Unity in Diverse-cities

Finally found it!
Had been looking for this video for quite some time now.... And there it was - the very tv-show filler that I'd seen ages back on our very own National channel.

Remember the video - 'Ek-Anek'?
Does 'Ek chidiya, anek chidiya' ring a bell?




This is one of those few tv-shows that I practically grew up on!
One of the simplest lessons that explained grammer - how plurals worked, simplified mathematics - how counting should be done, and put this damn simple thought in the little children's heads that 'Unity is the way to go!'
Ah, those were the simple days of Doordarshan....
(and I shall continue this discussion in the subsequent post...)

Further from the previous post....

The few lines in the previous post about wars in Europe remind me about something that happened last week in Stuttgart. A construction group was busy in activity at a site, and they unearthed something which we have only heard stories about, but its fairly common across this place. I'm talking about bombs. And huge ones!

While digging through the layers of earth, the site workers happened to come across a HUGE bomb, unexploded since last many many years - which apparently was dropped there during the world war 2. And there it lay, untouched and undestroyed....
That was enough to cause frenzy all around and soon the area was cordoned off, while the special bomb squad folks jumped in. Traffic and movement of trains came to a standstill around that area.

By the way, Stuttgart was one of those cities that was almost completely destroyed by bombing during the World War, and had been newly rebuilt. Thats the reason for its modernistic public transport and its public buildings. In and around Germany, its a fairly common thing to discover these sort of things, but hey, a bomb is a bomb! Who can beat that...?

On a lighter note, an interesting theory I read, about how the World War I started:
"A Serbian rebel killed an Austrian prince, so everyone declared war on Germany."
:-)

The Inscrutable Europeans

Firangs are weird people!
I'm sure half the population of Europe would find ME, the asian, weirder, but as the owner of this conversation I'll just let that point of conflict pass.... :-D

Ya I know, each society has a way of norms, behaviour and lifestyle and blah blah... but puhleese let me have the menial pleasure of ripping apart the ways of some foreigners that I find really surprising or stomach-tickling or both!
With all due respect, they (my clients) are the ones who provide the bread and butter for my employer, which in turn does a (half) decent job of giving me my daily bread.... so...

Firangs have a way of doing EVERYTHING systematically. Thats a good thing, considering that they usually end up doing a quality job. (especially engineering and sports!) But 'systematically' usually has an after-effect of turning into 'boringly one thing at a time'!

Try getting towards a salesman here when he is attending another customer, and all you'll get is a big IGNORE! Of course you'll have to wait till he is over with the current person that has occupied all his limited attention.
Try telling a foreigner about 2-3 different things simultaneously, and you can be damn sure his processor will hang! Good-ol' multitasking - I dont think its exists in the foreign dictionary.

And they in no comparable ways can get closer to us desis in terms of money-management, cash-optimization! (I'll tell you what it means... by an example)

A friend of mine in Amsterdam had the following interaction with his client. (he was offered the luxury of being given a lift to office by the client Project lead (PL))
Friend: Hey, I'll wait at the R-square and you can pick me up from there.
PL: Okie, what time you'd be there?
Friend: Oh, just gimme a miss-call on my cell just when you leave, and I'll be there in 5 mins.
PL: What is a miss-call? why would I give you a 'miss-call'?
Friend: Oh, its when you give me a call and I don't pick it... Just to let me know that you are on your way.
PL: (confused) But why would I not pick the phone if you call me?
Friend: (aaaaaaahhhhh !!!!!)

Once at a shop I managed to cough up a bill of 5 euros and 18 cents. I paid the cashier a 10 bucks crispy note and wished I wouldn't be stralled with a handful of loose change of cents. Then I realized I had 20 cents with me that might save me (and her) some bit of trouble. So I handed that to her with a new 5 euros note and asked for the 10 rupee note back. That did it! Her system totally crashed! Firstly because she had already entered 10 in her cash registers, and secondly bcos she totally lost track of the transactions that we were mutually were into! (whatever happened to math classes in junior school?)

And of course there is this vast cultural difference - which a desi is duly subjected to, from the moment he/she enters phoren land. Be it the Public Displays of Affection, or the way senior citizens are treated (bad, really bad), or the way individuality and professionalism is rooted here, or the way they eat, drink and party - everything is oh-so different here!
A greet to everyone you meet - its the norm. Its really a good thing to have around - politeness and 'assumed' nicety, but after a while when you see everyone speaking the same thing artificially, EVERYDAY, it can get to your nerves.
(Prakash seems to think on simlar lines) :-)

A friend of mine who had recently moved in with her husband to Stuttgart was asked by her landlady whether the guy was her husband or boyfriend! (ya, I know live-in relationships are slowly picking up in India too, but a question like this?)

Another friend of mine had this conversation: (oh so typical :-))
Foreigner: Are you married or single?
Friend: Single :-)
Foreigner: Do you have children?
Imagine this being spoken in India. Something like this would send the person on a minor heart attack!

On a serious, more factual note:
Europeans have been at the crux of the Industrial revolution. They have been the foremost in science, technology, the arts and monarchy. They are responsible for all the development around the world (and also responsible for all the backwardness due to colonization - thats the irony) Such a small continent, so beautiful to the eyes, divided in small small pieces of nationalities, each speaking a different language, each weirder than the other! Europe is one its kinda continent (ok, ok - we don't have many continents anyways)
The funny part is - most of the nations have ended up fighting each other throughout the centuries and still have remained the most developed and rich nations. Except beautiful Switzerland which hasn't fought wars, probably explained by Scott 'Dilbert' Adams' theory that cooler nations have had lesser battles, ha ha.. Maybe while the whole world was busy killing the world, the Swiss were too busy freezing their chocolate covered nuts! lolz!

But all things apart.... there are hundreds of things we Indians could learn from these goras, of course! (too big a discussion - might take a whole new post and a very hopeful mood for that, maybe for later :-) )
Prakash and me both are seeing the ways of foreign land (in separate continents), and that is naturally accompanied by a mental comparison between that place and our very own motherland.... so be it! :-D

Peace.
And, Jai Hind!

