Sunday, October 29, 2006

Gumnaam

I read the post of a blogger whom I admire, and felt incited. If he were a she and within a reachable distance, I might be hiding my face right now. I mean, finger marks across your cheek aren't yet in fashion! And girls in India still slap if kissed on the cheek by a stranger, don't they?
As it goes, he incited me to write something really sensational. The sort of stuff that would make headlines in all the leading tabloids. You know, the "Yeh khabar faila do akhbar mein, poster lagwa do bazar mein.." kinda feeling.
He didn't say a word to me. He doesn't even know me. But he wrote something beautiful. And I tried as well. No booti-fools. Only a longer leash for the brain waves. So far those waves were on ultrasonics, so only nocturnal insects and bats had heard my mind.
I did try. But the one who inspired me had reneged by then.
I felt like a naked man in front of Chenghis Khan's army. I retuned the frequency. Added some jungle noise. And wrote garbage.
And you are eating that garbage now.

But thats the problem with me. I have never been patient. Except when I fell to typhoid and malaria in boarding school. And it was bad, so I gave up patience.
Very few things have been able to keep me waiting for them. Jalebi [Lal or otherwise], yoghurt and chocolates top the charts.

Friend Popes won a cool 90K with Batti. I mean is that cool or what? I can already imagine him all dollar-eyed, sort of like Uncle Scrooge. And if he doesn't give the treat he has promised, BhaiLog from Dubai are eager to share the bounty! But he's a good person. Has been an accomplice in many conspiracies, past and future. I often ask him when I am in doubt.
"PizzaHut se kya order karne ka hai! "
"Manaa kar diya yaar usne, ab bol kya karun! "
"WashingMachine mein kaun sa knob ghumane ka hai? "
"Sach bolun ya nahi... pitai bhi ho sakti hai! "

And for a change, no concluding italicised text.
Garbage is better than all-revealing expressions!

The morning after.

No!
Nobody ate the pill. Neither the poison pill, nor the morning after pill.

Though my evening was like any evening before,
[ Cooking dinner, resting, chatting, watching some episodes of Friends, some more chatting and so on]
the morning after was like I have never seen before. It was drizzling slightly, the trees had all turned golden and I had this smile that just wouldn't leave me.
I watched myself in the mirror and jumped in surprise.
"Who is this smiling shaitan!!!!!" ?
I washed it with my facewash. Didn't help.
I applied the Peach Milk Cream Moisturizer [Gawsh, I can't make out a moisturizer from a toothpaste! ]
but the smile was still there.
Scraping my face red with the loofa my sister gave me
didn't help either. Now I was all red and smiling.
May be its the weather that is perfect, I mused.


I tell you, before I came to Germany on this exchange trip, I had cried only a few times. Very few times. And never in a kitchen.
Now, it seems to be the norm. Twice a day, sometimes even thrice.
My lachrymose gland is working over time.
"Bas*ard"! See, it just called out!

This exchange trip has done other things to me as well:

-Every time I see a loo, I feel the urge to pee. But only when its for free.
Doesn't that mean that my bladders have evolved into a more intelligent species? I mean, apart from the Pavlovian effect of seeing-and-peeing, they also factor in the whether-its-free-or-not information! Thats what I would call a smart machine down under. Hey man, I should take an IQ test now!

-Every time I see a map, I try to read it.
Helps me get over the feeling of being lost in my life. At least there's something I know about directions.


-Every time I think of that evening, I smile.
And I still don't know how to stop it.




"...
and just because you smiled at me,
its sunshine again
..."

Monday, October 23, 2006

Lessons!

Lessons from the biggest teacher. May be she is the strictest and the most unforgiving teacher as well. May be, she is not so hard.

-If you have come this far, you can reach anywhere!
Irrespective of whether you are walking, driving or flying. Often I thought I won't last much longer. Often I wondered why I didn't choose the easy route for myself. Now I think there is still a long way to go, and I am sure I will get there.

