Originally composed on: October 3, 2002
I was born in your arms tender
And opened my eyes to your splendor.
Within me I heard a song,
“This is where I belong.”
In ways loving and soft,
To me you have taught
The first lessons of life
And ways of battling strife.
With you I find solace,
My heart in pain ablaze.
A place of tranquility,
Revered in sanctity.
Far away from home,
When I have to roam.
I yearn for all the comfort I find
In you that I left behind.
Whatever you might say,
Whoever be you may,
Human, wizard or gnome,
There’s no place like home.
- The End
Sunday, February 27, 2005
METAMORPHOSIS a.k.a. The Brotherhood of Insanity
Originally written on: Sept 20, 2002
You know what? I think I am going mad. Actually, I’m pretty sure. It’s one thing to lose hold of yourself but quite another to appreciate the reality. It is an altogether different, albeit bizarre feeling than any other, to know it and then to analyze it and write about it. Let me warn you that should you choose to continue reading beyond this point, you really ought to have a cast iron hold over your sensibilities.
It is a mad, mad world stuffed full of madder people. Madness is an epidemic and spreads like a raging bushfire in the Central Australian desert. It is also a vice that grips you and throttles the very last ounce of your resolve to fight it. The mire that it is pulls you deeper with every renewed effort you make to oppose it.
You never realize it until you are in it up to your neck and it’s only when it rises to your nostrils and asphyxiates you that you know you’ve been sold a dummy. Of course, it is too late then. You have long before stepped over the line of no return and yearn as much as you may; there is no prospect of going back.
In your last effort, however feeble, to get away from its tentacles, you clamor in pain and wonder why it happened to you. Why did you change and not know it. Every new day, you changed as did people and the world around you. Why did the sweet, little innocent thing everybody in the neighborhood loved to fondle and pet turn into a scheming and conniving Mata-Hari, always looking to cheat thy neighbor off his or her legitimate dues? It didn’t stop there did it? Oh no! You had to prove to the world that there’s none better than you, no matter what the ask. For that you had to use methods fair and foul, mostly foul, to upstage your unassuming victim.
This being a world of paradoxes, the victim is not always the hunted. Not hapless, he is just like you. Every good turn may or may not beget another but one bad will beget many worse. The hunter becomes the hunted and then has to escape the snare he himself set up, only by the skin of his teeth. Nary a chance that in the process you don’t lose a few years of your life and a little sanity. I tell you, it is a vicious circle. The pity is you get so engrossed in your drama of one-upmanship, that you don’t even realize the physical, mental, emotional and (in-) human metamorphosis that has happened to you.
Shakespeare aptly wrote, “All the world is a stage, and all the men and women merely players.” We could, at least choose our roles or perhaps the way we execute them. We proclaim until our throats bleed that we belong to the unique brotherhood of the human race. That, amidst all differences, we are the same. We united in our efforts to overthrow powerful dictators. We unite in an effort to protect the environment. We unite in support of our cricket team. Yet, ironically, even as we repeat our oneness like somnambulists in a delirium, our throats literally bleed in cutthroat rivalry and competition. All’s fair in love and war. Really? Is there no love lost between you and me??
I forewarned you that I am slowly slipping off the rocker. I am sure, by now you are too. That makes two of us in a unique bond of difference in this world that is full of surprises.
- The End
Friday, February 18, 2005
Musings from The Garden City
Hi Folks, here I am again, back in action after a break of a couple of months.
In December 2004 I made a career move from Patni Computer Systems and into IBM. And so I came from the economic capital of the country- Mumbai - to the IT capital of the country - Bangalore.
It has been a couple of months now since that move and I have been in Bangalore during this period. I have come to like many things about this city and dislike some too.