A 'Reverse Lagaan'

We had a kinda 'Reverse Lagaan' setting today! Don't get confused - its just a stupid phrase coined by me for this blog post... (probably just bcos I could think of nothing better to describe the scene with :-) )

A gang of desis (all office colleagues) decide to gather together for a long-due round of Cricket on a lazy Sunday! After the people had gathered as per IST, the game began in a small ground amongst a quiet neighbourhood. The ground not being large enough, restrictions were made on long shots, lest every self-confessed Dhoni went on a window-pane breaking spree!

Now coming to the 'Reverse Lagaan' part - remember the scene in the movie where Bhuwan and his friends sneak in near a cricket ground boundary and begin wondering what the 15 goras were doing with 2 sticks and a ball? Thats what happened today with us - only that this time the desis were inside the ground and the goras were out, ha ha!
As our game went on, passerbys (all native Germans) began wondering what kinda silly game we were up to! Some found it quite interesting and paused for a while to have a closer look. Amused they were, yes!
Some tried chatting up with the boundary fielders, asking them:
1. What this funny game was called and if it was something they knew as Baseball?
2. How the hell was one supposed to play it?(now that none of the desis there spoke an acceptable level of German, is a different thing)

And it having rained the previous night, the ground was muddy and slippery, but who cared! A few hours of cacophonous cricket so far from Bharatvarsh - was just what the desis needed to feel happy! Clothes and hands were all dirty after the game... but who cared!
My long-unexercised arms still ache from the numerous wide/no/dead balls in an over - all due to the fact that I touched bowling after years!
(and my blue jeans looks like a 'before' piece from a 'before-after' commercial for a stain-removing detergent!)
But who cares, we had fun! :-)

Speaking of cricket and dirty clothes, here's something that I recently came across:
"I cannot for the life of me see why the umpires, the only two people on a cricket field who are not going to get grass stains on their knees, are the only two people allowed to wear dark trousers." ~Katharine Whitehorn
.

Orkut and the fine art of socializing

I just realized. Sitting in the train and jabbering down your thoughts on the laptop isn't sucha difficult thing after all. I did this today.

Its funny how a piece of technology manages to take over our social lives. Yes, I'm talking about Orkut.

We live in a globalized world. And the World is Flat. And we have friends scattered all over the planet. Friends, with whom we would like to get back in touch with.
Friends, brothers, sisters, cousins, crushes, seniors/juniors from school/college/playschool :-), the neighborhood gundas, the gal-next-door... you name it! All of them can be accessed with a click of the mouse! Good na!
I myself have found so many old friends through this... (and I'm sure its the same case for everyone else around)

And Orkut is spreading like wildfire... Have been on this site since almost 2 yrs now, but never bothered to check it out much. But the last 10 months or so, its exploded!
This July when I spent 12 hours at the Mumbai airport (thanx to the annual floods occuring) I noticed at least 3 ppl in different places, sitting with their laptops and... Orkutting!

Welcome to the world of online socializing!
Of course nothing can beat the charm of meeting the person for real, but this is a workable delight sitting thousands of miles away from each other.


And how could the discussion be complete without the an eulogy to the never-ending list of DFSs (aka Desperate Friend Seekers)
Wow, I love this part....

There are loads of DFSs crawling all over the internet... loads. And if you just happen to mention in your profile that you are a female between 18 to 28 there will be loads of them wanting to make 'franship' with you and scrapping the nuts out of you....
Ya... female - thats enough. A sweet-sounding name and/or a pic that is remotely feminine will multiply the 'franship' offers almost-instantly. Uploading a few more of such pics on the album will result in exponential increase in the friends requests and scrappps!

I mean I know from a few of my gal-friends that everyday when they log on to their orkut, dozens of 'franship' requests stare them in the face on the homepage.... and it gets so irritating to click on 'NO' for each of them, one by one. Aha, the pleasures of being a guy... you don't (usually) have to go through this, he he!
As if the 'franship' requests are not enough, there are the scrapyards! Aha, welcome to the free arena of oh-I'm-so-cooool scraps, where each DFS comes up with one cheesy line after another (some in bold, italics, eastman color) - just to grab attention. (remember the Joey, 'How are u doin?' thingy'?)

I dunno how some people get kicks out of seeing more and more gals in their friend's list, even if they have no clue whatsoever about them or about their lives. Ah, maybe they think, the way to a gal's heart is through her 'Friend's list' :-) Someone pls educate me.

Here are some of the cornier examples:
(names have been withheld to protect identity, including mine ;-0 )
(Consider the responses in brackets below to be that of a PAL - Pretty Annoyed Lady)

Hi how r u?
(PAL: Hello, am i gonna tell random strangers how am I doing - whether I feel on top of the world or down in the dumps or both?)

hi, cute pic / nice pic / what a blah-blah pic!
(PAL: Well for starters, Thank you, but don't expect me to scrap you back. Its not a 'I scrap... err scratch your back, you scratch mine' thing)

Would you like to make franship with me?
This one takes the cake mann! I mean, if this works with a gal whom you've has never met/talked/chatted in life before, I could myself fancy my chances of using this line successfully with with Catherine Zeta Jones! Ah!
And the Engleees is just.... Subhaanalla...!!
more cornier versions of this:
'Would you like frenship with mee?'
'Hi I'm Narayan Kumar Babu from Rajpur, pleees freind me...'

Hi I'l w8 4 scrp, tc, by!
(PAL: This guy is having an SMS nightmare)

Waiting 4 your screp, byeeeeeeeeeee... !!!!!!!!!!!!!
(PAL: Hey, why was the 'byeeeee' for...? Aaye, scrap kiye, aur chal diye...? And sochte ho ki ladki patt jaayegi?? ha ha)
Still beats me why the extra e's and the hordes of exclamation marks added - was this guy having an orgasm while writing this? :-P

(And here are the try-again till you drop types...)
I screp yu but yu had not respond me so care to replay
(HA HA... ROTFL !!!)

And finally... this - yes, I've seen at least 2 such scraps in other ppl's scrap books. Laughed for 9.5 minutes non-stop!
Hi I woud like u as frend, pls send me a massage!
(Need I say more? :-) )
.

Waiting....

Ok, that was just to grab attention. The fact remains that I've been busy like hell... and hence no time for chitter-chat on this webpage! No, wait... maybe I've run out of ideas too.... :-)

But like every other self-confessed writer, I'd think of something snooty to pen down... eventually. So..... here's me saying, "Yeah... I'll be back soooon...."

