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

Tagebuch – My German Diary – Part I

I have been travelling around a lot in Europe and my stop this weekend was Berlin. It’s a city steeped in history and I had a poignant sensation while learning about the asperities Berliners have had to go through, via the numerous informative writings at Checkpoint Charlie and Reichstag. It was hard to believe that the modern, happening metropolis we were standing in was witness to the worst side of the cold war until 1991. That the Germans have since put their capital on the fast track of development was apparent from the large amount of construction activity going on in Berlin – a fact conspicuous by the numerous cranes that you see while looking in any direction from the Reichstag dome. And to think that this is the scene when the construction business in the developed world is suffering its lowest trough in years, takes the high position the Germans occupy in my eyes a notch higher.

In the evening, with the summer solstice sun still beating down on us, we toured the Olympiastadion. Being an avid sports enthusiast, the sight of the track where Jesse Owens won his record 4 golds and prompted a racist Hitler to storm out of the stadium remarking ‘isn’t there any White who can beat this fellow’, made my day. That was also the very pitch where Zizou showed his temperamental side during the infamous World Cup final incident. From there, on our way to Schloss Charlottenburg, we experienced the rather warm side of the reticent Germans (you can very well imagine how reserved Berliners are known to be when even people in Freiburg call north Germans cold). We were discussing which metro lines to take for our journey, when an old lady realising that we were misinformed, volunteered to correct us.

Later, around dusk-time, we visited the Reichstag, Brandenburg gate and Holocaust memorial. The walk from the newly built, magnificent Berlin central station to the Holocaust memorial has been one of the high points in my Euro trip, second only to the incredible atmosphere of the evening stroll along Champs-Elysées. At nightfall, after grabbing ek-pe-ek free big Mac, we retired on one of the benches at Berlin station.

I had barely slept for an hour when it was time to catch our train to Fehmarn, an island in the Baltic Sea just off the German coast, via Hamburg. We enjoyed ourselves in the chilly, crystal clear water and then relaxed for a couple of hours on the sand. I also tasted the Baltic water to corroborate the claim made by the school textbook of the Baltic Sea having the least salinity and found it to be true.

On returning to Freiburg on Sunday night, I was pleasantly surprised to see the town having undergone a metamorphosis during my weekend away in the capital. It had been cool and sunny during the past week but the mercury levels had suddenly risen in 2-3 days and this had brought about a marked difference in the appearance of the people. By the time I reached my room an hour after alighting at Hauptbahnof – in between I also paused to catch a glimpse of the penalty shoot out in the Italy-Spain match - I had already seen more pretty girls than I had noticed in the past 7 weeks ;). The lifestyle of the people here is so dependent on the capricious European weather that it is no wonder that it occupies such a preeminent position in their topics of conversation.

Euro Update

It's been a surprisingly entertaining Euro until now, although with the knock-out stages commencing today one expects teams to get a lot more cautious as the stakes get higher.

While talking about the group stages, you just can't miss the Dutch. They have been in red hot form and have come out of the Group of Death with flying colours. Snejider and Van der Waart have been a revelation and it's frightening to think that they have the likes of Van Persie, Robben and Huntleer warming the bench. Once they score first it is extremely difficult to come back against them as with the pace they have upfront they are lethal on the counter. What would be interesting to see is how the young team reacts to going a goal down. That would really test their character.

A couple of performances have really caught my eye until now. Croatia's upset win over Germany being one, although you have to say the Germans were quite ordinary that evening.

The game of the championships so far has to be Turkey-Czech Republic. The Czechs looked to be cruising, leading 2-1 with less than 5 min on the clock, but Nihat had other ideas. What was heartening to see is the way the senior pros, Tuncay and Nihat, conducted themselves when 2-1 down and time running out. Tuncay worked his socks off , even running the entire width of the pitch to replace the linesman's flag so that his team doesnt lose those precious seconds and then even donning the gloves when Volkan unnecessarily got himself sent off. Also when Kazim Richards hit 2 wasteful balls when in good positions on consecutive possessions, the skipper, instead of frowning at him, just told the youngster to calm down. A lesson worth learning for many of the big name stars, especially on how to deal with the inadequacies of their less talented colleagues.

I had predicted the Russians to be the surprise package for this Euro and so was delighted with the way they streamrolled Sweden yesterday after putting 2 quite uninspiring performances against Spain and Greece. You felt they lacked that little bit of quality and composure going forward and Arshavin seemed to have provided that. He was in scintillating form during Zenith St. Petersburg's amazing Uefa Cup run and he has carried it here too. They would need to improve their finishing though to stand any chance against the marauding Dutch juggernaut. I am expecting a sumptutous feast of attacking football when the 2 teams meet in the quarters at Basel. Hopefully Hiddink and Van Basten won't disappoint

Patriotism

It’s funny how quickly we develop affinity for the place where we live. I have encountered quite a few manifestations of this boundless love for your land in the past few weeks.

During the DAAD convention in Heidelberg, I, along with another Badener (if at all such a word exists – Baden is the state I live in by the way) had a gala time ridiculing a colleague of ours for his East German ‘roots’. We were from the far superior West Germany where so many of the Easterners had tried to immigrate decades ago.

