Scandinavia Trip - Oslo revisited.

I had visited Oslo earlier in the year on the Norwegian Independence Day. It was only a day trip and my take away from that trip was the sheer beauty of the countryside. Oslo as such seemed to be like any other city in this part of the world, though I may be wrong in judging that way basis only a few hours spent there. But whatever little I had seen of the hinterland was captivating and after the view of the Halden fjord from atop the hill I made a mental note to return to Norway soon and for a longer duration.

Along came September and with it a chance to visit Norway again. Well it was not that a chance presented itself, but we had a few days left in the leave balance and the idea was to use them fully. Since my co travelers – Kamal and Shubhada – had not seen any part of Sweden, we decided to spend 1 day in Stockholm followed by 3 days in Norway. Apart from Oslo, we were going to cover Bergen, considered to be the capital of the Fjord country.

We kicked off the trip a Tuesday morning catching one of the early trains to Stockholm. The weather played spoilsport and it was gloomy and rainy the entire day in the Swedish capital. Hence we could not cover as many places as we wanted, but compensated for that by means of an extended shopping trip around the old city of Gamla Stan buying things ranging from paintings to photographs to antique knives to ancient Viking board games. We returned to Gothenburg the same night, hoping for sunshine over the coming days.

We reached Oslo next day afternoon. The weather gods were kind towards us and the sun was shining bright in Oslo. Our hostel was just a few minutes walk from the station. Neat and comfortable, it was also the first hostel that I had seen which had a DVD player in the room. They had free DVDs to rent out, and would you believe it some Indian movies as well to choose from in their collection. More about that later. After keeping our bags there, we set out to explore the city. After walking around the Fort and the hill (explained in my previous post about Norway) we passed through the city hall, the Nobel peace museum and reached the seafront. We took a ferry to one of the nearby islands and visited the Viking ship museum. A smallish looking building from the outside, the façade did not really impress, perhaps maybe because we expected a grander building. However the displays inside ensures you do not worry about the building anymore. Housing almost fully restored ships from the Viking era and along with it a host of other articles and artifacts from that age, the museum if full of information. It was amazing to see that the Vikings conquered so many countries and explored far and wide using these small ships; actually they are just small catamarans compared to today’s ships. Add the fact that the technology then (700 -1100 CE) was primitive, knowledge of maps , currents, compasses and other navigational facilities were perhaps non existent, then the Viking conquests are nothing short a miracle. What was more interesting is that these ships were recovered not from any wreck in the sea, but from land, or more specifically buried underground. We learnt that it was ancient Viking custom to bury the kings or people of high importance along with one such ship and with a host of other things needed for the person to lead a comfortable life in his afterlife. Similar to how the Pharaohs of Egypt were buried in the pyramids with all riches, here too the Vikings were buried with every basic necessity and sometimes not so basic necessities. How else do you explain the fact that live horses , carriages and sometimes servants also were also buried along with the dead person? It must have been one hell of a graveyard, starting with a ship all the way to utensils, shoes and clothes.

After this eye opening trip to the Viking museum, we got back to Oslo and decided to check out the Vigeland sculpture park. Located not too far from the city centre, the sprawling park consists of hundreds of bronze and granite sculptures created by Gustav Vigeland – whom we decided to refer to as the Norwegian Gaudi, what with our Barcelona visit still fresh in the mind. As you walk towards the centre of the park, you cross a bridge and there are statues on either side, with the statue of a Little Angry boy being the most striking. Most of the statues showed humans in various activities. One weird statue had a man fighting off a few kids who it seemed were attacking him. The less violent ones had people embracing or just being happy with life. The centre of attraction in the park was the giant monolith. Situated atop an elevation with scores of complicated sculptures lining the steps that surround it, the monolith was an awesome piece of art. It depicts humans – hundreds of them, embracing one another and moving upwards towards the top of the monolith. A visit to this park should be on the list for anyone visiting Oslo.

Afterwards we walked towards the Royal palace and down to the hostel via Karl johans gate, the main tourist thoroughfare in Oslo.

After a quick dinner, we decided to make use of the DVD player in the room. We browsed through the available titles and selected a Hindi movie -NO ENTRY. It was one of those odd things, that of all places, we happened to watch this blockbuster movie in Oslo while we were well and truly in India when this movie was playing. Except for Anil Kapoor’s almost blonde hair and moustache and some totally unfathomable illogical scenes, the movie was fun. We dedicated the movie watching to Sid, a proclaimed No entry fan,and a constant companion on our trips ,whose wise insights into life and ideas to have fun on a trip was being sorely missed this time.

Summer in Spain.. The other cities..

Its December and winter is well and truly set here in Sweden, with darkness all around at 4 pm and temperatures dipping occasionally below 0. The only sunshine I can get now is by thinking of the summer that went past , and I realized that I had not yet completed the Spanish trip update.

Barcelona and Madrid were of course the cities that were first on the list when we drew up the plan for Spain. The question was which other part of Spain should we cover as part of the week long trip. We decided to do the North coast ; ride up North from Madrid to the Asturias country and travel along the coast towards San Sebastian and Bilbao , and from there do a coast to coast marathon and drive all the way down to Barcelona. It seemed we were biting more than what we could chew and decided to join the North coast further down at Santander and gave up the idea of Oviedo and Gijon. And in hindsight it turned out to be a right decision.

After marveling at the sights of Segovia , we were in for a longish trip Northwards towards Santander. At some point along the way , we missed a turn and instead of being on the right road as per our via Michelin printouts , we were on some sort of state highway towards Santander. It was the second slip up the same day ,nevertheless we were on the way to Santander. The trip began with the familiar sight of parched plains and bare yellow-brownish countryside. But soon the scenery started shifting. We encountered ragged mountains and hills with the roads starting to twist and turn along the climb. As we started climbing further up the temperatures outside started dropping and mist and fog descended out of nowhere.. The visibility was down to a few feet and with a shaky yours truly at the wheel , things weren’t exactly hunky dory inside the 8 seater Volkswagen. After sometime we got back to the plains and it seemed we had reached a whole different place. With lush greenery all around it seemed we were a world away from the dry settings of Madrid and Segovia.

By evening we had reached Santander town. As would be the cause through out the trip, we had to spend time trying to locate our hostel and also spend time getting a parking spot for the car. We only had the evening to cover what ever we could of the city and we decided to head straight to the Sardinero beach. Since it was late evening, venturing out to the sea didn’t seem a good idea and we instead walked along the promenade and rounded off with dinner outside the Casino. We could not spend as much time as we hoped we could , mainly because of the various detours and delays on the road earlier in the day. Next morning , it was travel time again. Along the coast towards San Sebastian . We had heard from many people that the this route along the coast will be perhaps the best drive and it turned out to be one. With the sea on one side and green covered hills on the other side , the drive indeed was quite breathtaking. Except for a slightly longish traffic jam due to an accident , which robbed us of a precious hour or two, things went as planned. We were in the Basque country by afternoon and we drove straight to the La concha beach The weather again was looking to play spoilsport with clouds looming large. Thankfully , soon the clouds gave way for glorious sunshine and within no time the beach was full of people. Sun, sand and beaches. This was what we had in mind when we set out for Spain and here it was right before us. Unlike Santander, we had quite some time in hand in San Sebastian and we spent all of them in the beach, not bothering to check any sights and sounds in the city.

We had booked our hostel for the night in Bilbao , since we could not find any reasonably priced hostels in San Sebastian. Next morning , we decided to check out the Guggenheim musuem, which was the only thing we had heard about in Bilbao. This Art musuem is more famous for its structure that what is on display inside. The Frank Gehry designed building has been hailed as one of the most spectacular buildings of the world. I had heard of the structure and its famed design from an architect friend many years ago and ever since was looking forward to seeing the building, and not much the musuem it itself. And that is what we did , we drove towards the museum, walked around the building and did the tourist thing of taking pictures around it and not bothering to go inside. One more in the list of places to see was covered.

After Bilbao, we set out on the longest drive of the trip towards Barcelona. We reached there in a little over 6 hours which was faster than expected. The only exciting part of the drive was at a certain point where a board said that we were crossing the Greenwich meridian. I don’t really now understand what is the big significance of crossing the meridian, but we were quite kicked about that on that day.

After spending almost 3 days in Barcelona, we kicked off the penultimate part of the trip. To Valencia. We drove along the Medditeranean coast. An uneventful but picturesque drive with the blue Mediterranean giving us company all along the way. In Valencia , we first checked out the City of Art and Sciences , a set of different buildings hosting a planetarium, an Opera house, an oceanographic park and a Science museum. The buildings were awesome and captivating. With artificial water bodies surrounding the buildings, the place had a distinctly modern feel to it and fitted the bill of a Science city. Next we went to the Valencia Cathedral , which many people believe is holds the Holy Grail . Yes, the very same Holy grail about which all the big fuss was created in the book “ The Da Vinci Code” . Never knew that finding the holy grail was so easy. Board a flight to Valencia, go to the cathedral and lo the Holy Grail is there for you. But we were late in getting there and so we missed catching a glimpse of the Holy Grail. Later in the day, finding our hostel for the night turned out to be more tougher than finding the grail , as we spent more than an hour trying to get to our hostel. Ironically the hostel was quite near to where we had started out first. Lesson: people of Valencia not to be trusted with giving directions. Thanks to them we were on the road going in circles and having an extended trip around the city.