-If she is your choice, she must be nice!
Yes. Irrespective of what people say, or opine. If you have eaten your heart thinking about a person, and asked yourself the same question every night and heard the echo of the same answer from deep inside you, she must be that good and more!

-Ants in the pants can be painful literally.
Unless you've got an ant eater inside your fly, ants are better left in ant-holes.

-She is beautiful doesn't imply she is dumb.
Irrespective of what all the engineering days' formulae imply, it is not true. I know many a beautiful and smart ladies myself. And before you begin to get ideas, they are all committed! ;)

-Sometimes life can be so beautiful, it seems like a dream. But it is true.
And I am not describing why I think that ways.

-The best way to see stars on a starless night is one-tight-slap. Masti ka chataka.
Got that by first-hand experience.

-Size matters, until you learn the tricks.
Those tricks can help the skinny me kick butts weighing more than my body weight. But when those sizable masses come in velocity, run for life.

-Some people have innate talent for onion-cutting, boiled-egg-peeling and map reading.
And you are reading the blog of one such gifted person.

-If you really really want something, tell Him. Tell Him every night till He listens.
Kyunki is duniya mein der hai lekin andher nahi.

My wish-list and Tushe tushe tushe!!!

On the issue of dreaming, well ... I dream a lot. Especially in boring lectures.
The sequence is almost always the same: the prof starts singing his lullaby, I yawn and dhoom. My head starts to fall on either side. Quite like a gyroscope.

Anyway, recently, something magical happened. I bought my laptop in a highly leveraged transaction and the deal was worth it. My eurail pass investment seems to be paying off.
[ By the way, one ends up spending a lot more in trying to recoup that investment!!!! ]
And I am on a course that leads to fulfilment of some of my dreams. Inshallah. Ameeen.
[ The dream list is still out of bounds. My grand-ma insists they should not be shared! :P ]

Just yesterday, we were on a trip to Brussels, which is aroud 300 miles from here. We went on an ICE international train, and gawssh, it was amazing. On the autobahn beside us, we could see a car driving fast, then another car swooshed past it and then, our train swooshed past the swooshing car. We estimated the speed to be above 150 kmph, more like 180, and the LCD screen started mocking at us, proudly proclaiming the speed to be 249. And the train picked up more speed!

Brussels is an international city, with a nice juxtaposition of Art Noveau with more modernistic designs and older architecture. It turns out that the most famous monument in Brussels is 'Mannekin Pis' - a pissing boy. We thought it would be at least a big sized statue. It turned out to be life-sized. And the omnipresent Japanese tourists were there in droves gawking at it. I almost wanted to tell them, "You may as well look down and see the same thing". But I refused to indulge in any such attempts at their mockery.

The starting point for the retrn journey was at the southern end of the city. We were at the northern end and realised that either we took the train which left in 40 mins from then, or waited 4 hours for the next train. We decided to give it a shot, and I tell you, we walked all the way from the north to the south and reached there a full 10 minutes before time. And we collapsed by the time we reached there.

Belgium seems to have drawn more from the French than from the German. On our way back, we wanted to ensure we were on the right track. The Master Map Reader [Yours Truly] was sure he was correct, but just to make sure we asked a passerby.
"Whats the way to [loud]Brussels [louder] Midi?" The voice accentuation was a direct result of his indicating to his, through his facial gestures that he was not able to comprehend our English.
"Midi?"
"Yeah"
His face and hands pointing straight."Tushe tushe tushe tushe tushe", in such a hurry of sounds that we thought he might collapse the next moment.
Then some garble. "Uber bingle bingle" accompanied by a violent nodding of his head and a gesture to his left. If the previous excitement hadn't killed him, we were sure he was about to collapse now out of sheer exhaustion. His face belied a sense of genuine concern for us.
"Ok, straight". We almost wanted to congratulate him for telling us something in French and getting us to understand it with his facial gestures. And for all the anxiety he exuded.
And we thought the game was over, and we will say Thank you and leave.
"Tushe tushe tushe tushe tushe", and the same violent series of expressions were revisted.
We ran away, fearing for his safety. While on the flee, we looked back and waved and shouted a giant thank you to him.
And just for the records, Master Map Reader was right on track. Even literally, he was on track.

