Gorbachov’s glasnost and perestroika, openness and restructuring, led to a resurgence of a new freedom movement in the eastern bloc. On November 9, 1989, the Berlin wall came down in a historic day of jubilance. Short-lived, as after the first wave of euphoria waned, you could actually buy “I Want My Wall Back” T-shirts... Eventually though, East and West learned to co-habit, just as the barely half of its native 3.6 million inhabitants had learned to live with a burgeoning population of immigrants, who breathe energy, drive and colour into what was once a dreary provincial town. Today, Berlin, city of museums and galleries, concerts and clubs is considered the cultural capital of Germany.

“Give me the dirt on Berlin; the picture postcards can wait.” I couldn’t have talked to a better man than Daud, as this chronicle shall reveal later. Daud? Well, Berliners do have unusual names and some very unusual accents: Turkish, Arabic, Persian, Kurdish, Swahili, Hungarian, Russian, Sri Lankan, Bengali, even German.