Its always about the people and the city...

It came to me just like that, how arms are so important, the most vital part of us. You cuddle, you snuggle, you slap, you hold, you lift and curl up in cold- all arms and all hands. Now that I think of it, they are the most precise, most beautiful and most universal way of expressing emotions. Lets begin from the beginning of life. They say, a guy becomes a man in true terms, not when he falls in love, not when he takes vows for a lifetime but when he lifts his child for the first time in his arms. That 6-7 pounds of flesh when clutched tightly to the chest beats new rhythm in his heart and transforms him forever. What a mother’s scold, girlfriend’s banter and wife’s nag can’t do, a quiet, non complaining, non expecting hold does. What I think next is the swing by my parents. When I was old enough to be persistent and still young enough to not be persuaded, I would accompany them for night walks. Holding both my hands and walking on either side, I would ask them to lift me and swing.

"Don't Jinx it. Oh freak! I said it too soon. I don't wanna think about it already. TOUCHWOOD" Hard to find people who do not believe in superstitions at all. Lately it happened all the more around me. Excuse me if I am mixing religion with superstition, but they both share socks for more than half the mile. My office just moved to a new building. Each desk had luck bamboo plants and a miniature Ganesh. So a bird's view on the floor will encompass tiny Ganesh in yellow or red dhoti in front of each monitor! And if this wasn't enough, we started a new service for our client which needed new trading platform and dealers etc. This senior 'God fearing' guy got an Iskon photo of Radha Krishna...so we have a nice little God family in that area. Ganesh and radha Krishna...Marathi god meets Gujju one. I hope they get along well! And what is absolutely crazy is that i ordered swimming cap and goggles online as i had no time to go shop and needed them sooner. Wh

It was dark in my room-usual dark with AC blanketing all sounds. Same like all days. I heard my phone go beep beep on battery low. I was trying to figure out the wire to charge it. That's how this piece came. I touched the USB ports and followed the wires to see if any was the right one- Photon, another phone cable, speakers. Eh. The one i want, like always, is not here. Then i was about to push myself to fiddle more in dark, or worse, get up and switch on the light when it strikes- let it be. Let it die a slow death, technically speaking just a coma before i will bring back life to it. I let that happen. Let's play this game. Switch off our phones for a week. No more no less. A full week. Imagine. No phones to call people to share taxi in morning or ask them to get something from office Pantry. The maid won't call to ask or remind anything and the people wouldn't know what time to expect you. No DND pain or promotional messages. Nothing. Its like a full stop to most of

I am a compulsive thinker. My mind wanders all the time, particularly when idle. So this piece which comes from my thoughts while stuck in traffic today is no surprise to me. And that I was returning from a rather engrossing day at work did the trick too. I was sitting in an auto which i found after asking at least, if not anything, 25 autos and taxis. I saw it stuck on a stretch. It was pacing ten inches a time and then the light at distance will turn Red again. I saw meter ticking and out of boredom and habit made several different calculations around those numbers. It hit me how i am paying so much more for standing there. Then next second my mind, out of the bad habit given by my job, wandered to calculating how much more return one needs to make in each investment to cover this uncalled for cost. That's when the white fairy propped up from one shoulder and said "look at you! What's wrong with you. Of all the good things in life, you are thinking investment and returns

LDR is an acronym which is often dreaded by the angry birds uh i mean love birds. Long Distance Relationship. I am writing about it for two reasons. One I needed a break from my travelogues, two i realized it was a topic where each one is entitled to their opinion. Now don't get me wrong. frankly i am none to comment on it, or for that matter on long-short-medium whatever relations whatsoever. But as i said, opinion matters. There are a dime a dozen stories of people falling apart when subjected to LDR's. Analyst in me says it must be at least 42% times the reason of why people separate. I have had, without being in one, two thoughts about it. First was that why do people crib over LDR's or be sad? As in, the part of being away and all is understandable, my focus is on operational bit. It is so freaking easy to run a relation when one is separated. Couple of phone calls a day and you are sorted. I understand the relation will not move any further or grow in the life cycle,

After having spent that legendary night in Slovenia capital Ljubljana, we again hopped on to some train to reach wherever. We reached late in the night at Munich-or as they call it Munchen. Is this an extraordinary city? Of course it is. The Bavarian centre, host to the craziest phenomenon in the world-Oktoberfest. We reached late in night to realize that it was opening the next morning- Sep 18, 2010. This meant we can attend the inaugural parade and all. Now the issue was where to spend the night. We did something which all Eurorail travelers explore at one point in their journey. Look up the time table and o anywhere by mid night and then come back to the same place. We did this many more times in Europe. The safe and cozy train was best place to spend night. I recall we did Munchen-->Stuttgart-->Munchen We reached back next morning and bought some Bavarian stuff for the fest. Oh I got my lovely Bavarian dress! We moved further, got lost, met again and walked along the parad

