Sometime in February, I had written something about the Facebook Revolution; the year is now on its last day. Sadly, the revolutions have not yet resulted in stability and peace. In some cases, like Egypt, the savior army now seems villainous while in places like Syria, violence driven by the autocratic leaders has become the norm. It just stands to prove how short sighted was my view of expected outcomes of uprising. If there is one more additional wisdom I have earned on this, it is the fact that one cannot fast forward to self-rule or self-determination without going through the motions of the transformation. No NATO forces could get a nation back on the road to recovery until a support structure is ready by itself.

But enough of the uprisings, for I was to play soothsayer again…umm..wait I already talked about EU no? Hmm…its already 2012, and EU is still not disintegrated except for the Brits, who weren’t the part of it anyways…but…

The thing is, I am at pains to see that the Euro crises hasn’t gotten any better. Italy and Greece are already seeing new governments, Italy is already in recession. EU is expected to be in recession for the next year, we are in for tough times, tougher than we can visualize right now, because there is no eminent solution in sight. Its like someone hitting the snooze button and refusing to wake up, until the day is already bright enough that you can’t help it.

People still laugh at me when I mention that such a crises could have huge political and social repercussions, they say that its Europe not Africa. Well, here’s the logic…if you refer to the recent Youth Employment rates for EU(not this is NOT a direct percentage, click on the link and understand it). So the Youth Employment rates are as high as 48.9% in Spain and 45.1% in Greece, if this is compared to the Germany figures of 8.5% you will understand what I am referring to. The recent roits in UK may be a sign of what could happen. To complicate the situation, free movement of people across Europe allows citizens of one state to apply for a job in another, so for an already shrinking number of opportunities more people can apply. This in turn can lead to resentment in people belonging to an economically better off state, and is often used as an issue by the politicians to play upon.

Maybe my view is very cynical, afterall EU East consistently has bad youth unemployment, and we don’t see them screaming. But what we miss here is, for people who suddenly see themselves as not being better off or equally well off as their parents were, it means that the state is failing them…once the numbers start adding up it doesn’t matter if it were civilized europe.

Maybe am just being paranoid, but things back home also don’t seem ripe. The Parliament didn’t vote for Lokpal, Hazare just finished another fast. Its silly that some people say that he keeps doing his fasts again and again…he should do something different. Wonder if thats what people felt with Gandhi too. Indian rupee is the worst performing currency, market is down, inflation is up…well…just hope that 2012 is NOT like the 2012 Mayans predicted.

A ring, a ring o’ roses,
A pocket full o’posies-
Atishoo atishoo we all fall down

And so I got married (you should read my last post here) and had a nice trip to Bali and am back in the midst of cold Alps on what is the day of the Christmas eve. Someone had asked me to write about Bali, normally I would jump at the idea of writing a blog post on any new place visited. However, giving a review of your own honeymoon didn’t seem to make sense (no no, not the juicy details but of the location itself!).

I remember watching it on Discovery that the real moments of life which we truly remember are the ones which were unique experiences, this is exactly the reason we hardly seem to remember details of what we did 2 months ago on this date at office, because life is often very regulated(or as Morgan Freeman said, Institutionalized). The mind tends to recall most the specific moments which were unique, these could be visiting new places, first kiss, first love, first breakup, first job interview and so on…

Now the trip to Bali was something which I wanted to be unique, and it indeed was, yet today someone has pasted pictures on facebook about the same Island, their honeymoon and well a lot of similar places…and the trip suddenly doesn’t seem as unique as it was. Its strange, even the iPhone 4S which I bought standing in a queue here on the second day of its launch seems not so unique when I see some other newly wed bride getting the same from her hubby. Jeez…we first try to prove we are different and then we do all the same things as others! How predictable no?

But then, my experience in Bali or my emotions while buying the phone are unique to me, nobody in the same place even at the same time could feel the way as I did. That special feeling or experience is privy to me, it can never be duplicated.