Its a crime to kill your dreams
its a sin to murder hope
There's no hurdle you can't overcome
there's no problem you cannot cope.
(Copyrighted :P )

Wednesday, October 18, 2006

The Fear of Small Things.

Thats how I like to refer to it.

When I was a kid, there used to be an aunty in our neighbourhood. Whenever she visited our home, I was ordered to carry out ethnic cleansing of our house. Any sight of the dreaded species and she would start making excuses for her next visit to our home. Aunty's kids were master lizard hunters, having many a slain or pulped lizard to their credit.
So at WIMWI, when Cheenz asked me to shoo away the lizard from her room, it was an old game revisited.
Once, I saw aunty walking around with a bandaged and plastered left hand. I asked mom and she told me that aunty was washing clothes.
"So, their water tank collapsed?!"
"Kalmuhe, chup kar. Can't u think of anything good!"
It turned out, she was washing clothes and saw a lizard on the wall facing her. She fled in such a flurry and tripped. Landed on her elbow and fractured her ulna/radius.

Even as a kid, I wondered. Could the lizard have caused her any more damage than the one she inflicted on herself?

My grandfather was a good man, but he was scared of injections. Nothing could convince him to allow a syringe to come near him. He suffered because of that, led a life where his movement was stunted and people would even avoid him. And all for the fear of syringes!?

Sometimes, I look inside myself and wonder!



from the celebrated song "Solah baras ki..." :
...
ulfat ke dushmanon ne

koshish hazar ki,

fir bhi nahi jhuki jo

us nazar ko, salaam!

...

Monday, October 16, 2006

Risk Aversion.

I was afraid, at times, of the unknown. But my siblings did a very good job of driving the fear out of me. They would challenge me to go and touch the big iron door which was on the other side of the lawn when it was late in the night, and the lawn was all dark. I did that a few times, and the fear simply vanished.
The same fear haunted me in another form. Having fought bitterly with a very close friend, I almost swore never to let myself feel the same for anyone. What good is it if you end up like that?
As it happened, I had another of that cycle. Close relationship, then doom.
When it ended however, I didn't think about retreating into a shell. Because by then, I knew that if I had to live my life all over again, I would choose to live all those moments exactly the way I did. The pain wasn't too much a price for the beautiful things that preceded it.
For that window of time, saat janam kurban!

Sometimes I am risk averse to an extreme. Sometimes, all of us are.
Moms refusing to send children to boarding schools, guys refusing to come clean about their crushes, fathers wary of sending daughters to hostels.
But the limited experience I have had in life tells me that so long as you are afraid of falling from the sky, you can never learn to fly. And you will never know what it could have been like. You will at best dream of flying, wake up happy and go back to sleep.

To while away some of my free time, I have started watching episodes of 'Friends'. And Gawd, ich bin liebe es !
Meanwhile, our culinary skills are diversifying and our menu list is increasing. We cooked cholle the other day, and it was good! Inshallah, one of these days, our menu list will be long enough to make the idea of opening a dhaba in vallendar gaon viable!

From 'Friends' :
[http://www.requestlyrics.com/read.php?1,637856,638058]

So no one told you life was gonna be this way

(clap clap clap clap)

Your job's a joke, you're broke, your love life's D.O.A.

It's like you're always stuck in second gear

When it hasn't been your day, your week, your month, or even your year

But

I'll be there for you (when the rain starts to pour)

I'll be there for you (like I've been there before)

I'll be there for you (because you're there for me too)


-------That's the end of what they play on the show, the rest of the song as originally recorded continues------

You're still in bed at ten, but work began at eight

You burned your breakfast, so far things are going great

Your mother warned you there'd be days like these

But she didn't tell you when the world has brought you down to your knees

That

I'll be there for you (when the rain starts to pour)

I'll be there for you (like I've been there before)

I'll be there for you (because you're there for me too)