To start with, this beautiful city is known as the Garden City, thanks to the greenery you will find here. There are innumerable gardens in and around this city dating from the days of Haider Ali. The city is pretty well planned and neatly laid out and is spreading far and wide continuously. It embraces modern buildings coupled with old time architecture and the blend is quite a treat to one’s eyes. You can pick up interesting facts about the history and fascinations of Bangalore at these internet sites.
http://www.bangaloreguide.com/About/history.asp
http://www.indiaexpress.com/bangalore/eureka/history.html
Come the IT boom and all the major IT companies of the world setting up shop here big-time, the city has taken quite a beating and continues to buck under pressure still. I see before me a beautiful city being split at its seams in terms of what it can withstand and support. The un-ending traffic of two-wheelers alone is enough to suffocate the city. The carbon monoxide pollution caused by the traffic and the omnipresent dust (thanks to the rutted roads and the heavy construction of sky-rises everywhere, is spoiling the wonderful climate that this city enjoys. A quiet and peaceful, almost lazy city has suddenly been transformed into a boiling cauldron of ethnic and cultural diversity in a span of just over five years!
Speaking about traffic, I must warn the visitor to Bangalore that on the road, any space you can insert your bike into is yours, if the other guy doesn’t go there first. If he beats you to it, you have the right to horn in any obscene fashion to give vent to your feelings. And of course you can overtake on the right or the left, push the other guy off the road to get ahead and then throw a few expletives at him for not falling off his bike and sit on the horn at a signal as soon as the countdown to green reaches the 10 second mark. Those white and yellow lines on the road are for decoration purposes only (they look good in aerial shots for movies) and have nothing to do with driving rules. When there is no space on the road, please go ahead and use the footpath beside; the pedestrians will jump into the adjacent ditch to let you pass, lest they be run over by you. Of course you wouldn’t do anything that treacherous, but it is better they don’t realize it. When you take a corner, choose the shortest way to get into the side street. Take a left turn at the left extreme of the road and a right on the right extreme of the road. On the occasional you crash into the guy coming from the other side of the bend, you have an opportunity to actually use all the expletives you have learnt and the public will have a field day by crowding all over the place and totally obstructing traffic in every direction while the poor guy you hit lies bleeding on the road on his mangled bike. As they say it’s all in a day’s work!
In Bangalore, you can find a conglomeration of people from all over the country and overseas. Diverse languages are spoken, the primary being English, Hindi, Tamil and a bit of Telugu with Kannada, the local language, being used only by the locals, who are easily out-numbered by the population flowing in from other states thanks to the number of IT jobs available. Living here, you can easily identify with the mosaic of cultures that India is with a generous smattering of the West thrown in.
Food is a subject I can go on and on about and there is much to talk about food here in Bangalore. For someone who has spent a lot of money on total trash in Mumbai, I am treated to some really nice fare each time I eat out. Bangalore offers a wonderful variety of North and South Indian food at astonishingly low prices at decent eateries at almost every street corner that I wonder what an inane fool I must have been to have spent Rs.25 per dosai in Mumbai with that awful so-called sambar, when I can get a better dosi here for only Rs.10! But I have to say that the sambar is not up to the mark in most places here too. I guess, for really authentic sambar, one must go to a city in Tamil Nadu.
The city’s public transport system is quite confusing at the best of times. Routes on the city buses are written only in Kannada script. Sometimes even the route number is in the Kannada script! If you look carefully, as you are wont to do in a new city, you will notice that there are different route numbers written on the front route board, the rear route board and the side of the bus. Which route the bus is plying on at that moment is anybody’s guess! To add to the misery of the already confused commuter, there are several types of buses that ply the roads here with different fare systems. The common type is the one familiar to any Indian, with front and rear doors and a driver and a conductor with a whistle that he often blows next to your ear leaving it ringing for a while. Some have an entry/exit only at the front and there is no conductor to service passengers. The driver collects money and gives you a ticket as you enter. Nothing wrong with the system except that the poor driver has nothing better than a tin can or a cardboard box to take his collections into and this he puts on top of the engine cover. With a huge torrent of people pouring through the door at any stop, who can blame the hapless driver for stopping the bus in the middle of the road, or at an intersection to collect fares? Some other buses have pneumatically operated double doors at the center of its left side that are operated by the driver from his control panel. Buses may stop at designated bus stops or in the middle of a swirl of traffic, whichever is easier. Commuters are requested to co-operate and board and get off in the most appropriate place, thank you. If the conductor is not too keen on giving you a ticket, you may pay him only a portion of the full fare and he will accept is gleefully. Tickets checkers? Who, pray are they?
