Old Monk et Old Memories.....sponsored by Mohan Meakin

Finally after a long hiatus the login page of blogger suddenly did not turn into arcane french when I logged in to post this. But anyway, these days my french has improved drastically. Though I have no idea about what they pronounce and why on earth they eat up half the consonants while they speak but still if people write to me in French, I get a gist of what they are trying to communicate. The French's love for their language has a lot many times landed us lesser English speaking mortals into deep merde situations. So much so that my boss (happens to be an Australian) who learnt French the hard way by leaving Australia and settling in France for the sake of his French girlfriend fully empathised with us and made our signature in official emails read out that, All correspondance with us lesser mortal english speaking group should be in English (the template is in french and english). Ocassionally the mails are one line long but the signature is usally 5 lines long to accomodate all such instructions. Yet people prefer sending us a hell lot of communication in arcane french that I have finally managed to pick up helped by another spectacular tool from the house of google, their translation tool. I tell you one day in the near future, they will surely be the China of the virtual world. As in today's world any product that you pick out of a shelf in your nearby retail store has a tiny weeny microscopic "Made in China" label, in a similar way every tool that we use in the virtual world would soon have a Made by Google label. Now can anyone of you at Gartner or Forrester who ever manages to pass through my blog and read uptil this point please offer me a job of some kind for giving such a wonderful analysis on the prospects of Google? And yah hey if you guys out at google are reading this, VP HR types, senior manager HR, manager HR, trainee HR or for that matter even the admin guy or the guy who cleans the floor of Google.....anybody.....just inform me if there is some job for writing such wonderful things. Now starts the long wait for a flashy career ahead ;-)

Speaking of other inane and mundane things in life, that Saturday night/Sunday early morning post was under the effect of a deep intoxication caused by the burnt variant of malt whiskey, namely black rum. The person responsible for this deep source of intoxication was the one and only Chintu Parikh. The person had somehow procured maybe even smuggled a bottle of Old Monk from India to London and was bragging about the same by putting up a status message on his Gtalk (see I told you how Google is solowly ruling the virtual world) which read like "Khub jamega rang jab mil baithenge teen yaar....aap main aur old monk". Alas that aap could have been me had UK not been seperated from mainland Europe by the cold and wild English Channel and the very petulant immigration officers at the border. The last time they actually checked my schengen visa with all sorts of magnifying glasses that watch repairers wear to see the anatomy of watches. So Chintu Parikh sitting there in some remote part of London made me nostalgic about the precious black rum. The magic of black rum has never failed to smite any soul who has ever stayed in a hostel during the formative years of life. The advantages of black rum leaves its charm on every soul dying for some alcohol in their blood stream. Firstly it is one of the cheapest varities of alcohol available in the local daru ki dukaan. In terms of alcohol it has a high 40% content and hence you dont feel cheated to spend some penny on alcohol. It helps in getting the body warm in the cold and of course you never get a hangover the next day, so even if you have a presentation or an exam the next day, its not screwed at all. Before IMT, drinking used to be a one off incident in the dry state of Gujarat. Bootleggers never made it easy for us to procure it with their exhorbitant premium pricing models. So rum was not the thing that was ever favoured. The choice was more obvioulsy whisky. I still remember the one time in ahmedabad at a friend's place, someone got so drunk that he slept a considerable amount of the night on the bathroom floor. The charm of drinking black rum especially the one christened Old Monk started for me in Ghaziabad during the IMT days. Coupled with the fact that Mohan Meakin had its manufacturing base in Ghaziabad and that any other brand in the market not bottled in UP was exhorbitantly priced made Old Monk an obvious choice for us not so rich kids. I never was a regular smoker in college, but the once in a while factor made the crow of the college give me a new name called Page 3 smoker. A smoke in hand with a glass of old monk mixed with Coke in the other, singing away to glory on the terrace of the canteen block are the vivid memories that are left of the last few days at IMT. After the college days the next time black rum flowed like water was in Hyderabad during the induction programme of the company I got placed. Alas since the company thinks that drinking is almost equivalent to sin the scene was shifted to the hotel where we had been put up, a shady hotel with a faulty AC system that had not worked for almost decades. Incidentally Chintu Parikh was a part of this drinking group and as is his specialty, he had invited the whole world to drink. It was over here that I got acquainted with a guy Abhishek Deb. At first look he looked like a complete football but as time passed we became good friends. After that the black rum story in my life drew to a complete halt with more amount of disposable income at hand with thanks to a good package made the preference curve shift from the black to the white variety. It had more to do with Sumit Baheti's re-entry in my life. We had been friends since class 11 and had gone to the same physics tuition, the teacher was a bearded guy who was morbidly scared of his fat wife. The kid they had was a total brat. And last but not the least the bearded man had predicted that our future would be doomed had we not given him enough moolah to secure a seat in BIT Mesra where he apparently went to teach. So sharing the same doomed future over two years we had celebrated every such occasion in those olden long lost days by creating world records in gobbling up fuchkas. For the lesser informed its the same as gol gappa of Delhi and the pani puri of Mumbai sans the pudina minced water. We in Eastern India prefer the tamarind minced water. But all these records came with a lot of effort and our stomachs did have to go on an overdrive trying to digest some 40 fuchkas at one go. In Bangalore the fuchkas gave way to more dangerous things like white rum. And as predicted we were still celebrating a doomed career as was predicted by the wife fearing bearded guy. While Sumit had landed himself up in a competing IT services company as compared to mine, he was confused as to why on earth even his onsite location was Bangalore and why he slogged all weekends. While I was confused about what I was doing in an IT company. My only sojourn with IT was restricted to flunking a few basic papers way back in school followed by copying out of notes in the diploma exam and getting mass laddoos in assignments for the two IT subjects that we studied in our MBA course. Drinking was as regular a feature in Bangalore as washing clothes (once every weekend). The inclusion of Banner (oh boy he would surely kill me if he saw this) saw the per capita beer consumption of Bangalore reaching record highs. The presence of Banner in the pub hopping gang always ensured that me and Sumit set up self imposed curfews on our intake. Banner would reach new highs every time, and it is a known fact that a drunk Banner is more dangerous than an insane military dictator who has suddenly declared emergency. So whenever Banner was not there to accompany us to the usual hangout on Church Street called New Night Watchman(thanks to its cheaper prices) me and Sumit used to nurse a hangover over our doomed careers on the next day. Well it is a separate story that an intoxicated state coupled with some petulant neighbors had resulted in memories worth keeping for a lifetime. The outcome was that three souls had landed up in the lockup of the nearby police station for no apparent reason. Back now in the present day Paris, Chintu's status message had brought back memories of the charm of black rum and a dying need to get drunk with rum. Me and Aravind had to rush to the nearest store to see if we could get our hands on a bottle of the same. We apparently realised that the mini shop that we visit for emergencies (supplies) doesnt even store alcohol. It was quite a shocker and so we had to run to an almost shut down Monoprix and come out with a 10 euro bottle of exquisite black rum ( a brand that I have completely no idea of at the present moment) . What followed afterwards are mere figments of imagination and reality coupled and intertwined. After 5 drinks the old man of the house was no more singing, he was rather shouting songs. The guy who will any day give a competition to Dagwood of Blondies for being flat on the couch for 24 hours had opened the glass shutters and was romancing the nipping, below zero temperatures of Paris and I was busy writing the stupid blog below this and throwing up some words of emotional support to a friend on gtalk who had suddenly had a major breakup. Though it all sounded so bull and I was not even sure what I was doing, I guess I did a great advice session under alcohol. And then everything went black and as I drifted away to sleep I could just hear a voice saying arey bho..... ke....u r sleeping on the floor between the two sofas. Then everything turned into a kaleidoscope for a split second and it was all dark after that.

After a few pegs of rum......

I havent done this for a long long time. The last time as far as I remember, it was the one and only famous party that we had at IMT after the disgusting financial services paper in the 4th semester that turned out to be the most disgraceful performance in my life. It was one of those papers which was an open book paper and we had no clues what we were supposed to reproduce in our papers. Apart from our lesser mortals who had the audacity of taking up finance as our majors in a college like IMT, there were others who thought that the financial services was one paper that could give them a well deserved placement in the financial services thanks to the boom in the banking and insurance sector. Alas they never expected that the whole end term exam would just consist of one question with a 100 twists and turns. Man it was worth a sight when we all came out of the exam hall with a big question mark written stark on their face. Though it was an open book exam people had this one question all over their worried face, was it a pass or fail? Alas we all knew the outcome, even if it was an open book exams which we long craved for. The toppers were obviously trying to find out the %age difference in their scores while us lesser mortals had headed towards Noida to celebrate the disgusting performance in the FS paper. And lo in the middle of these celebrations I did get some 5-6 calls from the topper of our claass threatening me to complete the strategy project. Poor thing she never had any idea that I wanted to get so very drunk that strategic management seemed as arcane as nuclear physics. Today I am as drunk as that day in the hostels of IMT, when we drank and Arti shopped to feel better. Today she is married and enjoying a life away from financial services and neither do I care about financial services in this world of Interface monitoring in the SAP world. It seems to be a far off world than where we wanted to land ourselves at. But still everyone has survived with a little bit of gloom here and there. But at the end we are what we are. MBA seems to be a far off dream that we managed to indulge in. Alas no more of it survives in real, it is what survives in our sweet nice dreams. But what really remains is this sense of intoxication that makes u ponder about the way your life is taking. After all that perspective changes with time. When u consider that Sumit Baheti was drinking vodka yesterday, I must say that life has chaned a lot. There were times when we had resolved never to drink vodka. And today things have changed. Even six moths is a long time. Today Baheti is indulging himself in litres of vodka. Alas there were days when even 250 ml of vodka would have made us puke. Alas things change, we change, preference change. Time changes every soul in us. If only we could have made time stand still....life might have been a better place to live.......alas never would happen.....

