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Iceland Diary

Posted By: Vir Sanghvi | Posted On: 04 Sep 2010 05:55 PM

Sometimes the names of countries can lie to us. There is, for instance, little greenery in Greenland (only a lot of ice) despite its name. And there’s rather a lot of greenery in Iceland and not as much ice as you would expect.

Before I went to Iceland, I knew very little about it. I knew it as the home of the unpronounceable volcano (pilots called it E15 to avoid tripping over their tongues) that disrupted air travel in Europe for so many weeks. I had heard of its President Olafur Grimsson, a long-time friend of India from Indira Gandhi’s day and winner of the Nehru Prize earlier this year. And I was dimly aware that its improbable burst of prosperity – at one stage, Icelandic companies owned half of the British high street – had came to an inglorious end a couple of years ago and that the country was now – in a strict fiscal sense – effectively bankrupt.

That’s not a lot of knowledge to base a visit on but when the Icelandic ambassador to New Delhi phoned on behalf of his Foreign Ministry to ask if I would visit his country, I accepted the invitation on a sudden impulse.

And I am glad I did.

The first thing I discovered when I got to Iceland was that there were very few countries like it (though New Zealand is not dissimilar). For a start, it is very isolated. The country is about the size of England but its total population of around 3.5 lakh is roughly equal to the population of a Delhi locality – say, Karol Bagh. When we got to the countryside, we would drive for miles and miles without seeing a soul, the quiet isolation only relieved by the occasional herd of magnificent stallions.

Then, there’s the landscape. According to geologists, Iceland is one of the world’s youngest countries. It was created millions of years after, say, India which means it probably rose out of the Atlantic Ocean as a consequence of volcanic activity.

So, Iceland is still a land in ferment. Forget...