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

I had always imagined that my first trip outside India would be filled with excitement right before I’d leave, however, it hasn’t really been the experience. The travel plans and stay were sketchy till the moment we reached Geneva, and of course the purpose of the visit is business. I have been loaded with so much work that they have even estimated my weekends in the work plan, which means I am locked up at office and am getting to see nothing at all…atleast for the next 14 days.  I’d try to sneak out a bit sometime.

Anyhow, having seen only bits an pieces of the place between my hotel to the office…I observed and laughed at the fact that the cute hotel receptionist’s name is Elodie…which remarkably sounds similar to a hindi gaali!

People love to wish you Bon Jour everyday while meeting you at the office lift, even if they may not know you. Somehow my perverted mind feels like replying to them in another hindi gaali…just for the fact that I can get away with it

But the truth is that people are nice, yesterday we were getting soaked while waiting for our bus in the drizzle and this lady passed us by, she came back and made us move to the bus stop’s shelter nearby so that we do not get wet. The fact being we didn’t share a common language as I know nothing of French.

Geneva has a very good rule of giving free bus/train passes to people if they stay in any of the city hotel for all their stay, this saves you a lot of money and of course easies your life.

Public displays of affection is quite common here, people would be walking around and suddenly start hugging and kissing at any junction or public place, like as if they had this sudden urge and couldn’t hold themselves back. Strangely it seems okay and not awkward!

Geneva enjoys a fair mix of people from around the world, the ongoing world cup is a witness to  the same…today saw Algerians creating a ruckus before their match with UK, two days ago people were running around Brazlian colors too…its a truly cosmopolitan place. Yesterday the Swiss win over Spain resulted in a 10% discount of all products at a local supermarket chain!

It is okay to show bare chested women in TV ads here, saw this eye popping Denim after shave’s ad which would have made RSS, VHP and the likes back home gone crazy! If only HUL could show those ads in India, I bet they’d treble the sales of the products!

It rains each evening, it doesn’t get dark until 9-9.30 PM which I think is awesome! French has made my life difficult as a vegetarian, can’t read the food menu properly, I think I may have nibbled half a chicken sandwich yesterday thinking it to be eggs than chicken

Hope to take pictures soon and know the place more than just street side observations….for now the desi bhaiyya would sign off!

]]> http://www.ankurwrites.info/2010/06/19/swiss-travels-i/feed/ 2 http://www.ankurwrites.info/2010/05/26/every-morning-she-waits/ http://www.ankurwrites.info/2010/05/26/every-morning-she-waits/#comments Wed, 26 May 2010 18:03:49 +0000 Ankur http://www.ankurwrites.info/?p=348 Another old post from my old blog, am just getting nostalgic and lazy! This one was written back on Feb 15, 2006

Every morning at 7.55 AM my office shuttle(another word for bus) starts from JP Nagar First Phase taking the turn to the East end main road and finally reaching BTM Layout…

I have a particular seat which is in a way my seat on the left side of the bus, just for the simple fact that 4 minutes into the journey to my office I would be passing in-front of the “Brand and Bargains” showroom and around 8 AM I would witness ‘her’ waiting like everyday for her bus.

I don’t know where she works, I dont know who is she but all I know is that I wish to see her everyday, in a way a lucky charm for me! She ain’t the prettiest girl, but then she is different…she could be working anywhere maybe Infosys, Wipro, TCS or anywhere…

Its already more than a couple of months when I am sitting at my seat in the bus waiting eagerly to have a glimpse, and then move on without thinking of her till the next day, the probability is that I would never know her in person, I may never know her name even…

She might never know about my eagerness to just have a glimpse of her, but it doesn’t make any difference…this relationship, if i take liberty in calling it one, is different. In a way I don’t wish things to change, there is this hidden beauty in all this…and I wish to retain it.

Its a routine that I wish to continue…to see her waiting every morning for her office bus right at 8.

Note: I never talked to this girl back then as expected, funny I don’t even remember the face now!