Weekend.... thou art quick!

Another weekend comes and goes....

Saturday was full of shopping for goodies... just to keep our home sweet home in order.... Keeping the house liveable for 4 bachelors is equivalent to a battle. And you gotta keep all the artillery ready for that.... (unfortunately the battle is a never ending one...)

And today Sunday..... 9 of us friends from office got together, deciding to pay a visit to a beautiful 19th century castle close to Munich. And well, was it good or what!!
(more about that in Travelogue 2, maybe...)

As I write this at midnight on Sunday... another week of project work beckons from tomorrow. But I guess I'll survive!

The one book I've been trying to finish since last 10 days is 'Jack - Straight from the Gut' - one of those which was long pending since the b-school days. But it continues at this snail pace only due to the fact that I find time to read it only during my commute between work and office - the 30 min train ride that actually relaxes! (not kidding!)

Bah-bye Sunday!

Travelogue

My blog is evolving into a travelogue of sorts (though I didnt mean it to be, initially). But when you are lucky enough to travel to places that many people have just read and dreamt of, you gotta brag like hell! Besides, it gives me a readymade subject to write on that my friends would actually enjoy, rather than read about my opinionated notions about the world that's all centered around me. Excuse me sometimes, puhleeaaase! :-)

But hey there is another positive. Maybe I'd get really famous writing about my expeditions, maybe TOI would do a cover feature on me, maybe 'Lonely Planet' would discover my hitherto hidden talents and give me a handsome advance for my first Travel book, alike Ms. Kaavya, and maybe a part of the advance would be a free cruise to Gibraltor so that I could write about the island and the mediterranean - some 5-star resort treatment thrown in as well!!! Woooh!

Ok. Ding Dong! Landing back to reality!

I now present, short descriptions of two very eventful excursions - Munich Oktoberfest and the Swiss Alps! :-)


Oktoberfest

Germany and specially Munich is world renowed for its Oktoberfest. Its a 3 week long Beer fest that happens every year in the later part of September. Every self-respecting beer drinker in the world considers this as a pilgrimage that one should do, no matter where in the world! Munich being just 3 hours away in the train, was an easy choice, so we went there on the Sunday when the Costume parade takes place. We reached Munich just on time when that started. The main streets where the parade would move through, had people decked up on both sides waiting to watch the visual extravaganza. There were the locals dressed in traditional attire walking in sync, with different kinds of props, orchestras walking and playing the music, decorated vehicles, bob-carts, horse carriages etc. all walking gallantly. And we happily watched and took pictures.

The parade pathway led to the big ground where the tents and the rides were set up. The tents accomodate between 6000 to 9000 people each and have tables spread all over. A group wud be lucky to get a seat on a weekend. And there were waitresses carrying oversized beer jugs, sometimes 7-8 of them together (1 ltr each!) and serving it to the ppl on the tables. And loads of carnivorous dishes (and some veggie ones) to go with that....

I personally have a very sporadic intake of the spirits (pun unintended :-)), and even those rare moments have been in good times only with friends around. This was one of those times - so I enjoyed. :-)

The parade


One of the 10 big tents (each seats around 10000 ppl!)


The waitresses who manage to carry all the heavy beer mugs with striking ease



Switzerland Ahoy!

Quick. What comes to your mind when you say Swiss?
Alps? Chocolates? cheese? watches? bells? Army Knives? banks?

Switzerland is all of these..... and much more!I might as well spend the next few thousand words describing about the Swiss experience, but it will still fall short of describing totally what this heaven is all about. All superlatives would not be enough. Probably it would be an insult to 'write' about a place which has to be 'seen' to be experienced.

So I'll leave you with only a few glimpses of heaven on earth.... (maybe I'd write more about that when my I'm done with the hangover that this beautiful place has left on me)







I'm still hopeful about the Gibraltor cruise, though... :-)
.

Happiness, Positivism and Chemical Locchas of the mind

'Lagey Raho Munnabhai' is a laugh riot! But more than that - it is starkingly positive. Its important to have such movies that just take us back to the light hearted moments, reminding you to smile. [An excellent review here by Pratiksha].
People waste away too many precious hours of their lives worrying, sulking about their money, their work-loads, performance appraisals, troubled relationships and global warming and nuke attacks! There are loads of better things to be happy about, isn't it?

(Its 8 pm and I'm just done with my office-work for today. But still writing this while sitting at my desk - 'cos one should always find time for doing things that one likes :-))

Everyone likes to be happy. But that makes me wonder, if its so good, why wouldn't people be that way all the time? What keeps people away from being happy within themselves?

Maybe:

• There are anti-elements everywhere that schemingly obstruct happiness. Situations, other people, destiny...
• Man remains a dissatisfied creature (generally speaking) or it's like saying - 'Happiness is relative'. People compare their own well-being with their immediate counterparts and that brings unhappiness (even if they themselves are much well-in-place)
• A lot of people, (yes - a lot), when faced with some adverse situation, send their rational minds on a long coffee break and get taken over by all negative thoughts. They find 'adverse situations' a perfect alibi to convince themselves why they must be unhappy in life!

Can one stop this chemical loccha in the mind? Yeah, of course! I feel if one 'chooses' to be happy, one would feel so - no matter what! And I say that by experience.

What, me worry?

I do not go the extra mile to be nice and friendly to the people around me. It comes from within. When I do something that is rightfully good, its because I feel so - and not to score my brownie points with God. When I am friendly and helpful to someone - its because I get an inner satisfaction doing that. Of course there are times when things do not go as you want. But thats not the time to get mad. Stupid and senseless behaviour does not enrage me, but I'm amused and often hopeful that the person does get some sense in his/her beautiful mind.When people with IQ half that of mine do things that are in all probablity, anger-spawning, I behave otherwise. Unruffled - its me.

I do not wish to change the world. (I like the way it is - 'Imperfect') I do not dream to become like Superman, wear a mask with spare underwear on top of my pants and pretend to save the world! (though I wish I had the ability to.... ;-))

But seriously speaking, I just wish the world be a much happier place, much simpler and with lesser pretensions. Movies like 'Lagey Raho..' remind you of that time-to-time.

I watched 'Lagey Raho..' for the 2nd time yesterday, and I stil have a contented smile on my face. I feel like writing a joy song right-away but can't find a word at hand that rhymes with 'yapa-dipee-dooo'!