Next morning we were on our way back to Madrid, back to where we started our trip. I had a flight back to Sweden in the evening and by night i was at my apartment in rainy and wet Gothenburg uploading pics. It was an eventful trip , covering so many places over a period of 9 days and having a fun time all around. For me , Spain was the best part of this Summer.

Madrid and Segovia : Kicking off the trip.

The first thing that struck me as I landed at Madrid , at well past midnight that July night , was the weather. There was this sort of heat which hit me as I came out of he airport which I have only previously experienced in Bombay and Madras. There was this night breeze which was anything but chilly. It only reminds you that you in a very hot place and gives you an indication of what is to come during the day. Though the feel of summer was refreshing compared to the damp rainy setting of Gothenburg, soon things went sour. A cab driver duped me by charging me extra for the trip from the airport to the hostel. Since I had landed at 0030 and the options of public transport had died out. He used the tried and tested method of a doctored meter. It doesn’t take a genius to dupe me I suppose, ol Pietro( that’s his name) walked away with some extra bucks. And I thought such things happened only in my part of the world. Its alive and kicking in Europe as well. So people , be careful of these smooth talking cabbies of Madrid.

The rest of the gang were only arriving the next day and so there was not much activity happening on the first day. Me and Kamal went to Puerta de Sol , which is the heart of the city and walked around the place. Checked out the famous statue of the Bear and the Madrono tree. Puerta del sol is regarded as the Kilometer zero , the centre of Spain form which all distances are calculated. I had not heard much of the statue and it is a good thing that this statue is not hyped up , because , if it had been , it would have ranked along with the statue of the Pissing boy in Brussels and the Little Mermaid in Copenhagen as the most hyped and equally disappointing tourist attractions. So go without any expectations, take a few photographs of the bear and tick off your list.
Because of some confusions with flight arrivals and cancellations, we had to travel to the airport twice to pick up the friends and so by evening I was an expert in the Madrid metro and the Barajas airport layout. Either I get to spend nights in airports because I miss flights or my flights get cancelled, or I get to loiter around airports waiting for people. The patron saint of airports has got a grudge against me. By evening , the rest of the party arrived and it was time to kick off the Spanish Summer. And we kicked it off with a wild night in the pubs of Madrid. The hostel we stayed in organized a pub crawl and we went pub hopping from one place to the other, drowning a few drinks and dancing away the whole night. By the time we got back to the hostel it was almost the wee hours of the morning. It was quite a start to the trip.

The first place we chose to visit the next day was the SANTIAGO BERNEBAU. you could have given me a thousand other options and places to visit but I was not going to miss the chance to visit the home of REAL MADRID and pay my respects. We went up to to the top tier to get a magnificent view of the playing field of the Galacticos. It was an unreal feeling to be there and looking down into the field. The images of all the superstars over the years ran in my head. And later I got a chance to see their images for real , at the Real Madrid musuem. All the trophies the club has won over the years , the maximum for any club in the world , were on display. Pictures of famous victories and of legendary players adorned the museum. After which we got down to the ground level. We are of course not allowed to step into the grass, standing one feet away from the field is as close we get. But the tunnel, the dug out and the visiting team’s locker room were within bounds . The press room and the Real madrid store also was visited to round off an exhaustive trip to the Bernebau.

After a long lunch break , we visited the Retiro park. A sprawling and beautiful green lung in the centre of the city. Officially known as the Parque del Buen Retiro , this park was initially the site of a royal palace, now a favored retreat for the citizens of Madrid. The lush green pathways and ample open spaces are ideal for a break. There is a large artificial pond in the centre of the park and people were seen on paddle boats enjoying a ride. The park looked a perfect place to relax on a nice summer afternoon and that is what we did.

Next morning the road trip kicked off. Hiring a 8 seater Volkswagen Sharan from the Avis office in airport we set out for Santander, up on the Northern coast with a stopover planned at Segovia. With confusions over the right exits to take and getting used to the different way of driving (which Sid, I must say adapted very quickly to , unlike me who struggled throughout) we went off track and gave up on going to Segovia. But luckily we found a state highway to Segovia and quickly changed back to the original plans and must say it was indeed a lucky break , for Segovia is a place not to be missed.

Segovia is a UN world heritage city , which retains a lot of buildings from the Roman era. The most famous sights in Segovia would be the Roman aqua duct dating back to the 1st or 2nd century BC and the Alcazar castle, which sorts of towers over the entire countryside. The castle is also famous as the inspiration for Walt Disney to create his Cinderella castle. The city is itself is a quaint mix of the old and the new. The narrow pathways retaining the history of the olden days is dotted with souvenir shops and cafes. The church of Vera Cruz and the cathedral of Segovia are other famous attractions of Segovia. Located just one hour away from Madrid , Segovia is easily accessible as well and so anybody planning a trip to Madrid should definitely be covering this wonderful ancient town.

From Segovia , we set forth to Santander , and as the journey progressed so did the scenery of the country side. The parched, brown rolling plains , gave way to rocky mountains , which as we climbed higher soon became mist covered and even chilly at one point and we were wondering if we were going to a wrong Santander.. a Santander in the hills and not on the beach. Soon we reached the plains again and it was a world away from the dry and bare landscape of Madrid. It was lush green all over ,with an overcast grayish sky. And yes we were in the right Santander, on the coast.

Summer in Spain - Barcelona.

Smile, you are in Spain - said the promos. And smile we did...and much more. It was a week of glorious sunshine, action packed cities, beautiful beaches, long hours on the road and the blissful joy of spending time with friends who matter the most. We covered a lot of cities in the 9 days that we spent in Spain. This blog is about that wonderful city... the most non- Spanish of all Spanish cities... Barcelona We drove into Barcelona from Bilbao. For those who are aware of Spain’s geography, this would raise an eyebrow or two. Bilbao is located in the North coast on the Bay of Biscay, while Barca is on the opposite end on the Mediterranean. We had a car, the roads were good and in a small matter of 6 hours we reached the outskirts of Barcelona. As with every other city we had a slight struggle in finding the right entry points into the city and ended up on a different route compared to what we had in our Viamichelin.com printouts. But as luck would have it, the wrong route took us right to the doorsteps of the hostel we had booked.

Soon, it was time to hit the city voted many a time as the Best city in the World. We decided to first check out one of the famed beaches of Barca – The Barceloneta. Because this seemed to be one of the most popular and also our hostel for the next 2 days was located right on the Barceloneta. The promenade leading to the beach was lined with restaurants and shops and there was no dearth of tourists and locals along the stretch. The beach in itself was a slight disappointment; it looked too small, too crowded and dirty. As Sid said, it looked like Mumbai’s Juhu beach. Maybe we had come at the wrong time, it was late evening and the place represented the leftovers of a long sunny day. We ended day one with a typical Spanish seafood meal. Paella was the order of the day and the ones among us who really love seafood had an enjoyable experience.

Day 2 in Barcelona was tourism day. It was the day to check out all the to tourist hot spots. We started our day at Las Ramblas, considered the most famous street in Barcelona. The Ramblas is a wide tree lined avenue for the pedestrians and which is dotted with shops and street performers. Also you have lots of restaurants, markets and hostels on either side. After spending some time walking up and down the Ramblas we decided to hop onto one of the hop on- hop off buses and check out the city. While reading about Barca, we had come across quite a lot about Gaudi, a famed architect whose name it seemed was linked to all the important places to visit in Barca. The most famous of his works is the Sagrada Familia, a church that is 100 years and more in the making and still unfinished. This was one of Gaudi’s grandest projects which hit a roadblock after his death in the 20s and since then the construction has been going on at a snails pace. The facade is an imposing structure with many large towers stretching into the sky and also a few giant cranes working around them. It was a bizarre sight. One has heard of pre historic sites, modern high rises and various other pieces of architecture as tourist spots. First time I saw an under construction site being photographed round the clock. We decided against going inside the Sagrada familia, not just because one of us thought that the insides would be full of cement and bricks. Next stop was another of Gaudi s creations. The Parc Guell. The Parc is located atop a hill and it was originally part of a plan to build a self containing city on the city s outskirts. But the plan flopped and Gaudi converted it to the Parc and filled it with his typical architectural elements. The terrace atop the central building at the Parc gives a good view of the city and the blue sea at a distance.