IT has brought a lot of expendable money to the city’s very young crowd. A walk on Mahatma Gandhi Road (you obviously have heard of MG Road? Well, it is actually named after the father of our nation) would be enough elucidation of this point. Where there is money to be spent the giant corporate vultures land in numbers. A splash-a-dash of color and a carnival atmosphere get thrown in and you gape at it all in wonder! Huge crowds of youngsters earning far more a month than the collected earnings of their parents in a year and not knowing what to do with it all throng Café Coffee Day, Barrista, MacDonald’s, Pizza Hut and the like. Brand is the mantra here. I wonder how many people behind me on the street are smirking at the label on my bottom that tells them the pair of jeans I wear is, well, not from what they might find a favorable style house! If I dwell too much on the topic I am sure to develop a complex, but such is the change that is happening to Bangalore. The number of pubs in this city amazes me. They definitely out-number the gardens and Bangalore can earn a new sobriquet after all – The Pub City!
Having shared with you information that range from the normal to the have-to-live-with-it categories, it is time I scare you with something totally outrageous and despicable. With large numbers of “IT people” living and working here and more coming in every passing day, real estate is booming. Prices are sky-high already and aiming higher still. Taking the maximum advantage of this phenomenon are house owners willing to rent out an apartment or a portion of their house as Paying Guest accommodation. The willingness of people to pay high rents for small apartments has given rise to a large number of incredibly small apartments built as extensions over existing structures. The avarice of the landlords has been fuelled to such an extent that they do not shy away from demanding a hideously high sum for a rat-hole of living space. On top of this, there seems to be an undercurrent of understanding between the landlords and brokers that it is very difficult to cement a deal with the landlord of an apartment, which apartment you could easily settle for through a broker in that area. The catch is that the broker earns a piece of the pie for himself in the deal, which is usually one month’s agreed rental value, for taking you to the house you have spotted on your own!
These are my first observations and experiences from this city.
In December 2004 I made a career move from Patni Computer Systems and into IBM. And so I came from the economic capital of the country- Mumbai - to the IT capital of the country - Bangalore.
It has been a couple of months now since that move and I have been in Bangalore during this period. I have come to like many things about this city and dislike some too.
To start with, this beautiful city is known as the Garden City, thanks to the greenery you will find here. There are innumerable gardens in and around this city dating from the days of Haider Ali. The city is pretty well planned and neatly laid out and is spreading far and wide continuously. It embraces modern buildings coupled with old time architecture and the blend is quite a treat to one’s eyes. You can pick up interesting facts about the history and fascinations of Bangalore at these internet sites.
http://www.bangaloreguide.com/About/history.asp
http://www.indiaexpress.com/bangalore/eureka/history.html
Come the IT boom and all the major IT companies of the world setting up shop here big-time, the city has taken quite a beating and continues to buck under pressure still. I see before me a beautiful city being split at its seams in terms of what it can withstand and support. The un-ending traffic of two-wheelers alone is enough to suffocate the city. The carbon monoxide pollution caused by the traffic and the omnipresent dust (thanks to the rutted roads and the heavy construction of sky-rises everywhere, is spoiling the wonderful climate that this city enjoys. A quiet and peaceful, almost lazy city has suddenly been transformed into a boiling cauldron of ethnic and cultural diversity in a span of just over five years!