:-)

PS: Probably one of my most confused posts ever. But that's what I call a system-dump of my thoughts.

PS 2: Laughter is the best medicine. Even if you are not sick....

Pandora in Paris

4:30 am is not a time of the day when your alarm screams below ur pillow and you feel grateful to the tiny appliance for having done the honours of waking you up. Just like any normal being, I felt like throwing it off to the other corner of the room! But this was not one of 'those' days. It was the day of the Paris trip on a Saturday morning, and I darn well wasn't going to miss my money spent on the flight booking. So there I got up and in 2 hours was there at the Stuttgart airport - all sleepy-eyed but ready to take the plunge to... PARIS!

Charles de Gaulle Airport does a great job of confusing the hell out of it's unsuspecting passengers. Its huge, its a whole city out there with isolated gigantic terminals spread miles from each other! But we were lucky to get out of there without wasting much time - and soon we were on the RER that took us bang-on to the center of the city.

Every other person you see on the Paris streets is a tourist - and if you commit the fallacy of asking them for directions, you might be bombarded with any random language on earth. However, French in all broken avtaars seemed to rule the roost. I recalled my shabbily taken French beginner's course back in B-school, and it guiltfully reminded me of the apparent benefits of a well-learnt foreign lingo. Hmmm.... I should've known earlier...

The mother of all museums - The Louvre
The very place where Dan Brown's masterpiece begins was something to watch out for. Though the whole detailed visit of the museum would require a couple of days, we rushed through that in 3 hours - call it 'Desi paisa-wasooli' 'cos we had many other places to cover in only 2 days!

At the museum, among the thousands of first-time tourists with amused eyes, there were species of a different kind. Art enthusiasts, historians, archeologists, numismatists, all with a penchant for art that would've given Robert Langdon a serious complex.

The Mona Lisa was superb, to say the least! Then we were at the glass pyramid outside that has so frequent mentions in the cult book. The feeling was of rememberances and relating the things we saw to the things we had read in 'The Da Vinci Code'. Makes me think - 'yeah, maybe we wouldn't have enjoyed seeing this museum so much had it not been for Dan Brown's book.... '

Eiffel Tower at night is a marvel! Its a magic done in lights which can be visible from miles away.We decided to enjoy the visual brilliance there and go up its canopy the during the daytime the next day. The frustating wait of 2-3 hours for a 20 odd mins stay up at the top can get to ones nerves, but we still waited, ever-expectant. The view from the top was MIND-BLOWING! Sriram, my buddy, managed to pay a visit to the loo up there (all of 300 mts height) and he proudly took home a memory of pissing at the highest point of Paris! :-)

There were quite a few other great places that we saw. The best part was our open-air tour bus that took us around town with its 8-language Audio tour (who cared about the other 7 languages anyway :-)). Saw the Moulin Rouge Cabaret Theatre from the outside - the same place where the Nicole Kidman musical was shot. As our open air bus passed through that street (Boulevard de Clichy), the unending array of Sex shops and Massage Parlors became visible - the most conspicuous being the Museum of Eroticism (Musee de l'Erotisme). Enough to give the Indian moral police a massive heart attack!

What I'd surely remember were the Place de la Concorde, Champs-Elysées, Chapel at Notre Dame and the Opera. Places like Château de Versailles and Paris Disneyland were reluctantly skipped - so really 2 days are not enough! A good few hours were spent meandering through the streets and boulevards which were tastefully lined up with Cafes and bistros on both sides of the pavement, serving the choiciest of French wine. Couples - ah, they were all over the place! (and their hands too were all over the place... lolz... :-) )

2 days of hustled tourism, of overdoses in medevial history, of beauty totally man-made, of boulevards, palaces, chapels and top-views, of our aching legs but contented eyes - Paris trip is something wouldn't dilute so easily from the mind. All in all, such an eventful trip surely deserves a longer write-up but these are the times of brevity and rushed schedules.

Paris is a complex city. It breathes and lives art. It has massive structures that take you back to the medevial times, it has a underground metro and a sewage system that beats almost every other city hands down, it has a major migrant population giving an extremely cosmopolitian look, its congested yet beautiful, rushy yet sophisticated, pompous yet pleasurable. This city truly makes romantics out of skeptics with its alluring history and charming modern-day buzz.

It's the city of Love.

At the Louvre's Glass Pyramid


See the shadow of the Eiffel?


Another view of the Siene. (and the adjoining Football field)


The Moulin Rouge

World Cup Finals - 9 July 2006 (Stuttgart)

If you are really reading this out of your own preference, well I'll just risk asking you to imagine for once... please.... :-)

Imagine being invited to the best gourmet party in the city, but when you reach there you meet smartly dressed waiters picking up the dishes and you wonder how those starters would've tasted and how tempting were the desserts you missed.

Or, imagine going to the best strip-club in town, but so late that you only find the babes fully clad, fully packed up, and ready to leave for the day... (ok, ok, don't get me wrong - I'm just being too imaginative...)

Well, thats how the initial feeling was, on landing in Deutchesland on the day of the final. For 4 months I was waiting for the visa to come through and prayed like hell that I reached at the time of the World cup. Finally the day arrived, but only when the World cup got over - I reached there on the day of the finals! There was a feeling of disappointment, almost surreal, a feeling of having missed the bus - the bus to the greatest event in 4 years!

But i could call that premature despair, as I soon realized things were not so bad...

After all:
- I got to watch the final at the open-air screen amongst thousands of screaming fans in Stuttgart, and drowned in the post-match celebrations.
- I actually got to view almost all the matches in the World cup back home in India. The timings were convenient enough for me to go back home after office-hours and catch them live on television. My friends who had moved to Germany earlier found it really difficult to catch up with the games, especially the first match everyday, simply because they were stuck up in office.

Reached Stuttgart on Sunday morning and having done with the luggage and freshening up - by evening was all ready to go to the city-center at the 'Fan Fest'. The atmosphere was MIND-BLOWING!

When you see around all things that you've been waiting for all this long, at that time you don't care about your possible jet-lag, nor your impending sleep and the aching body, nor worry about reporting at office the next day-Monday! You just shut up and enjoy the show! And I did!