After the Parc Guell we traveled towards the Nou camp - the home of FC Barcelona. Since we had already visited the Santiago Bernabeu, we skipped the Nou camp. We reached the Montjuic area, in which is located the various venues of the Barcelona Olympics of 1992. This also is located on a hill called Mt.Montjuic. We passed by the Olympic stadium, the Palau Nacional and coming down the hill touched the Christopher Columbus monument. We took a full trip on the bus and got back to the Placa Cataluña. After a few games of Dumb Charades in the square and some play acting from Hindi movies and more walking around Ramblas it was time for dinner and head back to the hostel but not yet time to call it a day. We played more dumb charades by the beach and followed it by walks around the Barceloneta till 4 am.

Next day we split up. The ones who could swim headed out to the sea, while people like me who can’t wade in the water went out to check more of the city. Two of us headed out towards Mount Montjuic. It seemed not too far away on the map and we didn’t mind a short walk. But what we didn’t know was that the sun will beat down with such ferocity and that the hill was not that small after all. After a back breaking climb, huffing and puffing we reached the Military Museum. From there to the top of the hill we took the cable car. The view from atop the Mount was brilliant. The vast city stretched out in front of us. A maze of buildings on one side and the bluest of blue Mediterranean on the other side. We walked further down and reached the Olympic complex. Entry was free and we could go in and catch a glimpse of the setting for the 92 games. I searched out and managed to see the Cauldron into which the Archer Antonio Rebollo most famously fired an arrow to light the Olympic flame. There is also a museum, the media centre, the aquatic complex and many other buildings nearby. We descended on the other side of the hill into the Palau Nacional. We had walked for almost 3 hours and needless to say we were tired.

In the afternoon, having our Spanish friend Pablo as our guide, we headed out of city to the outskirts to a beautiful, clean and vast beach called Gava. It was a picture perfect beach, what I had come to expect basis the photos and videos you see on TV and net about Mediterranean beaches. Blue water, whitish sands, clean and large, colorful umbrellas and people enjoying the sun and sand. The setting was too inviting to be missed out and I kept aside my apprehensions and took a plunge in the Sea. After an hour or so of frolicking in the sea, we relaxed in the beach for a while and then returned to Barcelona. We rounded off the visit to the city with another Spanish dinner. It was 3 well spent days.

Barca has everything... beaches, parks, pubs, tourist spots, vibrant night life, an electric atmosphere, shopping centers, malls, landmarks and what not. No wonder it is called one of the best cities in the world.

Getting back to Tennis.

Dedicated to Novak Djokovic and Radek Stepanek... for bringing Tennis back to me.

I used to be an avid Tennis fan. One of my earliest recollections of sports on TV , apart from the 1987 cricket world cup, is watching Boris Becker and Stefan Edberg battle it out in three back to back finals in Wimbledon in the late eighties. Throughout the 90s i had followed every single Grand slam event with religious passion and discussions in school during lunch recess used to be dedicated to debates ranging from Agassi vs Sampras and Steffi vs Seles.

But over the last many years , I thought that Tennis has started to get boring. I felt that it did not have the intensity and passion , it could not keep me glued on for its entire duration of play. I found it one dimensional. I may not be justified but then i blame what many call the greatest tennis player ever for taking my interest away from the game. Roger Federer the fedex has won 11 grand slam titles in the last 5 years. Reached the last 9 grand slam finals , been world number one since 2004 and by the time he retires he would have every record in the game. His game is a treat to watch no doubt, but then i dont want to watch one way traffic.

In the nineties Pete Sampras also dominated the game like how Federer is doing now. He won Wimbledon 7 times in 8 years and ended with 14 Slams. But the key difference between the Sampras era and the Federer domination has been the players on the other side of the net. Sample the rivals that Sampras had.... Agassi, Becker, Courier, Rafter, Ivanisevic, Chang and dangerous floaters like Cedric Pioline , Todd Martin etc. . And the rivals that Federer has .. Nadal , Roddick , Hewitt, Davydenko, Blake ,Safin.... ! Doesnt really measure up to the previous list does it ?

Most of Sampras's victories in the finals also have been very one sided. But the quality of the other players of that era was such that it dished out so many wonderful Tennis matches in the early and latter stages of a tournament. Rafter and Agassi played three back to back wimbledon Semi Finals. Agassi and Becker had a great rivalry going. The Sampras - Courier Quarter final in 95 Australian Open was the stuff of legends. The Ivanisevic - Rafter 2001 final is the greatest tennis match i have watched. An unknown Petr Korda defeated Sampras in the US open and also won a Grand slam. Compare that to the current state of affairs, Safin always misfires , Hewitt runs and runs but does not go the distance , Roddick i fear will end up a one slam wonder. Nadal the great hope is the King of clay but he has not really challenged Federer anywhere else , maybe except for this years Wimbledon final.

Where is the fun, where is the unpredictability , where is the joy of watching a 5 set no holds barred humdinger of a game ??

And then , I watched this match on TV today. Radek Stepanek ( who ?) vs Novak Djokovic , seeded 3rd ( seed 3 but no grand slam finals yet , leave alone a slam) . A second round match at the US open. An upcoming star of the game against a journey man pro who is doomed to always play the supporting role and make an early exit in the scheme of things. And what a match it turned out to be. A 5 setter with all the twists, turns , drama and intensity that makes the sport such a crowd puller. The beauty of the game is that it doesnt have a fixed schedule of play at the end of which whoever leads or has scored more wins. The match is over only after the last act is enacted, only after the last point is won and till someone wins it , the game is always open. And this was one such match , where none of the players belived they could lose and did not yield an inch. Every set went the distance, every point was played as if their life depended on it. There were thrilling rallies galore, breathtaking passing shots and overhead winners, sweet volleys and rugged baseline plays. Aces, winners, tense tie breaks and crucial errors. There was passion, there was pride , on view were two fighters giving all that they had.

As the 5th set tie break started, the game was almost 4 and a half hours old and the score was 7-6 6-7 7-5 5-7. Nothing to choose between. Both the players were cramping up but none of them threw the towel down. This is one of those matches where you dont have a loser. At the end of the match when the tie breaker was decided , and as the players embraced , one could feel the emotions they were going through and the respect each one has gained in the others view and in the larger audience's mind.

This was Tennis i grew up watching . Maybe i should get back to following the game. It still serves up such magical matches.

Taking Stock of STOCKHOLM

Stockholm - the capital of Sweden , also calls itself the capital of Scandinavia. And with good reason. It is the biggest of all the Nordic cities, perhaps the most famous and also it gets the most visitors .And after spending a weekend there , I would say that it is the most beautiful as well.

I left Gothenburg on a Friday evening and as always I seemed to be hitting a city with lots to see and only a couple of days.

Since I reached late on Friday evening, there was no time for sight seeing. After a customary McDonalds dinner ( while on tour, its always junk food) me and Priya checked in at our dorm at the hostel we were booked for the weekend. Priya is a telecom engineer, talk to her about mobile phones and stuff she gets excited. So I was subjected to some valuable information about the difference between 3G and 4G while on the Stockholm metro towards our hostel . I also got admonished for possessing a Stone age model mobile handset. Stone age in the world of mobile phones in 2005. Goodness.

Saturday morning. The First stop was the Royal palace. A majestic looking building ,the Palace was indeed a wonderful sight. The visit of the Chinese Premier that day meant that most parts of the royal palace was out of bounds for us . Not sticking around there , we moved towards Gamla Stan - the old city. Advertised as one of the largest well preserved medieval settings in Europe, Gamla Stan had very typical cobbled streets, narrow alleys and medieval architecture buildings. .Right in the middle of Gamla Stan is located the NOBEL museum. The museum , which was disappointingly small , holds a few interesting pieces of display though. It contains the set of patents registered by Alfred Nobel , a replica of his last will and testament , as well as various items used by Nobel laureates over the year. Notable among them was a cycle used by Amartya Sen., and a writing slate used by Rabindranath tagore. The museum has a small theatre which keeps playing small 10 minute clips about the various Nobel laureates. The museum is a good visit, though you should enter without any big expectations.

Next stop was another museum. And this was unlike any other museum that I had seen anywhere before. The VASA museum is situated on the island of Djugarden, a 10 minute ride on the ferry from Gamlastan. The VASA was a Swedish warship that sank on her maiden voyage in the 1600s. After 333 years under the sea , the VASA was raised in the 1961 and then part by part, painstakingly put together. The museum now holds the almost fully restored VASA in all her majesty. The sight of the warship standing almost at 8 levels from the ground to her top most part , located inside the cavernous museum was breathtaking. An interesting point was that , if the VASA had sunk in any other sea in the world other than the Baltic, the wood would have been destroyed in the 300 years under water. But the Baltic sea being free from the shipworm Teredo navalis had not impacted the VASA s remains underwater. The musuem also has a mini theatre which runs a documentary about the VASA, and various displays and artifacts from the ship. THE VASA museum is a must visit if you are planning a trip to Stockholm.