Also, during the past week, a heated altercation had ensued on the IIT Bombay Euro-intern mailing list about ‘whose’ country had the more beautiful women. People went to the extent of searching for internet polls and youtube videos to prove their point. And all this when most of us hadn’t even visited many of the countries we claimed to be inferior to ‘ours’ in chick coefficient.

Then the other day I was waiting at Schaffhausen SBB for my connection to Luzern. It had only been a day since I had left Germany but I was so relieved to see the Deustch Bahn ICE arrive and once aboard, I instantly felt at home. The Swiss trains, however efficient they were, could never take the place that the ICE occupied in my heart. It was similar to the nostalgic feeling I have experienced many times while returning to Mumbai, after being away for a fortnight or so, and catching my first glimpse of the beloved Mumbai Local.

I may not have German blood running in my veins but I am a loyal German at heart, at least for 3 months.

PARIS

I reached Paris on Saturday, 31^st May , morning. The plan was to meet in front of Notre Dame at noon. May be the European punctuality has rubbed on, but still it was heartening to see around 15 IIT boys gather there within 15 minutes of the decided time. We then proceded to watch the Palais of Justice, Pantheon, ... , Place de la Concorde, Champs Elysee, Arc de Triumph, ..., The Eiffel and quite a few other architechural splendours that line the Parisian Boulevards and were left completely exhausted by the end of the day.

Sunday was reserved for museums. Not that any of us is a connoissuer of paintings and sculptures, but being obedient tourists, we thought we should pay a visit. The French government's policy of allowing free entry to most of them on the first sunday of a month did play a huge role, I must accept. We reached Louvre early and were one of the first few to enter. No wonder people say one needs days to explore Louvre exhaustively. It is so huge that a mere glance at each exhibit might add up to a day. With 3 wings and 4 floors connected by its many passages and staircases it would be a felicitous venue for the 'Crystal Maze' finale. We finally left the museum at about 1pm and proceeded to have lunch comprising of crepe, a typical Parisian dish and a panino.

Then after a short nap in one of the many gardens, we left for our second instalment of artistic fodder, Centre de Pompidou. If ever doubts arise in anyone's mind regarding the position of Paris as the cultural capital of the world, he should visit the Louvre and follow it up with Pompidou. The two museums are markedly different in both their external appearances as well as their exhibits. While one is a majestic building with 18^th century architecture, housing works from centuries ago, the other is state-of-art structure having external escalators and some of the most unconventional drawings and sculptures. As you enter Pompidou, you are greeted with M.F. Hussain style abstract paintings. But if you manage to get past them, you are exposed to a completely novel branch of art. Many of the ingeniously designed products that we encounter in market everyday are slight modifications and simplifications of the out-of-the-box imagination of these ‘modern artists’. All through-out, there was a great emphasis on modular objects – diverse and complex structures built from smaller simpler ones. One of my favourites was the dinning table fabricated from 2 thin sheets of metal. Then, there were some mind-blowing paintings from a chap named Philip-Lorca diCoria. His attention to detail like drawing cigarette stubs strewn on the footpath – such a characteristic feature of any European alley, or a scrap of paper rumbling in the wind, was admirable. We were completely mesmerised by the photograph-like genuineness of his work.

I will always be grateful to this place for helping me overcome my aversion for ‘modern art’. But the icing on the cake was finding an exhibit from one IIT Bombay alumnus. The 1992 Industrial Design Centre pass out had developed a funky chair-cum-sofa-cum bed. It was a proud moment indeed.

The Centre de Pompidou most certainly doesn’t figure in must-watch places in Paris but we had gone there without high expectations and thoroughly enjoyed it.

(visit -http://picasaweb.google.com/anchit56/PARIS to see pics from Pompidou)

P.S. – All said and done, the most notable feature of European museums are their free washrooms. To save on lodging expenses, we had spent the night below Eiffel tower. Thankfully the Louvre men’s room came to our rescue :P

Germany in short

A month in Freiburg, a small, sunny (sunny by European standards. Among german cities, this receives the maximum sunlight in a year) city on the western edge of Schwarzwald (thats what Blackforest is called in German) has passed by in a whisker. Here is a small effort on my part to help you understand Germany and the Germans slightly better.

1. Germans love fußball, potatoes, ham and beer – unfortunately I dont drink

2. Germans never share food – this is a habit I find quite agonizing. Imagine the torture you go through when you watch your professor and his phd student chomping on everything from apples to cupcakes in front of you without ever offerng you a bite, and all this when you are living a frugal existence and trying to save that last cent ;)

3. Germans dont have ceiling fans; neither do they have ACs and mind you the temperatures do cross the 30s in peak summer. (well this is true about most european countries though)

4. Germany seems to have Arabs as the maximum immigrants. You will find Turks, Syrians, Lebanese, Iranians in plenty here.