No one could ever know me

No one could ever see me

Seems you're the only one who
knows what it's like to be me

Someone to face the day with

Make it through all the rest with

Someone I'll always laugh with

Even in my worst, I'm best with you, yeah


It's like you're always stuck in second gear

When it hasn't been your day, your week, your month, or even your year

But

I'll be there for you (when the rain starts to pour)

I'll be there for you (like I've been there before)

I'll be there for you (because you're there for me too

Saturday, October 14, 2006

Balanced

Thats a word I love. Though not in the manner in which HR professors seem to love Balanced Score Cards. Two people whose opinions I value have called me a balanced person.
The first of those was in Class 11 when I was in CMS. Our English teacher Mrs Chandra was, in a very different way, fond of me. Not that I was her favorite student, nor did she give me the highest marks mostly. In fact, at times, she could clearly see that I hardly put so much effort into her subject. Those were the heady days of JEE and anything except PCM was junk for us wannabes. One of those days, when I wrote a book review that she liked [ not a frequent thing to happen! ], she told everyone how balanced she thought I was. She thought I was living in a hostel for preparing for JEE and at the same time putting efforts into English! Its debatable how much effort I had put but anyway... I remember a dear friend of mine telling me how he hated it when she had said that. But I loved that and it got embossed into my memories.

The second one is Strato. Hmm. I just have this to say, "May be I am not so balanced after all! " But the compliment is embossed nevertheless!

I have had my share of imbalances like everyone else has, may be worse than average.

If there's one thing I am proud of, I think its the coterie of friends that I have developed over the years. Spread across the seven seas....
Not to forget my cooking skills, wine bottle and tin can opening skills. Make for a good resume for the shadi.com website, don't you think!

The lazy bag of bones that I am, [ and I really am just a bag of bones, my brother insists!] I always like to drop a big folder full of songs into winamp and then letting it run songs of its choice. Unless some song more suitable for being played in Kanpuriya tempos pops up, I mostly let it play. Suddenly this song started playing. The opening sounded like a first time mother inciting her child to urinate. Isssh. Ishhhhhhhhhhh. Then the song went into droves of words about kangana bedardi! Ufff! I think I need to pee.
Devdas sounds too wordy today. Reminds me of a fine saying I read somewhere which amounted to saying this.

Its through the eyes that the loudest truths are revealed, the loveliest words are said and the most probing questions asked.

Beware. I have been treating my eyes to a hefty dose of onion juice, and now even green chilli vapors.

Nigaah ki tez dhaar se bach ke rehna jee!

Friday, October 13, 2006

Finally at lasht!

Finally at lasht, mera bad luck ka period khatam hua. ab interval chal raha hai.
iske baad i hope good luck ka period shuroo hoga!

Right now I am reading 'The Kite Runner'. Its a marvellous book, very touching, albeit almost depressing as well ! I mean, I used to think I could survive the worst tragedies without the remotest sign of flinching. But with this one, it was difficult to avoid the lumpy throat. Not once, but many times over. If too much of this doesn't distract you, I would recommend this book to you.

Of course, the biggest news in the town is that my laptop is finally here. Like me, even my processor is solo [Intel Core Solo, to be precise]. Its bright though, quite unlike me.

I was talking to a friend recently. I choose to refer to him as Ninety. When he was in his first year at IITK, he was asked by seniors to introduce himself as 'I am XYZ, and I am in my nineties'. [With minor variations] Thats the first memory I have of him. After that, I used to meet his room mate quite often to prepare for a pending scholarship test. He would often drop by and disturb us, and then get kicked in his ass. Thats my second memory of him. That 90 kg of heap somehow pushed aside and then me kicking his posteriors. I noticed that by modulating the intensity of my kicks, I could regulate the volume of his cries.
Those conquests held me in good stead as he never took panga with me. Instead, we went on to become very good friends. My most recurring memory of him is me waking him up at 5 am one day in summers and asking him for help with a terrible mess I had landed myself into.