Speaking about traffic, I must warn the visitor to Bangalore that on the road, any space you can insert your bike into is yours, if the other guy doesn’t go there first. If he beats you to it, you have the right to horn in any obscene fashion to give vent to your feelings. And of course you can overtake on the right or the left, push the other guy off the road to get ahead and then throw a few expletives at him for not falling off his bike and sit on the horn at a signal as soon as the countdown to green reaches the 10 second mark. Those white and yellow lines on the road are for decoration purposes only (they look good in aerial shots for movies) and have nothing to do with driving rules. When there is no space on the road, please go ahead and use the footpath beside; the pedestrians will jump into the adjacent ditch to let you pass, lest they be run over by you. Of course you wouldn’t do anything that treacherous, but it is better they don’t realize it. When you take a corner, choose the shortest way to get into the side street. Take a left turn at the left extreme of the road and a right on the right extreme of the road. On the occasional you crash into the guy coming from the other side of the bend, you have an opportunity to actually use all the expletives you have learnt and the public will have a field day by crowding all over the place and totally obstructing traffic in every direction while the poor guy you hit lies bleeding on the road on his mangled bike. As they say it’s all in a day’s work!
In Bangalore, you can find a conglomeration of people from all over the country and overseas. Diverse languages are spoken, the primary being English, Hindi, Tamil and a bit of Telugu with Kannada, the local language, being used only by the locals, who are easily out-numbered by the population flowing in from other states thanks to the number of IT jobs available. Living here, you can easily identify with the mosaic of cultures that India is with a generous smattering of the West thrown in.
Food is a subject I can go on and on about and there is much to talk about food here in Bangalore. For someone who has spent a lot of money on total trash in Mumbai, I am treated to some really nice fare each time I eat out. Bangalore offers a wonderful variety of North and South Indian food at astonishingly low prices at decent eateries at almost every street corner that I wonder what an inane fool I must have been to have spent Rs.25 per dosai in Mumbai with that awful so-called sambar, when I can get a better dosi here for only Rs.10! But I have to say that the sambar is not up to the mark in most places here too. I guess, for really authentic sambar, one must go to a city in Tamil Nadu.
The city’s public transport system is quite confusing at the best of times. Routes on the city buses are written only in Kannada script. Sometimes even the route number is in the Kannada script! If you look carefully, as you are wont to do in a new city, you will notice that there are different route numbers written on the front route board, the rear route board and the side of the bus. Which route the bus is plying on at that moment is anybody’s guess! To add to the misery of the already confused commuter, there are several types of buses that ply the roads here with different fare systems. The common type is the one familiar to any Indian, with front and rear doors and a driver and a conductor with a whistle that he often blows next to your ear leaving it ringing for a while. Some have an entry/exit only at the front and there is no conductor to service passengers. The driver collects money and gives you a ticket as you enter. Nothing wrong with the system except that the poor driver has nothing better than a tin can or a cardboard box to take his collections into and this he puts on top of the engine cover. With a huge torrent of people pouring through the door at any stop, who can blame the hapless driver for stopping the bus in the middle of the road, or at an intersection to collect fares? Some other buses have pneumatically operated double doors at the center of its left side that are operated by the driver from his control panel. Buses may stop at designated bus stops or in the middle of a swirl of traffic, whichever is easier. Commuters are requested to co-operate and board and get off in the most appropriate place, thank you. If the conductor is not too keen on giving you a ticket, you may pay him only a portion of the full fare and he will accept is gleefully. Tickets checkers? Who, pray are they?
IT has brought a lot of expendable money to the city’s very young crowd. A walk on Mahatma Gandhi Road (you obviously have heard of MG Road? Well, it is actually named after the father of our nation) would be enough elucidation of this point. Where there is money to be spent the giant corporate vultures land in numbers. A splash-a-dash of color and a carnival atmosphere get thrown in and you gape at it all in wonder! Huge crowds of youngsters earning far more a month than the collected earnings of their parents in a year and not knowing what to do with it all throng Café Coffee Day, Barrista, MacDonald’s, Pizza Hut and the like. Brand is the mantra here. I wonder how many people behind me on the street are smirking at the label on my bottom that tells them the pair of jeans I wear is, well, not from what they might find a favorable style house! If I dwell too much on the topic I am sure to develop a complex, but such is the change that is happening to Bangalore. The number of pubs in this city amazes me. They definitely out-number the gardens and Bangalore can earn a new sobriquet after all – The Pub City!