5. Germany has left-hand drive cars and so cars travel from the right-side lane. You may say that everbody knows this and whats the need to state it here. But there is, because it is not enough to just know this for a fact. Its impportant to ingrain it in yourself as a habit. You will realize what I am saying when, while crossing the straße after ensuring that there isnt any approaching vehicle within a mile, you suddenly turn around and discover a huge truck within feet – the sooner you forget the 'look to your right before crossing' rule and imbibe the 'look to your left before crossing' rule, the better it is.

6. Germans (as do most other Europeans) have coffee after lunch.

7. The most popular cars here are Volkswagon, followed by Opel and Renault. All buses and taxis are by Mercedes, by default. You will also find Mercedes small cars here.

8. 'V' is pronounced as 'F'. So volks is folks, Vauban is Fauban and Sharapova is spelt as Sharapowa.

9. Spargel (Esparagus in English) is a delicacy here, atleast in southwest Germany – I quite liked it too.

10. Destuche Bahn is by far the best Railway company in the world. SNCF can have its TGV and Benilux can have their Thalys, but when it comes to easy access to information and punctuality, noone comes anywhere near the Germans. Their website is so easy to use and provides so much information that I can say with certainity that, even for an Indian, rail travel in Germany is much easier than it is India or any other English-speaking country.

11. Germans dont have switches for plug points – found this extremely strange. You just plug-in your device and it starts working. To turn it off, you have to unplug it from the socket.

12. Deutsch, like most European languages, takes the liberty to spell and pronounce proper nouns from other languages as and how they like. for example French in Deustch becomes Franzoish and Greece becomes Greichenland.

Shifting Homes

Written in May 2006

Having stayed in the same house for fifteen years, I had my first experience of this dreaded activity just after my SSC exams when we decided to change our residence from the quiet neighbourhood in Matunga to the busy and industrial suburb of Chembur. But we weren’t vacating our old home and so the process went off quite smoothly.

My next date with ‘Shifting’ was to follow within a year when my grandparent’s apartment was taken up for redevelopment. Fortunately, as I was preparing for JEE, I was the golden-eyed boy and was exempted from my responsibilities.

But this time when my grandparents were returning back to their newly constructed swanky tower, there were going to be no excuses. I had gone picnicking with my friends after my semester was over and my father had purposefully arranged the shifting date to coincide with my return to the town. And with my sister being in final year MBBS I was definitely the scapegoat. This surely was going to test my patience and ability to see the lighter side of things.

As you get older you tend to resist change. At least this was what I experienced. With the May heat really troubling her, my grandmother (aaji) would get frustrated on frivolous matters and it would need my dad’s intervention to calm her down. Incidentally, I discovered quite a few interesting things while going about my latest assignment.

I realized that we had innumerable utensils in our house carefully preserved to encounter the ultimate eventuality of a hundred relatives storming in to give us a warm surprise. The fact that there was not enough space in the house for so many human beings to even stand, forget having food, is a different matter altogether. But analyzing this matter in more depth lead me to the realization that my aaji was actually a great visionary! With iron ore deposits around the world diminishing and with the likelihood that stainless steel prices would escalate in the near future she had thoughtfully made arrangements for her future generations.

Then came the woolens. While packing all the blankets and shawls in the cartons I happened to look out of the window and mistook the dog for a polar bear and the coconut palms for pine trees. But again there was futuristic thinking behind this accumulation. What if the sudden movement of the earth’s plates changes Mumbai’s altitude so drastically that we start experiencing snowfall and thunderstorms or what if the world is struck by a fifth ice age? We had to be prepared, didn’t we?

After that, while emptying one of the cupboards we came across so many crockery sets that if I put them all on sale, I would gather enough wealth to make sure that I would never require monetary assistance from my parents to satisfy any of my needs. But I will have to accept most of the blame for this addition of glassware to our already overstuffed home. The authorities of all the basketball clubs in Mumbai had probably started a co-operative business venture because there was a period when the finalists of all tournaments in Mumbai were awarded glassware. So in about 3 years I had received almost a dozen sets of glass bowls and cups. Finally, fed up of this, I hung up my boots!

As if this wasn’t enough, one day, my grandfather (ajoba) pulled out so many share certificates and annual reports from his closet that would put even Babasaheb Ambedkar to shame. But I have no qualms with him because that’s one of his few passions and he otherwise leads a very simple life with frugal requirements. And also his perseverance and methodical approach in these matters have been the key to our family’s financial progress over the last two generations.

Fortunately, my mom and I were lent a helping hand in all this by my dad and he is quite an expert at getting rid of unwanted goods. Although he would never accept it, in his hurry to clear the mess in the house, he has put my mom in trouble a couple of times by throwing away some important things. I hope he doesn’t read this article. Otherwise I could be the next one to be the victim of his skills.

This reminds me of an anecdote related to this subject. A few years ago we had added a couple of new wardrobes to our crowded house and my ajoba was proudly showing off the new additions to my dad’s friend. He politely appreciated whatever he was shown but later queried, “Now, where are you going to stay?”

After having gone through all this I would any day buy ‘studying for exams’ at the cost of being involved in this agonizing and torturous activity of ‘Shifting’