And I'm talking about a massive football crazy crowd jumping, shouting and cheering. There were fans from Italia & France of course, and also people from different nationalities all flocked together - there were thousands! The feeling was great to watch the match on giant open-air screens, the greatest event of the world - in the same country where it was all happening!

(I'd missed the 3rd place match the previous day - been on the flight. But was told that when Germany won, the whole of Stuttgart was on the streets! )

When France scored, one side of the supporters went mad. When both sides missed chances, they despaired. When Zidane headbutted Materazzi, everyone put their hands up in shock! And finally when Italy won, it was frenzy all around. Then the festivities continued late till night...

Samba for Brazil!


We cheered for Italia!



With so much beer flowing around... people do need to piss, don't they?


PS: I'm a total sucker for football. Its my drug of choice!

Trip to Phoren-land

An account of my travel to Germany (that was almost 2 months ago... see how punctual I am on my blog!) :-)

Travelling to phoren land requires a huge bit of preparations and I was glad Murphy's law didn't play tricks on me this time. Considering it was my maiden trip abroad, it was surprisingly arranged well by me all alone, without my family there to help me out. Ahem, I had a smug grin on my face and I patted myself - a job well done! :-)

So there I was on the Delhi bound Hyderabad flight. All the last minute calling up relatives and friends was duly completed while waiting at the airport - so much so that my cellphone battery started giving signs of fatigue. I knew it had a few mins of energy left, so I saved the rest for the last and finished all calls by the time I boarded the jet at 2 am at Delhi.

Mumbai aiport in July 1st week was hell! It was a crazy downpour again (that's become a norm every year now) and so flights were getting delayed and cancelled. That ensured that my travel plans were changed to 'via-Delhi' instead of 'via-Mumbai', and there went the chance to meet any my family at the Mumbai airport.

Indira Gandhi International Airport, New Delhi.
Between 11 pm to 3 am this place is a hogwash! A fish market! A place worse than Churchgate station at peak hours! I mean, there were to be thousands of passengers taking hundereds of outbound flights to godforsaken places, and thousands more to see-off these passengers. Add to them the multitude of airport staff, immigration officials, airline staff - u name it! Total chaos all around. A first time traveller can feel totally lost here. In a way this works good for passengers - it makes you go through the check-in and immigration in a jiffy (apart from the wait in the queue) simply because the officials have loads of passengers to clear in a matter of few hours.

To add to the confusion - I was flying Swiss Air (at least thats what my Travel Desk promised, and I could see it on my itinerary and ticket too). But to my suprise, my flight to Zurich was gonna be Air Canada, and then it would be some small-time airline - Cirrus. Nowhere was the name Swiss - just that my tour happened to be connected through Switzerland! The travel agents sure are capable of juggling their hapless passengers around!

The beginning of the flight seemed pathetic, sitting alone on the twin seat. How long could one survive boredom by listening to crap opera songs on the audio channel and flipping pages of 'Cosmopolitan' in French? After a few hours of forced sleep and gorgings on assorted snacks and a glass of Tropicana... the feeling was all numb! The flight was hardly 50% occupied. There was this middle aged Sardaarji on my right - who was luckily the lone guy in a 3-seater, so he stretched out and treated himself to a few hours of blissful sleep. Bored with the magazine I was reading, I looked around...., saw a few more Sikhs on the flight. Proof enough that the flight was headed to Canada! :-)

8 hours later, the flight landed in the Swiss city of Zurich.
If one word is used to describe Zurich Airport, its 'Classy'!. I mean it was my first trip abroad and I was not subjected to an array of airdromes to proudly make this comparison, but I'd heard a lot about these places - praises about Frankfurt, cribs about Charles-de-Gaulle, fascinations about Heathrow... to name a few, and this seemed one of the best!

Conversation with the German gal
It was a 3 hour wait at the airport and it was nice as I spent some time strolling around the gigantic place. While waiting at the lobby, I entered into conversation with a pretty lass sitting on my left. Seemed she too was waiting for the same flight, but I was wrong - which I realized after her revelation. But the most interesting part of the talk was the prelude to it...

"Are you waiting for the Frankfurt flight?", she asked innocently.
"Hmm, actually I'm waiting for the one to Stuttgart." (shucks, couldn't I say something more interesting? That I was Tom Cruise in disguise, and I was shooting for MI4 at Zurich Airport!)
"Oh, well, I think that one's 20 minutes after mine", she replied. "By the way, I'm, Sandra. Sandra Mueller."
"Oh, interesting name! Never heard of someone being called 'Sandra Sandra Mueller'!" (I kicked myself, what stupid sense of humor!!) "My name's Kumar....", I said, stretching out for a handshake.

Surprisingly that comment made Sandra laugh out loud and I knew I was spared... ha ha! That was enough to start up a conversation. She was a student, graduating in arts - history to be precise, and we had an interesting discussion about life in general in Europe, about the liberal arts (me hardly well-informed in this...), and the places to see in Germany! (there are indeed lots of great places around Stuttgart worth visiting - lakes, castles, rivers, forests.... you name it)

Only regret? Me did not take her contacts before bidding adieau (I realized that some time later). And it was not exactly because she was damn attractive, but because she was among the rare Germans who spoke good English. I would soon learn it the hard way in Stuttgart - finding a localite speaking good English is as rare as finding an honest auto-rickshaw driver in Chennai!

Interesting places in the Airport

Camel Smoking Lounge. (notice the tagline 'Tobacco Seriously Damanges Health' below the name on the board. Good na!)


Swiss Watches Showroom. Awesome collection of the originals - all the best brands.



As my flight for Stuttgart took-off, the Zurich skyline became clearer. Switzerland seemed all the more beautiful from the sky, and I finally realized what's there with this country that's so attractive and so pleasing to the eyes, especially to our Bollywood directors. By far its one of the most beautiful places on earth! Plans to visit the Swiss Alps are on the cards, so we would surely be having a trip to heaven sooner than later.

Within 20 mins the small aircraft landed at Stuttgart and I was soon filled by the fever of football! It was 9th of July, the day when Italy and France met in the finals of the World Cup.
Jet Lag? What's that....? :-)

Stuttgart is a beautiful city - surrounded by mountains and very green. It felt goooood! :-)

Next post: World Cup finals day! 9 July 2006.

Independence Day

Just back from Independence Day Celebrations.