Having shared with you information that range from the normal to the have-to-live-with-it categories, it is time I scare you with something totally outrageous and despicable. With large numbers of “IT people” living and working here and more coming in every passing day, real estate is booming. Prices are sky-high already and aiming higher still. Taking the maximum advantage of this phenomenon are house owners willing to rent out an apartment or a portion of their house as Paying Guest accommodation. The willingness of people to pay high rents for small apartments has given rise to a large number of incredibly small apartments built as extensions over existing structures. The avarice of the landlords has been fuelled to such an extent that they do not shy away from demanding a hideously high sum for a rat-hole of living space. On top of this, there seems to be an undercurrent of understanding between the landlords and brokers that it is very difficult to cement a deal with the landlord of an apartment, which apartment you could easily settle for through a broker in that area. The catch is that the broker earns a piece of the pie for himself in the deal, which is usually one month’s agreed rental value, for taking you to the house you have spotted on your own!
These are my first observations and experiences from this city.
Wednesday, October 06, 2004
Süd Deutschland
Hi Again!!
Been a while since I made some noise. Ok, let me tell you in this piece what a beautiful place the South of Germany is. The area I shall describe is just inside the southern border of Germany with Austria and Switzerland.
Our trip was for two days by road and we covered as many places as possible in this region. There are many places I would love to see again and some which I missed on this trip.
Let me share with you the magical beauty I enjoyed. To make this narrative more enjoyable and the contexts to be precisely understood, I would recommend you take a look at the map of Germany at: http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/europe/germany.jpg
To Garmisch-Partenkirchen:
We drove off in a Ford Focus early on Saturday morning towards the South via Ulm and Augsberg, two old towns of Germany. We did not stop by these towns on this trip because they were not our main destination. However I could tell you a couple of interesting facts about these two towns.
On the Romantic Road (a scenic driving route), Augsburg was founded by Roman legions: The town name comes from the Emperor Augustus. Among the interesting sights are the unusual Dom (cathedral); St. Anne's Church, where Martin Luther took refuge; the Romisches Museum (housed in a baroque church); and the shining Renaissance Golden Room in the Rathaus (Town Hall). Must see is the Fuggerei, the world's first social housing project for the poor. (The rent is the same as it was when it was founded in 1519.)
A bit to the west of Augsburg (and 30 mi/50 km northwest of Munich) and worth a look is the city of Ulm, which features a Gothic church with one of the tallest spires in the world (525 ft/160 m) - the view from the top is worth the exhausting climb. Some of the medieval city walls remain, and there's a nice town hall with an astronomical clock that dates from 1520. A walk through the Fisherman's Quarter to see half-timbered houses would be a good idea. Ulm is on the Danube and is a pleasant place to spend a few hours. A monument across the street from the main train station marks the location where Albert Einstein was born.
We went past these places and through München (Munich) to a town on the foothills of the Bavarian Alps. This beautiful town is Garmisch-Partenkirschen. Garmisch is a small quaint town that has been pulled out of a picture postcard. With snowclad peaks around and pure white ski slopes, intermingled with fat cows and goats grazing languidly in lush green grass, the mind registers a snapshot you will never forget.
There is a single Main Road that enters and exits this cul-de-sac town and beautiful houses and small churches with pretty steeples adorn either side of this ribbon. We had not made any reservations for accomodations but found one easily enough. We spotted a 'Zimmer Available' sign and found ourselves two rooms for the evening at €25 per person, which is quite cheap considering that it would cost you almost four times if you were to book accomodations in advace in a bigger stead. The Gestate Reiter is actually a small banglow which has several rooms and has been converted into a guest-house by the owner for the sake of making some money out of the tourist population. A neat flower garden in the front and an apple tree by the side set a very happy and idyllic ambience. We lugged out stuff to our zimmers and the grand view from my window took my breath away! Maximum returns for €25!
Oktoberfest!