Now that my laptop is here, I think I can afford to write a post on Ghalib bhai. Inshallah. I was worried that if it were not to his liking, he would banish me from his room. Tadipaar. Nadiya ke paar. That would snatch away my lifeline, what he refers to as my useless chatting with "people who have no work to do"!

Me and another friend were once discussing about this song called Nadiya ke paar. I mean, if you listen to the lines, you get confused about who is which paar. We could imagine the ferry-rider giving up in frustration.
Amaa yaar, ek baar dhang se clear clear batao, kaun kis paar hai aur kisko kis paar jana hai.

The latter half of the italicized text reminds me of Henry Kissinger. Or may be, just the more relevant part of his name.

[ I shudder to think of how sheetty my firsht posht from my lappytopp is going to be! ]

Thursday, October 12, 2006

And pray, what is the problem?

A friend talked to me yesterday. I was playing the role of agony unkle. I mean, insiders would jump out of their seats and lament on the fortune of the poor soul who had to resort to consulting me! But people do. Some people definitely do.
In fact, one person event went to the extent of making a case study of a recent sad incident of my life. It seems he wanted me to document the learnings from my case. Thats how deep WIMWI can imbibe its case methodology into its sincere students. May be, from his perspective, each incident is a lesson to be learnt. Sure it is, but to be able to articulate it to some third person is completely out of my abilities. Almost as bad as asking Sunny Deol to dance or Laloo to strip.
Getting back to my friend, his problem is fit enough to be declared the national problem. May be even the international problem. A guy finds a girl interesting and begins to wonder. Also begins to fear, and suspect.
Something made him think I was a good guy to reflect on this. I don't think I am but anyway.
When he began talking, I knew what he was hinting at.
I just remebered the lesson I had learnt from our Hall Warden at IITK. When I was in deep blues once, he had asked me to formulate my problem for him. I struggled for sometime and in the end, I could see that there was no problem at all.
I did the same to my friend. And guess what, he msged me today saying he was happy. I felt even happier. I mean if something I do makes someone else happy, it makes me feel at the top of the world.
Incidentally I posed the same question to myself. Then I realised that except for the occasional hiccups [ the odd meal that we skipped, or not being able to watch new movies or missing home and friend ] my life is going almost absolutely fine. Almost.

His case reminds me of a simple principle of Finance. If your company is worth $1, then a $1 bet is a verrrry risky bet. That is, if you think something is really really precious to you, you don't want to take a bet on it. And thats human nature. Mostly.

Random musings...
A question in my heart is a question in my mouth.
...
What are you afraid of?
What is the problem?

Wednesday, October 11, 2006

Singers and Happy people

One of the tauschies here has a special way of singing while he takes his bath. Not that he is as bad as I am, but then, he is trying to reach there for suar! Now, that should be extremely unsuprising for most guys, but it becomes a little too painful to my heart when he begins to mouth some of my favorite numbers. Rather than words, I hear a garble of words that makes me hate the sound. Its a big relief that the people in the adjacent quarters [ in the loo] don't join in the chorus with background music! [ now say 'ewwww' ]

Another tauschie, who sat beside me in the Corporate Restructuring class wanted me to call the guy sitting in front of me, as he happened to be her groupmate. Instantly it struck me that this was the same guy I was warned about as being happy. I mean, its ok to be happy, but I don't want to share any of 'that' happiness. I did as she asked me to. Two minutes later, she repeated her request, and I told her that it was enough. Already the guy was beginning to eye me with amorous eyes. Any more pen poking and who knows what he might construe next!

Yet another tauschie eats with such a truimphant earth-shattering noise that you can accurately figure out which teeth he is using and what stage of the chewing process is currently on. In fact, his mouth is wide open like a hippo's, so you can verify your estimates by looking at the gaping chasm. It is difficult for me to eat when he's around, and I can only think of Chinese torture techniques as being a worse form of treatment than sitting beside him and eating.

