Last Day in Mensa

As I returned my Mensa card this afternoon after lunch, the gourmet inside me was reeling under a pungent sense of melancholy. I had just finished my last meal in the Flugplatz Mensa and it had dawned upon me that the next time I eat in a refectory, it would be the Hostel-4 mess in IIT Bombay.

I have tasted the entire gamut of animal flesh – from beef to turkey to fish and also feasted on a variety of vegetarian cuisines like spargel and südtiroler here. Although, I have never had a chance to visit the Rampartstraße Mensa adjoining the University’s main campus, I have heard rave reviews about the same in terms of both the quality and variety.

In stark contrast, to label the food in H-4 mess as pathetic would be a euphemism. It’s high time the IIT authorities wake up to the fact that along with good education, healthy food is also a vital component in the development of a student.

In spite of all this, students here often crib about the deplorable taste of the meals served in the Mensa. When will men start being happy with what they have? … I wonder!

The German Language

"Thank you for travelling with Deutsch Bahn" - the next time I travel by an ICE, I am going to pay careful attention to this announcement, especially the words 'Thank' and 'with'. Wondering why? At the DAAD Stammtisch this Mittwoch (that’s Wednesday in German), I met an American girl who was majoring in Linguistics and the topic for her Masters thesis was the German pronunciation of the English 'th'.

The love Europeans have towards weather-talk is well-documented but from my experience their favourite topic of conversation is 'languages and accents'. One of the first questions I am bombarded with after my revelation of my Indian origins is 'how many languages you people have and how many of them can you speak?’ So, I will take a leaf out of their book and write a blog on the German language.

The German syllable which has attracted my fascination is the 'tsch' which although not exactly same, is quite similar to the 'ch' in English('ch' as in 'chair' not as in 'choir'). You must have noticed it making an appearance in 'Deutsch'. Its usage is quite widespread as you can see in 'Tschüss' meaning 'bye' and 'Tschechischen Republik' which stands for the Czech Republic. Even after knowing this, I would revere you, if you manage to give me the correct German spelling of the Russian tennis player, Anna Chakvetadze. Another syllable which is interesting in relation to Deutsch is the 'j'. Now, you might be aware that like the Dutch, the Germans pronounce 'j' as 'y'; as is evident in the utterance of 'ja' meaning yes (I guess that is from where we have got the English slang 'ya') or 'Joachim'. But what I found weird was that the Germans resemble the Iberians in the way they pronounce the English 'je'. You will know what I mean in case you have heard how the name Javier of the Argentine midfielder Mascherano is pronounced. With this background, I guess they would spell 'Chechnya' as ‘Tschetschnija’.

Even so, German system of spelling isn't flawed like English. Just like in Indian languages, you pronounce as you spell and vice-versa. But all those I have interacted with seem to agree on one point; that German has the most difficult grammar and sentence construction among all European languages. Another notable feature of German is that all nouns, even common nouns, have their first letter capital.

Moving on to vocabulary, I have 3 favourites here. Anyone who has given GRE recently might recollect that 'apothecary' means a druggist. Well if you have ever visited Germany there is no way on earth you will ever forget that. 'Apotheke' is the German word for 'Chemist' and you find these 'Apotheke' shops all over the place. With infectious ailments almost absent here, I have often wondered how so many of them manage to sustain. Do you know the evolution of the word 'bus'? It is actually an abbreviation of 'omnibus' meaning for everyone since a bus is a means of transport for everyone. Now, although colloquial German does take the liberty of using the abridged version, formal announcements in trains and trams always say 'omnibusbahnof' while referring to a bus-top. The names of all weekdays in English end in ‘day’. The same is the case with Hindi and Marathi. But German has one anomaly. Although Monday in Montag and Tuesday is Dienstag (tag means day in German), as I already mentioned above Wednesday is Mittwoch meaning middle of the week. At least, that solves the dichotomy as to on which day does the week begin; Sonntag or Montag.

