Impressed by Germany

I cam back from Frankfurt this week from my third business trip to that city in last one and a half year. And in all 3 trips, I have been mightily impressed by Germany.

The best part of course is all the cars that you get to see there. I was once told that Germans love their cars. They might compromise on a home but would not compromise on their cars. And then there is that superb road network on which you can enjoy the maximum performance of these machines. I have been told many people from across Europe come to Germany only to drive on 'Autobahns' as they are called there.

Second best thing about Germany is the people. One thing common in most big cities of the world is their nonchalant people. But in Germany, I have found people to be mostly friendly.

One big difference that I see in the India and other countries is the working hours. While in India, 10 am is universally a time when office starts, in Germany (and probably in many other countries) the norm is 8-8:30 am. One reason for that could be to maximally utilize sun light during their work hours especially during the winters. This is also the reason for having day light savings time in many countries in West.

Another difference that I saw there is in the portion size of the food served. While that has lot to do with the genetic difference between our race and European race because of which their average build is greater than ours, I have also been told that Germans eat little between their meals unlike in India where we have afternoon tea and evening snacks.

Europe can be difficult for English speakers sometimes. However in Germany, many people, especially in urban centers are very much proficient in English. In Frankfurt where a large percentage of population is those of immigrants I have never faced any language problem. The signs of course are mostly in German but you would always find someone who will translate that for you in English.

Valuing the happiness

Some of the parameters for evaluating a commodity are the importance that it holds for us and the ease or rather difficulty in obtaining it. If that is indeed the case, then does it not make the happiness of a poor more valuable than the happiness of a rich.

The other day, I watched a kid playing on the road side while walking past by a 'Kacchi basti'. I can't recall how he looked like. But I do remember an image of a little boy wearing nothing but shorts, his chest white with mud and many other things. I also remember his laugh while he was running.

And I also remember thinking how similar and different his happiness is with mine. Similarity lies in the state of mind at that moment- carefree, devoid of any other thoughts, living in the moment. And the difference lies in the reason that makes him happy.

How people pass their time on internet ?

Its been a long time since I last blogged. The desire of writing has mellowed down in the past few months. It is probably a reflection of the fact that I am comfortably settled in this 'job' life. Everything seems to be going smoothly. Too smoothly in fact to bother me to think about other things - which is not necessarily a good thing.

Anyways, the reason I wrote after this long was I was tired of sitting on the internet not knowing what to do. My browser always has some specific 2-3 tabs open. Some of them are either of the 3 news website that I follow: BBC News, The Hindu and CNN-IBN. But the left most is always Gmail. It seems like a kind of OCD - the left most tab always HAS to be gmail. If it isn't, life looks incomplete - seriously !

So, I had almost exhausted most of the news articles. I had checked all the 'updates' on my Facebook account, read few cricket articles on Cricinfo. What else can I do ? Its not a rhetorical question by the way. I would actually like to know how people spend their time on internet. I might be missing on some of the good things out there.

A big dustbin



Do we have any garbage management plans in this country? I am wondering whether the effort that I put up in locating a dustbin for my trash is worth it. Does the garbage thrown in the  dustbin and thrown on a railway track end up at the same place. In this case that place is railway track of course. I have seen so many  instances when the sweeper on the railway station empties the bin on the tracks itself.



We Indians have a very poor sense of cleanliness. For us, it means keeping our immediate surrounding clean. Few minutes ago a woman sitting on the berth above me cleaned her seat, put all that garbage in a polythene and just dropped it below. It seems as if other person's right to neat and clean surroundings is oblivious to them.



To certain extent all of us are party to these crimes. There is always a  place in the neighbourhood where all the garbage is thrown. That way our homes are clean but what about our surroundings.

In the foreign countries that I have visited, garbage is separated by each individual into the disposable and non-disposable groups. Some other countries have very high rate of recycling of non-disposable waste. I would love to see something like this in India as well. I feel such a guilt in throwing a paper and a broken bulb in the same bin. With the population that we have, we may soon turn this country into a big waste land.