Much ado about cleaning

I finally had the august opportunity to meet the person for whose welcome our house in Paris saw four well fed, pot bellied persons making war like arrangements for a whole of two days in an attempt to clean up all the mess that the flat in Courbevoie housed apart from the four people in question. It was the day of all days that usually comes once a month but for the last two months I had avoided the D-day by rushing away to neighbouring countries when the day came. Considering the fact, that the D-day beaches are very nearby when you consider my geographical location on the map of the world, I had every plans to rush off to the D-day beaches when these once in a month occassions came, but since it was clear that I would most probably be threatened with dire circumstances if I avoided it another time I finally decided to act and clean the house for the grand arrival of our landlord. It has been months since I shifted from the Indian hostel to this appartment with three of my colleagues, in a vain attempt to save some money. Alas I have spent everything on travelling Europe and presently my bank balance looks very much disbalanced. The day I moved into this appartment the smell of gross neglect welcomed me. A sight of the dining table was enough to give the landlord a massive heart attack. There was everything on the table and it looked like the sight of a mini explosion. Bottles and cans of used pickles and sauces were there. There was even a carboard case that was home to a shoe once upon a time. Now it was home to a whole host of masalas that were last used a decade ago. Though I do like my stuffs to be clean and my room to be tidy, cleaning up a community mess is not something which I am used to. The table was left the way it was lest it again decide to explode on me.

Historically I have been blessed with flatmates or hostel roommates who have had dubious records of being clean. Notable is the wonderful time that I had with the great Banner. Room number B-57 in IMT hostel was one of the smallest rooms that could accomodate two people. To meet the problem of space we had joined our two beds and hence were crowned as the undisputed presidents of some well known society of IMT which is best kept secret in a public forum like this. The space constraint problem saw clothes being heaped on the lonesome chair in the room. The chair seemed to be heaped in the same way as a donkey's back when being taken to the dhobi ghat. Books used to be lying here and there on the bed as were newspapers on which we sometimes slept too. These newspapers were hurriedly disposed under the cot to rest in peace with all the dirt of the world. And then once in a while came a frantic SOS call from the great Banner announcing the arrival of his parents. A call like this meant something much more graver than 9/11 for us because if his parents would have seen the condition of our room, the way we kept it, we would both have been shot dead at point blank for being so unclean. The SOS meant I had to run and push every item of clothing inside the big almirah and lock it up. If they would have opened the almirah once, they would have been buried under debries of fallin clothes of all kinds. The next step was to shove everything under the bed and if still unwanted things remained they would be pushed into the neigbours room. Equally unclean the duo of Bindra and Sohar never minded an intrusion into their room. Bindra's cleanliness record had the whole cleaning staff of IMT prying for his blood. He had happily forgot to clean a bucketfull of clothes that he had soaked in soap for more than a month. When he finally threw them all away, it was anybody's guess how many lesser mortals might have died of the stench. The next phase of room cleaning would be the jharu pocha wala stage with me struggling with the jharu and Banner doing the pocha. The speed at which we cleaned the room would definitely have put a high speed TGV at shame. The finishing touches were provided by lighting up a whole plethora of incensce sticks in an effort to shoo away the smell of stale cigarette smoke that lingered on in our room. The wallpapers of our PCs changed from a raunchy Monica Belluci staring at us to a picture of godess Saraswati in no time. And this is how I had saved my ass for a whole year and had managed reasonably well to portray myself to be a clean person to the outside world. Second year in IMT, was an individual affair, with people getting single rooms. I had managed to keep my room clean for the better part of that year and thanks to a lot of initatives taken at the begging of the year of putting up wall hangings and fancy lamp shades nobody ever raised eyebrows. Though in second year also a mount everest of old newspapers rested under my cot. In the latter part of the second year, we stuffed the mountain in Akshara's car and took it to the local kabadiwala and made a mini fortune of it. The money was enough to sposor a booze party for our group of friends. The next stop which became home for a few months was the guest house of Infosys during the training period at Hyderabad. All our combined efforts of keeping everything out of place proved futile by the constant monitoring of the housekeeping staff of the guest house. Bangalore also saw its share of dirtiness thanks to the laziness of us few souls who stayed in a house at BTM layout. The only saving grace was the cleaning woman who did not understand even one word we spoke and vice versa. It was easier to talk to an alien than the cleaning woman, but she did clean the premises and clothes of ours quite well. And now in Paris, cleaning the home is a ploy to keep the owner happy, lest he throws us out of the house into the cold streets of Paris in a winter month. The regularity of cleaning stays in sync with his regularity of coming to collect the rent. That means once in a month the house gets a full revamp with four hatta gatta naujawan becoming the opressed Cinderella taking up the mop and bucket and going around the house cleaning, mopping, strugling, falling and freeing everything of dust and stains including the table that looked like an explosion site. Finally after hours of fighting with the dust and stain and emptying a bottle of stain remover the house looked habitable and sophisticated including the table which no more looked like a blast site of age old curries. Expecting the owner to go ga-ga over our cleanliness initatives but when he came he talked about complex things his bank was doing in a french accented hindi. Later on he started talking about how he desperately wants to learn SAP, a skill that I havent been able to learn in so many years even after sitting infront of the SAP interface every single day. So if you want a clean up of ur house, u know whom not to invite. I am better at cleaning up entries from database these days.

Chocolate, cheese and a lot of beer....Belgium unlimited...

I have never been a great fan of Himesh or his hat since the day the driver of the Volvo to Ernakulam decided it would be very funny to wake up the sleeping passengers by playing Himesh songs on full volume. Since that day I have gazed suspiciously at people who sport a Himesh beard or wear a Himesh cap lest it turns out to be Himesh himself. So moving thousands of kilometers away from the subcontinent of India, I never expected the spirit of Himesh or his cap to follow me in Europe. After I shifted to Paris, I heard the movie goers were swept out of thier feet by the commendable performance of Himesh in the wonderful movie called "Tera tera tera suroor". The fact that the movie was shot somewhere in Europe did give me creepy feelings, but still I was lucky enough to be quarantined from his disastrous songs till I landed up in the wonderful country of Belgium known for its chocolate, cheese and beer and of course glass. All deadly stuffs when you consider the fact that three of these can make your poor tummy inflate and blast away and the fourth thing can rip off ur belly at one go. So before my trip to Germany I went on this trip to Belgium where the spirit of Himesh and his cap managed to haunt me with a guy called Bhaskar from the hostel. Bhaskar is a been there and done that kind of a guy while I am progressing on his foot steps. So he acts as an inspiration for me coz he is almost bald and I am on the path of balding, majority of hair on his head is grey while mine are growing grey slowly, while he has embarked on the journey of marriage a long time back I am seeking motivation to get married sometimes in the future. So both of us set off on this weekend escape to Belgium thanks to the cheap first class ticket that we got on Thalys. So after much oohs and ouches and ifs and if nots from his side finally we did manage to find each other at the Gare de Nord station in Paris and set out for the land of Belgium. After a hearty breakfast on the Thalys where I was cautioned repeatedly for grabbing more than one of every item on the menu, we reached the city of Brussels. Taking one of those cheap intercity trains that runs every half hour to Bruges we set out again towards one of the bigges tourist destination of Belgium famous for its canals and beer. Passing the city, once you land up in the countryside the average Belgian looks like the cows he rears. He is as fat and as white as his cows. No doubt so much of beer, cheese and chocolate does take its toll on the average Belgian.