Its an irony that suddenly the weather here has become cold, and the schedule has become hot. Double whammy!
I sometimes wake up in the morning with the usual lethargy of a tauschie only to realise that I have my time from 9 to 5:30 booked for lectures. The lunch in the student menza only adds to the trouble, what with all the pork and potatos that look as miserable as they taste. Probably the pig had typhoid when they cut it. May be potato blight. Whatever.




from The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini : [ a link ]
...
And that's the thing about people who mean everything they say. They think everyone else does too.
...
"Do you want me to run that kite for you?"
"For you, a thousand times over."
...

Monday, October 09, 2006

It could have been me.

I just saw a photograph and thought it could have been me. No, it wasn't another of Indian Railways tragedies. Nor another airlines hijack. Just a simple photograph. Only, I wanted to be there, inside.

But sometimes it is surprising. I mean, in my childhood, I was taught the lesson of truth in a truthful, and rather forceful manner. Every lie was treated like a treason, and the lesson impounded well. I don't really think it was the best way because it ignited the curiosity in me, and whenever I could, I tried to venture away. Away from the strict discipline.
Life taught me the same lesson in a very different way. As a child, I used to make lots of excuses. Friends from those days, [Suryansh etc] would be sufficient witness. I mean, one of those days he was banging at my door at 3 am for a supposed trip. I never woke up, nor did anyone at home, and the trip never materialised. Not to say that the thing was intentional. But it happened because I wasn't really too keen.
Even later, I felt the sting of painful misunderstandings whenever I tried to have my way without telling the truth. The attempts were never fruitful anyway.
Some of my friends had begun calling me JKG [ short for Joru Ka Ghulam ]. When Talisma asked me what JKG meant, my instant flush of embarassment left me wanting to craft a plausible explanation. I came up with some weird incredible stuff, but within an hour or so, I was emailing her the truth.
Gradually I learnt the lesson. But it comes with its own set of difficulties. You have to avoid mention of somethings lest the unanswerable questions be put forth.

Here at Wee-Haa-Uuu, they have some arbit rules. Class schedules are really weird. Four sessions [ 2 each before and after lunch ] of an hour and a half , 3 days in a row, and the course is complete. That is how they plan to teach us the nuances of Corporate Restructuring. Given the propensity of tauschies to shirk, it was tough anyway. They have made it impossible!
But the prof is good. Its spooky though, because at times he begins to resemble George Bush Jr a little too much.

...
Aaj fir dil ne ek tamanna ki
aaj fir dil ko humne samjhaya
...
Hum jise gunguna nahi sakte
wakt ne aisa geet kyun gaya
...

The trip to Scandinavia

[ Travel blog disclaimers ]
[ link to photos : Flickr Pbase ]
8 days.
7 thousand kilometers.
A whirlwhind tour of Scandinavia.
I have just returned from a trip that took me across the whole of Scandinavia. From the Finnish countryside to Norwegian fjords, I saw an amazingly huge variety of landscapes. Our group was the group of 5 – me Ghalib Ghanta Danko and Jhaag. I must call the group an eclectic mix of crazy bums.

Anyway, the trip started Saturday night from Cologne, where we took the direct train to Copenhagen. Little did we know about the issues at hand. In Scandinavia, every country has its own language and currency, not to speak of its own stupidities. So Copenhagen was spelt as Kobenhaven [ with some dots and crosses to garnish the word ]. We alighted there after spending a tiring night on train. Copenhagen isn’t my favorite city, I must tell you. It is old, and it was cold. And I have already seen a lot of old buildings in Europe, so the little we saw wasn’t so enchanting. But the ferry ride around the city was interesting. It took us around the main landmarks of the city though the main part of the trip, which was the last leg through the city [ yes, canals criss cross the city ] had to be cancelled due to bad weather. By this time, I had rediscovered my penchant for reading maps and was beginning to demonstrate competency in this area.

From Copenhagen, we took the train to Malmo, which is in Sweden. But it is very close to Copenhagen and is connected by a long bridge which has its 17kms stretch over the sea. If Copenhagen was cold, Malmo was colder. But we found some of the best houses we have ever seen there. Facing the sea and surrounded by walkways which run beside the sea, it looked like the perfect location to settle once the bank balance issues are settled.