Wrote this post back in 2006 on my previous blog, it was apt to migrate it on Mother’s day(got delayed by a few days):

Its 6.45 AM today, a Monday morning. As I struggle to get ready in time, my stomach rumbles reminding me of its demands for a breakfast. Time is short, and I am yet to get ready for work, opening my larder I discover that I don’t have anything ready to eat, thankfully a few slices of bread and jam come to my rescue. While I am exercising thin layers of jam over the slices, my mind went back to my school days, barely 5-6 years ago when mom used to prepare the school lunch and breakfast for me.

It seems a different age now, but I do remember those delicious savouries which she used to cook just for me all those years, getting up early to prepare them to my liking. I never ever bothered to thank her for them, perhaps we all never do. Every morning while waking her sleepy son she used to give a choice between this or that, some days it could be as simple as the jam-bread and on others it would vary from aloo paranthas or cutlets just to my liking. Today I am on my own, living in an Alien city where thousands of people get up – work – return home and loop again like zombies. Nobody seems to care whether poor old me is getting the right breakfast, or am eating at all. Guess what! this was the Independence or job life which we waited for all those years in college….

Before I forget…I thank you Ma for all those 12 years of early morning breakfasts and school lunches, which today seem to me a princely feast in comparison to what I can cook and eat….

Equipped with a shoe string budget and purely functional needs in mind, I scoot off every now and then to the nearby home stores to add bits to my shack. At the end of each such visit I report back to Ma about my purchases and how it fits in well! Unfortunately Ma always has a different view, while I look at smaller furniture, small TV, small refrigerators…her demands are for the big stuff. Its unspoken but well understood that she wants me to buy everything according to how the needs shall be when I am married. It annoys me to no end but I always stop just short of explaining it to her, for I guess she may not comprehend it too well.

When I buy smaller stuff it gives me a comfort that I am still single, not getting sucked up into the family life just yet. Anything family size makes me aware that this freedom might end soon, its almost like marking my territory by buying things which are meant a single person to use…ay! even a dual burner seems to be an overkill in my kitchen! Constant trips to attend weddings of my friends who are now a part of this epidemic(as Barney said in HIMYM) doesn’t do me any good either, for she now thinks that I am ready to be domesticated.

For now I am winning the battle by citing financial constraints(which are partially true as well) but I know one day she’d have it her way, it would the day when Ma would visit me for a few weeks and change the landscape of the house buying comforts for her imaginary daughter-in-law whose name, arrival date, and whereabouts are still unknown.

*** Disclaimer ****

The house in the image isn’t mine(flicked off the net) and I am not getting married! So please don’t congratulate me and scare the bones out of me!

Snaptu

Snaptu is a Java based client and as a result supported on a variety of phones, which makes it an attractive application. Another key advantage being that it is more like a mashup of different applications like Facebook, Weather, Twitter, Picasa at a single place. The user can add or remove his favorite applications as provided by Snaptu.

I have been a loyal Snaptu user since I bought my phone and have been using it primarily for Twitter.  The biggest issue which I faced with Snaptu is on screen rotate, in order to fit in to the rotated screen the application tries hard to fit in but almost always gets stuck at ‘Rotating…’ and I ended up restarting my cell to get the app back on. This is quite annoying if your phone has an accelerometer and supports screen rotate.

Advantages

• Java application, runs on many phones including older N Series phones
• Wide range of apps can run through Snaptu, making it a powerful single point of access
• Auto updates silently as key app runtimes are downloaded on runtime
• Good Interface
• Supports Retweet, DM, URL access
• Separately shows Updates and @ tweets, which makes it a very powerful twitter client

Disadvantages

• Gets stuck at screen rotate
• Speed

Tweets60

As the name goes, Tweets60 is for Symbian 6 OS. It is a very light client, particularly quick to install and use on Nokia phones. Touted as the next big thing after Gravity, I tested TweetS60 Lite on my phone, hoping that it could just be the end of the search.

Post login the application doesn’t show any signs of trying to update my timeline. It’s a long wait as the polling settings are manual. This enables you to save GPRS bandwidth if its expensive on your side of the world.