Our timing could not have been more correct to be in this neck of the woods, for it was Oktoberfest time. Oktoberfest is the beer festival of Bavaria and Munich (München in the local lingo) is the most important city in the Bavarian district of Germany. We set off to München by train from Garmisch to take in the atmosphere of the Oktoberfest fair. The primary attraction there is the beer that flows like a river in spate, but even for a teetotaler an evening at the Wiesn (as the Oktoberfest grounds are known) is an outing to remember.
*********************************************************
Been a while since I made some noise. Ok, let me tell you in this piece what a beautiful place the South of Germany is. The area I shall describe is just inside the southern border of Germany with Austria and Switzerland.
Our trip was for two days by road and we covered as many places as possible in this region. There are many places I would love to see again and some which I missed on this trip.
Let me share with you the magical beauty I enjoyed. To make this narrative more enjoyable and the contexts to be precisely understood, I would recommend you take a look at the map of Germany at: http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/europe/germany.jpg
To Garmisch-Partenkirchen:
We drove off in a Ford Focus early on Saturday morning towards the South via Ulm and Augsberg, two old towns of Germany. We did not stop by these towns on this trip because they were not our main destination. However I could tell you a couple of interesting facts about these two towns.
On the Romantic Road (a scenic driving route), Augsburg was founded by Roman legions: The town name comes from the Emperor Augustus. Among the interesting sights are the unusual Dom (cathedral); St. Anne's Church, where Martin Luther took refuge; the Romisches Museum (housed in a baroque church); and the shining Renaissance Golden Room in the Rathaus (Town Hall). Must see is the Fuggerei, the world's first social housing project for the poor. (The rent is the same as it was when it was founded in 1519.)
A bit to the west of Augsburg (and 30 mi/50 km northwest of Munich) and worth a look is the city of Ulm, which features a Gothic church with one of the tallest spires in the world (525 ft/160 m) - the view from the top is worth the exhausting climb. Some of the medieval city walls remain, and there's a nice town hall with an astronomical clock that dates from 1520. A walk through the Fisherman's Quarter to see half-timbered houses would be a good idea. Ulm is on the Danube and is a pleasant place to spend a few hours. A monument across the street from the main train station marks the location where Albert Einstein was born.
We went past these places and through München (Munich) to a town on the foothills of the Bavarian Alps. This beautiful town is Garmisch-Partenkirschen. Garmisch is a small quaint town that has been pulled out of a picture postcard. With snowclad peaks around and pure white ski slopes, intermingled with fat cows and goats grazing languidly in lush green grass, the mind registers a snapshot you will never forget.
There is a single Main Road that enters and exits this cul-de-sac town and beautiful houses and small churches with pretty steeples adorn either side of this ribbon. We had not made any reservations for accomodations but found one easily enough. We spotted a 'Zimmer Available' sign and found ourselves two rooms for the evening at €25 per person, which is quite cheap considering that it would cost you almost four times if you were to book accomodations in advace in a bigger stead. The Gestate Reiter is actually a small banglow which has several rooms and has been converted into a guest-house by the owner for the sake of making some money out of the tourist population. A neat flower garden in the front and an apple tree by the side set a very happy and idyllic ambience. We lugged out stuff to our zimmers and the grand view from my window took my breath away! Maximum returns for €25!
Oktoberfest!
Our timing could not have been more correct to be in this neck of the woods, for it was Oktoberfest time. Oktoberfest is the beer festival of Bavaria and Munich (München in the local lingo) is the most important city in the Bavarian district of Germany. We set off to München by train from Garmisch to take in the atmosphere of the Oktoberfest fair. The primary attraction there is the beer that flows like a river in spate, but even for a teetotaler an evening at the Wiesn (as the Oktoberfest grounds are known) is an outing to remember.
*********************************************************
Munich's Oktoberfest is justly renowned as the world's largest kegger, but it's far more than a beer bust. The annual 16-day festival offers some 200 sideshows, carnival rides, and other amusements, so you'll find something to do at the Wiesn (as the Oktoberfest grounds are known) even if you're a teetotaler who disapproves of vomiting as public recreation.