Apparently, there are more than 50 different dialects in Germany, some quite similar, some mutually unintelligible. The ‘standard’ Deutsch used in newspapers or businesses is ‘Hochdeutsch’. That is also the dialect you will learn if you enrol for a language course in the Max-Muller Bhavans in India. Although it is understood almost everywhere in Germany, it is practised in regular usage only by people from the Hannover-Hamburg region. Even the state of Baden-Württemberg has 2 different dialects – Badish, in use on the Western slopes of the Blackforest and Swabian, spoken along the Eastern slopes. According Thomas, a friend of mine, who hails from Stuttgart and has majored in American history, Swabian speaking people find it easiest to imitate the American-English accent. Another very strange German dialect is the Alemannic, which most Germans, used to other dialects, find difficult to comprehend.

In spite of so much diversity within, a German is quick to distinguish a foreigner on the basis of his accent, irrespective of his lexical and grammatical perfection. Not just that, they can even pin-point the nationality of the foreigner (if he is European of course) on hearing him utter a few sentences in German. And the same goes to a German, fluent in English, who has migrated to the UK. And here I thought only Indians discriminated on linguistic basis!

An hour by the road-side

I am sitting on a wooden bench thoughtfully placed under the foliage of a giant pine tree. Its a pleasant Saturday morning - almost noon now actually. I have just finished reading "Jeeves and the Song of Songs". In it Jeeves, Bertie Wooster's butler, once again displays his sagacity in hatching an ingenious plan to prevent Tuppy Glossop from drifting away from Bertie's cousin Angela. As with any of the readers of Wodehouse's tales, Jeeves is one of my favorite fictional characters.

Oh! I forgot to mention how I landed up on this bench. I am on my way to Todtnauberg in the Blackforest mountains - the birthplace of the "Schwarzwalder Kirschtonte" or the Blackforest cake. I had contemplated a shout at hitch-hiking initially but then resigned to an hour long wait for the next bus. So here I am with time to kill in this idyllic hamlet of Notscheri.

Having only had a glass of hot chocolate for breakfast (I avoid saying Bournvita for the fear of sounding juvenile), I am quite hungry by now and cant wait to devour on a medley of chocolate, cream, cherries and cake.

Meanwhile, a middle-aged couple, who seem to have returned from an errand into the woods, have joined me on the bench. After exchanging the usual pleasantaries (read gutentag meaning good day), they have expectedly gone quite silent. They have been exchanging words sporadically but hardly any sound has reached my ears although I am only a couple of feet away.

A dozen super-bikes have whizzed by just moments ago, disturbing the tranquility and quietude of the scene. I have encountered these gangs on each of my three weekend jaunts in the blackforest.

As I write, the couple has just walked away to the bus stop. Maybe it is time for the bus to arrive. Fortunately, I have yet to venture into "The Episode of Dog Mcintosh". The last few minutes have provided the most charming setting to submerge oneself into the delightful world of Mr.Wodehouse.

The Chain that Never Sleeps

While relishing a Fruit Yogurt at 5 am on a Tuesday morning at Karlsruhe station, my mind nostalgically went back to the day on which I had heard this hallowed name for the first time. It had been less than a week since this giant had set foot on Indian soil and my Dad had taken us to have our maiden taste of globalization. It was ironical that we had to wait for almost 2 hours in the queue to grab our meal at an eatery which prided itself on instant service. Well, even the best are helpless when Indians decide to turn up in numbers.

Since then it has rapidly spread its tentacles through the length and breadth of the country, all throughout maintaining its ambition to grab the hottest property. Just as you find an outlet outside Paris Est, at Berlin Hbf, below the Golden Roof or on Mozart street; you encounter one in front of Victoria Terminus, inside Water Kingdom and across the road at Andheri station. It set a benchmark by selecting Linking road, Bandra for its first outlet in India which was soon emulated by Barista and KFC. “If a square is the most visited one in the city, we must have a shop there” – seems to be their motto.

One laudable attribute of this chain is its continual endeavour to blend with the local culture and culinary habits, as is evident from the ingression of the aloo tiki in it’s highly Indianised menu or the accretion of the café to it’s eateries across Europe or displaying the traditional wrought iron nameplate at it’s store on Getreidegasse in Salzburg.

On a personal level too, I have had a couple of experiences with this giant which I deem worth mentioning. Staying true to its word of a free drink if your meal is not delivered within a minute, once when the last grain of sand dropped from the hourglass with my order not being ready, I was immediately handed a cup of coke. The eatery also came to my rescue during our night-out at Berlin station. It was the last shop to close at 2am and the first to open just a couple of hours later.

