55,000.

Getting Around Czech Republic: Most cities have good public transport. Buy the Prague Visitor Pass (prague.eu) to enjoy unlimited travel on public transport.

Food: While there are fancy hotels and restaurants, Czech cities are also full of cheap pubs and cafés. You would not have to spend more than INR 3,500 on food per day.

Accommodation: You can save money on your stay by opting for hostels (most of them have private rooms) or BnBs.

Pro Tip: Explore Prague with free walking tours (find them on freewalkingtourprague.eu)

Uttaran Das Gupta is a New Delhi-based writer and journalist