Still, there's no doubt that suds are the liquid centerpiece of Oktoberfest, which traces its origins to a wedding celebration for Ludwig I of Bavaria and his bride in 1810. In a typical year, Oktoberfest will attract some 6 million vistors who collectively down approximately 6 million liters (1.5 million gallons) of special Oktoberfest brew. That's a lot of beer, even when diluted by 87 spit-roasted steer, 459,259 roasted chickens, and 219,405 pairs of sausages.
Most of the serious guzzling takes place in 14 beer tents, or festival halls, which offer tables and seating for 100,000 patrons. Six of the tents are operated by Munich breweries, and each of the 14 has its own unique character--from the relatively intimate 3,400-seat Hippodrom to the 9,300-seat Schottenhamel, where the mayor of Munich cries "O'zapft is!" as he taps the first keg of beer on the opening day of Oktoberfest.
*********************************************************
Outside India, I have not seen crowds of the magnitude that I saw at the Wiesn! The train took us to München in just over an hour. We reached the grounds travelling the small distance from the München Hauptbahnhof (Main Station) on foot. There was celebration in the air! And beer sloshing underfoot! There was dancing, revelling and singing and shouting and just plain merry-making going on all around. We forced our way through the throng, jostling and pushing, shoving and kicking (Mumbai guys need neither invitation nor training in these artful manoeuvres!) towards the center of the ground where we got some breathing space.
There were the tents around us. Huge tents and in different colours and shapes. Emblazoned upon each in different styles was the name of the brewery that hosted the tent. We walked around just taking inthe racous scene and then a couple of guys from our party wanted to have some beer. We tried to get into one of the tents (believe me when I tell you they are no tents but massive shelters that can accomodate several thousands at one time) but they were all fulll and entry was barred. After waiting a bit we decided to have the beer in the open from one of the zillions of outlets. The beer came and went and came and went till it became impossible for anymore to be comsumed. We had in our group of five, one case of I-am-in-seventh-heaven-and-wont-come-down-from-there and another case of Am-I-getting-drunk?-well-I-dont-know-but-I-cant-stand-anymore.
Being five, we managed to get back to the Hauptbahnhof just in time for our return train to Garmisch. An eventful (you dont want to know these events that follow a long bout of drinking) hour later, we disgorged onto the Gleis (platform) at Garmisch-Partenkirchen and lugged our tired bodies towards the Gastehaus Reiter.
Once there, we let sleep take us into the arms of the beckoning Bavarian damsels to dance on the icy slopes of the Alps beneath the Junipers, crushing the acorns into the fresh snow under our feet as we waltzed away into the mists of oblivion.
There were the tents around us. Huge tents and in different colours and shapes. Emblazoned upon each in different styles was the name of the brewery that hosted the tent. We walked around just taking inthe racous scene and then a couple of guys from our party wanted to have some beer. We tried to get into one of the tents (believe me when I tell you they are no tents but massive shelters that can accomodate several thousands at one time) but they were all fulll and entry was barred. After waiting a bit we decided to have the beer in the open from one of the zillions of outlets. The beer came and went and came and went till it became impossible for anymore to be comsumed. We had in our group of five, one case of I-am-in-seventh-heaven-and-wont-come-down-from-there and another case of Am-I-getting-drunk?-well-I-dont-know-but-I-cant-stand-anymore.
Being five, we managed to get back to the Hauptbahnhof just in time for our return train to Garmisch. An eventful (you dont want to know these events that follow a long bout of drinking) hour later, we disgorged onto the Gleis (platform) at Garmisch-Partenkirchen and lugged our tired bodies towards the Gastehaus Reiter.
Once there, we let sleep take us into the arms of the beckoning Bavarian damsels to dance on the icy slopes of the Alps beneath the Junipers, crushing the acorns into the fresh snow under our feet as we waltzed away into the mists of oblivion.
