Ramesh Shotham & Alexandra Putlitz

Ramesh came to Germany for the music. Alexandra came to a concert because she was curious. Neither knew that the evening in Witten would change the course of their lives. What followed is a marriage that has moved between languages, families, countries and two ideas of home.

By Prathap Nair

In the early 1980s, Alexandra was already fascinated by Indian music. She listened to Ravi Shankar and Shakti, the Indo-jazz fusion band. She was curious about the musicians she was discovering through Germany’s countercultural scene. When she saw an advertisement for a concert in Witten, she decided to go. She had never heard of the mridangam, a South Indian percussion instrument, but wanted to see the musician who played it.

That musician was Ramesh Shotham.

He had arrived in Europe in 1980 after an invitation from the Polish Jazz Federation. In India, he had already made a name for himself as a drummer with the rock band Human Bondage. Germany was supposed to be a temporary stop on his way to New York, which he imagined as the next destination in his musical career.

Finding a Musical Home in Germany

Germany's experimental music scene, with its openness to influences from India, Africa and the Arab world, changed his plans. Shotham began working with bands including Embryo and Dissidenten and found an audience for his music.

It was during a tour with Embryo that he met Alexandra in Witten. She was 21 and had come to the concert because of her interest in Indian music. During the break, they spoke briefly. Shotham initially assumed she was Indian. With her dark hair and eyes, he thought she could have been Punjabi.

Alexandra stayed through the concert and afterwards. Three days later, they met again at another concert in another city. They spent the night talking, working around the limits of their shared language with patience and curiosity. Within weeks, Shotham asked her to marry him. She said yes.

An Indian Wedding

In December 1981, Alexandra travelled to India. They married in Chennai, followed by a reception at The Woodlands. For Alexandra, the visit revealed a side of Shotham she had not seen on tour: the musician became a son navigating family traditions with ease. Seeing him in a lungi for the first time made his Indian identity newly tangible to her.

Alexandra, who was born Catholic but is not practising, had wondered whether marriage would bring expectations around religion or conversion. However, this was not the case. Shotham’s mother and extended family welcomed her warmly. During the Hindu wedding ceremonies, Alexandra chose the name “Bhavani”, inspired by a veena raga she admired. The name was never official, but it remained meaningful to her.

Visa delays kept the newlyweds apart for several weeks after the wedding. Once reunited in Germany, they built their life around Shotham’s touring career and Alexandra’s work as a psychotherapist. Eventually, Cologne became their base, with its jazz clubs, WDR and support for experimental music giving Shotham room to continue his work.

Learning Each Other’s Worlds

They learned each other’s languages gradually: Shotham picked up German by living in Germany, Alexandra improved her English through necessity, and Tamil entered her life later through everyday interactions in India. They also encountered smaller differences in everyday life. When Alexandra first visited India, for example, she found that women smoking in public was frowned upon and began hiding the habit.

Their son grew up between the two countries. For several years, the family lived in Chennai, selling most of what they owned in Germany and enrolling him in a Montessori school. Returning to Germany was later a practical decision: education, continuity, and work opportunities drew them back to Cologne.

Today, they divide their time between Cologne and a home near Auroville in southern India. “For me, Germany is home just as much as Chennai is,” Shotham says.

More Than Cultural Difference

After more than four decades together, neither Shotham nor Alexandra describes their relationship primarily in terms of cultural difference. They have had disagreements and difficult periods, but Shotham sees them simply as “two different human beings making a life together.”

When she looks back, Alexandra is still amazed at how unlikely it all seems now. They’d only met three times before Shotham proposed to her. “Now, 44 years later in retrospect, nobody would have thought this could work,” she says. When a relationship hits a rough patch, she believes it should be treated as a learning opportunity, met with patience.

Their story does not offer a magic formula for how an intercultural relationship can last. Instead, it highlights something more practical: cultural differences are only part of the challenge. The rest lies in getting to know the other person’s habits, family, language and worldview – and continuing to do so long after the first meeting.