Once in Bruges, and after purchasing a city map which looked much more like an arcane treasure hunt map than a handy helpful city map we set off towards our hostel on one of the city buses. One small enquiry about the stop of the buses that we needed to get down at got a Belgian totally excited to help us out and then began a walk for 20 long minutes till we reached the hostel. The email from the hostel had promised a 5 minute walk from the city centre. Incidentally later did we realise that the man had taken us through all the wrong lanes and it was almost more than double the distance from the place we had started walking from, that he had taken us on. Once in the reception, the snob receptionist told us to come back at 2 in the afternoon to get our rooms and she gave us a map of the city that was much more readable than the arcane one we managed to get at the station. This map was hilarious in its own ways with suggestions about how one should not pee on the streets of Bruges as the fine amount would amount to some few hundred euros per litre of pee passed, that the best way to peev a Brugeian is to ask him/her where the nearest Mc Donald's is. So off we went with our huge bags exploring the lanes and canals of Bruges clutching the hilarious map which seemed to mock every place in its own way. The first place we entered made us pay 5 euros and it happened to be a church. Now I have never seen a church which charges entry fee since I came to Europe, but the person at the counter convinced us that it had a very beautiful museum and hence the entry fee. Alas the museum turned out to be a museum that had all kinds of lace attires and nothing more. The only good thing was that the church had a very clean and precious toilet that we made full utilisation of. The next stop was the chocolate factory that provided insights into how chocolate beans were used as currency in the olden days in some tribes and how 100 chocolate beans could buy you a strong and sturdy slave in the slave markets. I picked up a handful of chocolates from the complimentary counters irrespective of the muted protests of others and saw how they made chocolates. Overall the entire chocolatey experience in the museum of the chocolate fairy was quite a treat to the senses. Heading ahead we tried climbing the Belfry tower in the market square that has an epic 366 steps, the passage goes on getting narrower as one reaches the top. It was quite a harrowing experience carrying our bags to the top of the tower. Once we reached the top, the clock at the top started ringing horribly with its huge dongs that could have easily made a non susupecting soul go deaf. We came down from the Belfry tower after giving our whole hearted support to the Indian cricket team which was just across the English channel playing a test match against England(we met a British couple who were more interested in discussing cricket than climbing the stairs). After having a lunch of burgers and fattening fries we set off to claim our rightful rooms in the hostel and after struggling with the locks and the sophisticated security system we were finally able to get into our room. The room was cosy yet typically featureless and overlooked the kitchen of the restaurant underneath which had stacked up crates and crates of beer bottles which is yet another Belgian passion. To realise this passion we head next to the famous Bruggian Zot brewery that has guided tours that show how beer was made previously in the olden days. After buying a ticket for the tour that was supposed to culminate in a free glass of beer we realised that the smell of beer was enticing enough for us to buy a few more glasses till the tour started. The tour was conducted by a lady infected with the horrific Belgian sense of humor who took us around the old beer distillery sharing anecdotes with a face as serious as any of our politicians, but spiced with a very strong sense of humor. So the Belgian beer factory lady told us that packing Belgian beer into cans is an insult to the beer and that the Belgian beer should always be served in the right glass to make it taste all the more better. And finally that one should never complaint if the Belgian beer was served with a whole lot of froth. Pouring beer out of bottles or jars with the least amount of froth, was a game that we enjoyed and associated it with some kind of weired macho masculanity ideas, but in Belgium the beer lady proved it to be all wrong. According to her, the initial froth allows people to start up conversations while the froth settles down. She also said that people also start talking to their beer once in a while and it only becomes serious when the beer starts talking back to you. Then you know, that it is the last glass for the night. The customary beer followed the tour and with all the newly gained knowledge I analysed the contents of the beer- barley turned into malt, mixed with water and hoop for the customary smell and then cooled and fermented and bottled to make the golden yellow liquid that has long left me intriguied with its taste. The beer factory tour was followed by a 30 minute ride on a boat on the canals of Bruges. A sign on the boat at the end of the tour again proved the classiness of Belgian humor. The sign read that "Tipping is not a town in China". We followed the boat trip up with a trip to the old windmills on the outer fringes of the town and again wandered back along the canals to reach the city centre. There were roadside shows and a huge saturday night rock concert. By the time we realised that we were hungry, most of the restaurants had already shut down their kitchens. Finally we found this French continental restaurant that had kept its door open till late. As we sipped beer waiting for our fish and chips the music system started playing "Saiyan dil mein aana re". Sitting in a French restaurant on the northern fringes of Belgium and listening to a Bollywood song is nothing you would expect. But Europe seems to be filled with all these surprises and French guy from the restaurant said that his father in law is a big fan of Indian movies and hence he has a collection of Bollywood songs too. He even named Amitabh Bacchan though it did sound like Amitabh Bachpan. After a hearty meal and clicking pictures of the city canals illuminated at night by lights, we headed back to the hostel and slept like logs. The next day, the weather god was all angry and as we left Bruges for Brussels, the sky was pouring rain like cats and dogs. Brussels is a disaster when compared to Bruges. It looks like one of those post World War 2 towns, cold and damp and not so pretty. We took the city tour on top of those open air buses which could not be converted into open air ones thanks to the huge amount of rain that Brussels was subjected to on that very day. We were the only duo who seemed to be getting down at all the sight seeing stops, every one else seemed to be contended seeing Brussels from the bus. Finally at the end of the day, we landed up near the famous Mannekan piss. The small boy's statue that keeps on pissing all day and night in a narrow lane of Brussels. And finally we heard the much horrific music of the soul who had made my sleep on a bus en route to Kerela blaring from one of the shops near Mannekan's piss. No doubt he was a Pakistani who had set up a souvenior shop near the famous statue and Himesh was blaring full volume from the music system saying "Dil se pooch le, jaan se pooch le". Incidentally I did want to ask my dil and jaan that till what time I would have remained sane listening to naam tera tera Himesh. And thus ended our Brussels trip, on the way back the Thalys stopped at least 4 times on the track and was 20 minutes late to Paris. They said it is one of those for the record books. I said lets not talk about the Indian Railways record books.

Bidi on the streets of Nurnberg

Being 25 and acting like a kid requires a lot of efforts. Specially when you are in a distant land where every word worth its money starts or ends with a Z and has Z in the middle to supplement the effect, it takes a lot of effort to throw out the composure of a mature person and do things that you always wanted to do as a kid(more about it later in the post). The scene was in Deustchland or more commonly Germany which I visited last weekend thanks to the fact that one of my project mates had been sent there much against his wishes of leaving Paris. So his double room in the hotel was the perfect abode that I required for planning such kind of a trip and ensuring that I need not pay much. Well it is a seperate story that the way I am draining out all the money from my BNP Paribas bank account, that I might soon have to sing on the streets and make people pay me money for shutting up the horrible cacaphony. I am pretty sure that if the darconian FERA was still in practice in India, these guys from the law enforcing bodies of India would surely have caught up with me to help me save some euros. So last friday at the holy hour of 1700 I escaped from office with tickets in hand for Germany. The holy hour of 1700 is just another holy hour including the holy hour of 1800 where leaving office is considered a henious crime. If only my manager would have seen me, he would have had a fit. I reassigned work here and there much against the protest of other lesser mortals and headed straight to Paris East to catch my train to Frankfurt with that big bulky bag that one of my roommates Sayee had given to me. It was a seperate story that the bag looked dead bulky if you put in just 3-4 T-shirts. So with the bag and the big fat 7th edition of Harry Potter in hand, I reached the Paris East station not before bumping my bag into some unsuspecting souls and getting to hear a mouthful of obscenities in French. I had a window seat and unlike others who appear real casual about not getting one, its an honest confession that I am really thrilled when I am given a window seat. Incidentally the person beside me, a German with a blonde moustache (man it was damn scary) also had the 7th Harry Potter in his hand. A father of two, he convinced his sons to solve the Sudoku while he glanced through pages of the Harry Potter. The German versions of the super fast trains unlike the Belgian versions or the French versions have a display that gives all kind of nasty informations in four languages and also shows the speed at which the train cruises. Soon we were cruising at close to 307 kmph. I mean imagine the shock of a poor guy who used to do a 12kmph on a standard blue and white bus of a specific company on the mother of all higways Hosur Road way back in Bangalore, being hurled forward towards Germany at 307kmph. The train journey on board the DB(DeustchBahn) ICE(Inter City Express) was worth every euro spent on it. And it did give me a chance to plan the acting like a kid stuff when I saw that the driver's cabin was only one glass partition away from the passenger seats.

An ICE

The next day after a sleep of less than 4 hours me and Anirban set off on yet another ICE journey (this time sitting in the cafe onboard the train sipping Bavarian beer) to the beautiful city of Nurnberg known for its castel, its famous Nazi parade grounds and the famous Nazi trials is a cute little city with a lot of things to see. The churches are old and really impressive with the typical gothic structures. They looked like the famous Notre Dame church of Paris. The insides of the church were serene and quite and the sunlight created amazing patterns when they passed through the tinted glasses. After going up the stairs and down the escalator and losing track close to 5 times we were finally able to land up at the tourist information centre of Nurnberg. The small old town with all its sceneic attractions finally of its fountains and the weekend markets, the churches and the museums, the town hall and the excise house finally lands you up at the foot of the castle which houses a museum too. It seemed to be a strange place with more museums than public lavatories on the street. The castle was small and typically German. The tour was of no help as it was also in German. There were hardly 5 people including us two who wanted the English version, rest all seem to have a fair idea of how german was spoken. The most impressive feature of the castle was the watch tower from which the whole city was visible and the well that ran down 305 metres deep into the ground. There were candles placed on a plate with the help of a pulley which were hoisted down to show the depth of the well. We had a Thai lunch in a Bavarian restaurant and sipped down Bavarian beer out of those huge glasses which store more than 500 ml of beer at one go. It gave me no doubts as to why Germans looked as big as boulders and had bellies as big as a 15 months pregnant cow. Post lunch we headed off towards the Nazi parade grounds on board a tram not before running into a store that was selling stuffs that looked very much Indian. And I was rather bemused to find the store selling packets of bidis at the exhorbitant price of 3 euros per packet. The guy from the store with his huge blonde eyebrows explained how bidis made in India were hot favourites in these parts of Germany. Considering the margin that one can gain on this kind of a business, I would have to look no further if I want to start a business. I would be happy enough to import crates of Dum Dum biri at around Rs.1 per packet and sell them at a whooping 3 euros per packet in Germany. The Nazi parade grounds were kind of scary and bore witness to the acts of Nazi. The guided tour of the rooms showed the story of the rise and fall of Nazism in Germany. It was a real pity that had ended in the trial and hanging of Nazi leaders in Nurnberg. After having another round of Bavarian beer and the famous sausages from Nurnberg we set sail again for Frankfurt on board another ICE. And this is where I turned into a complete kid much against the muted protests of Anirban. We had landed up seats in the front row right behind the drivers cabin and every bit of me was interested in landing up into the driver's cabin for once and seeing how they ran the ICE at that huge a speed. Suddenly out of nowhere there were two kids accompanied by their father, who had asked for permission from the train manager entering the drivers cabin. And seeing them go inside I felt the compelling need to go inside the cabin all the more taking grip of me. And finally I asked the ICE driver if I could make my way inside the small cabin and he readily agreed. And thus was fulfilled a dream to be inside the drivers cabin of a train, and since the train was running at around 250kmph, it was all the more exciting to be on board. The driver told us how the throttle was handled and which was the brake and the horns etc. It was 15 minutes of pure ecstacy at the end. Later on I realised that even the drivers feel bored and are happy to show people the tricks of their job rather than sit straight for more than 4 hours and gaze ahead on the tracks. After all even they need some entertainment which they get thanks to unsuspecitng souls like us. Sunday was spent in roaming Frankfurt which incidentally has nothing that interesting except for a boat ride on the river Maine and a metro that runs underground before suddenly appearing out of nowhere on the road and even following traffic signs. A metro on the streets is something that I have never encountered in any other city of the world. Monday morning saw me boarding another ICE and as a co passenger I got a very good looking German girl who seemed to know every language in the world. On the way she was seen reading an English fiction, which gave way to a German one before landing up on to a French guide about Paris. Talk about being multi linguistic!!