Later in the evening , we visited the ABSOLUT ICE BAR. The bar’s claim to fame being the fact that it is made entirely of ice. The chairs, the tables, the glasses, the walls are made of ice. But the size of the bar itself was a slight disappointment. It was just one small room with a lot of ice furniture. As you enter u are given a long overcoat and gloves and you enter the ice bar feeling like an Eskimo. The drinks are costly and barring the last slot of the day at 9 45 pm, for the rest of the day one needs a prior appointment as well as only 45 minutes time inside the bar. Nevertheless the ice bar is cool experience. Pun intended.

Next day it was time to check The Stockholm archipelago which consists of 24000 islands. We hopped on to one of the various ferries plying between the capital and these islands. It took an hour and more of sailing to reach the island of Vaxholm and along the way we could see an incredible number of small islands , creeks and summer houses nestled on these islands. The farthest islands are about 3 hours by ferry. These islands are ideal getaways from the hustle and bustle of a city life. These are not places for a “ few photos and one more place off my must visit list “ type tourist. They are for the more relaxed , time in hand types who would like to stay a few days and enjoy the quiet , un spoilt and peaceful timelessness on offer. We walked around the beautiful island and I thought that everybody either seemed to be eating or sunbathing or swimming. Relaxed was the word.

The last stop before winding up the trip was the city hall - Famous as the place where the annual Nobel banquet is held every December. Located along the water front the city hall is a tall and imposing structure made out of 8 million red bricks. The Nobel banquet is held in the blue hall , which incidentally is not blue but rather red in color, apparently because the architect had a change of mind and decided to continue with red bricks and not paint them blue.

As I took the train back to Gothenburg, there was this familiar feeling inside me of maybe having spent a little less time than what would ideally be required to do justice to its sights and sounds..!

Deconstructing Rajini ? Don't bother !

Sivaji gives TN an unseasonal festival. Rajini's Sivaji mania grips US. Sivaji takes Delhi by storm. Every Rajini film is a holiday. Gods take a backseat. Fans offer prayers.

These are just a few of the headlines that I had seen on a few news portals that I am able to recall. There has been so much of Sivaji and Rajini on the mainstream media back home in India over the last few weeks that keeping track of the number of stories is impossible. The below are some news that come off the top of my head now.

Policemen brought in to control crowds.. in Kaula lampur. A report says that the faithful fans are ready to watch the movie standing, they just want to watch. And this happened not in Chennai but in Columbus, Ohio. The movie has been released in 5 theatres in Toronto An IT company booked an entire show in a Bangalore multiplex for its employees ..paying 67 thousand rupees. A special 10 am show was screened in view of the huge demand , at Richmond, VA. Entire first week sold out in Dubai. 4000 plus tickets sold out in Bay area. Sivaji relasing in two theatres each in Sydney and Melbourne.

Even if half of what has been written is true, then this undoubtedly is the most hyped and reported / written about movie in recent times. The kind of craze , frenzy, excitement that this man’s movies generate is just beyond belief and comprehension.

There have been a lot of people who have been asking how did this 58 year old now bald, dark and ordinary looking man become the most loved , adulated and worshipped ( !) icon of our times. How come he has fans cutting across every possible division in the society? People wonder how is he able to have this effect on the audience. How was he able to win over the Japanese ? How come this reclusive, reticent, extremely modest and humble person transform into the epitome of style on the screen. ? Why is the day of his movie release celebrated like the most important festival of the year. How come even if his movies carries below average reports it can do business worth 50 crores. How, why , how ??

And then they also give answers - style, punch lines, dialogue delivery, mannerisms, action, comedy, crazy fans, hero worshipping culture of the Tamilians and a whole lot of other reasons.

I can only say that there is no point in spending too much time on trying to deconstruct Rajini and the excitement he creates. There is no logic, reason, explanation or method to the mania, madness and mayhem that is generated when his movie releases. Those who want to find answers and pin down the euphoria to written down reasons and causes, can try and continue on the quest. While the rest of us fans, will continue to rejoice ,be happy and be thankful to the man for bringing us so much excitement and joy.

Rajini. Don't bother to find reason . Its magic.

Things i miss - the A to Z of Chennai.

When you move from your home to a new place , there are always thing that you leave behind and things that you miss. The below is a list , from A to Z , of things that i miss from Chennai. The list is mainly influenced by what used to be my work routine - office life, sales calls, public transport, weekend outings and the like. Here is an A to Z of things i miss ..

A – Autorickshaws. I had written an entire blog about them. It is but natural that they are on top of the list.

B – Burma Bazaar DVD shops. 6 movies in one DVD for 30 bucks.. ! Lord of the rings and The matrix for less than one dollar. Long live piracy.

C – Cinema posters on the walls. My daily dose of movies. Chandramukhi is reaching 800 days. Would miss that poster.

D – Dum breaks. Giving company to others during their smoke breaks. The best office gossip and inside information is exchanged during such breaks.

E – ECR . Beaches, restaurants, movies, traffic jam, mamool vangum cops , un- potholed roads.

F – Footboard travel on the Tambaram - Beach local train.

G - Goods trains. Counting the number of wagons in them as they chug past in the next track has been a favourite rail travel pastime from childhood.

H - Hoardings - Huge , life size and colouful. Especially now since, Sivaji hoardings i belive are all over Chennai.

I - Iyers. Their Tamil, their English, their Tamil mixed with English ,their food, their tradition, their navarathri kollu sundal , not to mention the iyer girls.

J - Juice kadais ( shops) which mushroom automatically during the summer months.

K – Kutty samosa at the shop next to office. 4 pieces in one packet . The filler between breakfast and lunch for me and Vinay.

L - Lunch time in MAA office . Veg sappadu , Vetti pechu , veen vambu. ( veg food, idle talk, mischevious banter)

M - Madras Tamil and all those slangs and phrases unique to my city.

N - Nungambakkam High road. 5 star hotels, over priced coffee shops , budget restaurants, branded apparel showrooms, roadside shops, clients etc etc.

O – O.C book reading at crosswords and landmark.

P - Ponnuswamy hotel chicken biryani. There was none better. period.

Q - Right from the days of playing "name -place- animal -things" in school, finding words in Q is a problem for me. The trend continues. You could wonder why i didnt mention Queues, but Queing for everything seems a national pastime here in Sweden.

R - Rendu chakkara vandi ( two wheelers- bikes, mopeds, scooters) . My fav vehicle for travel. It can poondhufy thru any traffic jam.

S – Sales calls. ..tholula pai, kazhuthula tie, vai fulla poi. ( roughly translated as .. a bag hanging from shoulders, a tie around ur neck , mouth full of lies )

T –. Traffic policemen ( fondly called mamas) . You ve gotta give it to them. Tough job it is , to stand in the heat amidst all the noise, pollution and reckless drivers.

U - Uchi veyil . 40 deg heat at 90 percent humidity. Prefer that to snow capped dark winters at -10 deg.

V – Valmiki nagar beach. Sentimental place - not for me - but for the one in my gang who had the all important car. So the only beach we go to

W - Water packets. Chilled water for 1 rupee. Best used for washing your face before stepping into a clients office.

X - Oh come on ! You expect me to come up with something in X when i cant find one in Q.

Y - Yelai pottu sappadu..... banana leaves as plates for serving food .especially the ones at Murugan idlys and Saravana bhavan. It enhances the taste of the food, i tell you.

Z – Zara . Pub un-cultured chennai s stand alone argument.

In the land of the Fjords

The good thing with Gothenburg's location in the geographical scheme of things , apart from it being the biggest port in Scandinavia and all that , is that it is located almost equidistant to 3 different Capital cities

Copenhagen is about 3 and a half hours to the south , Stockholm is about the same time to the North East , and Oslo is about 4 hours by road up North. While there are not many others thing to write home about Gothenburg ( being the home of Volvo, Saab, SKF and the Frolunda Indians isnt going to get the excitement going is it ) this nice locational advantage has helped to plan trips to these capital cities.

Since Copenhagen has been an oft visited place and a sort of been there done that feel attached to it , i turned the attention to visiting Oslo and Stockholm.

THE ONE DAY ROAD TRIP TO NORWAY :

The 17th of May is the Norwegian independence day and from what i heard from a few reliable sources , as good a day as any to visit the capital city. Since it was a day trip only it was decided to drive down to Norway and not bother with trains , hostels and stuff. ( funny, it s always "drive down " , even though like in this case we may be driving North). Moi plus my two Czech friends Zdeneck and Vitazlav ( i know there is a bit too much of Z there ) started out from Gothenburg at 5 am. We hit the E6 highway after doing a circle around the city searching for it and we were on our way to the land of the Fjords. The Czechs took turn at the wheel while i lazed away at the back seat - i stil dont have an international license you see - and we hit the Norway border after about 150 minutes.