Actually this was just a gathering in our client office, where we guys sang the national anthem, greeted each other and saw a video which had A R Rehman, the Mangeshkars and all the whos-who of Indian music were together. Very mechanical way of ushering in the new Independent Year but thats the best we could do...

There is something planned by Desis in Stuttgart over the weekend. Hmm, lets see how that shapes up.

I miss my India. More so today....

Othello revisited...

Watched Omkara this weekend. What a movie! Well the rented DVD from the Indian store was a makeshift alternative to watching it on the big-screen, but it was worth it.

I've become a fan of Vishal Bhardwaj. This guy is a genuis. I loved the music in Maachis, loved the way Maqbool was created, but this one surely takes the cake. Its ok with the expletives and all - thats part of hardcore UP lingo. This guy humbly acknowledges the adaptation of Shakespeare, yet goes ahead and deviates the plot where he thinks best - one of them being Amelia killing Iago. Yess, Konkona does a great job here.

Saif rules! With his rustic UP dialect, his consistant limp and his sly grin through his yellow teeth that badly need toothpaste, he is devious, he's hateable, he's brilliant!

The songs penned by Gulzaar and composed by the maestro Vishal himself are haunting and pleasing at the same time. In spite of having the Monday morning blues I was happily humming the title number and thinking about Bips in the raunchy one - 'Beedi'.... Then I was in office again.

Shakespeare would've smiled... :-)

The Click-Happy Traveller - Part II

I'd actually started writing this around a month back - before leaving India. I made a quick trip to Mumbai via Pune over the weekend - end of June. Downpour and all, it was fun - the travelling part of the journey (something rare considering that I was travelling alone) :

===========

The beautiful Lonavala valley never ceases to amaze me. As far as I can remember, they have remained the same, only giving some way to the recently built Mumbai-Pune expressway, but the beauty still is intact! My this trip to Mumbai happened at the lovely months of monsoon - thats when the valley is at its best. I stood up at the door of the sleeper compartment and breathed-in the weather. A feeling of A-ha, truly!

Lonavala Valley

The curvy Train

In the train I was treated to the companionship of an assorted mix of travellers. There was this struggling software guy who was still trying to get a foothold into a well-established IT services company. There was this middle-aged North-Indian, almost avuncular, but still unconvincing in his preachings (you know, the usual crap to youngsters about being something in life and bragging about their sons/daughters/relatives being in some sundry prestigious posts). There was a young guy in his 30s, seemingly clueless but uncannily observant of the happenings inside.

Light at the end of the tunnel :-)

But the most unforgettable part was a 2 feet tall hurricane, (actually a small kindergarten kid) who was hell-bent upon destroying my shirt and breaking my spectacles! (don't ask me why, I've got no clue) He was in no mood to listen to his mother's instructions/scoldings/shouts but it seemed he had arrived on earth with the sole aim of scandalizing an innocent, unsuspecting train-traveller. That just happened to be yours truly, shucks! (pls see picture below to see how a human-hurricane looks like)

After almost an hour of trying to escape his assaults, I decided to apply my challenged brain for a while. So there I myself became a small child with him, started playing and shouting and tugging at his shirt the same way as he was doing mine, but of course with much less aggression. The people around me thought I'd lost it, but it was fun. I mean, for once a while, its fun to forget that formal you and become the wild 5 year old!

Hurricanes come in small sizes? Here's one....

Seems with children you can't hope to apply your wits, but then you'd be amazed the way they manage to outwit you... Quite a paradox!

The Two-feet-monster (TFM) was quite an unexplainable creature. Here's why:

Disclaimer: I'm not exactly of the appearance that scares off innocent looking children... And I'm not the kind that mothers use as a weapon saying 'So jaa beta warna woh 6 feet lamba chasme waala ladka aa jaayega!'. In fact I love kids - only the harmless kind... But this kid WAS different. I'm being conservatively judging when I call the kiddo a hurricane!

Shabbily translated from English and sundry gobbleydock...

Me: @Q$#@%^@ Chhu mantarr (hideaously moving a magazine in front of my face and then removing it)
TFM: Naaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa NAAAAAAAAAAAA YIEEEYAAAAAAAAAAAAA !!
Me: Stop crying baccha, look here's a chocolate!
TFM: (Gleaming eyes and all) hmmmm.... (ha ha, I just hoodwinked this guy!)

And then I handed over the piece to him (first mistake)

TFM: (After having smoothly consumed the treat) YIEEEYAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!! (for crying out loud...)
Me: totally perplexed... what the hell did i do wrong?

After some time TFM decided that no one was paying much attention to him and his mother was sitting and reading some crap housewife magazine, so he was quiet again. (but that was just the lull before the storm)

TFM's Mom: Oh he is missing his papa na... that's why he was crying...
Me: (big big 2nd mistake) So beta, tell me who do you like more? Papa or ma?

That did it! After my innocent and supposedly good-humored inquiry to the child, he started his howling session and did not stop for half an hour! TFM's mom looks at me with a glare that would kill, half-accusing me of creating a rift between her and her husband... and half-blaming me of disturbing the 'shaaant' child...

Me: Sorry aunty, I was just trying to....
TFM's mom: Grrrrrr....!!


Ok, but this misadventure apart, the trip was largely nice and giving nostalgic feelings at times while passing thru the Pune route, the Lonavla valley and then back to Mumbai, the familiar crowded surroundings, the Mumbai air which I had got used to quite some time back.

Mulund Skyline

Back in Mumbai, its notable how Mulund, a quiet shy suburb has transformed itself. But inspite of giving way to swanky malls (Nirmal Lifestyle and R-Mall) and sky-kissing apartments, it has retained its green demenour. The horizon displays beautiful mountains which are always dipped in clowds during monsoon. There are some odd factories around a few of which have already closed down - and given way to newer construction projects... The good part is - the environment is being given due attention as well. I like that.

Next post.... about life in Deutscheland.

Duetschelanded !

Funny how things seem fine once you get one small thing that you wanted....
But then after that you seem to wonder... what next?

My recent disappearance from blogging was due to my travel plans. Me landed in Germany almost a month back and blame it on the new country and the poor amazed me trying to come to terms with it, have been absent from this web-page.