Do you remember seeing those places on most of people’s desktop, clear lake reflecting clouds, hills, houses horses? That is Norway. Yes The train journey to Bergen is the most beautiful train journeys in world, just comparable to Interlaken-Luzern etc. You will pass scenery that will make you rub your eyes and wonder. Yes those places exist. We five people took a train to Myrdal. The route from Myrdal to Flam is known as one of the most scenic route in world. Flam railway is a special different train for that short route. I thought it is utterly overrated. It stops at waterfalls and shows a dance something…Highly overrated. We have much better waterfalls in India-many. Hence I realized the most popular destination was most overrated. From Flam, we took a cruise for Fjords tour. This tour starts from Flam to Gudvangen. From Gudvangen, there is a bus ride to Voss from where one can resume the journey to Bergen. What is exciting is that our trip flam-Gudvangen-the cruise was free. What h

The journey, like most others- ended where it started. We were exhausted and tired of travelling. We had done enough and way too much of it. All we wanted now was to head home. I could not even spend one week more and was pining to go home. We cut short the journey to return to Oslo thinking that we will chill in last weekend or at max explore nearby areas. This is how it happened-Stavanger. This place is not so popular in IIM students in Scandinavia community. Most only hear and visit Bergen. That is crazy why no one explored or went to Stavanger trekking. I had heard, looked it up and the more I did, the more I was intrigued to go. Hence I made plans, me and Tom – to go for the last trip- to Stavanger. We left by late night train to reach in the morning. I did all homework. Train to Stavanger, then a ferry to Tao. From there, a bus that leaves at the foot of Pulpit rock-and then you begin a 3-4 hour hike to the top of rock to see undoubtedly the most beautiful view ever. The details

Of whatever so called student life I spent in Oslo, I will mention few events organized by the student body-INSA. We arrived late in Oslo, only after we finished our term- so the introduction week was over. Most of intermingling was done. It would have been great to be a part of those but anyway-same logic of we barely staying in the city so not much lost in not knowing people. My brush with people was limited to my flatmates, my landlord-actually a student who sublet me her room, and few parties of college. To begin with, we tried but could not take a combined accommodation. But I got someone to sublet me a room which was cheaper and also saved me from the initial deposit. My room was next to the same building where I was initially stationed. I shared that house with four others- Larisa from Ukraine, Neil from Australia, Manthus from Lithuania and Hilde from Norway. Larisa was student in same college and had finished her studies. She was staying back in Norway as she had no clue what

BI Norwegian school of Management is at Nydalen station. By conversations with people, their reactions, and finally confirming it later, I realized that it is the best college of country. If you go there, you must be a stud and also be someone who can afford it since many can’t. It’s a different thing that most students get one or the other scholarship like cakewalk there. BI is no less and far far-far better than the most premium malls anywhere. They must have splurged some unclaimed wealth or inherited a mad man’s fortune. It’s a glass mansion with levels and levels of seating, cafeterias and labyrinth of escalators, elevators and rotating doors. Clearly marked areas, lecture halls, library, apparels, souvenirs, gym steam room, and what not. man! We attended couple of classes- took ethics and other subjects on international negotiations, marketing communication and eco and dev history. Eventually I had to give up ethics and took environment out of some course compulsion. It is known

It would be difficult to jot down the experiences and trips in Norway as they were always scattered. We would attend college for a week, set out to travel in Europe, then again come back after a fortnight or so and visit some place in Norway. I will try to club places we saw in one post itself. However, my Post for Stavanger visit will be separate. It deserves special attention and place -just like it has in my heart. Lot of our visits across Norway were with friends who were on exchange program in Aarhus, Denmark. We did most leg of Norway with them. I’d call them Doctor because that’s what he is called (he is a doctor by profession) and maybe I’d call the other one Romy (deriving from the fact that he loved all cities and was romanticizing them for us) So while our time at Norway, we saw lot of ‘attractions’ of Oslo and then travelled to Bergen, Flam Railway from Myrdal, Fjords tour from Voss to Gudvangen , Lillehammer etc. The sightseeing in Oslo is what I started the first day its