Oh and one more thing, to have unique experiences one doesn’t need to do big things, sometimes even the smallest things are big enough to leave a sweet mark in our memories…

Here’s a song I love, Rob Thomas – Little Wonders

Its been more than 6 months since the day was decided upon with due consultation from the holy men, November being the wedding season in India, my D-day is on the 20.11.2011

For the past few weeks, with an increasing frequency (and thanks to Mr Zuckerberg’s facebook) I have been a party to these questions, the thing is, for most of them nobody believes my answers or they just drown my answers in their own way (of course with all good and sweet intentions). So here’s a primer,

• Now that its just xyz days left. How do you feel? Honestly, I haven’t been feeling any different, am so far away from home that I don’t feel anything different than I normally do! But then, most people either feel something is wrong with me or am just not speaking the truth!
• Aren’t you excited or nervous (or maybe scared)? To this the standard response is neutral, but people feel you are just denying the excitement…umm…but why would I do that?
  The fun part of this question is, most of my European colleagues refer to a phenomena called the cold-feet and they believe that we have a choice left till the last day to say I do. But I have explained them the dynamics of a few gazillion guests visiting you in an Indian wedding, and thus making your escape impossible. Hey, I don’t even know if you can successfully get a loo break in the process without being a victim of some humor. But honestly, am NOT over the top, neither am i scared to death. I have been trying hard to scare my fiance a bit, but she doesn’t seem to fall for my pranks yet!
• Then there’s the classic, the statement that wedding resembles an sweet which those who don’t eat they regret, and those who do eat regret eating it! Hmm…surely they are referring to an obese person on a diet…who could not resist a donut…and then regrets eating it later. Anyways…am bored of this one, I was never regretting my not eating the sweet, was trying to defend it (click here), and I still don’t and I hope not to regret the next phase either. Afterall, I remained single by choice (or by other peoples’ choice?) and now I’ll be married by my choice. 
• You don’t know what you are getting into! Hmm…well that holds true for anything we do in our own personal and professional lives. We step in with an assumption, give it our best and wish it turns out well.

• Beta, how are you feeling? Umm…make a guess…there are a couple of hundred folks all at my wedding eating away all the food while I look at them…i have been smiling constantly for hours, haven’t slept in 3 days…there is no part of my body which isn’t in a state of rebellion. And yes, am dressed like a magician who is just going to pull up a bunny from his hat!
• When did you arrive from Zurich? You are so lucky to be there, Switzerland is a very beautiful place. Yes indeed its a wonderful country, sadly I work there unlike most people who go there for fun…everyday i struggle to meet deadlines, attend meetings, cook food, communicate like an ape-like sign language to the kind Swiss folk who speak German, and yes…watch no TV as nothing is in English. And yes, I DO NOT see snow covered Alps out of my window (thanks a lot Yashraj Chopra)
• Where are you going for honeymoon, oh wait…isn’t Switzerland a honeymoon destination? Umm…yes…but do you realize what month this is? Its November…do you know how cold it is in November? Sigh….
• And the event called Jaimal(or the garland exchange)…so here you are tired as hell…and the girl arrives and now you are supposed to exchange the garlands. But…and this is a big massive BUT…everyone now wants you to stand up and wait for the other person to do it first…and then there are a few overzealous cousins who want to lift you up so that the girl cannot reach out…Guys, do you realize, it hurts my bottom and the magician outfit doesn’t help either! Moreover, if you get tired of the joke and try to get over with this exchange of garlands, you are also labeled as a joru-ka-gulam (umm…means something like a slavish husband?). Honestly, guys I don’t care…you want to do the garland exchange after a few hours, fine by me, just allow me to sit down and chill!
• Photographers and the likes, Oh don’t get me started on these creeps, they blow up a super warm light on your face to blind you, so that you don’t even realize whats happening behind their back! They charge you by the number of pictures they take, and then they fill it up with pictures of people gobbling up all the food you paid for and of young teenage female guests, who you probably don’t even know.
• Cousins and the aunties and the uncles and the people who-you-are-meeting-the-first-time-yet-they-expect you to remember their name, Well…they are there to support you, or is it? They are there to make sure that no opportunity of pulling up a prank, joke or a snide remark is missed. Hmm…engineering college ragging was better? Maybe, but this has its own special charm (thats what I have been told)…ah well…once I get married, i can pull them up for the rest of my life…
• Vidaai (the time when you take the bride with you after the wedding), this is an emotional moment, suddenly the bride starts weeping, all that extra layers of make up starts to wash away. But what about the groom? He stands there alone, feeling utterly guilty of taking the bride away. Its as if he is taking her away forcibly without her consent, and he is the villian of this story. Well..sweetie if you are feeling so bad, maybe you can stay for another day…I can take you home the next morning…just don’t cry okay!