With a huge Bavarian beer in hand

Inside the driver's cabin of an ICE

The weired Metro of Frankfurt that runs on the road

Pottermania

I realised I was a very insignificant creature in this big bad world of ours. If only you could spare and overlook my non vegetarian eating habits you would have realised that I am one of those guys who are contended staying deep down at the bottom of the food chain. So the thought that somebody would have dedicated a book to me came as a rather rude shock. But when the realisation set in I was ecstatic, enthralled and subjected to a whole lot of states of mind which presently I dont remember. The significant event in my life was that J K Rowling had finally decided to dedicate the last book of the Harry Potter series to all her readers who have followed Harry Potter religiously through the last few years in the battle against the dark lord Voldemort. Well it was an honour that I rightfully deserved when you consider that I was one of those 11 million guys who contributed to the record breaking sales on the very first day of the release of the book. But here are some other top reasons why the dedication of the book to readers like me made perfectly logical sense.

• Deathly French hallows: I had prebooked the final copy of Harry Potter at the Virgin megastore near my office. Now considering the fact that the French love their book smeared with French (i.e. they always have a fascination for reading the translated version of English bestsellers) it was quite a difficult task to make the French speaking book store attendants understand the entire concept of pre booking the Harry Potter book. Considering the fact that they already had a big Harry Potter release countdown POP display it was a very horrendous experience.
• Misorder of the phoneix: Prebooking of the Harry Potter book proved to be quite a misordering when you consider the fact that the book was as freely available as wine bottles in almost all the bookstores of Paris. Well finally I realised that prebooking is only necessary when you are sitting in some remote corner of Timbaktu (wherever that place is).
• Goblet of Disaster-Barry Trotter: Incidentally apart from the 6 and half books of Harry Potter that I have had the auspicious opportunity to gobble down, I also have discredited myself by reading two books of the Barry Trotter series. It is a spoof showing the pornograhic side of Barry Trotter who has a strong resemblance with Harry Potter and whose life is a total disaster. I survived two Barry Trotters and according to some it was quite a credit that should be applauded.
• Fool Blood cousins: My cousins have always been great fans of the Potter movies. I mean till the time somebody is a fan, it is ok with me but being a fanatic is quite something different. So when the kids channel POGO had this glorious idea of airing Harry Potter flicks 24*7, my cousin had tortured me by making me see the same old movies of Harry Potter over and over again and again. Think of any worser way to spend a weekend in Bangalore!! Had felt myself to be a fool blood bloody fool after that, subjecting myself to such torture.
• Philosopher's groans: For more than half a decade now I have had the glorious opportunity of listening to Potter philosophy from humans in various forms shapes and sizes. The most outstanding among them was Darshan a pal from college days who had this immensly irritating habit of relating everything with the life and time of Potter. So the discussions included such hilarious complaints like "our college building does not look like Hogwarts","Wish I could do magic and sneak the question paper before the exam", "Will Voldemort die in the end?" I dont know whether he has finally got his answer with the seventh book because last heard he was honeymooning in God's own country Kerela blissful with his own marriage. Maybe Potter is passe infront as compared to a newly wed wife.
• Chamber of Secrets: The little secret is that Bloomsbury would be very disappointed to hear that I bought the pirated version of the book till the 5th edition. That was the only option available to an unemployed guy like me who wanted to know the outcome of the good versus evil story. I hope hearing this bit of information, Bloomsbury does not classify me as a death eater. The other little secret is that Bloomsbury would be very proud to know that the pdf version of the 6th book was available in a matter of hours from the release of the book on the file server of IMT. So the 6th version was also gobbled down by me in a pirated form.
• Prisoner's of Pottermania: Love him or hate him but you cant ignore him. I guess the Potter craze is something which is very much a reality and yes a lot of people like me have been prisoners of pottermania since a very long time. And finally the end is here and the series would be remembered as one of the best written series of all times that has appealed to children and youth and also elders (like my mother).

So it does make proper sense for Rowling to dedicate the book to me and the likes of me. This tribute to Harry Potter was all the more inspired by the fact that I saw at least 5 people balancing the huge book in their hands and trying to read it while waking to their offices. I have never tried that kind of insane stuff myself. But I guess everything related to Potter is as unexpected as the books are and one last thought does haunt me like crazy. Doesnt Voldemort tire of losing the duels over and over again. I mean he looks more like our very own Mahishashur who loses the battle against Ma Durga every year and again comes back the next year to lose again. This rare fact inspired a cartoon series which showed that Mahisashur was utterlly frustrated with the every year losing business and tried to outsource this little piece of non value adding work of dying every year to somebody else. I guess Voldemort also requires to think of such options to make the real Harry Potter more in sync with the Barry Trotter that I have come to love. Goodbye Potter, we would surely miss you.

Google your way to serendipitous Etretat

It was much like any usual day at office with the irritable Kakkar complaining that I do not work and only he does and Anirban trying to convince me that I might be sent back to Bangalore when he came to know that I wanted to download Calvin & Hobbes pdf out of the net and enjoy it in office hours. So there I was sans work because everything seemed to be working perfectly in the huge labyrinth of systems set up in the place I work. A very rare feat indeed and it gave me a chance to explore the full potentials of the unique lifesaver at times created by Sergey Brin and Larry Page called Google. Now most lazy bums at office would not care to find out the lesser known tourist attractions in Europe and would settle for the much obvious choices. But in a backpacker's heavan like Europe, this kind of an attrocity is a crime. And as I had already been convicted by the irritable Kakkar of shying away from work I headed to google and tried to find out a place on the coast of the English Channel with which I had fallen in love while crossing on a ferry from Calais to Dover, one fine trip that is best kept a secret.

A lot of googling on the site of the french tourism department and google photos with a frequent trip to the thalys website for finding out train links to places on the coast finally brought out Fecamp and Etretat as the natural choices. It was supposed to be beautiful, an awesome place on the coast with the cliffs of white rock rising from the waters of the Channel. Just a three paragraph writeup on the place on the Lonely Planet book for touring France did give me doubts about the place. A few French words thrown into the google translator and navigating through a completely french site got me the bus links to the station from far off Etretat. Google has its own potentials provided you know what to search rightly. So off we were on a Saturday early morning to Fecamp and Etretat. The explorers included me, Anirban and the workaholic Kakkar. The inclusion of Kakkar was the glorious idea of Mr. Anirban as he wanted to gel with his soon to be hommie. By the way did I spell that correctly? The Corail Intercity trains were quite a treat to be travelling on. The pleasant Bonjour from the ticket inspector made me compare her with the grumpy faced TTE on Indian trains. Indian TTEs never seem to smile, as if the code of conduct of TTEs as specified by the Indian Railways does not allow them to smile or wish somebody good day or a thank you. The Corail dropped us at Breaute Bruzeville and from there a small train got us to Fecamp. The coast of Fecamp was a pebble beach with cliffs lining both the edges of the beach. The conditions overcast and the weather windy, thanks to the English Channel had made it chilly and enjoyable all the more. There were people on the beach engrossed in their activity of fishing for nothing because for the half an hour I was nearby, one had not even managed to catch one fish from the channel. There was a lighthouse in the distance jutting out into the sea and high up above the cliffs were windmills whirling about at huge speeds (grand vitesse--could not resist showing off my French knowledge :-D ). After a meal of delightful kababs and posing with a lot of rusting anchors on the road, we set off to visit the Benedictine factory of Fecamp. Acutally more of a palace in nature, it houses the only place in the world where the alcoholic drink Benedictine is made at. The history of Benedictine dates back to the time when a Venetian monk Dom Bernardo created an elixir with 27 plants and spices. The commercial production was started in 1863 by Alexander Le Grande in Fecamp. The exhibition of the palace was magnificient with the tour taking us to the production area with its huge barrels for fermentation of the drink and it finally ended with us getting to savour a taste of Benedictine.