Tuesday, September 21, 2004
Passenger to Frankfurt
I never would have imagined a few months ago that I would be flying to Europe. Well, it so happened I did after all. On official duty. I left from Mumbai's Chattrapathi Shivaji International Airport on an Air India flight to Frankfurt, Deutschland. Air India! I learnt a new form of hospitality. The air-grandmothers and the taklu stewards pretty much leave you to yourself. They give you all the time you ever needed for introspection and meditation. I would say, if you want to attain absolute salvation through undisturbed meditaton, fly Air India!
Eight hours later, well meditated, I was on European soil alighting at the Frankfurt Main International Airport.
We find the way to our office comfortably by public bus. These are Mercedes ultra-modern pratically self thinking things!! Office is the Braun Factory complex in Kronberg which is 5-6 km from Oberursel.
The First Impression:
A taxi took me an my colleague to the Hotel we had reservations in. The Gestatte und Hotel Zum Studtzenhof is a small homely hotel with nice propreitors. I like the town. It is called Oberursel and is about 15 Kilometers from the city of Frankfurt.
This whole town is so quiet and quaint and refreshing. Meadows all around you and wonderful sophistication complement each other in fine fashion. Having been to the USA a few months back, I cannot help but notice a big difference between the land of plenty and the seat of ground-breaking Engineering. It is the people who are different. Germans seem a friendly sort mostly and are helpful. They believe in sophistication and technology, but not in making it part of their life where it is not essential. There has to be a value-add to their way of living or they would rather use old fashioned, simple ways of doing things like they have all along.
Conifers all round and mountain-scapes in every direction sooth your senses and sweet aroma of acorns pleasantly fills your olfactory lobes. You would inevitably hear the crunch-crunch under your feet as you walk and you cannot but gawk in awe at the scenic set-piece you find yourself in.
Lingua Franca!
My first attempt at conversation was funny to say the least. It was when we arrived at Hotel Asia. We had moved to this hotel after a couple of days in Oberursel and the Studtzenhof as it is very close to office. We checked in and signed our names in the register. The elderly Korean Lady who runs this establishment asked me something in a dialect of her own which was a mixture of English, German and Korean! I understood it to be something about the toilet. Why would a respectable old lady ask me if I really needed a toilet! In the end it turned out that she was letting me know that the toilet and bath for me would be a separate room which I would have to access from outside! So much for thinking that English would be sufficient all over the world.
Eight hours later, well meditated, I was on European soil alighting at the Frankfurt Main International Airport.
We find the way to our office comfortably by public bus. These are Mercedes ultra-modern pratically self thinking things!! Office is the Braun Factory complex in Kronberg which is 5-6 km from Oberursel.
The First Impression:
A taxi took me an my colleague to the Hotel we had reservations in. The Gestatte und Hotel Zum Studtzenhof is a small homely hotel with nice propreitors. I like the town. It is called Oberursel and is about 15 Kilometers from the city of Frankfurt.
This whole town is so quiet and quaint and refreshing. Meadows all around you and wonderful sophistication complement each other in fine fashion. Having been to the USA a few months back, I cannot help but notice a big difference between the land of plenty and the seat of ground-breaking Engineering. It is the people who are different. Germans seem a friendly sort mostly and are helpful. They believe in sophistication and technology, but not in making it part of their life where it is not essential. There has to be a value-add to their way of living or they would rather use old fashioned, simple ways of doing things like they have all along.
Conifers all round and mountain-scapes in every direction sooth your senses and sweet aroma of acorns pleasantly fills your olfactory lobes. You would inevitably hear the crunch-crunch under your feet as you walk and you cannot but gawk in awe at the scenic set-piece you find yourself in.
Lingua Franca!
My first attempt at conversation was funny to say the least. It was when we arrived at Hotel Asia. We had moved to this hotel after a couple of days in Oberursel and the Studtzenhof as it is very close to office. We checked in and signed our names in the register. The elderly Korean Lady who runs this establishment asked me something in a dialect of her own which was a mixture of English, German and Korean! I understood it to be something about the toilet. Why would a respectable old lady ask me if I really needed a toilet! In the end it turned out that she was letting me know that the toilet and bath for me would be a separate room which I would have to access from outside! So much for thinking that English would be sufficient all over the world.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)