And now that I did reach here, on the day of the World cup finals, I might as well take my words back in the crib that I'd posted:
http://kumar-palan.blogspot.com/2006/06/god-is-soccer-player.html

A good Boss

Got this as a forward SMS:

Having a good boss is like wearing a good quality CONDOM.
It gives one a feeling of faith, confidence and security, EVEN while getting fucked.... !!!

:-)

A job to do, a job to hate...

"Oh, you hate your job? Why didn't you say so? There is a support group for that. It's called EVERYBODY, and they meet at the bar."
~ Drew Carey in Dirty Jokes and Beer

Wouldn't say anything else. More for later....
Current mood: Disillusioned...., but unruffled.

The Itch

Ever had a bad itch? A really compelling, irritating urge to do something? And if not able to do that, ever felt like strangling the one responsible for that till he chokes and then you get your heart's content?

It was 0120 hrs on 14th June (today). I was well into the Brazil match - totally absorbed, and totally oblivious of the fact that I had to go to a place called office on the same morning. At half time I was smug enough having seen a brilliant goal by Kaka shattering the nets from a distance, and then I was looking forward for some more treat for the next 45 odd mins....

Thats when the cable conked off!

Thats when I felt like murdering my cable waala guy.

I mean I've had long fights with him for the pathetic bouquet of channels that he throws in - half of them are some obscure regional shit and the 20% of the remaining ones are actually watchable, if you are lucky to have good transmission that day... But this was the limit!

I was sitting and waiting for the cable to come back as the clock ticked, well into the 2nd half. I got anxious, jittery but the blank screen didn't change.
This is one of those feelings that you get when you are desperately urging to answer Nature's big call and the only loo available is occupied by a guy who seems to be shitting out the whole weeks load, literally!
Thats the itch I was talking about...

But couldn't do much about it though - it was well into 90 mins by then... :-|
So there I cribbed and prayed that the subsequent days would be luckier and I slept.

An overdose of Soccer... I'm not complaining!

What a weekend!
For the past 50 odd hours, its been football and only football! (except of course the occasional movie on TV - this time a shitty flop Hindi flick too 'cos the VCD rental guy didnt have anything better)
The first few matches have been good, and exciting. The new stricter rules enforced by FIFA ensuring that there are lesser challenging tackles and more of skill and pace ruling the game. This means that fans like me would be treated to some amazing soccer and the Gods would go ahead and entertain, without having to worry that the next defender would jump on him like a savage and end his world-cup dreams with an injury.

This would automatically mean, more goals! :-) And only few things in life can surpass this kind of visual treat!
(Not exactly reiterating my whacky Finance Prof's favourite dialogue: "Hey did you try that Mexican Pizza at the new joint in Juhu? Its better than SEX!", but thats exactly the point)

Waiting to see Brazil next, but the charged me really wants them to be humbled - just for once. They are a overhyped and aeging team, but nevertheless with the best individual talent in the world.
Play on....

God is a Soccer player

Its time!
Its time for all soccer crazy folks in the world to get glued to one big extravagenza!

Though its a pity I'll be sitting here in my home in Hyd catching up on the excitement on television. The glimmer of hope that I could have travelled there on a business trip was too much to materialize, I guess. That was a chance of a lifetime.... and it didnt happen, well almost.

But alls fine as long as I get to watch my fav team England rooting it out on the field, as long as I can see the Brazilian brilliance scaring the shit out of the opposition, as long as 'Total Football' from the Dutchman entertains and excites, as long as the Argentinians demonstrate their classic tactics on the game!

Soccer is more than a game, its a religion.....
Yes, God is a soccer player. And for the next 30 odd days, God would take many forms and pay a visit to my home through my television. Some days he will be the brilliant Ronaldinho baffling the defenders, and some days he will be the 20 yr old raging bull called Wayne Rooney, and of course he would be the classic warhorse named Luis Figo and not to leave out the mercurial Arjen Robben pacing away to the goal!

This world cup - I'm waiting for the time of my life! Well, the best till date, you could say!

Joga Bonito!
.

Taking Stock

Ya that much awaited correction finally happened. Its been a carnage of sorts! And me, much like the many hopeful investors have been stuck with many good quality stocks, yet more than 20% down from their purchase prices. This mayhem has spared none. I mean, the sentiment is that bad - it seems every stock in the arena has been put on the 'SELL' counter. No buyers anywhere... :-(

Now I always thought stocks to be a hit-miss game. I mean, the story of a monkey throwing darts on the stock exchange page of a newspaper, to select the companies to buy, and coming out a winner is too well known to be recited. But as the concepts of Finance and economics trickled into my challenged brain, it started making sense. It started getting clear why some scripts went up and some went down, without actually having to play a poker strike on them. Fundamental analysis, technical analysis - all that started falling in place.

But the end result is - I'm still in medium losses, same as the gujju businessman in Mumbai who has no idea about the inherent strength of stocks yet buys-sells at the advise of his broker (and still thinks he's done a brilliant job)!

Mark Twain said it right: (rephrasing 'cos I don't know the exact words of course!)
'For every trade that happens on the Exchange, there is a BUYER and there is a SELLER. The funny thing is - both think that they have made a good deal!'

Of course there is more logic to this, but this just drives home the point!

But its about money, honey! Its about greed!
Thats the reason why we watch those shows on CNBC everytime (Udayan Mukherjee is a DUDE!), thats why a line of charts hypnotizes us, that's why a market crash gives us withdrawal symptoms, and still inspite of that, we remain hopeful... :-)

...till the next big rally....

We don't need no Reservations! - Part II

As I write this, the reservation stir has gained momentum. Though I'm not sure how correct the medico strikes are (causing inconvenience to so many wanting patients), its really heartening to see this spreading as a mass movement.

At the silent protest march from our office campus, my colleague (and junior from college), Sriram held the roost. Kudos to him for taking up such a cause and leading by initiative. His POV was covered by major news channels that day, and also attained mention in the Times. The picture shows Sriram holding up the placard.

We don't need no Reservations!

Yes we've heard a lot of stuff about the anti-reservation thing, so I'll keep this very short.

We've seen so many things about protesters getting lathi-charged, rumors of an AIIMS medico dying and media not covering it, and SMSs, mails, petitions flowing everywhere..... with the media lapping it up.. (doing a good job of spreading the agenda too, thankfully)
Arjun Singh has really become the most hated person by most Indians below 30 years.

There are jokes flying around about Manmohan Singh sending a team of Indians to the moon, which has a horde of reserved category people and 'probably' one astronaut.
There are T-shirts and banners with different slogans.
One goes: 'I am leaving for the US. I was disowned by my own country'.
Another: 'If you are asleep, wake up. If you are dead, become a politician'.

There is a surprising amount of resentment in the voice of the youngsters who appear on TV speaking against reservations. There is this latent mass-anger which is waiting to erupt. Maybe some of it comes from within, some of it comes on borrowed emotions (of manufactured protests), some due to the recent Rang-De-Basanti hangover... But the point is - there is genuine and collective rage against this animal called Reservation all across the youth of India. And that is good.

There is this small bit of Anti-Reservation-ism within each one of us. Some proactively go ahead and demonstrate something, while most of the others (would include me) just sit back and discuss how bad it is for the country and then its back to our Projects @ Office.

Just today we tried doing our little bit though. Many of the folks in our company celebrated 'Black Day' today. So Black clothes it was, and black wrist-bands - all to show that we were together for the cause. So what if we had already passed out of the reservation imbroglio a few years back and now conveniently enjoying our salaries.

There was this silent protest march arranged outside our campus in the evening. As luck would have it, I had my 'onsite call' at that time and couldn't attend. Funny how some things like work pressures can always drive us away from some other priorities in life!

Will India progress as well if we have the Quota system implemented? I'm sure we all have our reservations.....

The Click-happy traveller

Not that I've been a great globetrotter of sorts, but I've been in quite a few cities in India to confidently say I'm well-travelled.
Now that claim is a real paradox in itself, b'cos 'well'-travelled actually means long hours spent in stuffy hot sleeper compartments, uncomfortable bus journeys and unending waits at bus-stations and railway-stations to top up with. Still its not been such a bad experience after all.

Was in Mumbai last weekend on my way to Hyderabad - Mumbai, the place where I survived my 3 prime years! I reached Borivali bang early in the morning at 4 and wondered why we did have mornings at all...

Borivali Stn at 4:15 AM




So there I cursed the railways for being on time, gathered my super-light luggage and got down sleepy eyed on the platform. That was when nostalgia took over. These very platforms were my arena, some 15 months back. A prized seat in the 8:25 AM Churchgate local was some feat which I achieved almost every weekday without fail. And the sweaty 1 hr ride was heavily punctuated with brief naps, newspaper readings and boisterous discussions with fellow travellers.
Digresssion: The assorted mix of fellow passengers was really something to write about. Our daily group included a DGM in a top paints company, a practice manager in the top recruitment consultancy, an AVP Finance in an FMCG major, a fresh management trainee, a full-time Equity Analyst, an ad-professional etc and a few others. Such a diversified crowd, and many of them so well-set that they could've afforded a C class luxury car. Yet there was one common denominator that bound us all - the overstuffed 1st Class compartment in the 8:25 Churchgate Local. The discussions we had ranged from Stocks, politics, recent news, cricket, scandals, and occasionally even the anatomy of the latest item gals! Funny how this behaved as an extended family, or extended buddies group for the 1 hr journey every week day!

The local train compartment at 4:50 AM (you should see the rush in the 8:25 local)



Glad that I moved out of Mumbai and bid adieu to the local train nightmares. But those were some days....

Recently I just got upgraded! That means, off late I've started travelling by air too and Air Dhakkan has really got me frustated quite a times.
(Going back to my current story now) So having landed at the Borivali station, I took up a local half an hour later to Vile Parle. (This station too remains fondly in my memories having been the landing point for my college in Juhu). From Vile Parle it was a quick rick-ride to the Mumbai domestic airport.

Having reached there a good 2 hours early I decided to doze off in the comfortable seats - much better in contrast to the butt-crushing wooden planks at the railway platform.

The airport at 5 AM



The Airport at 7 AM



I was welcomed by a large, cozy, sparsely populated lobby in the beginnning. As the crowd grew, the Airport lobby started resembling no less than Dadar Station at peak office hours! There were queues everywhere, with Spice Jet and Air Dhakkan taking the cake. There were people were banging into each other's luggages, pushing within queues, small kids crying aloud and airline officials frantically trying to locate missing passengers. All in all, a very chaotic affair but entertaining too :-). I was pleasantly surprised by the new-look Airport, but the crowd really was something to watch out for.

The Airport Lobby at 7 AM on a Monday Morning. Dadar Station has huge competition!


Then, landing at Hyderabad around 10, I reached home and within some time I was ready to go pay a visit to my 5-day jail - The OFFICE !

Weekends

Its Friday evening and me logging off..... My fingers are all tired from the constant jabbering on the keyboard, my eyes are reddish and my back pains more than my sore butt... Blame it on the long hours spent on the work-desk.

'The key to happiness in life is to make both week-ends meet...'

What d'ya think of that ;-)

Mind your language

I'm frustated.
The amazing diversity of languages, cultures and behaviours of the people of India never fails to fascinate me. But more often than not, its the very diversity that frustates me too.

I'm in Hyderabad, a place which is considered somewhat milder compared to the extreme images of xenophobia that we have in our minds regarding the 4 southern states. I mean, this is where you could expect some bit of Hindi to be recognized and spoken to you, leave alone English.

I've had fights with my Cable-guy who fails to understand the meaning of the phrase 'Please come once to my place and reinstall the cable connnection' - even after being spoken in Hindi, English, Hinglish and sign language.

The same is the case with my poor maid servant who has difficulty comprehending my intented speak, and is working only because her daughter knows a wee bit of Hindi.

Gawd, in this age of globalization, (and India Shining), we still have a big portion of population that does not understand our national language. Take Gujarat, take Maharashtra, or even West Bengal for that matter - even the most illiterate of vernacular speaking folks there manage to communicate some bit in Hindi. Isn't that some pointer for the 4 southern states?

And till that happens, we will still keep calling all Southies as Madraasis and everything above A.P. and Karnataka as North India.

Laziness......

Ok, so its easy to blame your unending laziness for not being a regular blogger...., but habits do die hard...
Anyways, with some sundry complaints coming in from a few folks on me not having updated my blog, here's an assurance - 'Will be back soon, fellas!'

Till then...