While waiting in line on that night some 12-13 years ago, I had wondered if it was worth it. In hindsight, it certainly was and much more. It may accrue criticism for its monotony or for being the prime culprit behind an over-sized America, but for a hunger-stricken traveller in alien land renowned for unpalatable bland food, the sight of the thirteenth letter of the English alphabet will always bring solace

Size does matter

One of my notions about the developed nations was cheap availability of basic necessities of life, which in modern world subsumes communications along with food, clothing and shelter. Hence, I was quite taken aback by the exorbitant calling rates in Germany. This topic sprung back to my mind after I happened to read about the proposed AT&T take over of Aircel.

The article mentioned that only about 25% of India’s population had access to cellular services and hence AT&T was keen to capitalise on the immense growth potential of the Indian cellular market. This prompted me to analyse my earlier query in greater depth.

Let’s do some number crunching to arrive at a rough estimate. Considering India’s population to be about 1.2 billion, 25 % of that would mean about 300 million cell users. Leaving out the old Germans, who are certainly not acquainted with the gizmos, kids and the few below the poverty-line, who can’t afford cells, claiming 75% of Germans own mobiles wouldn’t be that wild a guess. Since the population of Germany is about 80 million, that adds up to 60 million cellular customers. Now, say an average Indian talks about 10 times as much as an average German - I am certainly not exaggerating here. Germans could easily be the most laconic people in the world and Indians, the most garrulous – that would amount to 50 times as much talk-time consumed in India as compared to Germany. The local calling rates in the 2 countries are around Re.1/min and 25 cents/min. That would mean that even under current conditions, Indian cellular service providers earn an estimated 3 times as much revenue as their German counterparts. If you also take into account the fact that we in India are charged ridiculously high rentals (I don’t have an idea of the general picture, but T-Mobile didn’t charge me a dime for its 3 month service.) and also the huge gulf in the salaries of the employees in the 2 countries, you realise why they need to have such high calling rates in Germany.

In spite of all this, the above discussion has an inherent Indian bias. While we have to pay roaming rates to make and receive calls once outside our states, the rate is same wherever you travel in Germany. That just multiplies the profits of Bharti, Reliance and co manifolds.

An Aberration

The most incredible litany of events unfolded over the lunch table today. For the 1st time since my arrival in Germany, I shared food with a German. Not just that, in fact I ate from someone else's plate. It might not be an incident worth mentioning for us Indians, but if you have read my previous blogs you will realise that this unprecedented occurence does call for a post at the very least.

To elaborate, a new female student joined our laboratory at IMTEK yesterday. Actually now she is the sole representative of the fairer sex in our hitherto all-guy department. Apparently German Engineering universities suffer from the same fate as the IITs but more about that later. Back to the point. So, I was having lunch with my lab group. All of us had wiped our dishes clean while this new entrant had left half the salad that she had taken, in her plate. I was startled when Daniel, a phd student in my lab, offered to finish the left-overs from her plate. He later even offered me to help him in his task and together we cleaned up all the remnants of carrots and peas. Then, he even gave a - turn back if a black cat crosses your path - type of explanation for his extra-ordinary act. Purportedly, they believed that if food was left in the plate, inclement weather followed the next day and so he was finishing the salad to prevent this bad omen. For once, I was exposed to the superstitious side of the normally pragmatic Germans :)

I have a nice anecdote to illustrate the similarity between the gender inequalities in German universities and IITs. A few weeks back, I found about 10-12 young girls going in and out of the 3 labs in my department. Quite surprised at seeing alien faces in the department, I posed my query to Andreas, my professor(I quite like this way of addressing your prof by his name). His reply was "We here in Germany are facing the problem of not enough girls opting for engineering, physics and chemical branches. So these school seniors have been brought here to aquaint them with technical fields." When I followed this up with figures from my batch in IIT Bombay, it brought a wide grin to his face.

P.S. - This is not the last you will hear from me about the 'not sharing food' habit of Germans. I have dissected the pros n cons of it in great depth and there's more to follow