Gilli-danda

Few days ago when I was in Tagore Garden in Delhi, I saw a group of  young children playing gilli-danda. I watched them for sometime and was able to deduce some of the rules of the game after watching them
play for sometime.



It was such a pleasant surprise watching them  play the game. It definitely reminded me of some of the games I played during my childhood like 'sitoliya' and few others whose name I can't even recall now.

A dinner at fort

Not many things can beat the charm of a fort at night. I was in Jodhpur this weekend. The two of us went to the Mehrangarh fort at night and had dinner at the roof of one of the Mahals with nothing but candles and yellow light at distance to alight the surroundings.

The restaurant – Chokelao - serves only Rajasthani thali in the main course. For starters there are few other options. The service is not the best in the world. In fact for the first 10 minutes, the 2 of us were left waiting at the roof. A vegetarian thali costs around Rs 600, a bit on the higher side for a place like Jodhpur but still reasonable in comparison to the expensive restaurants in Delhi and Gurgaon.

 

But if you consider the view that the place has to offer, I would consider it a very good bargain. From the elevation of the fort which is itself built on a hill, you can see the lights of Jodhpur in one direction only to be matched by the majestic walls and the roof top of the fort on the other. When visiting just remember to take a good camera to capture the pics of the fort at night. I am sure you would not be disappointed by what the place has to offer.

Reasons why I think I had an awesome childhood

1. In all the different schools that I studied, there was no holiday homework given which meant I could actually enjoy my summer holidays and not have to worry about writing one page of essay everyday or solving the recap exercises of my Maths book. Every summers mother, sister and I used to go and visit our Nana-Nani, accompanied by cousins of our age, playing hide and seek in our maternal house.

2. Going to my hometown every Diwali. Jains celebrate Diwali as an occasion when Mahavir attained Nirvana. On the morning of Diwali, everyone in the family (actually all the Jains in that town) used to go out to offer Coconut Laddus in the different temples (there are 6-7 of them). And on the next day - Rama Shama - my grandfather, father, sister and I used to visit different acquaintances. Those were the days when my sister and I used to judge a household by the sweets that they serve. There were brownie points for those serving chocolates. We use to sleep on the roof every night, sometimes counting stars, wishing for the tall neem tree in the next house to sway and waking up in the mornings to see other people sleeping on their roofs. Sometime, we my grandfather used to give a glass of wheat to me and my sister which we then used to feed to the pigeons wishing they would come in numbers and getting disappointed when they didn't.

3. There were play grounds near the houses that I lived in. This may not sound as a reason for which I should actually go to lengths as writing a post. But when I see our metros, I see apartments, offices, club houses, community centers, malls but never a play ground. A place where you can go along with your friends, play some sport, engage in some petty quarrels and come back home, all sweaty. I still remember the days when I use to go to the playground every evening and play football or cricket.

4. I never went to tuitions. Thus at home, I could read those lessons of  History or Geography which were, as told by our teachers, not in the course. Or could read those stories of Hindi and English textbooks that I really enjoyed reading. It also meant that I didn't have to read Physics, Chemistry or Maths everyday - one reason which helped preserved my interest for these subjects.

5. I didn't have mobile phones and internet as companions. Thus, I had all the time in the world to myself. It also meant that to complete an assignment of General Knowledge, I had to actually take out old newspapers and read through the news.

6. I got a chance to travel across India - an advantage that you enjoy when your father is working for a PSU. Those trips really make for some of the most vivid and vibrant memories that I have of my childhood. Whether it was walking through a wooden house in Shilong, or standing at Kanyakumari and watching the water in different colours,  or sitting on a beach in Trivandrum and watching a sunset or walking through the Cellular Jail in Port Blair or playing in pristine, untouched shallow waters of Andaman or standing in front of a giant Golden statue of Buddha at Rajgiri, I remember it all.