We moved on to Stockholm, the journey using up most of the night. We had couchette tickets, and we guessed that it would mean reclining chairs. To our pleasant surprise, we discovered that couchette were quite akin to Indian sleeper class trains. And it was much, much more comfortable.

Stockholm, if you ask me, is among the most beautiful cities in Europe. The golden color of the leaves spawned everywhere by the onset of autumn made it look like the perfect calendar landscape. In Stockholm, we had our lunch at a small restaurant near the Swedish Royal Palace, where we had gone to see the change of guards. Swedes call the daily lunch menu @$# [something I can’t seem to remember ]. It was amazing food, served by a very cute and sweet lady.

A quick tour of the city later, we found our way to the Silja shipping line. We were going from Stockholm to Helsinki on a cruise ship. Now, we had only heard of a cruise, and at times, we heard that our ship was like a ferry. Some of us were confused, other were imagining a mediocre sized boat just good enough to carry people across the sea. When we saw the ship, we were all dazed. It was Titanic rescaled. And we had a cabin to ourselves. However, the spoiler was the unique combination of incredibly costly shops and our shoestring budget. So we had to be content with just walking around, and buying fast food. We spend early parts of the night playing DumbC and the latter half sleeping like dead donkeys.

Helsinki was another cold but interesting city. Another language, another currency. But it was hard not to notice the similarities between Norwegian culture and Russian culture. Not that I am an expert in either, but the similar phonetics in the language couldn’t be missed even by laymen. We had our lunch at the Porthania, which is the student mess of Helsinki University. There, Ghalib bhai decided to ask them a question which they had never encountered before and they could only answer it after a round of consultations. It turned out that he asked if he could take a second helping, since the menu said it was a buffet lunch. They decided to let him do that, and I think it was a cardinal mistake on their part. They have been reeling in debt ever since then. We also saw the Helsinki Olympic Stadium and a few other things before we decided to start the most happening part of our trip.

We took the overnight train to Rovaniemi, which is in the heart of Lapland. It is known for housing the Santa Claus’ office, and the arctic circle passes through it. God ki kasam, it was freezing cold there. Must have been close to zero degree Celsius. We found very few people in that place [which is 8 kms from the city] except the stupid 5 of us. In freezing cold at 8 am, when everything else was closed, we were roaming around in the Santa Claus garden. We only had a little time to spare there, so we hurried back. Took the train to Kemi, then the bus to Torneo. From there we walked across the Swedish-Finnish border and reached Haperanda. Then the bus to Lulea, from where we took the train to Stockholm.
All these minor details would really be inconsequential except for the fact that most of this journey was through the Scandinavian countryside. And it was awesome.

From Stockholm, we headed towards Oslo. We already knew that we had very little time to spare for Oslo if we wanted to reach back to Vallendar in time for my next class on Monday morning. So we headed straight towards Bergen. It is a town famous for its fjords. And that was where or trip ended.

The main lessons from the trip:
Swedish ladies and Finnish trains are the best of the lot in Scandinavia.
If there’s a dream Eurotrip [ for the purpose of travel or honeymoon or anything else] , then Scandinavia has an indispensable place in it. As far as I am concerned, time and money constraints notwithstanding, I already have my honeymoon trip planned out. I am just hoping the travel bug catches up with the-someone-somewhere-who-is-waiting-for-me!

On the trip we met a guy who has been traveling for the last 17 years, and has seen an incredible 76 countries. When we asked him about traveling alone, he told us that his wife couldn’t take so much so much of travel and they split after four years. That’s the time between two consecutive Olympic games. And that’s why my wish for a she-Marco-Polo. But he had some really nice things to say about India. He was upfront about the lack of cleanliness and all that, but he praised us for being so brave against adversities.

On other trivia, my group tested me time and again on my map reading skills. Except for the time when I misread the scale and estimated a distance as 600m which really was a kilometer and a half, I think I fared pretty well.

The quest for free WC and free water continues.
I think I have put enough travel details for one post. Some top-of-the-mind-thoughts are waiting to come out now. They can wait till later!