A good sign that you are nearing a city in these parts of the world ,is the sight of an IKEA store. As soon as we passed one , we were in the Oslo limits. Soon we found a place to park the car and proceeded to follow the crowd that was making its way to the city centre. And i have to tell you about the crowd. Almost all of them were in their best suits and traditional clothes. Almost whereever i turned i could see a Norwegian flag fluttering , from rooftops , on cars , on people's hats ,in the hands of kids. As we walked on , soon I was i guess in the South Asian zone or suburb, for all i could see was Bollywood DVD shops, Pakistani jewellry shops, and an incredible number of people walking around talking in Lankan Tamil . No wonder the peace negotiator between the Tamil tigers and the Lankan government is the Govt of Norway.

Soon we reached the Royal Palace. The palace courtyard, the road leading into it and the park surrounding it was chock a block with flag waving Norwegians. The main event of this day is the Parades. The main event of this day is the Parades. People drawn from all walks of life were walking in a procession, playing music, dancing and generally having a merry time. These bands apparently come from all over town and all of them mil past the palace to salute the Royalty. There seemed to be a never ending stream of the parades and they were being cheered lustily by the crowd. The atmosphere and the general verve around the place were absolutely amazing. It was a wise decision to visit Oslo that day I felt.

It is generally believed that in Scandinavia that the more north you go, the more costly it gets. Denmark is costly, Sweden costlier, Norway costliest. I can only pity those dudes up in the Faroe Islands. And the belief is true. We checked out the prices in McDonalds, Subway and a few restaurants. Costliest is the word. After just about eating the bare minimum to go on, we trudged on. We visited a Fort near the harbor, which has a good view of the harbor and the sea front in Oslo. On that day, the magnificent Cruise liner - "Jewel of the Seas " was docked next to the wharf running along the fort. And OMG what a magnificent sight it was. For someone used to seeing Container vessels of all sizes, this one was an amazing sight. My "to do" list had just got bigger.

Fredrikstad was about an hour from Oslo. It is a quiet little city, the main tourist attraction there being a 17th Century town still preserved as it is. The place has typical cobbled streets, a fairly large square with a statue in the middle and rows of houses built touching each other. The place also had a slew of Canons mounted on the walls and looking out into the river and beyond along its boundary. Next stop was Halden. I was pretty much interested to see this place because the lonely planet book we were referring to said that Halden was situated on a fjord and that meant I could catch my first sighting of a Fjord. Also as part of my work I have to deal with the port at Halden quite often and so I was pretty excited.

Halden was just awesome. It was rich, unspoiled, natural beauty at its best. A friend of mine always used to say that Scandinavia was one of those unexplored and untouched of naturally beautiful places of the world and I must say that she was being right. A quaint little town with beautiful houses, clean roads, lots of greenery and looking straight out of a picture postcard. Halden also had a fort atop a hill. A band was playing the ABBA greatest hits as part of the Independence Day celebrations. (A touch ironic, ABBA is a Swedish band and the independence being celebrated was the one from Sweden). We walked up to the top of the hill and were left speechless at the magnificent view of the Halden fjord. At one side, the fjord, with the sea coming in, the small islands covered in green, surrounded by sparking blue water and on the other side the town with the red tiled houses and asphalt grey roads. And people say the best fjords are on the West Coast of Norway !!!!

After spending sometime atop the hill and drinking in the marvelous sight, we set off back to Gothenburg. We returned around 12 in the night. . It was a day well spent. Norway rocked. Oslo was like many other European towns I felt and a day certainly was not enough and the small little towns along the way, the fjords, those lovely beautiful villages and fields... they were amazing and out of the world. It is a place to visit again.

E for Effigy.

Slowly but surely, a new cottage industry is rapidly developing in India. It is still in the unorganized sector and so there is not much information available about the amount of rupees that is generated by this business on an yearly basis. But it has everything that it takes to become a corporate phenomenon and can very well be a globally exported super product if proper money is invested in Research and Development.

Since I have not had a chance to do an in depth research on this industry , some of my points may be wrong , blasphemous or offending to some people. And there is a good chance the industries product may well be used against me . But that I would consider it an honor , given the hall of fame ( can be seen later in the article)

Some of the salient aspects of this product is

1) Year round demand
2) Not concentrated on any region. Pan country demand
3) Low capital investment
4) Very user friendly - made for only one use - burning - so while being put to use care is required
5) Primary raw materials are - straw , bamboo, sticks , cloth , a clay pot , torn clothes , some chalk powder or white paint or any crap for that matter

Demand and supply scenario

1)Sudden peak demands are witnessed when any major controversy breaks out.
2)A makeshift product ( though many a time all the products look makeshifts) must be readied on short notice , because a delay means loss of valuable road space and air space which other like minded groups with this product in hand can take over
3)Hardly any periods of zero demands.
4)Major buyers include all the big political parties , small fringe groups trying to get their 15 seconds of fame , irate fans of movie stars and cricketers, self styled outfits , guardians of culture, moral policemen , Hindu religious groups, Christian and Islamic groups as well. A product as secular as any.
5)Major suppliers - sadly I have not done research on this. But this is the opportunity for companies to step in , formalize this industry and rake in the moolah. There is ample scope for improvement. This product is in a basic form but still sells like hot cakes.

Hall of fame
Over the years the product has been involved in many major events and lots of celebrities have given their faces to this product. Here is short Hall of Fame

Aamir Khan : during protests against his support for the Narmada Bachao Andolan , Gujarat May 2006.
Product used by Gujarati political parties .

Sachin Tendulkar and co : For team India s poor showing in the World cup
Product used by so called Fans of cricket.

Shah Rukh Khan : For calling Amar Singh a devil
Product used by Amar Singh s supporters

Khushboo : Instance of product usage down South . For speaking about pre martial sex
Product used by guardians of Tamil culture

Sania Mirza : For saying something which was interpreted as a support for Khushboo
Product used by guardians of Islamic culture

Shilpa Shetty and Richard Gere : For raising AIDS awareness and bringing in money, while at the same time doing a song and dance which involved a kiss
Product used by guardians of Indian culture

Dan Brown : Another instance of a foreigner lending his face. For writing the Da vinci code
Product used by Christian groups.

And I have not mentioned the names of politicians ,because they are the main purchasers of this product as well as the one s who give their faces to this product the most often. It happens all the time.

Scope for improvement

With such year around demand, high profile events , stars and celebrities being involved and the major political parties as the chief buyers and hence assured business, shouldn’t this be an attractive industry for the big players on the biz town to step in.

The product should be improved to be made for life like with greater resemblance to the person it wants to personify , should be more aesthetically designed, the final usage should be more eye catching and sustained so as to get in more air time and news.

Since protests and oppositions and demonstrations happen worldwide, this could be a global phenomenon.

The product as the title of the blog says is an EFIGY. That trusted product that is part and parcel of any demonstration and protest. Which is burnt as a means of showing displeasure, hate, ridicule and opposition against the person who it is supposed to depict. Whose burning is normally the main activity of a demonstration and which gets the press and TV coverage almost always.

All hail the Effigy culture - the new cottage industry and potential mainstream business in the making.

The Guru in Gothenburg.

"The great saint Chaitanya has said that the praise of Lord Krishna would be sung in every corner of the world. And it is true."

Well these are not my words.. But the words of a very affable and friendly Krishna Bhakth I ran into here in Gothenburg. I was indulging in my favorite pastime, walking around Nordstan and observing people , when this bearded chap flagged me down and asked if he could have some of my time. I had expected him to be a salesman or a person handing out feedback forms or something of that sort. Since I had been a sales guy for a year, have this sort of brotherly affection towards salesmen and so I make it a point to lend a ear or two to them. But imagine my surprise when he whips out a book of the Ishtopanishad or something rhyming with that and start talking of Indian mythology.

He had guessed that I was from India and the first question he asked me was if I had heard of the Gita. I told him curtly that I was from the land of the Gita , upon which, to my shock and surprise ,he proceeded to compliment me for knowing about the Gita. I thought I had seen it all, but now here I was in Gothenburg getting compliments from a blonde , blue eyed Swede for knowing - just being aware - of the Bhagavad-Gita- the holy book of Hinduism.

What followed was ten eye-openening minutes where he explained a few concepts of the saint Chaitanya , about the power of Krishna and also that there existed right here in Gothenburg a sort of Ashram where they had regular bhajans ,discourses by some Guruji and also handing out of Prashads. I was cordially invited to attend one of the bhajan sessions and discover the beauty of Krishna Bhakthi( devotion) When I expressed my surprise at hearing about a Hindu ashram right here , he replied with the lines that I have used as the starting lines of this post. And mind you, he told those lines in Sanskrit, he recited a verse , which he then had to translate to me , since I don’t know Sanskrit. Man, wasn’t I impressed. Sanskirt lessons in Gothenburg. Deep.