Ok so I now selected the Refresh setting from the Options Menu(not as navigable as Snaptu), but this User Interface would definitely be very useful on a non-touch phone where two menu options at the bottom are to be used for almost everything.

The application did refresh my timeline, but scrolling is painful, not as smooth as Snaptu and I ended up using the stylus. The Profile images never refreshed and while the timeline is updated I cannot scroll through.

Advantages

• Made for Symbian
• Light
• Supports all basic functionalities including following, unfollowing, RT etc…
• Can easily minimize the application to background
• Stable

Disadvantages

• Interface not as colorful/cool as other clients
• Does not fully utilize touch features of your phone, although rotating works well.

STEW

STEW is a widget for Nokia phones and can be easily integrated on the main screen shortcuts of your phone. I had read amazing reviews about STEW on the net, so decided to test it out myself.

STEW opens through the browser of your phone, although this may not be noticeable.

I dab the application to open it, and wait…the screen goes blank! I get a feeling that it is hung up but no, it comes back to life…a good 7-8 seconds of staring at the blank screen. Okay so here I got, entering my login credentials, and the screen pops a warning that the login details are being sent as plain text and would not be encrypted!

Then the cool STEW interface pops up. I love the color theme and cool icons, but the application doesn’t support most of the common twitter features. All I can do is update status, search for tweets or view the refresh settings. Moreover, on screen rotate the timeline text does not justify within the screen edges, thus not readable.

Advantages

• None really, except the interface

Disadvantages

• Very slow load times
• Very limited tweeting support, unless you with to type @ or RT yourself
• Text justification goes for a toss when the screen is rotated

Nokia Messaging for Social Networks (BETA)

The is the last application I tested on my Phone. As you can see it is still in BETA, and is freely downloadable on Ovi.

The communities application supports facebook and MySpace too, the user needs to add his account details and can simultaneously login into these services.

The loading time is slick and the interface is quite comfortable. The best feature is a right side pane on the screen which has shortcuts for DM, RT, @ and favorites. It makes it very easy to use the application, it also has a planned support for uploading images directly from the phone and tweet them. There is also a drop down which can be used to select twitter pages as on the website.

One downside of the application is the constant popups requests for internet connection authentication which renders it almost impossible to use on my phone. Maybe other users do not get those popups.

Advantages

• Nokia’s native application
• Supports Facebook and Myspace too
• Smooth interface
• Supports most common twitter features
• Screen shortcuts

Disadvantages

• Still in Beta
• No option to save login details
• Annoying Internet authentication popups

ये है मुंबई शहर. सपनो का शहर. यहाँ सबको जल्दी है. खाने की जल्दी. ऑफिस जाने की जल्दी. पैसे कमाने की जल्दी. जीने की जल्दी. रोज़ यहाँ हजारो लोग आते है अपने सपनो को पूरा करने..

I arrived in Mumbai around 6 months ago, for my job required me to. I had always believed that if one could survive in Mumbai one could survive anywhere. I had been here before, but always as a visitor, an outsider just for short trips. But this time, I was meant to stay here and live the place.

Within a week of my landing here I ended up living in Dadar. Oh yeah! I was living in the townside as a Mumbaikar would say. For them anything ahead of Sion is a part of the suburb! I guess I had well avoided the most stressful activity for any newcomer, of finding a ‘decent’ place to stay, thanks to an old friend.

Like Morgan Freeman once talked of life being institutionalized my life started oscillating between the 8.41 AM Thane Fast from Dadar and the 6.27 PM CST Slow from Thane back home. Within 15 days I was the champion of the Central Line with a good awareness of surviving Western and Harbor too. I could tell you how much time in exact minutes it takes between point A to point B. I could lounge myself or squirrel through crowds to get in the trains. You could quiz me for any station sequence and I’d ace it!

In between work and trains, the endless stream of people and constant acitivity at any time of the day made it so alive…nothing like the sleepy towns I have been to. Between the extremities of lavish homes at Khar and the people living off the city streets I was amazed by the ‘in your face’ nature of life here.