I know many of my guests who may read this blog may not approve of it, don’t worry am thrilled to be married and I am glad that you all will be there to pull my leg and make sure that I don’t run away

Do I regret traveling? No, I love it.

So it was a fine sunny day in September, not like the suddenly gloomy, dull days of the fall, devoid of any Sun. Early around 8.30 we left from Zurich HB towards Milano Centrale. Yes, Yes I know I should have taken an earlier train, but a weekend is all about lazy beginnings right?

Anyways, it was already around noon when we landed up in Milano Centrale. The first taste of Italian hospitality came in when the Tourist counter lady at the station acted super rude and just gave me a tourist map to the city, she did not respond to my query about this thing called Milan Card (a coupon which gives you free local travel and discounts in shops). It took us another 10 minutes to find our way out of the station, deciphering the map…The station itself is huge, with connections to the Milan Underground system. The station was opening in 1931 and was, at one time, an attempt to showcase the impact of the power of Mussolini’s regime.

Next step was to look into the map and select the places we’d visit, afterall we had to return the same day. We were hungry, and ended up at the McDonalds across. First tragedy stuck, the lady at the counter said yes to vegatarian burger, and what i ended up with was a salad burger without any patty. It was yuck! Anyways, we marked around 10 places on the map, and figured out the  Azienda Trasporti Milanesi route.

Next halt was the massive Piazza del Duomo, a huge expanse of a square with buildings all around it. I have never been to a place like that, a huge square with hundreds of people. It was indeed a crowded place, a novelty in Europe I suppose? The square is faced by the famous Milan Cathedral on one side, the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele and a series of other important buildings and shopping arcades.

The square had like a zillion pigeons with sellers trying to lure outsiders like me to feed corn to them at a price or get a picture taken at a price. Sounds familiar? Yes, this reminded me of India. The impression of Italy was reinforced in the rest of the day.

The Duomo di Milano (cathedral) is a huge building which started off back in 1386, finally ordered for completion by Napolean. In fact Napolean was crowned as the King of Italy at the Duomo. The church with its extensive glass paintings, sculptures, halls and the treasury is THE place to visit in Milan. I have been to a lot of churches here, but nothing compares to Duomo.

We later headed to the Art museum (Pinacoteca Ambrosiana) nearby, it started as the personal collection of Cardinal Federigo Borromeo it has expanded to over 12k paintings and a huge collection of artifacts and manuscripts. The notable elements of the place Raphael’s School of Athens sketch, designed for the fresco in the Vatican’s Stanza della Segnatura, and manuscripts by Leonardo da Vinci, including the Codex Atlanticus.

From here on, we returned back to the square and searched for a small chapel nearby, we could have almost missed the place as the opening was hidden. After this, we took a walk around the Piazza and visited the  Galleria Vittorio Emanuele, this huge building houses the most premium shopping brands with plenty of food joints. It opens on one end towards the town hall facing the Opera house.

It was around this time when we wishes to return, but the return journey was not as fun as i had thought. For the day we traveled to Milan, it was the same as the F1 GP in Milan. We managed to get reserved tickets to Zurich (only 1st class was available). Only to realize on boarding the train that the ticket agent gave us tickets of the next day! We went back to argue, the man just denied it. It annoyed us because he had himself proposed us to buy 1st class as reservation was available! Sadly it was the last direct train to Zurich, we then took another ticket to reach a place called Arth goldau, hoping to catch the last connection for the night to Zurich.

But the train was delayed, it was indeed similar to India again! Our worry was that our connection was in Switzerland, thus there was no way we could now catch it. Everyone was quite uncomfortable, afterall most were visiting from der Schweiz, trains getting late is not a common thing.

As the train entered the Swisss territory, a terrible thunderstorm started off…well i had no hopes left, i thought I’d reach home the next day. But, soon a train announcement was made, the train would now be going to Zurich and Basel. Any passengers who were going to Luzern (as in the original route) should get off on the next stop and they would have a bus waiting to drop them off. You can only expect the Swiss to do this!!!

We did not have a ticket to Zurich, and we explained it to the ticket checker, he said, ‘No problem we are delayed and its on us’.

]]> http://www.ankurwrites.info/2011/10/25/bello-milano/feed/ 0 http://www.ankurwrites.info/2011/05/13/au-revoir/ http://www.ankurwrites.info/2011/05/13/au-revoir/#comments Fri, 13 May 2011 03:33:32 +0000 Ankur http://www.ankurwrites.info/?p=456 Continue reading →]]> Yes, Yes I know that change is the only constant, and one must embrace change with aplomb. But after an year of arguing for loose change with rude autowallahs of Kolkata, I know better. Anything with the word ‘change’ in it, is not an easy activity.

Another big change awaits in a week, when I bid adieu to Calcutta for another country. With this change multiple areas of stress have also propped up like moving the house, losing on the deposit, sending all the stuff home, shopping for the visit, not meeting loved ones and so on….

With this change also comes an uncertainity of a new job assignment with limited earlier experience, the anxiety and pressure to perform in a new environment.

Hope this change is good in the long run, but the run up to change is not…

I bid my goodbyes to this city and this house….wondering if the city would ever miss me. Wondering if the next occupant of this house would ever know about me, would he/she ever wonder who was the last person here and sense my essence of having lived here for around 13 months.

I know these are all philosophical questions, but well, thats what I ponder about too!

Here’s to a new  journey of a few thousand of miles and a new destination….cheers!

Its strange, life seems much more balanced, comfortable and easier here…its simply a perfect place to be. Yet, I am counting days to return, to an imperfect country where I’d start cribbing the moment I reach and start comparing it with good ol’ Geneva.

Why? Simple. Its the place I call home, its not perfect…its far from perfect but it still is home. Its the place where most memories and moments of my life have been, its the place where things can change, there is an opportunity to improve and make it perfect. There is so much to do.

Yes, i have met too many Indians living outside India and cursing it. I do not like it, I respect their decision to move out but with the same decision they forfeit their right to be critical of the place. If you cannot be a part of the journey you have no right to talk of its destination.

I know I’d go back home and crib…but its home, imperfect home.

A new year, a new month or a day…our days are divided into units of time. Many of us are often cynical about the celebrations for a new year, afterall it would be just another day on Jan 1 of a year as it was on 31st December. Nothing out of the ordinary would happen to our lives in the change of date. This argument is logically correct specially given the fact that different calendar systems provide us different points of reference for a new year.

But, inspite of all this, millions revel in hope and zeal that the next year shall be better. It is a psychological necessity for most of us to have a point of reference, to start over, to try again and harder. A small altercation with the boss, a reference to your sad past, a fight with family…all can be ignored in the hope of tomorrow. Afterall tomorrow is a new day! I wish one could gain the same psychological support in believing in the next hour, okay, the such and such event annoyed me to no end at 2.23 pm today, but hey…3 o’ clock is a new hour. I’ll just stand up, brush off the dust and move on!

One must not forget that while time is a great measure to slot our memories into decades, years, months and seasons…it is not a discrete measure but is ever changing and analog. Our words, feelings, work and ambitions are only relevant to us in our life time, in the big scheme of things, you simply do not matter. Like those giant dinosaurs, or elaborate civilizations we all have an expiry date, no single human can have an indelible impact on the large scale of time.

PS – A Light year is a measure of distance and not time, many still confuse themselves with its definition

Death, a topic which makes us (except a few) uncomfortable. It is a discussion which we wish to avoid, we have been conditioned to do so.

But death isnt always the end of a life; partings, break ups, death of a relationship or just gradual drifting away is akin to death. People who go away from your life are perhaps dead to you. Sometimes this death could have been avoiedd, on other moments this death was necessary for life to move ahead…for new people to be a part of.