We left Fecamp in a bus headed towards the town of Etretat through lush fields gazing at huge cows having football sized udders on the route. The trip that lasts for 16 kilometers takes about half an hour on the Keolis bus. Etretat welcomes you with its very old structured appearance. There are hotels that have stood for ages and look rustic en route to the coast. On coast the beach still seems rocky but one is welcomed by the pleasant sight of the cliffs jutting out into the sea and look like white elephants with their trunks out in the sea. The weather in France changes much in the same way as Zaheera Sheikh's statements in the famous court case. At one instance it is as cloudy as if it would rain and within half an hour the weather would have changed drastically, with the sun blazing down on you. And much faster than the change of weather, the clothes on the coast change for most French guys. So with the conditions overcast and wind fast, there was no one on the beach who could be seen wearing swimsuits. A moment later with the sun out and blazing literally every one on the beach was wearing nothing else apart from swimsuits. No doubt it was a royal treat to the eyes, but we three looked kind of the most overdressed persons on the beach with our jeans and T-shirts. The trek to the top of the cliff was awesome. The whole town could be seen in the distance, and there was a golf course on the other side of the cliff, lush green in appearance and ever appealing for an 18 hole match. Considering my knowledge of the lovely game, even Tiger Woods would have felt ashamed to see me in any golf course around the world. The scene from the top of the cliff was quite awesome with the English Channel infront of us with its deep blue appearance. The stupid asses that I went with were too tired to trek up the other cliffs and hence we settled for the huge caves on the bottom of the cliffs. Incidentally these caves get completely submerged in a high tide situation. Cursing the worn out sole of my shoe and slipping along the algae mass on the way, we finally made it to the weired looking caves. The trip finally ended with a siesta on the rocky beach. While coming back to the station, the bus had a total of 3 souls for the journey of 20 kms, incidentally we were the only 3 on board. Ever criticising and cribbing Kakkar also was contended with the trip which is a big acheivement in itself. Its easy to please a Paris Hilton than a Dinesh Kakkar as I have realised in the last few months.

The pics are here:

http://picasaweb.google.com/ainindra/FecampAndEtretat

Illimtie movies....Illimite snores.....

As compared to the fourth movie in the Harry Potter sequence, the fifth one was a major disappointment and all expectations came crashing through the roof with Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix not being able to keep up to the standards of the other Potter movies. With a lacklustre screenplay and a horrible script and roles, the movie seems to be moving around in circles leaving the audience confused and dazed and made people like me doze off for a few minutes, which according to my moive watching mate was quite a depressing performance considering that in a movie called Hoax, I had fallen asleep when the commercials were being aired and woke up when the credits were being shown. It was accomapnied by a few snores of the utmost decible level according to him, though like every god fearing, soul searching human who snores, I vehemently denied that I had snored. The venue of such a fantastic snoring resort is the UGC Cine centre near my office which has 16 halls which incidentally shows the latest Hollywood movies. At 18 euros per month for an unlimited number of times UGC cine centre of La Defense has become like a second home for me and Anirban. There have been days when we have fitted in 3 movies back to back. The movie mania bug has bitten us so much that the security at the entrance of the multiplex seldom check our bags which they follow very religiously for the other viewers. Considering that we were spending so much of time in the movie hall, we became the prime victims of a office humor. The joke was that we two can save a lot of money, if we just buy a tent and set it up inside the UGC and stay there, considering that we spent half our free time in the multiplex. If you want a gross scale discount and watch movies without even shelling out a single cent from your pocket, you just have to catch hold of some unsuspecting souls, some fresh souls who would have arrived from India for the project and make him a patron of the 18 euro offer. You just have to introduce one new person to the concept of the 18 euros per month offer and you would get one month free of any liability and watch unlimited movies for free. Just that the competition to get new members into the foray of the 18 euros per mois offer. Going by this I am really tempted to make the much required comparison with wathcing a movie at Bangalore. The last city that I stayed made me shell out the maximum of amounts for accomodation, fooding, auto fare, kaam wali bai and finally going out for a movie. At Rs. 220 for a new movie at inox and Rs. 180 at PVR, Bangalore was a real killer. 18 euros per month for an unlimited set of movies is really cheap when compared to even Banglaore standards where tickets were a rarity on weekends and you had to push and shove and try by standing in lines, check online or the ticketing machine at the movie halls and pray that some seats were empty so that you had an option to buy the tickets. As compared to the PVRs and INOXs,at UGC there have been times where I have realised that there were 7 people watching a show of a movie. Though the only real sad part of it is that there are no Bollywood movies to cherish and enjoy. Going by the last set of jokes in the column of office humor people around have speculated that for me and Anirban, they would soon start showing Hindi movies. So lets see how far these predictions of the lesser mortals become correct coz I did once manage to see a poster of Govinda and Karishma Kapoor trying to say something in French to me. Incidentally with my knowledge of French being restricted to Sortie, Merci and Bonjour I understood nothing of it. So good or bad, humor or horror, cute or ugly we watch it all, as long as it is 18 euors per mois. And the latest office humor doing the rounds is that Anirban Mookherjee's smiling battisi dikhau photo will soon replace Marie Duval in the card below and he would soon be turned into the brand ambassador of UGC illimite. I guess I will watch more movies this weekend, to catch up with Mr. Mookherjee.

As London beckons....

In dino dil mera, mujhse hai keh raha.....tuuuu khwab saja....tuuu jee le zara.....hai tujhe bhi ijazat kar le tu bhi mohabat....sings loud the music player of my laptop as I am penning down this blog entry. Berang si hai bari zindagi....kuch rang to bharun.....main apni tanhai ke vaaste....ab kuch to hai karun....And as I listen to this song from Life in a Metro I feel life is the best thing that has ever happened to me. The journey of life which we take up everyday, moving ahead experiencing things sometimes does leave you sometimes with situations that cant be analysed on the rule book of rationality. And I have fallen in love with life over and over again because of these reasons and situations that have made me feel so alive, so needed, so fulfilled and so loved. But most of the time we give reasons and justification to lose all these chances of picking up life and placing it on a roller coaster ride by citing n number of reasons. Maybe even I have done that a lot due to various reasons at one point of time finally seeing life moving away from my hand and leaving me deeply in grief. But somewhere it did teach me that these chances of living are very short lived, and so sometimes impulse should guide you on your journey of life at least when these opportunites of living are thrown up infront of you. In these ocassions you just have to get on the roller coaster and enjoy the thrill of the fast speed at which life goes over there and experience the significance of living altogether. And maybe that is what I have learned from the trip to Pune one fine day in April, suddenly impulsive to the core. And the roller coaster has not stopped moving since that day, bringing in it wake new experiences and making me feel all the more alive every day.

Pune happened one friday evening. With no plans to go, I was still enticed into the brashness of it by an impulse for doing something for somebody, who really expected it. There is a great sense of acheivement one does feel when one meets somebody's expectations. Pune was just like that. The mind was hazy about the details but I do remember today, the flight booking part and calling up somebody and saying "Can you do me a favour and book a hotel for me at Pune?". And as they say, rest is history. Barely 36 hours spent in the city of the ferguson college made me see life in a whole new way, made me feel that brashness and impulse need not be negative thoughts and feelings, and that someimes the eyes do speak more than the words uttered. And the same thing happened in Pune, Pune was about exploring, expressing, sharing, nurturing, caring and a whole lot of knowing. The games that we played till the dead of the night, in the form of sharing the secrets of our life was one game that I would remember for a lifetime. And when the time came to leave Pune, that Monday morning as the dawn was breaking, and it was early morning, and the taxi was waiting and blowing its horn, I really did hate to wake somebody up and say goodbye. The moment would always be there in my memory well inscribed with its intricate details. There was so much to be said, so much to be expressed and yet there in the airport we could not even speak more than a few words. There was so much to say but so little time and watching those last moments perish and the seconds ticking away was really painful. If John Denver's song ever seemed most appropriate to me, it was at these moments. Thanks Pallavi for making me listen to this song and Deeghii for making the meaning of it known on that monday morning at the Pune airport.

And when Pune, intense with its 36 hours of experiencing life happened, it was a matter of praying hard for the universe to conspire for just another chance to experience the life that 36 hours had offered us in Pune. And Paulo Cohelo in his famous book The Alchemist has said that if you want something really hard, the whole universe conspires to make it happen. And lo it did happen, in the city of Mumbai in the form of a visa stamping. Deeghii came down for me from Pune in search of the string of life, for the thrill of life, for experiencing it all in those few days of Mumbai before we both flew off in search of new places to the Europe and middle east. Mumbai as a city is synonymous to life, its fast pace, its local trains running by the seconds hand of a watch, its night life, its hurridness all make it one place where life cannot be missed. Its there to be grabbed with open hands right infront of you and making you feel that it is yours fully. You tend to blend in the liveliness of Mumbai and experience it in its own way. Mumbai would remain etched on the contours of memory for all the reasons it did have to offer. The night spent watching the light waves on the stairs of the gateway. The whole world infront of us was just the sea with its innumerable launches all shrouded in shades of black and so peaceful and the towering gateway in its gleam of orange behind us. The heart to heart talk we had there, which finally did break the ice and gazing at the stars made me realise that even the city of busy billions could have places that offer its own serenity. And Deeghii you made that night special with your voice against the serenity and calmness of the waves splashing against the rocks. The rythm of the waves clashing and the heart to heart chat that we had are to be cherishd for a lifetime. If one were to ever experience the wild adrenaline rush, my suggestion would be to go to Chowpatty and get on in one of those human operated giant wheels (not really giant-but it does seem like a giant). With every risk of toppling, which incidentally I did make it do once, a complete wobble, I was very scared to hop into one of those. But still on Deeghii's insistence I did try to enjoy the ride and keep my eyes open while it went up and down. Alas most of the time my eyes were shut close. The day ended with another brash incident in the form of a visit to the Hard Rock cafe in Parel. The entire feeling of hard rock being played in that great factory kind of a cafe with famous rockstar posters hanging from here and there, and all illuminated in the faint low light of the cafe, it was one heck of an awesome feeling getting completely sloshed in gallons of beer and tequila and we both partied for hours together till late at night. The other days were spent roaming around the entirity of Mumbai and finally culminated in watching the movie "life in a metro" while experiencing every bit of "life in a metro". I would remember the way you shouted when the monkey snatched away the black berries packet from your hands, the way we had tons of green mango, the launch ride to Elephanta in that special launch, the way you poured the beer, the way we saw the stars and the planes flying out of Mumbai sitting on the Juhu beach and telling ourselves that a few days hence we both would fly out of the country. And fly we did in search of our destinies, but Deeghii you made me experience life in its fullest form every moment we spent together in Pune and Mumbai. And now London beckons, inspite of a whole lot of problem including the visa and the recipisse and a whole gang's misinformation about leaving France for London. And all this is just to experience life with you and make it feel special. You are the alchemist chosen by destiny to give the golden touch to my life. Make it happen. Honestly, truly, deeply London here I come.....