Hundreds of Mani’s Dosas(What! you never been to Mani’s Cafe in Matunga?) and Filter Kapi fueled my mornings enabling me to be a corporate labor each day, with Mani never realizing how he was fueling India’s GDP through an able manager like myself!

Marine Drive and Nariman Point

Our weekends were sprinkled with our Foodie desires and frequent visits to the Marine Drive. That stretch of Queen’s Necklace would continue to be one of the favorite places of the city, almost an oasis of peace in bustling city. It was a part of my first evening here and I hope it shall be a part of my last evening here too.

Did I love the city? Do I want to leave it? These questions keep coming, but I feel they are irrelevant…afterall the choice has been made, my preferences do not matter. But, I do know for sure that this city allows one to dream and pursue them…it is both kind and ruthless to people….Like Sinatra once sang:

“This town is a lonely town…Not the only town like-a this town…This town is a make-you town…Or a break-you-town and bring-you-down town…This town is a quiet town…Or a riot town like this town…This town is a love-you town…and push-you-’roundtown”

I survived Bombay…and I know I can now survive anywhere.

If looking at the stranger in the mirror wasn’t enough, there are always infrequent observers(aka cousins and relatives) and the visits to barber which serve as a cruel reminder that I may be going bald.

A few months ago, on a visit to my home for a family event, a cousin observed, “Arre you have lost so much hair!”. Not only did i want to retort back by saying,”Oh yeah! When did this happen, they were all there like last night when i checked! Strange, I didn’t know!” I also wanted to top it off by boxing him in the face.

A few months later, a visit to the hair salon(the frequency of these trips have already dropped now!), the barber giggled and said,”Arre Sir! What happened, you have so little hair left on the scalp!” I just muttered,”You that means less revenue for you and more savings for me!”

Last month my sister send me a big bottle of shampoo from the US(yeah imported shampoo!), and it struck me…it could very well be the last bottle of shampoo I’d ever need!

Even dad now looks weirdly at me, I know he’s looking at the scalp and its last few battalions. I know that he is thinking, how could this egg-to-be ended up in my family of good haired people. Frankly, I haven’t gotten a clue, maybe its genetics or maybe its water…all I know is that with each passing day my head is getting smoother.

I know everyone would reach there in another decade, its just that I am reaching there first! I always liked to get attention, but being the only egg in the house doesn’t do me much good. Of course I’d expect the ladies to look beyond the obvious in me(while I may not be reciprocating that!)…and yes research says that balding is also a sign of virility!(Okay my only selling point!)

Neither is it controllable, nor did I bring it upon me! But my hairs have decided to flee.

PS-Did you ever notice, that the MD of Marico(of all hair products like Parachute etc…) is bald!

Installing/Upgrading Nokia Ovi Maps on my Nokia 5230, and then downloading India Maps data on it was not an easy job. This deserves a DIY post.

I believe this installation process would atleast help Nokia 5230, 5530, 5800 XpressMusic users, maybe others too.

Before we begin, the pre-requisites for this are:

• Microsoft .NET 3.0 framework or higher must be installed on your computer
• Nokia PC Suite must be installed
• Data Cable (needless to say here, but you’d need that) for your Nokia model

A lot of readers would tell me that the process I mention below is longer, and I could have done the updates via the Nokia Ovi Suite instead (which I did try to do, but the India map data would never download properly, even after 5-6 attempts).

So here’s are the two applications you need to download, and everything shall be fine:

• Nokia Maps Updater – Download this to install latest version of Nokia Maps on your phone
• Nokia Maps Loader – This one is critical to download the Map data for your country on your Nokia phone (the advantage is that you’d use less of your data bandwidth while using GPS now, as the map data would already be on your phone)

Once you are done installing the above applications, do this:

• Run Nokia Maps Updater, connect your phone to the computer, download the latest version of Ovi Maps. Let it sync and install on your phone.
• Keep the phone connected, now Run Nokia Maps Loader, Select your country and click on download maps. It’ll download map data from the web onto your computer and then sync it up on your phone.

Only disadvantage is that your phone needs to be connected all the time, and it screws up when you get a call in between the updates! Hope this posting is of help.