Does it have a purpose? I do not know…is a soldier’s death worth it. Millions have died in the last few thousand years in the name of their tribe, kings, kingdoms, and countries…without knowing the outcome, without realizing that their kingdoms, nations and borders have changed since then….the purpose itself changed. So was it worth it?

freedom: /ˈfriːdəm/ the power of self-determination attributed to the will; the quality of being independent of fate or necessity

Every human has a different interpretation of freedom depending on their current state and the environment around them. The above picture was of a time when our group of friends visited the Sinhagad fort during our college days. The trip was decided in a matter of hours and executed on a beautiful day of the August monsoons.

That was the time when the days were not defined by meetings, deadlines and targets. It was a period when free thought, creativity and an utmost confidence from within us made us feel that the world was ours to be and we shall make it a better place. But today, the meaning of freedom is weekend!

This post was written as my entry to  Frames of Freedom contest for BlogAdda.com

Here are our other attempts at the same picture: http://www.flickr.com/photos/thesaurus_of_time/3005912842/

My appetite for mishaps and weird incidents reached a new level when I locked up myself in my apartment in Geneva. A story which led to me being the laughing stock of my office folks in Switzerland.

One evening, after an awfully long day at work I returned to my apartment, with my roommate still at work. This incident revolves around the two keys which were used to gain access to the building and then to the apartment.

After reaching early, I started attempting to cook dinner for the both of us. The roommate arrived below the building and called me up to come down and open the building door from inside. Tired and lazy I suggested to drop the key from our 5^th floor apartment to him from the balcony. What happened next is an incident to remember!

I peeped out of the window and attempted my well practiced ‘key throw‘ towards my roommate. Little had I realized that Murphy’s Godforsaken law would pop up in the avatar of the vulgar façade protruding from the 1^st floor of the building and stop its journey to the ground! The keys never reached the ground and decided to stay back on the first floor!

I realized what happened and like Robin muttered, ‘No problemo Batman I’ll come down and open the building door and then fetch the key by the help of the 1^st floor apartment dude’.  With a hare like swiftness I sprung into action and ran towards my apartment door, only to realize that it wouldn’t open as I had locked myself in and had thrown the key downstairs! Yep, I could be featuring in the next episode of jailed abroad on Nat Geo! ( I did mutter a lot of F this and F that at this point!)

So now the roommate couldn’t get in the building and I couldn’t get out of the apartment. It was pretty late, we decided that he’d goto a friend’s place to stay for the night and morning will return with reinforcements.

Morning came and the roommate was on his way with a friend(the reinforcement?). I peeped outside the window to check if the key was there but the key was missing from the spot! Bollocks I say!

I had no way to figure out where had the key gone, the reinforcement suggested that the key was taken by a bird! Preposterous explanations for us! Anyways, they gained entry to the building and went to the 1^st floor apartment only to find it locked. Next, they called the concierge but nobody picked.

Meanwhile I ended up calling the apartment lease broker for a spare key, they refused to help! I reminded them that the apartment is cleaned by cleaning staff which must be having a key. I then called up the cleaning people who couldn’t understand English! After a weird anglo-french conversation and they called back and promised to send someone over to open up the door!

After about 30 minutes a pretty lady opened the door, can’t express how glad I was to get out and see another human! I then ran to get a duplicate key made at the cost of around 800 INR!! But when I returned, I met this old man who had dropped a few keys and helped him by picking the keys and guiding him to the elevator. Somewhere in my heart I thought maybe those are my keys(I still didn’t have a building key!). Anyways, we entered the lift to test the duplicate key on the apartment, only to find this old man standing in front of our apartment fiddling with the original keys! He had braved all the way up to return our keys, I ran and thanked him in all languages I knew!

Background Story: The 1^st floor apartment dude had picked the keys and kept them on our mailbox with a note. The old man picked the keys and left the same note behind. My roomate found the note but without the key, and had no idea who flicked it this time! Had lost all hopes and were annoyed as well…but then the old man turned up with the key!

Yes, my laziness cost us all a lot of distress