Taxi No. 9211 in Paris

Last Sunday and for the french, Dimanche I was out on an assignemnt. An assignment that cost me a healthy meal of chicken biriyani and raita by the famous chef of the fourth floor of Maison de L'Inde called Mr Mushtaq. I was supposed to go to the Charles de Gaulle aiport for the second time in more hospitable climatic conditions as compared to the first time and pick up a colleague cum friend who was coming from India for the same project. I say that climatic conditions were more hospitable because of the fact that the day I landed straight from a scorching 43 degrees Delhi heat, the temperature that welcomed me to Paris was a mere 8 degrees centigrade. Considering the fact that I had fully disregarded any ideas that had come into my mind of carrying a jacket along in the hand luggage instantly hit me in the form of a cold shock as I repented putting the lone jacket in the check in baggage. Nonetheless things were not that bad this time as the temperature was a comfortable something, but I surely was sad to miss the chance of not being made to cook combined with the joy of eating biriyani prepared by some non suspecting good soul. I also realised that no matter whatever way you try, and even if you have a 3 zone monthly pass it would still take u to some 8 euros to reach the airport from the place I stay which incidentally is the same even if you have not shelled out 70 euros for the Orange carte 3 zone monthly pass which by any estimates is very very unfair. The permutation and combination that I tried to do to save some money to reach the aiport with my much beloved monthly pass left me frustrated and made me reach late to the aiport even after spending the same 8 euros.

So finally the mission came to an end when I safely spotted the one and only Anirban Mookherjee at the CDG airport desperately searching for me as you would search for a public urinal when your bladder is seconds from bursting away. I was at the CDG on a Sunday afternoon trying to spot the one and only Anirban who was coming from India on one of those Air India flights that makes you realise why Kingfisher is a hit with its pretty beauties in red as compared to the dreadful aunties in sarees. Last hard on board an Air India flight, the pretty aunty who was serving drinks, when asked for a second helping by a young gentleman on board to fulfill his dollar dreams was flatly refused a second helping with a strict glance and a small lecture on the effect of alcohol on young livers. Must have been a cost cutting measure of the aviation minister I guess, which aims towards making people feel miserable by portraying horrifying thing so that they give up any notions of asking for a second something. So there he was at CDG, hard to miss because of the extra flabs that made him one of the boradest creatures roaming the terminals. After all the formalities and encashing of the travellers cheques which is like a regular feature that is entrusted on people's shoulders to make them feel all the more uncomfortable when they reach onsite finally we made our way to the taxi stand.

Well the story gets interesting henceforth as we both decided that if it is a taxi that we are going to hire it would be a Mercedes. Daimler Chrysler needs to be the preferred choice as we cruise down the roads and alleys of Paris. Well not that we were spoilt brat sons of big buck dads who own oil mines or Hilton hotels but still this was more to do with the fact that the first taxi fare from the aiport to the destination is always refundable from the coffers of the company provided you insist and not forget to take the bill. Later on it becomes a really miserable affair to book a taxi to take you from one destination to another on the streets of Paris when you consider that it takes the same amount of money for a to and fro bus trip to London from Paris as it takes to come from the aiport to the centre of Paris. So our Mercedes dreams were all the more justified under this kind of economic disequilibrium situations. Safely avoiding a Peugot we got into the Merc taxi parked behind and incidentally thanks to all the conspiracy that god plans out high high up above there much above the tropospheres and stratospheres the taxi driver knew english. The Queens language in the land of the Louvre and the Eiffel tower is as uncommon as finding Polar bears in the savanna grassland. So, intellignet is the human who does a course at the Alliance Francais centres spread across the cities of India before landing up at CDG so that the merci and the bonjour and the et and the le and the homme and the femme do not seem to be things that an alien is speaking to you. So the queen's language speaking cab driver was inquisitive about everything and more than the inquisitiveness he had an opinion about everything. So at the mention of the fact that we were from India, his inquisitiveness went on to which city we were from and form that to why we were there and which company and what postion and finally when this ended, the barge of opinions started. So he started off with an opinion of India followed it up with an opinion of the cities of India and finally reached a climax with the opinion about Shahrukh Khan and bollywood movies which he said his wife likes, his kids like and possibly his neighbours also like.

The famous Merc Taxi....

Unluckily even if he had an opinion about Indian actors and his knowledge seemed to be far and spread, he confessed sheepishly that he was not well aware of the roads of Paris and was completely unaware of the place that we wanted him to go to i.e. Gopi's house which was soon to be Gopi and Anirban's house. Now this place is too small to give anyboday any persepctive about the person called Gopi. His irritating nature has most of the Infosys staff and a lot of French citizens utterly delirious and prying for his blood. Anyway more updates about Gopi would follow in later posts as I get to know this person better (its a torture beleive me). So Gopi's abode which was somewhere in a god forsaken place was our destinantion. And I was at the helm of guiding the entire convoy i.e. the lonesome taxi to the destination of Becon les Buryeres where incidentally I had been only once. So being entrusted with such kind of jobs was quite a nightmare in its own way when you consider that in Paris a single wrong turn can land you up in circles as you would be sitting happily in the taxi seeing the meter go further north too many cents at a time.

The only way out was to consult the map. Unlike the streets of India where asking directions is as simple as peeing on the roadside. But in Paris just like the way you cannot pee in the open roads and lakes, in the same way the first thing you should set your hands on, not to get lost is the ubiquitous lanes, bylanes and the metro network of the Paris city is a map. Incidentally all the metro stations have such maps which are very much gratuit and hence you dont really have to think of shelling out some 10-15 odd euros for the map. So off we went on a wild goose search for Gopi's house with the help of a Paris tourism map which had safely disregarded most of the roads and only concentrated on the 14 metro lanes and 6 RER lines that have penetrated the city of Paris and now rest on layers and layers of tunnels. So with the map, I told the cab driver to go right, then left, then again right and so we went on traversing paths that the map showed till we reached what was the station of Becon from where Gopi's house was a stone's throw away. Alas the only problem was that the house was on the other side of the station and unlike India you were sure not to find any unmanned level crossing to cross over to the other side. So off we went on a detour of a further kilometer and finally reached Gopi's house who was err not waiting with open arms but more of a whole container full of sambhar and rice which we safely avoided by feigning overeating at Mc. Donalds at the airport. But more interesting is the fact that Mr Cabbie was hell bent on convincing me to the fact that I was quite a good choice when it came to Parisian taxi drivers and I should really think of becoming a taxi driver if I really had any kind of appreciation of the talent that god had bestowed on me. Inspite of repeated interruptions with me saying "I work over here for an IT company", Mr Cabbie made all efforts to convince me to take up the full time profession of a cab driver, which by any standards is worth considering as an average one way from the airport to the city usually costs some 50 euros which by any standard is more than the one way flight ticket to Amsterdam next weekend. It seems Paris is giving me the opportunity to explore a lot of these alternate professions if I am by chance kicked out of my job which I feel seems highly probable considering the last two weeks development where I have goofed up like anything. But in this case like in all other case where you goof up, the actual goofing up part could be attributed to someone else. So the latest dilemma is that of choosing between becoming a cook or a taxi driver of the taxi carrying a number plate of 9211. Still pondering.....

Slammed a Grand Slam...

The lips relax, the hands lose grip, the whole world around turns into deep shades of black, something inside tells you dont lose it up but someone else says give in to me, life is beautiful on this side, and then there in that dilemma someone shouts out in the most unearthly voice possible a single phrase which sounds like "Endoneel" and I realise that I had drifted off to a place much more wonderful than Switzerland called Sleepland sitting right there in the client office with my boss infront of me and my onsite PM on the other side eyeing me with disgust. The look on his face would say it all that if ever this project goes out of our hand, this sleeping beauty is the one who would be thrashed and smashed and bashed up in the most beautiful manner on the streets of chic Paris. The French obsession of removing the R when it comes to pronunciation of words with R has made me Endoneel from Indranil.

So here is a post from chic Paris with me desperately stopping myself from falling asleep after a tummy full meal of pizzas that had cheese spread on it in similar plethora as makkhan is spread on alu parathas in the dhabas of Haryana and Punjab highways. The pizzas with its thing crust and Margarita cheese toppings made the entire office crowd hog like anything and what better way to celebrate a bon appetizing lunch than to drift off into a siesta and bring the Spanish influence to France. Yet am alive and awake and am trying to procure toothpicks from somewhere so that I can hold the upper lids in place and not fall asleep. This unique technique comes from a purely British soul called Mr. Bean and considering the immense love for the Britishers that the French posess I might be a dead soul walking the streets of Paris if I tried any of my pure British ideas. Colonialization has had its own disadvantages as I see it now.