Talk of strange happenings. I had observed some blogs ago that very few Indians were to be seen around and here you have an Ashram itself , with Gurujis and bhajans to boot.

By the way,all the vernacular words used above are what the Krishna devotee used and I should say he pronounced them really well. He was a volunteer who collects donations for the Krishna society, sells books about Hinduism and generally does his duty of spreading the word.

God bless him and his work.

Gothenburg diary - more stories.

Continuing with the Gothenburg diary. There was a delay in updating the new stories , as among other things I took a few days break and traveled to Belgium and Holland. That was an exciting trip ,with the highlight being I getting stranded in Copenhagen airport for 20 hours due to a raging snow storm and the airport shutting down. Now no one wants to travel with me by air anywhere. Being stranded for 20 hours due to snow and flights getting diverted due to snowstorms is not a good track record I guess.

Getting back to good old Gothenburg, one of the common questions that I get from family and friends back home is about Indian food. Since they know that I don’t know to cook Indian food or any food for that matter , they were keen to know if there was any Indian restaurants around where I could cure my home food sickness. And the answer is , there are not one or two but many. On last count I have seen about 9 of them. Located all over town. There is one right next to my current apartment. It is called Mother India.

When you have Mother India , isn’t it but natural that we have its offspring also. Yes, I have seen Indian restaurants named Delhi, Bombay and Madras. These are three different restaurants in three different parts of town. Guess there must also be a Calcutta in some part of town. I have not gone to the other side of town across the river yet. And then you have the ones that play up the Indian cliché . Taj rasoi, Taj Mahal , Maharaja and I think I also saw a Maharani. I can offer a few more names, Elephanta , magic carpet, snake charms and you can firmly reinforce the Indian stereotype.

All said and done , the mystery that I talked of in the previous post is this. When I see so many Indian restaurants it is but natural to assume that there must be a substantial Indian population about town , that needs to be catered by these restaurants. But that’s where I draw a blank. I hardly see any Indians on the roads, the trams, the malls and parks of Gothenburg. Finding them here is as rare as finding an auto rickshaw with a working meter in Chennai. I have come to believe that the only Indians about town are the ones working at the restaurants and then a few idiots like me who blog about them.

Nordstan is the biggest mall in town. Some say it is the biggest in Sweden, though I find that hard to believe. But this is the premier shopping centre in town , housing major brands and all kind of shops. During peak hours this place is jam packed with office goers, tourists, students and the like. But at night this is the place for the homeless, the jobless and the weirdoes. I live next door to Nordstan and so I have ventured out many a time at night for a stroll or to buy food and I have come across these weird characters who look straight out of a comic strip - the X men variety. Ridiculously colored hairs, piercing on all the wrong places of the human face, dressed typically in biker or rock star leather jackets and trench coats , lots of silver and iron adorning them and generally strutting about the place making their presence felt. I never understand for what reason they go about disfiguring themselves and coloring themselves silly. If it is about having their own identity then I would say its more of an identity crisis. I enquired around with some of my local friends here and they attributed the weirdoes presence to Gothenburg being some sort of centre for Gothic bands and that you have frequent congregations of them. Hmm.. So all of them are wannabe rock stars,. Wonder if I should get autographs from some of them and keep it.

You never know , I could sell it on eBay someday and make money.

The cuious case of the silent kids has has been somewhat diluted by conflicting reports. But still the case is like this. There seems to be an absolute baby boom in Gothenburg . Take a peak hour in Nordstan , stand in the middle of the square and turn to any direction. Nine out of ten times , you will see a perambulator being wheeled around. Kids here , there and everywhere. On the trams, in MacDonald’s, inside Hemskop, at the central station, on the Avenyn , at the parks, just about anywhere. But .. What struck me as curious was the silence. Kids or babies are supposed to wail, scream, and generally make life miserable for the ones around. But the ones here are quiet, happily ensconced in their warm carriages and having the time of their life. But then as I have said there have been reports from other friends about wailing kids next door and tantrum throwing ones on the roads and so I believe this case is not so curious after all….

Chennai to Gothenburg - day one, the haps and the mishaps

As they say, the only constant thing in the world is change ( my intro for a blog always sucks) and in staying true to this maxim, here I am uprooted from the cozy confines of hometown Chennai to the cold climes of Scandinavia. The below is my first day experience in this lovely country

Apparently the citizens of Gothenburg were waiting for snow for the last 2 months, that is ever since winter formally set in. Just like I was waiting for my Swedish visa to come in for the last 2 months, that is ever since I got and formally accepted the Sweden job. And the famed snow chose, as if by coincidence, or divine intervention to come down in a storm, the very day in which my flight was supposed to land at Gothenburg. It was “ supposed “ to land.. It never did. Instead it went to a city called Malmo.

While at Chennai you would find, auto and taxi drivers jostling to get you into their money minting automobiles, here in Malmo , we had to wait at the airport for a good one hour, because the airline could not find a bus operator to take us to Gothenburg. Finally they managed to find one and what followed was a three hour long journey on the highway, with snowstorm and all that around you. I was looking forward to seeing the Swedish countryside, but all that I could see was white sheets of snow and then darkness.

Reached Gothenburg airport at around 8.30 pm. Not a soul to be seen anywhere. The screeching noise my suitcases made as I dragged them across could have been heard in the next country. Whoever said that the airports of Europe are on high alert constantly ?? Either they are wrong or Gothenburg is not in Europe. Since the learned amongst us know that Gothenburg is in Europe, they are wrong. I had to make a phone call to my colleague, and lo the pay phone wont speak anything apart from Swedish. It only ate up 25 recently converted Swedish kroners and did not lead me anywhere. Thankfully there was a kind lady at the information booth ( it would remain a mystery to me as to why this booth didn’t close at 5 pm) who let me use the phone.

So out stepped Mr. Kumar into the snow covered taxi bay and one could see that the cab drivers were cozily relaxing inside their climate controlled cars. I had a strange feeling that they did see me but were not bothered , I had to wave, shout to wake up one of them and ask them to take me to the Gothenburg central station. He must have fallen on some bad patch, money wise. Otherwise I don’t see any reason he should have obliged to drive me to town. Give me the auto drivers of Chennai any day man.

I have seen the Chennai central station and now here I was in Gothenburg Central at 9 pm. To my still in India mind, 9 pm at Central station meant absolute madness. A million people, 2 million bags and suitcases, screaming kids , railway employees, a few trains leaving at the same time and a few trains that don’t leave on time. Gothenburg central at 9 pm was like a scene out of a madcap movie. Weird characters were lazing around the place,, one woman had about 20 piercing on her face, one was dressed up like some zombie ( whitened face, black lipstick, long trench coat and spiked hair) , there was a shaggy old man playing some haunting music and begging ( the only common factor to Chennai). Its been 4 days and I have seen these characters surfacing at the central station and the mall next to it after 6 pm ( that’s when the late night starts ) . U may wonder when night starts, that starts at 4 pm. Day ?? What is that ?? When I go to work it is still dark and when I come back it is dark. I feel like I am working in some call centre doing night shift.

Coming back to day one I found my apartment soon thanks to my colleague who was kind enough to brave the rain and pick me up. I had to get to the third floor and there was this lovely elevator which was in place for doing that job. Except that it did not climb up. So me and my two suitcases climbed three floors and I had to invent new expletives to vent my feelings ( most of them had been overused in the day) .The apartment was comfortable excepting the fact that being a service apartment and not a hotel I d have to make my own food. Now that was a problem. Here I was conditioned to home food for more than a year and asking me to make my own food was criminal if not something worse than that. But then hunger makes you do extraordinary things and I made my own food. It was noodles of course. What did you think , I d make a full meal the very first day ?? Id be surprised if I make a full course meal even after the 2 years id be here.

So ended day one. Tired , hungry, dirty. Having left my family, my best friends, my hometown , here I was freezing in snowing Scandinavia. But then life is a challenge ( the blog is about to end, one needs to give a philosophical twist) and one has to go on.

Till more Scandinavian updates.. Enjoy the sunshine and send some over.

By the way, did I tell you that the elevator worked when my colleague wanted to go down 3 floors after showing me my apartment ???

Word of the year - Chik- what ??

Every year the various major dictionary publications of the world and other sundry literary associations select a ‘word of the year ‘. Much like the ‘Man of the year’,‘newsmaker of the year’ and other such awards, there also exists a word of the year.
For example, in 2005 the new oxford American dictionary announced ‘Podcast’ as the word of the year. The American dialect society for example selected the word ‘she ‘as the word of the millennium in the year 2000. Apparently there was no word she before the 12th century.

As this year is rapidly drawing to a close, all the publications must be working overtime selecting and nominating various words for the ‘word of the year ‘title. I have one word as my entry for the word of the year. And that is ‘Chikungunya’.

Chik what? That seemed to be the first reaction for most of us when we first heard the word. MS word doesn’t recognize it still; maybe it needs an outbreak in the US for that to happen. Anyway, as per Wikipedia..

"Chikungunya is a relatively rare form of viral fever caused by an alpha virus that is spread by mosquito bites ".

As you can detect from the above, this chick thing is a fever, a pain that is in the news in India this year for all the wrong reasons. People across the country have been infected by this disease, with many fatalities as well. Though this disease is not considered to be fatal in nature, this had taken epidemic proportions in various parts of the country.

And why should I select this word. It is because it gave me a week of peace and freedom. From office, from irritating customers who call at the drop of a hat and from the daily mundane chores of office work. So what if you had a 102 deg fever and joint pains for a month. I used the opportunity to revisit my DVD collection, enjoy the Chennai rains from my window and add to my downloaded music collection. It was all about finding the good thing in the bad.

The funny thing was that when news first broke out about this disease, thanks to its name, people associated this to be another ‘bird flu ‘and soon the sales of chicken started falling! Chikun was seen as chicken and lo, the poultry was facing another crisis. But soon people knew that this had nothing to with the winged bird that people eat, but with the other smaller winged creature that feasts on us. The mosquito.

All said and done, let this word be a phenomenon only for this year! We do not need new specimens of diseases to add to the English dictionary.

The Hero we lost !

India lost a hero yesterday! How many of us know about it?

How many of us heard of a policeman from Jammu called Randhir Singh who was killed in a gun battle with the militants on the 5th of October 2006

When I was a kid, I was taught about the great epics. The Ramayana and the Mahabharata, where I was told that the great warriors who slay the evil demons and the devils are worshipped as heroes and their praise sung for generations on end. I was taught about the great kings of India, the valiant Porus who kept away the all conquering Alexander from entering India, about Prithviraj chauhan who fought the invaders from Afghanistan, about our great freedom fighters who fought the British and who laid down their lives driving out the enemy. We remember the Bhagat sings and the Chandrasekhar azads and cherish them as heroes.

When all through our history, the greatest heroes have been these brave warriors who fought for justice and peace and the good, why is that post independence we have a different set of heroes. Of cricketers, politicians, movie stars, industry chieftains and scientists. What happened to all the brave people? We have fought 4 major wars since independence, there has been militancy in Kashmir, Punjab, the North east and our cities are no longer safe and immune to terrorism. But still the ordinary man in you and me are able to have a peaceful sleep and go about our daily chores with terrorism and safety as the last thing on our mind. Why?? It is because of what I consider the pride of our nation - our armed forces and the jawans and policemen fighting on the borders and keeping the enemy at bay. One such brave man we lost yesterday and it hardly made news!!

Post independence perhaps the most audacious and symbolically most significant act of terrorism in India was the attack on the Parliament house on Dec 13 2001. The master mind behind this attack was a militant called Ghazi baba. A devil or monster or villain or evil incarnate terrorist, call him what you may, don’t you agree that the person who vanquished him is nothing short of a hero? And that person was Randhir Singh. Randhir killed Ghazi baba in an anti terrorist operation a few years back. How many of us knew of this hero who killed the mastermind behind the most audacious attack on India.?

This brave soldier was killed in another terrorist encounter in Jammu yesterday and his death was nothing short of heroic. After having been injured in yet another operation some months back, he was still not fully fit and yet to recuperate completely. But still he joined the action and went back to his duty even though his leave period was not yet over. I doubt if you and me are made of such sterner stuff.

This brave man died yesterday, killed by militants, while protecting his fellow countrymen and his nation. He left behind a one year old son and a grieving but proud family. Will he be remembered as a hero, as a modern day incarnate of the great heroes of India’s history? I don’t think so. We have chosen to follow a different set of heroes.

Randhir Singh would have been consigned to flames today, and alas, his heroism and bravery also would be.

Questions without Answers !

Some questions for which I may never find answers: These are not exactly questions for which Mr. Murphy is the answer

Why is that when you are waiting at the platform to catch a train, it always so happens that before a train comes in the direction that you want, there are at least 2 trains passing by on the opposite direction?

Why is that people who are otherwise ordinary and normal , after getting into the first class coach in the local train, take the air of a snob and look down upon and scold poor souls who get into the first class coach by mistake.

Why it is that while in a hotel the one item in the menu card that you would have chosen after perusing for 15 minutes is not available that day??

Why it is that in the same hotel, the food served to the neighboring table looks more delicious and attractive than the one you have ordered for??

Why it is that while in a hotel, it is not the food that gets delayed, but the bill for the food you have eaten??

Why it is that when you attend a wedding, the aunties, grand moms and the assorted lot has to ask when you are planning to get married?

Why it is that when you are standing in the check in counter in the airport, the person in front of you has the maximum number of bags and takes up your time unnecessarily?

Why it is that it is always your bag that comes last out of the conveyer belt while in the airport baggage concourse??

Why is it that when you travel by air or train or whatever, there is always around the corner a wailing kid who never seems to stop???

Why is it that at that the end of a long tiring day, when you are in the train on the way back home and want some peace, some acquaintance bumps into you and starts a never ending conversation??

Why is it that every other ring tone apart from the one in your mobile phone, sounds jarring and loud??

Why is it that while shopping, the one piece of cloth that you like, ends up being the most expensive in the whole bloody floor??

Why is it that I don’t get answers for all these questions?

The Bureau Puller of Chennai

For the last few years, one singe person has been giving the police force of Chennai some major embarrassment. I can’t say he is giving them sleepless nights, coz if he was indeed giving them, then they should have used that sleeplessness to catch him. This person, a thief, has been hoodwinking the police and making a fool of both the cops and the general public. He has a very unique way of operating. He doesn’t believe in the age old thieving concept of ‘break –in’. He doesn’t enter into the house he targets, but rather prefers to finish his job while being outside. His modus operandi could be called ‘pull-out’.

He apparently opens a window, checks out the surroundings and finding the bureau or cupboard or almirah or godrej or whatever you call it, drags it towards the window, opens it and decamps with the valuables inside. This trick he has been performing to near perfection for the last many years now. There are lots of gaps in this story. Are the windows always open, is the buereu always near to the window, how does he pull the quite heavy cupboards to his side, what are the inmates doing while he does the dragging and opening thing, and how he has been doing this for about 4 years now ? All that the papers say is the burglar has struck again and that he pulled the bureau and looted it.

These are many unanswered questions which have only helped to increase the aura around the bureau puller of Chennai. Plus the fact that the cops have not been able to catch him for years together now adds to his image. If only there was any news about this guy giving out goodies to the poor and helping out the needy, then this could have been a perfect Robin Hood story. Alas not, this looks a smart chap who knows his job. What is most irritating is the fact that even after this has been in the news for so many years the people still seem to prefer to keep their valuables inside their bureaus ( never heard of bank vaults I think) and then they position that damned thing right next to the windows. A standing invitation to the B.P would have better. No wonder every few months this dude strikes and retires back to enjoying his loot till the next time.

The normally sedate ‘The Hindu’ paper also carries articles about him. If this chap was operating in Mumbai, I could very well imagine the frenzy that the Mid-day, the Mumbai mirror, the Times and other sensationalist papers could have whipped up. Maybe even Mahesh Bhatt and family could have got a new movie idea based on this elusive bureau puller. Gangster – Killer – bureau puller. Could have completed the trilogy. But on second thoughts, may be not, for the Bhatt’s to make the movie, it should have been first made in Hollywood, only then they can rip off or lets say pull off here.

If at all the cops manage to catch him, I would want to meet this guy and get exclusive rights to his life story. Then write a book, sell that to a movie maker, make himesh reshammiya compose songs, remix them under lounge, club and bangra versions and finally make a video game out of his bureau pulling act.

Imagine the game…... could be an invisible bureau that he must find, a bureau located far off that he must pull, cops on the prowl (atleast in the game), alert inmates who are up to no good, multiple levels etc etc.. The possibilities are infinite.

Now you know why they say that the Bureau puller has caught the imagination of Chennaiites.

Module 4- The last act

Before you proceed further, let me tell you that this post would be the last travelogue one on this blog for some time to come.

I have previously written about the Modules 1, 2 and 3 in Copenhagen and so it would be a shame if I don’t write about the last and final module. And given the fact that the final module is unique and special in more ways than one, I would be committing a crime by not putting the experiences into words. Module 4 is special because it brings together all the 250 odd trainees under one roof for the first time, because it has the final exams of the MISE program, because it has the self leadership week – a week spent in the Danish forests, because it has the graduation ceremony at the company headquarters and because it may be the last time I would be meeting many of the fellow trainees from across the world.

Unlike the previous modules this time all we 19 Indian trainees were allowed to leave a day early to Copenhagen, so that it gives us ample time to shake off the jet lag and get ourselves ready for the exams. And since the company was a bit generous with the allowance this time, all of us checked into the SAS Radisson located at the heart of the city. The day was spent doing some studies, lots of time pass, and a dinner at the Indian palace hotel. The next day we left for our module centre. This time it was not to that delightful place Karslunde, but towards the North, to the suburb of Snekkersten. Comwell Borupgaard was the name of the hotel where we stayed and it was one heck of a place. With enough rooms to take in 250 trainees and more, it had class rooms the size of movie theatres, conference and discussion rooms, a lobby that stretched for ever, a sauna and a swimming pool and a dedicated staff to run it. And more importantly the food was better than what we used to get in Karslunde.

Snekkersten was located by the sea and a short walk from the hotel would take you to the beach and the small harbor where the yachts and fishing boats lay docked. The road along the beach was dotted with small but beautiful cottages and houses. And the scenery all around was of the highest order. When I retire, this would be the kind of place I want to settle in.

For the first 4 days we were occupied by the exams. Logistics, Liner trade and Maritime law were the subjects we were being tested in. Even though they were mainly open book exams, they were not what you would call piece of cakes. One had to wade through hundreds of pages of notes and handouts to pick out the right answer and write. Looking back I would remember these days not for the exams but for the sheer number of printouts and photocopies that the folks took over those 4 days. The photocopier was used incessantly through out the night as people stocked more and more pages of notes for the open book exams. I guess the number of papers used would have wiped out a forest the size of a small Danish city. And the season being summer, the days were extremely long. If one planned to start studying after the sun went down, and then he checks his watch after the sun finally did go down, he would be shocked to see that the time was about half past eleven.

The next big thing was the leadership week. The only thing we knew was that we had to spend 5 days in the Danish wilderness and that it would be physically and mentally very demanding. Apart from this we knew nothing, and sadly, apart from this, you would also know nothing. The experiences of the leadership week are not to be shared. I can only say that those were 5 amazing days, we did things that we never imagined we were capable of , we stretched our bodies to limits that we never dreamt of, we marched, we jogged, we swam, we rowed, we canoed, we cycled, we worked as a team, we competed, we lost, we won. We survived .And learnt quite a few lessons. After the survival week, I feel like the shoe ad – impossible is nothing!

The survival week ended in a remote Danish countryside with fireworks lighting up the Scandinavian sky in our honor and with the loudspeakers playing ‘we are the champions’. After which the tired, dirty and ragged but proud batch left for their respective hotels to get some sleep and get ready for the graduation ceremony the next day.

Next day all of us assembled at the company headquarters in Esplanaden, Copenhagen. There was a reception hosted in our honor, a meeting with the group CEO and a photo session with the company partners. The sight of 253 trainees from about 70 countries assembled on 5 tiers was itself a show stopper. We could see cars pulling over on the road and people stepping out to check out on what was happening. And the official photographer was not the only one clicking away. I could see tourists stopping by on the way and taking pictures of our group. The last program of the day was the closing dinner. The venue was the Danish stock exchange. We were ferried across to the stock exchange on the boats plying on the canals. The closing dinner was a gala affair. With speeches, performances and innumerable photographs being clicked for posterity, the dinner was memorable. The dinner was the last official act in the MISE module calendar.

All of us then hit the pub called Luux, and partied the night away. As we stepped out at about 4 am, it was already dawn and the night had faded away. We had 2 more days before we flew back to India. Day one was spent in Copenhagen itself, walking around the city and drinking in its sights and sounds. Day two, we took a train to Malmo, the Swedish city located just half an hour away from Copenhagen. Malmo is a small, peaceful city and if not for the blue and yellow Swedish flags flying on the buildings, one wouldn’t find any difference between Malmo and any other place in Denmark. Next day we flew back to India

2 years, 4 modules, 6 exams, hundreds of friends, infinite experiences. One looks back at the two years and doesn’t find enough words to describe the experience of the modules. And I leave it at that.

Vessel Tour - The Korean ' soap' Opera and other stories

The final stop in the vessel tour was South Korea. Korea has always been a distant land, literally and figuratively. I did know much of Korea, its history, its culture, its pastimes, current affairs and trivia associated with it, as I would know of US or Japan or Singapore for that matter. The Seoul Olympics, the 2002 world cup, the Hyundais and Samsungs was all that I knew of Korea. This lack of knowledge made me look forward to spending 2 days at Seoul and Busan.

After 8 days on the vessel it was time to say good bye and disembark at Busan.The first thing that struck me as we got out of the port and onto the streets of Busan was the non usage of English as a medium of communication. And the other aspect was the devalued currency. Everything was in ten thousands. One USD buys about 900 Korean won. I had the shock of my life when the guy at the hotel said that the charge per night was 45000 Korean won. Sense prevailed on me when I realized that meant 50 USD and that the guy was not selling me a presidential suite in the grandest hotel of Busan. These were two aspects which would come back again and again to trouble us.

We took an early morning flight from Busan to Seoul Incheon airport. Spanking new, Incheon airport was built on reclaimed land on an island about 60 kilometers away from Seoul city. We took a limousine bus from the airport to our hostel in downtown Seoul. The ride took an hour and more, and we could see that Seoul was as modern as it could get. High rise buildings, huge shopping malls, American fast food outlets on every corner, excellent roads and what not. Our hostel was located just opposite the cheongdung palace, one of the many palaces around which Seoul is built. The Palace was huge, spread over quite an area and obviously held a pride of place going by the tour guides description. The king’s quarters and the palace buildings looked quite Spartan and simple, compared to the opulence and grandeur of the palaces and forts of the Kings here in India.

Perhaps the funniest moment of the entire trip happened in Seoul when I ventured out to a pop and mom store to buy a bathing soap. Obviously the guy at the shop could not understand what I was asking for and I also could not figure out where the heck were the soaps stacked in that shop. So I had to recall all my dumb charades skills and enact a scene of taking bath. Perhaps I over did it and from the shopkeepers turn of expression I realized with a fear that he had read that as me suffering from rashes and that at any moment he may hand me the nearest antiseptic. Quickly changing my act from crude to finesse I was successful in getting the message across that all I wanted was a bathing soap. And I thought my troubles were over. It took another 5 minutes for him to get me to understand that the cost was 5000 won. He had to type 5000 on a calculator for me to understand, and that is what every shopkeeper in Korea did to me.

Equally traumatic was Sara s experience of searching for a resturant that serves Halal food. Many of them assumed that Halal was a type of delicacy that this sub continent girl was craving for and were very sorry that they didnt have that in their menu. I thought Sara was asking for too much , since at most of the hotels we had trouble in finding out what type of meat was being served, leave alone investigating if the meat was halal or not !! Because of this reason, we gave a go by to the Korean restaurants and went to the trusted MacDonalds and the Pizza Huts of the world.

After the palace trip, I and Sara walked to the dongengeum tourists market. A specially demarcated tourist’s zone, it consisted of rows of roadside shops as well as huge malls. The Doota mall with ten floors of only shops was like a dream come true for Sara and a nightmare of sorts for me. We spent the first day mostly walking in and around Downtown Seoul and drinking in the city's ambience and getting a feel of this fast paced city.

Day 2 in Seoul. We started by walking to the nearest Starbucks (there seemed to one every 100 meters) and having a quick breakfast. Then we walked to the Tapgol Park, the birthplace of the Korean freedom movement. Located in downtown Seoul, the place was packed with old timers and to me it seemed were the only ones under the age of 70 in that park. Perhaps a reflection of the fact that freedom and its history no longer appeals to youngsters.

We then got into one of the Seoul city tour buses, which takes us on a trip around the city and stops at the important tourist places. After walking, the best way to see any city is through one of these buses. With English commentary and a good lot of places being covered, the tour bus was a good decision. It took us to a few more palaces, past the ‘ Blue House’ – home of the Korean President, to the Itaewon tourist zone, the Korean war memorial, the Seoul station to name a few. The ride atop Mount Namsan was also unforgettable. As the bus made its way up the hill, the view of the brightly lit city stretching across endlessly was a sight to behold.

Seoul is a city which feels that it need not know English to survive. Well, if Hyundai, LG, Samsung and Kia are any indication then that belief looks vindicated. More so when you see Starbucks, Pizza hut, KFC and many more American outlets manned by people with minimal English skills. All of them were koreanised.

2 days were not at all enough to cover Seoul. It was with a sense of having missed the woods for the trees that we left Korea the next day morning. We both were flying back to Karachi and Chennai via Singapore. It was curtains for the 2 week long vessel tour and time to get back to the harsh realities of the world. Sara had a connecting flight within an hour after landing while I had six hours to kill in Changi. And that is when I had the time to put down the first blog about the vessel tour.