Chic Paris, as I refer to this place because of its obsession with anything fashionable gave me the chance of a lifetime last weekend to do something that I had so desperately wanted to do. Well later about that part but firstly about the fashion brigade called Paris. Everyday from dawn to when the metros and the RERs finally stop for the day late at night (lifelines of Paris, I take one everyday and I realise how important it is to my existence) , the streets of Paris seem to be transformed into big fashion ramps. The old, the young and even the kids on the street seem to be fashion concious and seem to be wearing something so chic, so fashionable that you can compare it with any of the glossy Vogues or Elles. So here I was in Paris where smooching on the streets is as common a sight as people peeing on Indian roads acheiving one of the rare dreams that I never thought would ever be possible. I got to watch a grand slam match (the French Open) at the Roland Garros. Even if it involved standing in the line for 3 long hours and being subjected to a real PITA sardar for some 6 hours yet at the end it was all worth it. The website of French Open apart from hosting an obscene amount of Maria Sharapova photos and thanking the sun for showing its face finally also talked in fineprints about entree de soir. Now going by my knowledge of French which is of as high quality as Jayalalitha's knowledge of Hebrew, I was able to understand that soir in French was evening. This was more to do with the complimentary copies of Direct Soir that are handed out every evening on the entrance of the La Defense station. So finally it was so deciphered from the site that evening tickets would be available for sale from 5 p.m for the last match of the day for seats that had got empty since morning. The optimistic sardar of MDI who had an opinion about almost every thing on earth wanted to see the best match that was being held in the Chartier court (a Nadal match) finally realised after about 40 minutes of waiting that it was not supposed to come our way. So finally Mr. Opinion had to change his opinion and shift to the second best. Thus we bought tickets for the Court 1 match without even knowing who was playing whom. A mere enquiry from a 40 something tennis enthusiast standing ahead of us in the line to get in the stadium about who was playing whom bought a sarcastic answer which sounded like McEnroe. Mr Opinion beleived in him and tennis enthusiast 40 something had a good laugh about this. Then there was another war of opinions between surd and tennis entusiast about Paes and Bhupati parting ways which slowly drifted off to discussions like if they were gay or not?

Hewitt was playing Nienmen (a Finnish guy) on court 1. The clay court's brown effect, the BNP Paribas green ads, Lacoste ads on the stands, the sheer power of Hewitt's serves, the stamina and of course the gibberish of Sardar made it all the more memorable. The sun shining down, the mexican wave and the match which lasted for 3 hours and the sheer stamina associated with it, enticed me. All in all it was a great day watching a great match which Hewitt one with his sheer stamina but with a Finnish guy giving him a tough time.

Cook na Kaho.....

And before Ekta Kapoor, if you ever watched television devoid of the Saas-Bahu sagas you might have come across a chef named Sanjeev Kapoor with a million dollar smile hosting a programme called Khana Khazana cooking delicacies and smiling away to glory. Seeing him host this show for years I had this weired notion that cooking is one of the most fun activities you can ever indulge your own self into. After spending 15 days away from the country in a different continent I can fully vouch that my notion about cooking was as much away from reality as New Delhi is from New York. So everyday on the 4th floor of the Indian hostel in Paris, you would see a cook with as disgusting a look on his face as a person subjected to hours of Sidhuism trying to make some delicate cuisine which finally looking nothing more than blobs of green and red and hating every bit of it.

The only solace is that everybody on the 4th floor except Mushtaq (a lawyer who looks 40 but claims to be 20) hates to cook. Considering the fact that it is easier to procure camel meat rather than proper Indian food at an affordable price in Paris there is no other option than to cook dinner and to pour out obscenities while doing the same. While the lunch always lasts of items like pizza, panini, pasta or burgers, items for which in Paris you spend a fortune when you convert the same into INR from euros. It just took me 3 days to convince my mind not to do the conversion and curse myself for spending a fortune on lunch. So its been poulet(chicken) cheddar or menu viaggio or a thon(tuna) and dinde(turkey) pizza on which I am surviving in Paris. The cooking misadventure started with the ingredient buying misadventure from La Chapelle which happens to be one place in Paris where you will see more saree shops than boutique shops, more hindi and tamil DVDs than French DVDs and more Indians and Sri Lankans than French in general. After the initial delght of finding stuffs that looked Indian the biggest decision that I had to take was what all things I could take to cook. Considering that my knowledge of any kind of recipes was no more than anything which you could count on one hand, it was too easy to make that choice. I bought the bare essentials that Air France had refused to carry with its horrendously low 20 kg restriction and then I set of cooking. And from then on I have cooked egg curry and forgot to put salt in it. I have cooked scrambeled egg and burnt the container in which I was cooking. I have cooked rice that required another round of microwaving after they were cooked to soak up all the water, and I have perfected the art of microwaving already cooked rotis. I guess the same plight is shared by every resident of the 4th floor of Maison De L'Inde well except Mushtaq that is who is ever ready to cook. So we have a Sarathi Da who tried to make a curry out of cucumbers and it turned out to be one of the most disgusting dishes I have ever had in a long time. Then there is Bhaskar Da who stays the life of a bachelor even while being married and curses his post doctoral research for this plight. He has perfected the art of making different kinds of chicken dishes and is one of the most resourceful guys on the floor in whose closet u will find every masala and even ginger garlic paste. Then there is the guy from IIT and the duo from MDI who beleive in nothing but ready to eat menus. I guess the topline of Kohinoor has increased drastically with these guys coming to Paris. And finally there is Prashant who stays with his wife in the hostel and calls me Indhra inspired by a Chiranjeevi movie (supposed to be a big hit) and cooks every night for his wife. Last Sunday he was seen wearing an apron covering him from tip to toe which his wife had bought for him so that his clothes dont get soiled cooking. Its such a nice feeling to see people love each other like this and get closer because of a common dislike for cooking. Evenings in the fourth floor are times when you will find everyone sharing the disgusting things that they have cooked and eating together as if competing for the title of the worst cook. But still its fun....Its the way of life and it is what life together in a hostel means. There are strong attachments that you build waiting for the pressure to build in the pressure cooker to cook your rice, which takes a great deal of time on the hot plates of the hostel. And I guess this one year which would be spent cooking makes me a better cook to share a kitchen and take up half the cooking responsibilities with the one whom I want to share the rest of my life with. Over the phone she has been teaching me a lot of new recipies and so have I been teaching her microwave cooking in which I have perfected myself over years. Aur isiliye mujhe ab se cook na kaho, chef keh lo yaar. Sanjeev Kapoor you better watch out, a competitor is on his way in the romantic city of Paris learning the tricks of the culinary trade.

When things turn French.....

And it has been eons since I logged into blogger and certainly a lot of things have changed since then. Firstly I was welcomed by an unknown blogger.com interface when I suddenly realised that the default language of my blogger account had suddenly changed into French by some voodoo magic all of a sudden. While till the last time I posted in this blog it welcomed me with a happy "New Post" link, it now decided to welcome me with a "Nouveau Message" link. And this was one of the last things that could have changed because suddenly everything beside me has happily decided to change itself into French. And apart from the popup which says "Now Blogger saves your drafts automatically!" and the things that I have scribbled over here everything near me is horribly French, even the Diet Coke bottle that I am using as a water bottle these days has every information written in French. The worst is the keyboard which I am using presently, its one of those French keyboards wherein the @ button is where the " button should be and vice versa and suddenly learning French seems to be the priority of the minute because I have somehow landed up in France.

Its been long since I applied for the French work permit thanks to a project that I was working on for a French client. And finally I got a stamped visa, the very first one on the passport that took me some 5 months to get thanks to the capriciousness of the passport issuing authorities. So here I am in the land of fashion, the Eiffel tower, the Louvre, the Roland Garros and Fashion TV trying to adjust to 17 hours of sunligt and a sun that does not want to set till 10:30 at night. So after a irritating wait for more than 5 months to procure the work permit that seemed to take the Fench authorities as much time to process as an Atal Behari speech I landed up here after seeing most of India ( considering my visa interview was in Mumbai and my work place is Bangalore and my home is at Kolkata and my flight was from Delhi) I landed here last Sunday in an Air France that seemed to be so huge as to fit in an entire playground of people with temperatures that were 10-11 degrees centigrade.

I got my reservations done at the Indian hostel in the Cite Universitaire area of Paris and straight out of the airport I had to wait for some 2 hours before I finally could find someone to open the door for me for the hostel. Finally an old lady, a doctor by profession who had some very strong views about corruption in India and who was very usure if opening up the gate for me could land her up in serious trouble decided to chit chat with me finally giving me an entry to the hostel. The best part was the chance of being driven in a Mercedes at 120 kmps/hr from the airport to the hostel and loving every bit of the journey which cost a whooping 53 euros (close to INR 3500). And since then life has been about discovering the Paris way of life. It is about reading maps and getting used to the zone system of the local trains called RER. It is about sharing kitchens with a bunch of Indians and cooking together (includeds 3 more bengalis). It is about discovering different Indian things in the shops of a place called Gare du Nord. It is about paying 2.5 euros for a cup of tea and fretting about it. It is about being mesmerized by the serendipitous feeling of discovering a park with a big lake in it just next to the hostel. It is about getting complimentary newspapers in French and trying to solve the Sudoku on the way to office trying to avoid being crushed in the RER crowd. And it is also about being mesmerized working in La Defense area of Paris among high rises and the Grande Arche. And finally before I push off here are some pics of the place that I am working at....more to come...

Poyla Boishakh after 6 years......

I do not deny the fact that I am a foodie of sorts and you can surely find a few extra pounds hanging here and there even after trying to slog for hours at the gym at my workplace. Nonetheless food attracts me with an attraction that can be compared to the fascination that Captain Haddock has for alcoholic things or Obelix has for wild roasted boars. And this weekend was all about falling in love with Bengali food over and over again and coming into touch with the Bengali roots of mine that has become a bit hazy since the last 5 years that I have stayed outside Bengal missing every possible festival and fanfare.

The ocassion was the Bengali New Year also known as Poila Boishakh which during my childhood I was content with calling Koyla Boishakh. The Bengali souls whom I have lunch with at my workplace, wanted me to treat them for an imminent onsite assignment that has stayed imminent for a very long time at 6, Ballygunge Place, a very upmarket Bengali food restaurant. So on the 14th of April which was supposed to be the last day of the year 1413 accroding to the Bengali calendar we landed up at the restaurant in the Indranagar area of Bangalore. I was literally starving thanks to an all night power cut on Friday which did not allow me to microwave my Maggi for dinner and finally I had also skipped my breakfast. Though we did not have any reservations we still could manage to get seats without much fanfare. Incidentally the only thing on the menu for the day was the buffet priced at a whooping Rs465+ taxes. Surely the rates were a bit too much if you were not that hungry on any given day. But since the three of us had been hungry enough on that day we decided to gulp down as much as we could to make the best out of the 465 that we were about to spend. It is a seperate story that if people were as like minded as us three, 6 Ballygunge place would have seen its P&L account for those two days in deep shades of red.

To make the lesser mortals jealous here is the list of things that we had in our unlimited buffet:

1. Aam Panna Shorbot

2. Bhat

3. Cholar Daal

4. Alur Dom

5. Alu Potol

6. Luchi

7. Begun Bhaja

8. Fish Fry

9. Chingri Macher Malai Curry

10. Bhapa Ilish

11. Doi Chicken

12. Mutton Kosha

13. Chatni

14. Papad

15. Lengcha

16. Shondesh

17. Roshogolla

18. Mishti Doi

19. Pan

and as in any Bengali menu card the 20th item was surely Abar Ashben (which translated into Bengali meant Please come again...), which after gulping down multiple quantities the abar ashben part was quite an improbable thing to do. And obviously after this kind of a gastronomic adventure my condition was similar to that of a Bengali film actor in a movie of yesteryears who in a film had eaten so much that he had to be carried home in a charpai. Realising that no charpai was coming my way, I was contended with the thought of going back to my home in an auto and drop off into a deep afternoon siesta in a typical Bengali ishtyle.

Sunday saw us continue with the insane idea that started off as a small conversation on the bulletin board of our organisation on Friday afternoon and make it a huge success. Friday afternoon events on the bulletin board saw some desperate soul suggesting the idea of a Poila Boishakh celebration in typical Bengali style. And then it started with people adding up names to the list of people interested in any kind of Poila Boishakh celebration. Soon the list was filled with names who were very much interested in the idea. Friday evening saw some 7-8 people assemble in the Cafe Coffee Day of the workplace and after a heartful round of adda of more than 2 hours, we finally came up with a plan to celebrate Poila Boishakh in a typical Bengali way. So it was Ranajoy's bari in BTM that became host to a celebration of the Bengali spirit.

A group of 20 people, had finally made it for the adda, which by any estimate was a good number. Barely knowing each other, the spirit of adda spread wide and fast and finally every one was affected by the adda virus. The topics ranged from outrageous teachers in classes, to Saurav Ganguly, going forward to Arsenal and Satyajit Ray's films and finally moving on to more mundane topics like work and coding. Discussed over sips of beer from the big Kingfisher cans bought for the occassion it was one heck of an adda session. Lunch consisted of Biriyani (finally the North Indian style) and chicken allong with mishti doi and sweets. Post lunch the mood turned creative with Kishore da songs being sung followed by the more contemporary Baranday Roddur of Bhoomi. A guy amongst us called Avra mesmerized us with his sarod playing skills and followed it up with a performance on the mouth organ. After 6 years of being out of touch with the spirit of Poila Boishakh, it was a beautiful feeling going back to the roots and bathing myself in the spirit of Bangalinaya. And before I sign off its a Shubho Noboborsho to one and all. Tomra shokole boro ebong choto ra amar shubho noboborsher priti o shubhechha niyo. Beche thakuk Bangaliyana spirit.

Weakness-e-pedia

It took 277 tries to successfully clone clone the much famous sheep Dolly as one of my teachers had said in one of the famous Bio classes way back in school. And it took almost the same kind of effort to procure tickets for the newly released Mira Nair film called Namesake based on the book by the same name written by Jhumpa Lahiri. The sheer lack of quality theatres in Bangalore had ensured that Namesake was released in only one movie hall making the possibilty of getting tickets as remote as listening to Rabri Devi speak fluent english. So there I was enquiring about the tickets at Rex for the next day's show when the guy on the other side obviously bored with the mundane job of scratching off seats on the seating sheets and counting money and tearing away tickets from the colourful ticket books gave me a nasty look and suggested that I better read the fine prints that adorned the many sides of the window and hence I found that I was 45 minutes late and advance booking was again scheduled to start at 10A.M the next day. As an afterthought the guy who had just given me the nasty look told me to come back the next morning for the tickets. So there I was the next morning all decked up for Mission Ticket when a notice at the movie hall caught my eyes and making me feel as stupid and angry as possible. Apparently the 5-15 show of Namesake did not have any advance bookings and booking was to start at sharp 3-30 for the show. I landed up at a friend's place and promised her that I would cook only to fall asleep and considering the kind of lazy bum that I am we both landed up eating junk at Mc. Donalds rather than taking the pains to cook. At the much auspicious hour of 3-30, the shubh lagan, the shubh muhrat when Namesake bookings were to start I found myself standing in a line that had kind of snaked its way to look as big as a python. In flat 8 minutes the entire balcony tickets were sold out and when the shutters were downed as I stood awaiting my turn, third in the line feeling as sheepish and angry as possible. Finally it had become a matter of pride to get the tickets after being turned down three times on one pretext or the other. The Rear Stalls did have seats to spare for our group of 6 and the movie was much enjoyable though the seats were uncomfortable, the popcorn was sad and the security were all angry and shouting at the same time.

And finally I became aware of the Frankinstein in me when one of the select few people who read my blog (a number that is less than the number of Amur Leopards alive in the world) suggested that I should list down my weaknesses in one of the posts here. At first glance it looked like a typically MBA entrance or two years down the line from that an MBA placement kind of a question but on closer examination it seemed like she wanted to know what makes me feel vulnerable. Considering the fact that I have bugged her a lot, I am sure about this fact that if she meets me (ever that is) she would bring with her an entire army of well built, Akhada going, Hanuman worshipping pehalwans to beat me up. So here is a list of all the things that make me the Frankinstein that I am and by the time u reach to the end of this list you would be sure that I am the one whom your mom told you to stay away from!

1. I am scared, morbidly scared, scared to the levels of a phobia of getting bored. I dislile people, jobs, situations that make me strive to follow a routine. After all if life were so predictable what would have been the fun of living it? I am the one who would love to stay awake all night and sing his heart out or gaze at the stars rather than fall asleep just because it is the night. So if there is something that draws on to becoming mundane, I am not the one who would be dragging along a relationship like a committed boyfriend. And that makes me one who is always a misfit for relationships, a guy whom girls can never trust. But on the flipside I am the one who would love to drink and graduate to the Nile from the Ganges. The voice is shouting something while reading this.....err it sounds like "You are too self centred an asshole."
2. Am a non confrontationist of obscene standards, I am the one who would prefer just to walk away from an autowalla who is charging extra and asking someone else rather than indulge in a fist fight or verbal abuse with the first autowalla. That makes people beleive that I am coward who does not have the guts to fight. Maybe they are right but it is more of a feeling of being in peace with my ownself that kind of draws me back from falling for a fist fight or verbal abuse. I am not the modern genration Gandhiji who would give his other face for a slap when he has been slapped at the first instance. I would be the first person to move out of the situation and land up in greener pastures if you rub me in the wrong ways. Err what did you say Mr. Voice??"Banda c****** hai, fight nahi kar sakta!"
3. I am one of the laziest creatures to have walked the face of the planet. Much lazier than the overweight ball of fur called Garfield and would have surely had a pole position if I were to compete for being lazy. But alas why compete, because that would make me active in certain ways. This fact can be well proved from the pile of clothes that lie around in my house at any point of time awaiting to be washed. Awaaz aa rahi hai Mr. Voice ka "Chullu bhar pani mein doob mar, kalmuhe lazy bone"
4. I put on my MBA cap everywhere and in every aspect of life. That makes me go in for all kinds of practical approaches to face life and find out solutions for every problem. That makes me shun my ego, get my clothes dirty in the mud of unethical practices and finally accept the fact that not all can be acheived given the limited resources and situations and hence look for short cuts. I am way too non emotional at times making me seem like an apparent monster. The voice says "Unemotional ass, you should be hanged and stripped and flogged for being like this!"

For the rest of the worser qualities and much more of the weakness part of it get in touch. And yah before I finish off someone forwarded this and I found it cute enough a demonstration of lateral thinking. Check it out: