Ponker and Kissa Pataal Lok ka: Part 12 , The rest of everything July 30, 2006

The basic problem that I have been having here in Netherlands is that there is no social life and there is no professional life (read no work to do, cause I finished it too early) .. nothing to assuage the hell of nothing to do … if a person goes for a vacation , it’s a vacation from something , if I decide to take an off, it should be because I have been working .. what do you do when you haven’t been working ??

Have been downloading movies and watching them for the past 3 days… but how much of passive entertainment can you inflict upon yourself??

The social life here …. you sit at a bar and drink some beer and talk to a few people , hi , hello and a some small talk, then the beer gets over and everybody leaves… and you tread along to your own place .. or to the university.. things are fine till office hours , then the evening is all alone… and Kakuba agrees with this fact. Anyhow, it takes time to build a web and now things have improved but then… now I have to go back.

I talked to a female taxi driver (something new, but well.. you can see them driving buses, trains and what not) . anyhow , she had been driving for the past 5 years and works like 10 hours a day. She has previously driven a BMW, Audi , Buick (which according to her is good for business as it attract more people) but now she sticks to a Mercedes because its good for business people and is comfortable driving. What she also stressed was that here in Holland, on roads atleast … the weaker you are … the less careful you have to be. She told of an incident of when she was younger. One day her cycle collided with a car. Though she was in the wrong (as wrong as you can get by crossing a red light), the insurance company asked the car driver to pay her 100 euros. I would have talked more, but then the professor comes and says “ Sorry I am late” and she goes off to drop him at the airport.

The time passes by and more water flows under the bridge on the Dommel “river” which by the way is little more than about 10 metres , a very narrow river but doesn’t stop them from developing it nicely.

The Eindhoven univ hosted the European university championships this year .. college teams from all over Europe were there .. and they were getting volunteers too .. and were also expecting volunteers from outside Eindhoven(check the volunteer form). It was fun . In the water polo finals, the London univ was no match for the Russian girls (25-1 when I last checked …and counting..) . The volleyball finals …. Eindhoven won both mens and womens titles … of course there weren’t much supporters of the Italian girls or the Russian boys .. but then .. the Eindhoven team was fourth last year in world junior championship (which was in India by the way) .. so it was fun game.

We went to Alkamaar, the we being myself and Alash (he’s Czech). Alkamaar is a town in North Holland which is famous for cheese. I had 10 types of cheese there now I can confirm that cheese is not for me. They have a market square with 1 ton of cheese was arranged in line and sellers were dressed up in typical dutch farmer clothes with wooden shoes and all. That is all that is there, the rest is all hyped up So Alkamaar was a short tour. We went to the Egmond van Zee beach after that . It’s nice beach (atleast I think so) and there weren’t may people around considering the number of people per square metre and comparing with the images of the Den Hag beach. Any way, it was a nice beach . you get to see nice things .. motorboats, wind surfing, kite flying, sand castles (with a pirate flag on top) and just look around and pass your time and enjoy the sun and the wind.

Another event was that the glass mirrors broke … our train back to Eindhoven was delayed by a full hour and since trains run every half an hour, one train practically got cancelled. The notice board said that the train timing will have a 15 minute deviation . (it actually had a plus and a minus sign ) ) .. the platform was changed and reverted .. a bit of confusion though managed well … then when the train finally arrived, the doors wouldn’t open . All said and done, the train started off and we reached home. Interesting thing……..among all the train journeys I have undertaken in Netherlands,,,, it was the first time that the trains were late and the first time that there wasn’t any ticket checking .. any pattern ???

And we (the we being me and Sujay Mehta .. a guy working in TCS and here on a 3 month project in Philips.. we met on bus to Paris) on a Sunday went out to explore the outskirts of Eindhoven, without map or anything. Just took a road and were going as we wanted to when we saw a board which said Centrum .. so we followed it and reached an unfamiliar place (the name was “Best” .. another town near Eindhoven). It has a huge natural park and lots of greenery and an underground train station which was good . Nothing notable seen there as nature is always beautiful unless you are homeless in the Sahara or the Tundra

And then there was the Eindhoven ballooning festival too. Ever wonder when I write all this, it looks bright and interesting if not fascinating ; yet, the first paragraph of this post stands. So there were balloons and beers and bear balloons, and apart from the usual shape, a giant frog, and a heart, and the head of a man with a hat … I got to see how they start filling up the hot air and the long process that is when not fast forwarded as in TV shows.

And then there was the barbeque… Omar had organized barbeque and everyone brought something to grill .. I took chicken wings spiced up with everything I had. Got to taste lots of varieties of beef and pork…and beef is the best. We were eating from (atleast I was) 7 in evening to 1 in the night

So that’s it … this is the last week in Eindhoven, something which helps me carry on. Sleep at 2-3, get up at 11-12 ..reach univ at 1 or 2 .. watch movies or serials or whatever till whatever time suits …8 or 10 .. come back .. (cook) and eat .. solve Sudoku and Kakuro because you’re unable to sleep before 2 or 3 or whatever ..and continue.

Ponker and Kissa Pataal Lok ka: Part 11 July 17, 2006

A quick snapshot of Paris.. good city .. great city , we covered almost the whole of it .. I can put a check on every landmark that’s there. Next day, we went off for Uday’s house as Vishal had to collect his stuff from there… he was to catch a train back to his city at 3 pm after visiting Louvre .. we caught a RER for Uday’s house .. but then changed our plan midway and went to Disneyland… great place .. did not go inside because of lack of time .. for those wondering how much time does it take … consider this .. you can buy a ticket valid for 1 day, 2 days or 3 days.

But there was plenty of great stuff that we could see before reaching the ticket counter too … and well… it does look fascinating. We had breakfast in McDonalds ( and no , that is not the fascinating stuff I mentioned about). From Disneyland we went to Uday’s house .. Since I wasn’t interested in Louvre, Punno and Vishal went and I was to join Punno at 3 pm at the pyramid near Louvre. The earlier day when I was at the Louvre metro station, I had seen an inverted pyramid…since today it was raining, so we thought that we shall meet at the inverted pyramid (as that area is covered) if it rains; else the normal pyramid if it does not …. then finally decided to meet at the inverted pyramid because that would be valid for both cases. …Well.. I reached there and did not find Puneet ..waited for some time .. no sign of him.. then went off to the other pyramid and there he was . he had not been able to find the inverted one and hence was at the straight pyramid … good thing that it was not raining.

Since Vishal’s ticket was valid for the whole day and he had already gone off, we used it to get into Louvre again. Vaise there is little security and none even checks your ticket, so you might as well enter without it.

So.. took a simple tour and now I can claim “Yes, I saw the Mona Lisa “..(art isn’t interesting .. especially when there are 36000 pieces of it which you don’t know how to appreciate and can’t even find a reason to) .. so I have seen the Mona Lisa, the statue of Venus de Milo and sculptures by Michealangelo.

But the truly breathtaking things were the Napolean’s apartments ..and that’s something I can appreciate…. god !!! paramount luxury. Not a trace of wall to be seen .. every inch covered with carpet or rug or painting or fresco or whatever … absolute luxury. His dining room, his bed room , his visiting room … gosh !!!!!

From there after much deliberation we decided to cover Versailles too … and I am really happy that we decided to do that inspite of the rain. From Louvre went off to Hotel les Invalides (which was a hostel build by a king for his soldiers, generals etc. who became invalids during battles) .. and then to Versailles (remember the treaty of Versailles ??) and well.. that place is the best I have seen in Paris. The building is huge and as you enter the cobbled path, it gives you a feel .. something that says that this is a place befitting a historical event of immense magnitude. There are vast gardens there which are artistic, well maintained, awesome… you can sit the whole day and just admire them.

Had snacks at Mc Donald’s (yeah .. we love McDs) .. and headed back to Jaju’s place. Next morning we went to Sacre Cour, good church . It’s at a height so you can view the whole white Paris, then we went off to Gallieni station where our bus back for Eindhoven was to depart. So we reached Eindhoven in 6 hours. Something about the buses.. they are big… and have a greater height too .. generally speaking ,. .. all vehicles in Europe are bigger than their Indian counterparts.. cars, buses, trucks.

And the average speed of the bus on the highway was 90 kmph ( the calculation could have an error of 10%) . The calculation is based on a highway stretch between Paris and Brussels.

And the trucks… probably because a truck driver is paid a lot, it makes sense to have a person drive a huge truck than have 2 trucks (and consequently 2 drivers) for the same load .. so you have trucks with 20 tyres, 24 tyres.. speaking of which .. I might have mentioned , during a course of discussion with my professor , he remarked that the dutch students are not interested in taking up sciences or becoming engineers and so the department desperately needs foreign students and that after your graduation in these disciplines you can easily get a job in Netherlands because it’s an industrial centre. “we don’t even have enough dutch students to carry forward the name of the department” ..Another masters students (Temesgen) said that the prof had remarked to him “ we are not paying you scholarship for your education here because you are brilliant or exceptional, but because we need students” .There is a dutch student with Thapa (in industrial design) who plans to learn yoga and become a yoga teacher and not become a design professional .. all this actually becomes a bit obvious when you look at the pay scales . .. if an unskilled (or little skilled ) person like a gardener or a mover or a driver earns approximately the same as an engineer, why would a person make extra effort to become a knowledge professional ????

By the way … newspapers are distributed free of cost in the entire Europe .. too bad they don’t publish any in English.

Ponker and Kissa Pataal Lok ka: Part 10 June 30, 2006

Los limbos & a Rain of Beer & a Gray Holland

July is holidays in most of European Universities becasue they have their graduation in the month of June, also , the univ organizes a party for its employees and this year with the world cup, it was going to be very festive. So there was a party and that day was also a match between Holland and Argentina so ek badi si screen lagi so that people all TU/egether watch voetball. Raat 9 o clock was the match and hence we went home after the univ, had dinner and came back for the match. The bad thing, it was raining .. there had been no rains the day before and there would be no rains the day after, but I rained that day. So temporarily, the national color of Holland became gray with streaks of orange, gray being the color of the raincoats they distributed and the streaks being the orange that the people were wearing underneath the raincoats.. I would not exactly classify that as rain, more like drizzle, but well… weather is all relative. The match ended in a tame 0-0 and lots of beer as usual. After that there was a group called Los Limbos which was from the southern part of the Netherlands and they were singing in dutch, khair .. got to know what dutch music is like; it’s not suitable for the energetic dancing like the bhangra., though I did experience first hand dutch dancing: people stand in a line and everyone lifts their legs without bending them at the knee, (so that they are parallel to the ground) in synchrony and then the dancing is like you’re on a hot plate and lift your legs… And there was a song called “djfijfhifhifhihf (dutch)” which basically meant share your beer and it started raining beer. The junta was taking full glasses of beer and throwing the glass in the air so it rained beer .. shukr hai the glasses were made of plastic. The students who were to pass out enjoy kar rahe the, dancing and stuff, and it rained more beer, some people still had their raincoats on . because rain is rain .. beer or water .

Fiesta del sol

There was a Fiesta Del Sol on 23-25 June in Eindhoven with over 300 bands performing. Numerous stages in the Centrum were erected and there were bands playing all over the place and all kinds of bands, orchestra, blues, rap, rock, everything.. again .. acchi jagah thi time pass karne ke liye, get a beer and sit down for 2-3 hours .. I would have liked to stay on for more time , but had a Paris bus to catch at 6:30 AM, so went back at 1:30 itself. But nice place, junta thi , people dancing, and saw an 80 saal ki amma dancing, who bhi akele hi , and then a young man joined her.. then we went on to some other band and wahan bhi she started off ) …. But good.

Paris

The Europeans get late too:

Short night sleep but got up early for the bus, reached the place on time, and met another Indian on the bus stop who was waiting for the same bus for the past 15 minutes. So we waited together for the bus for another hour before the bus actually arrived… and then we noticed, there was a notice which said “buses from Germany can get an hour late while waiting for crossing permits, so please bear with us” and well.. that was where things stood. The Eurolines buses are uncomfortable from the point of view of sleeping, so we reached Paris one hour late, cursing Eurolines, cause we had only 2 days for Paris and we had been told that 2 days is too less to see Paris. The boring details are that we reached Paris, met Vishal and Uday, went to McDonalds and had the sardines and mayonnaise and bread which we had brought , (itne besharam bhi nahin hain ….. Vishal and Uday did have Mc meals ) and then we moved on towards Cathedral Notre-Dame. Paris is a lovely city, I now know why is it a must destination if you visit Europe. It’s a beautiful city, a well developed system of transport, everywhere you see nice buildings, and the best part .. there is a good intermixing of races there, you see diversity everywhere and that really helps in getting absorbed into the place. The treasury of the Cathedral and that was a let down .. I thought France was a great place for art and the architecture is impressive, but the things that were kept in the treasury, they really lacked imagination, the robes, the crowns, they all were too plain, and definitely not royal, so it was a let down.

Apart from that, there was also a huge section of the pavement near Notre-Dame which was being used for skate stunts which were amazing.

Gay parade

We saw a gay parade, it was actually a parade for the rights of gays, then lesbians then prevention of aids and a few other things, just trucks and song singing, but mostly there was nothing spectacular about it, of course there were quite a few costumed people too , a butterfly costume, a queen costume and some others, but well… I can say I saw a gay parade

Louvre

Then our group of four split into two each because Vishal and Punno wanted to see the Louvre but me and Uday were not interested, so two went to Louvre and two to Champs Elysee to pass time, but we met sooner than expected because the Louvre was closed and hence the other two joined us. Champs Elysee (and I won’t even get into french pronunciations) is an upmarket shopping area. The showrooms of Mercedes and Peugot were really good , Peugot had on display their concept cars (and not a single commercial vehicle) and they were great !!!

At one end of Champs Elysee is the Arc De Triumph which is something like India Gate, though the carvings of course are different. We moved on to the Eiffel tower after that.

As a side note I must mention that even the little time that we had, we covered the whole of Paris, atleast touched upon everything, did not spend much time any place to really get a feel of the place, but well ..kehno ko poora Paris ghoom liya hai.

Eiffel

So we moved onto Eiffel from there. Climbed 640 steps to the second floor, the journey made interesting by tidbits of information which were posted after every 50 steps approx and the amazing views. From there on, we took a lift to the top of the Eiffel tower and opened the beer cans that we had brought. I think that the view from the second floor is better than from the third floor because the third floor gets too high to actually discern between different things that you are looking at, and it just looks like a vast expanse of white. On the top floor they have taken attached the pictures of the view from the top on to the railing and labeled it with the that buildings you see. In the different directions, they also have put on the glass panes how far is the distance to different cities like Mumbai, Delhi, Hyderabad, Chicago and many more, which makes it interesting.

Le Bra de Fer

Up the Eiffel, then down the Eiffel, then rushed to the metro station because the last trains stop at approximately 12-1 in the night and we were to go to Jaju’s place which was in Evry suburb of paris. (PJ .. must include .. Jaju is omnipresent because he lives in every suburb of Paris :d ) So we took the last train to Evry suburb, got down at the station, and then looked up ke what directions had he exactly given to us in the email nd lo .. pehli line .. RER (train) line D pakad kar Le Bra de Fer per utar jaana.

So 1:15 in the night, all transportation system has stopped and we were at the wrong station. Aas paas kucchh nahin….sunsaan.. and Jaju had also mentioned ke do not sleep on the roads, the police is strict and in some places it is not even safe. So we were more pareshaan. The only consolation was that we had noticed that the trains were used to stopping every 5-10 minutes and hence we assumed Le Bra de Fer was atleast walkable.. 1 hour probably on foot from where we were. Ab directions to pata thi nahin, but there was a person sitting on a bench, and I asked him do you know way for Le Bra de Fer . bhai sahib ko samajh na aaye … then I wrote it down on a paper and he said something in french.. I said “English?” ; he said “No”; but he went on to point out the directions “uhuannn.. crat …. Uhuann… “ but the good guy drew a map for us. So off we started to Le Bra de Fer. Abhi 10 minutes had passed that we saw a map on the side of the road, wasn’t much useful, but Rou Charles road was mentioned, which was what Jaju had also pointed out, so we started off in that direction. 20 more minutes and we saw the building of INT where Jaju had the apartment…. Kaafi khushi hui because at 2 o clock itself we had reached the place to sleep .

Ponker and Kissa Pataal Lok ka: Part 9, Amsterdam II June 26, 2006

A walkable distance

Junta from Germany was coming to Amsterdam and then moving onto Brussels and hence me and Punno made a plan with them too. We were to meet them on Saturday morning in Amsterdam at the Dam Square. So theek hai …time set for 8 o clock am, so we thought we would take the 6:30 train. We got up, got ready and went to the station and realized ke the day being a Saturday, the 6:30 train was not running and the next train was 7:30 am … one hour late… ek ghanta waited at the station and reached dam square at 9 approx.. koi fight nahin hui .. nobody said kyon are you late etc etc etc .. it was intriguing… we were one hour late, we gace no prior or even on time information, and no one said a word to us.. then pata laga they had arrived only 5-10 minutes ago.

Flashback: The Germany junta was coming by Eurolines bus which stops at Amsterdam Amstel and not Amsterdam Central. Punno told Vivek that they would then have to go from Amstel to Central and then to Dam Square. Vivek: is it walkable ? Punno: yes.

NOW, Punno meant centraal to dam square was walkable, vivek tought amstel to centraal was walkable, hence the junta got off at Amstel and spent 1 hour walking till dam square and got late and tired.

Since we (me and Punno) had visited many places in our first trip, we left those for Monday for them to visit when we would not be there and usske ilava there were not many places, hence we decided to take a walk tour of Amsterdam going to places not covered earlier. Arbitrary walking to cool thi , going here and there… visited the flower market and saw carnivorous plants; saw the Saturday market in Amsterdam which was more like a clothes and souvenirs market; then went on to Vondelpark for lunch. Usske baad there was a problem. Puneet wanted a canal tour, I wanted to go to Madam Tussauds. From Germany, 2 people wanted both, 3 people wanted only the canal tour and hence the group was to split. The problem was that me and Punno’s plan was to return from Brussels and get down to Eindhoven and the rest were to return to Amsterdam on Monday… so Saturday was all we had … after much negotiations, we agreed to return on Monday and finish off the canal tour.

Madam Tussauds

So me, Truly and Gundeep went to Madam Tussauds. What prevented the others was that the entry was 17 euros and they had never heard of Tussauds before, so they weren’t interested, anyhow, we three went .. it’s an awesome place. The experience and the way things are arranged… lovely … they gave a brief intro of Netherlands in a very interactive environment and then there were the statues of famous people .. it s a great place to click pics .. let me enumerate some poses we made and you would understand … being honored by the pope, a dandi march with Gandhi, a dinner with George Clooney, a beer with Alfred Heineken, sitting on a chair with Julia Roberts resting on the back support, George Bush and Jacques Chirac standing while you give the speech … etc etc etc

I shall skip the other movie and singing sensations … and will move on to tell you that you will never see those pictures because we lost the digicam in Amsterdam.

Red light distt part 2

We had already been there, the others had only that night in Amsterdam, so we went off to the tourist spot (as I mentioned earlier)  … spent time looking and it was fun this time .. lap dance, strip shows .. plenty of things to do if you want to spend money.. in groups things are fun … and some can also say .. been there, done that.. and people can lose things

The night at the station

We went off to spend the night at the station ,. They close the station at night, but there were many tourist sleeping outside the station, so we joined them and slept the first night on streets. Luckily the weather was warm and there was no wind, so cold was not a problem. Morning we were to board the Eurolines bus from Amsterdam to Brussels (there is a funny story how the tickets were bought too .. too many yes and nos) and in the morning we entered the station and were informed at the ticket counter that being a Sunday there would be no train from Amsterdam Central to Amstel .. nayi dikkat…take a metro or a bus … had to find out a way and could not find the tram ,,, but found a bus to take us there. Slept some more time at the Amstel station, and got into the bus … to Brussels!!!!!!

Brussels

Nothing much in here… we were very tired from the just 3 hour sleep the day before, reached Brussels at 12 pm .. went straight to the Grote market which is the main square .. hadd square hai .. the buildings are old and artistic. Raaste mein we asked for directions from a very old lady who turned out to be an ex-employee of the tourist info centre and hence we got a brief intro of what all to see and do. We reached the Grot’e market and did nothing till 4:30. Truly spent some time searching for vegetarian food and finally settled for a pizza, I accompanied him to pizza hut cause I wasn’t hungry, the rest spent their money in happy meals.

And we had waffles (something like wafers but not that crispy , lot more sugar and you can put chocolate or cream on them) . and bought some Belgian chocolates … (too dark .. too bitter) I definitely prefer the ones with nuts and would prefer a snickers any day for a chocolate. (no idea what the Belgian chocolate fuss is about) and I did mention about the kind of coffee they have here… too dark, too bitter, and no sugar.

So we started off for the Atomium which is a huge exhibition space, the design of which is based in the body centered cubic structure of the iron atom. Each sphere is an exhibition space. Since we reached there at 5:30 and entry was closed, to baahar se we took pics. There was another Heyzel exhibition hall which was closed and a mini Europe (all major attractions of Europe in miniature) which was also closed. so did not see anything specific, but vehle log .. got nice pics with everybody in air jumping off the roadside railings and the Heyzel hall in the background.

Back to the Grote markt from there, saw the Menekken piss which is a statue of a small boy pissing (it’s considered as the symbol of Brussels ) ) . Sometimes he gets new costumes to wear and on those days he pees beer instead of water. It’s a really small statue, ~1 metre in height.

In the main market there was also a lavender festival (forgot the name) going on … happens for 3 days in a year when they distribute pamphlets related to lavender perfumes and stuff (so no idea what the fuss was about) and you can try lavender perfume (which wasn’t that good .. a room freshener is better) then in the night there was supposed to be a light and music show (which was not there that day ( )

That day was the Brazil vs. Australia match which Brazil won 2-0 and was a great deviation after the lack luster performance of Brazil 1-0 Croatia . Brazilian supporters had gathered in numbers, there were drums playing and people in yellow dancing ..that was the euphoria which I wanted to see in Europe.

Net result…..did nothing much in Brussels and, spent another night at the Brussels’ station, the took a bus for Amsterdam, changed plans , got off at Utrecht and slept in Eindhoven. By the sheer number of people that we were in the group … it was an interesting journey.

Ponker and Kissa Pataal Lok ka: Part 8 June 23, 2006

After the short trip to Amsterdam, it was to Maastritch on Monday (Monday being an off) … and it’s pronounced maas-trikht … the name being derived from the River Maas which flows through the city and it is the oldest city in netherlands.

The station:

So we left for Maastricht, reached there (that’s obvious .. and came back too … coz else I would not be writing this all ). Maastricht has a nice railway station. The building itself looks like a historic monument. The only station which might beat it (from all the railway stations I have seen) is the Mumbai’s Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus (formerly the Victoria Terminus .. VT)… that building is also grand … or atleast monumental. In the stations here there are vending machines all over the place which help you buy tickets .. and it costs extra (service charges ) if you buy it from the ticket counter and each time we have to pay extra because we don’t have an acceptable credit card … or coins of 20 euros to buy tickets from vending machines (

The trains:

The new thing I have seen here are the double-decker trains and buses .. double decker buses I have seen there in India too (BEST of Mumbai). . but trains.. first time around. On busy routes, there are the normal single story trains and the double decker trains.

The lower story of the double decker trains is a bit lower than ground floor and the upper is a bit higher .. so the net height is approx 1.5 times the normal train. The trains in general are better too (and of course costlier). I have been only in the second class compartments, but the second class itself has seats comparable to a Shatabdi here. So far, I haven’t seen a train with sleeping berths… because for long distance, the people either fly or use the really fast trains .. so sone ki zaroorat hi nahin padti. And in Holland, people board the trains with their cycles, so each compartment has a wide area without seats where 4-5 cycles can be accommodated.

VVV

There are many trains to Maastritch from Eindhoven, a train leaves every half an hour, but for some trains, you have to change your train at Sittard . I had a details of the last of the trains from Maastritch to Eindhoven… cause after the Amsterdam experience, I knew that coming back was more important than getting there.

Once we boarded the train, we decided to finalize our plan of action on. For the connecting trains, the travel time was approx 2 hours and we calculated that we would have to miss the tour on the river maas because we were late (got up late, started late etc etc etc ) .. but we caught a straight train and in 1.25 hours we saw a station which had Maastritch written all over it .. ab hum confused . ke chakkar kya hai .. a woman got up to to get down and we asked her, is it maastritch?? .. and she said yes ,,. Then we showed her the address for toboggan ride (a tourist attraction) and asked her if she knew where that was ,.,she said “yes .,. this station is maastritch .,. and now you go fee fee fee.” at that moment I did not get what exactly she meant, probably she said just see see see (tour) so theek hai, atleast station identity was resolved and we got down at Maastricht.

We walked to the centre of the city and there it was … the tourist information centre … and usske uper bada bada likha hua tha … VVV … so that was the fee fee fee … for future reference, the tourist info offices in Netherlands are VVV and if you want to google tourist info, type VVV that to find tourist info. So just fee fee fee.

Zonneberg caves

Maastritch ke we had taken the printouts and hence visiting agenda mein kuchh kuchh tha … took a cruise on the River Maas and a visit to the Zonnerberg caves which is a system of caves with over 20,000 passages which were used for limestone quarrying… nice caves. It was a guided tour, so the guide came .. and started “blah blah blah ,,, @#$#%#$% wfwf fWER3er34r4” …(some more dutch gibberish) … “Are there people who don’t understand Dutch ?” 4 people raised their hands … “So let me give you some material which will let you know about the caves” and he gave us a pamphlet each. Then the tour started and the guide started off in dutch again … “If you have any questions … please don’t hesistate to ask though I cannot repeat everything in English as it would take too much time”… ab bhai sahib … kuchh context ho, kuchh pata ho … tabhi to question I will ask … varna seedha seedha to yahi poochhhonga … pyaare guide ji, please tell me something about the caves. .At the end of the tour he said … “Blah blah blah #ewfwergf %%$^$ ferjigwet3t#$T#wfg …for those who have not understood a word of what I have said, I hope you have had a nice tour as well” … haan haan .. kyon hain.. …. gufa mein ghumne mein kaafi mazaa aaya … especially when we had to listen to his dutch speeches each time the group halted because we did not have a lantern with us and we did not know our way around the caves … though I do prefer a boring tour to a getting lost tour in the caves … vaise there was a small hope there: a dutch guy with his non dutch girlfriend and so he used to translate some bits of the speech for her benefit and I was following them … and hence I know that there were 2 boys who got lost in the caves and their bodies were found 20 metres from the exit.

Tour around the city

There is a toboggan ride which was on our agenda which is something like skeleton racing, but ek to we did not find that place , secondly we were short on time since it closed early, so we skipped that and decided to take a walking tour around the city. VVV se we had earlier bought a walking map of the old city jis per they have charted out a route and given information… the directions are very exact and practical … ek khamba dikhega , turn left from there , turn right from the house number 14 and notice the door knob of the house … it has a particular carving of the roman era etc:)) ..

Beer

Netherlands is a nation of beer drinking people. I found it funny when my dad used to say said that he was not used to taking tea but my mom and the society got him into it … after all…if a person does not want something, he can refuse and say no but now I know, you cannot just stand and watch while all others are taking tea. Similarly, here you would have a very crappy social life if you do not take beer and do not know people before hand. Everywhere you go, every social gathering that you attend, you see beer. Let me illustrate with a typical example. Sunday 11 June, Serbia & Montenegro vs. Holland …dupahar ka match tha … I went to the Centrum to see the match … there was a huge screen there where the match was being showed. The afternoon sun is shining, garmi lag rahi hai … but still, lots of people were drinking beer, some went in for wine too, but mostly beer. Now if you know, alcohol causes a warm sensation, so junta ne apni shirts utaar di, but must drink beer. One goal and a person orders beer for all those sitting in his row, paseena aa raha hai … suraj chamak raha hai ,, but bande… must drink beer ) . By the way .. on drinking habits .. all over Europe, people drink tap water, in buildings you find washbasins at various locations and you drink water from those…. and in my department, since there is no separate wash basin, people take water from the wash basin in the toilets. And Truly Mittal (another batchmate from IITG) says that the first day he was in his university, he could not bring himself to drink water; me too, I confirmed the drinking water source from 4 different people on my first day at the univ thinking that they might not be understanding what exactly am I asking, but aaj ki taareekh, mein that’s the only sure shot place I know.

The Eindhoven festival

There was some occasion in Eindhoven, the net result of which was that the city authorities were organizing a party somewhere near the centre. The “party” was random pieces strung together… one big hall where DJ music was being played and beer being sold .. another small hall where jazz and blues were being played and beer was being sold. In the open air area outside they had the ramps where the bicycle stunts (google X games) were being performed.. and beer being sold … the arena was a huge U shaped wooden platform. You start from one top end, and by momentum you go high into air when you reach the other end. It was really great to see the stunts live . cycle idhar udhar ho raha hai , jumps 6 feet in the air , doing a vertical 360, horizontal 720 , cyle neeche banda uper, cycle uper and banda neeche, a banda lands and cycle lands on top of him =)) .. lovely.

And the most interesting part of the festival … an entirely new concept for me .. the silent disco. A circular area, with wireless headphones kept at a side stand, so anyone interested, just pick up a headphone and start dancing !!!! it all looks so weird when you don’t hear the music but see people dancing .. try seeing Govinda and Karishma kapoor dancing (main to raste pe jaa raha tha….. ) on TV and turn off the volume…hilarious … =))

Ponker and Kissa Pataal Lok ka: Part 7, Amsterdam June 20, 2006

Starts with the sex museum, ends in the red light district. : D

It’s 7 if not 10 .

So here are the two captions that can go with it. you’ll get the meaning of these as we proceed … the hype has been created … now lets mellow things down.

So we had the ‘Netherlands Train Pass’ for which we bought for 55 euros which entitled us to discount of 60 percent on all train tickets within Netherlands. On Friday, 3^rd June 7, 2006 we went to Amsterdam. Shaiz and Thapa and Gogo were also supposed to go but they backed out at the last minute. So we were left unprepared with some preparations half done (guides, maps etc). So on Saturday morning, me and Punno went to the univ to get some info on where to go in Amsterdam etc. etc. … kuchh to pata chale…. and prepared a word document to refer to when we reach there and then …….. forgot to take a printout of the doc along with us .. so jitna dimag mein tha .. that’s all what we had when we reached Amsterdam at 1 pm in the afternoon.

Felt nice when we reached there .. after all … it was the first time out of Eindhoven in a month. The first destination was to be the Dam Square .. Punno said its historical and dekhna hai and blah blah blah so we started off in that direction. Raaste mein we saw shops which were selling maps and we too bought one … and har taraf dekho to log hi log .. and dhyan se dekho to all people with maps .. infinite junta thi and from everywhere around the world. So we joined them. On the way to Dam Square, we saw a sex museum there … had read about that in the Amsterdam site, so would be worth a visit + you have the (official ?) logo…Amsterdam XXX . The museum had all sorts of ancient and new objects with sexual connotations. In all the exhibits, there was penis or breasts or vaginas incorporated into various objects of daily use, a pen, pen stand, dishes, boxes, ash trays, soldier’s tobacco box, lamp stand, chess pieces, chair and paintings and china dishes dating back to the 15^th century, a birthday cake ..(message: good things are yet to cum) (and that’s why I hate when you use “cum” instead of “come” in yahoo messenger ) ..a whole section devoted to S&M and other gross stuff. ..

Another section devoted to the red light district and had hideous statues which appeared and “exposed”; and a lifelike statue of Marilyn Monroe … but like every other museum which we visited… it got boring after some time.

From the museum, we went to the Dam Square, a huge square with nice buildings around us, thoda sa time pass kiya and then moved on towards the Oude Kerk (the old church) …a nice church. It had a world press photograph exhibition going on so we visited that too. I came to know that Niger has famines every year and in West Bengal, many people drink arsenic contaminated water, and a pic of the traditional (keralite?) martial arts and more famine and more of it.

Amsterdam is a huge city with many canals, we shall have a canal tour the next time we go there … From there on … went for the Heineken “experience”. For the uninitiated, Heineken is a beer brand and is one of the best known brands in the world. The museum shows what all does a beer bottle go through … you are a beer bottle ..first person … for 10 euros entry fee , they give you 3 beers free … so that covers up … we had to hurry up a bit because they were to close down.

Missed Madam Tussauds wax museum…let that be for next time . Since we were planning to spend the night on Amsterdam streets, we decided to go Vondelpark, it is a green park ..…went there, sat down, passed some time. Kaafi junta ghumne aayi thi wahan per .. and saw a charsi with wine bottle in one hand and an uprooted plant in another which he planted and irrigated with fruit juice. This guy was dancing. Its amazing how people enjoy what drunkards do and do not get bogged down by the thought “what if he accosts us” … that’s something new for me. Then it got a bit cold and we started off for the ‘nightlife’. The map that we had bought in the morning just mentioned ‘Niewmarkt’ was near the red light district and nothing else specific, so we started off in that direction. Crossed a canal and suddenly saw lots of neon light, saw some windows which assured us that we were in the red light district. Did “window shopping” .. again … and here let me elaborate a bit more. Assume a lingerie showroom window and put a live person instead of the mannequin. These are glass windows in which the prostitutes stand. If you are interested, gesture and she shall open the door … both sides of the canal are lined with windows. There are some other windows also which advertise sex shows, strip shows, banana dance, candle writing etc .

The Amsterdam red light district is a tourist spot … it is soooooo crowded, as crowded as a busy market place with tourists swarming all over the place , and you cannot group them into belonging to some age, sex, or whatever grouping you can think of, and tourists do make fun of thosepracticing their profession .

There were 2 guys and a girl walking ahead of us. A doorman came up to them and starts off..

“Hey … Welcome to the district, now you have come at a lucky time, and the right number of people… In the morning, the rates are 35 euros , but now you can have it for 25 euros , and now you all come now and I shall throw in a drink for free… so come on now … follow me”

The guy says .. “ OK .. Thank you … Bbye “ .. and they all move forward, laughing …everybody was enjoying the place. Anyway, since Amsterdam is only a 1.5 hours from Eindhoven, we have left other things for next time and decided to go back to Eindhoven, it’s not worth spending a night on the streets. So we went to the train station … the last train to Eindhoven had left … but the security guard talked to someone and said get on a train to Utrecht and there on take a train to Eindhoven… hence jan mein jaan aayi and we got on and got off at Utrecht.

The train was a bit late, we arrived at 12:32 am in Utrecht. The last train had left at 12:22 … and the next day being a Sunday, the first train was at 7:23. So late by 10 minutes, waited for 7 hours… ( ( …hence 7 hours at the station.Could have spent the time in Amsterdam instead ) .

Explored the Utrecht train station a bit … doesn’t look like a railway station .. numerous showrooms, and big ones at that .. and many of them … clothes, electronics, grocery .. you name it , they have it.

Bahut mushkil se we spent half an hour … then decided ke chalo Utrecht (pronounced utrekht) bhi ghum aate hain since we are already there … the good thing about cities here (the Netherlands atleast ) is that the cities are small and everything is located in the ‘Centrum’ (or the centre of the city). The train, bus station, big market place, tourist spots etc., so a person can see everything that is there to see just by walking around.

So we walked … nice buildings, nice place, but nothing like the Stratumseind. The city has a canal too. The canal runs through the city has roads on both sides of it and buildings on the farther sides.

Now assume the road to be height 0, so the canal water lever would be -5 metres. At -4 metres there are embankments which have the small doors which are the entry points to the clubs and discotheques … you take the stairs from the road height to the embankment, get entry, pass below the road and into the high roofed club.

And saw a two storey cycle stand at the railway station too … just shows how much stress do they put on cycles. So in term of checking off places, we’re done with Utrecht too . Then we went back to the station, passed time with other people there … a lady who was alone and was having coffee and chocolates alternatively to keep herself awake, a kind of English guy who kept on walking from here to there cause he was getting bored, another jap girl who opened up a novel and was engrossed in it, the cleaning guy who was riding a cleaning machine and every few minutes came back (dunno how much did he want to mop)

Finally, got the train, went back home and slept till afternoon. Evening went to the univ, got info on Maastricht and next…to Maastricht on Monday.

Ponker and Kissa Pataal Lok ka: Part 6 June 17, 2006

Haan to junta janardhan, the fact ke I am getting infinitely bored out here can be gauged from the frequency of the recent posts, and bata doon… having nothing to do is a great headache, because khud ke liye kaam create karna padta hai, and without a purpose, mushkil hai, and apne jitna vehla abhi koi mil nahin raha ke time pass ho jaaye ,.. hope this afternoon koi kaam mil jaaye karne ke liye.

But anyhow, a university provides many (free) opportunities to a student which otherwise would not have been there. Talk of Techniche, Alcher, lectures , workshops, concerts, airshows, exhibitions and lots more.

Bungee jump

To as the TU/e is celebrating its 50 years this year, celebrations abound. It organized bungee jumps today. I missed out because all the posters to publicise it were in Dutch and I did not get to know about it earlier because due to the sheer variety and number of posters plastered across notice board, it becomes tough to get all of them translated. To abhi main ground mein ek crane lagi hui hai and 50 people will be jumping ( without a rope attached, onto a net, so it’s not exactly bungee, more like a free dive) from a height of 50 metres. Dekhne mein itna mazaa nahin hai .. and 50 metres is probably toooo small to really enjoy the experience.

Photo exhibition

And ground floor per there is also a photo exhibition jo lagi hui hai …. Good photographs, dekhte raho (because you cannot read the descriptions as they are in Dutch) …but dekhte raho .. my first photo exhibition (discounting when I browse through wallpapers for the comp ) Some pics are really nice, esp. the human expressions, but too many to actually spend time on each…. And aaj Louvre ki website dekhi … (the museum in Paris) and got to know ke Paris mein they have more than 60 museums and Louvre itself has more than 35000 pieces of “Art” and bhaisahab !!!!!!!! website per Monalisa ki baal ki khaal utaar di hai. Monalisa ke “timeless expression” se le kar usske wood panel mein 6 inch ke crack tak… everything explained in detail.

The Saturday market

To Hindustan se we have come here. Vahan sadak per nikalo to junta hi junta dikhti hai, yahan per I have yet to find that kind of atmosphere, except at the Saturday market. To Saturday ke Saturday market ki parking space mein sabji mandi lagti hai where you can find fresh fruits, vegetables, flowers etc .Wahin se we get the stock for the week and then freezer mein keep it till the next Saturday market. When the first Saturday we went there, it was great, kaafi accha laga tha itne saare log dekh kar, and for a change, people don’t bring their dogs with them here (I guess dogs itne bhi trained nahin hai ke sabji na khayein), what they do bring are something to carry the stuff away to their homes. Something like …… you take the frame of a perambulator and put strolleybag instead of the child. After all, the polythene carry bags cost you 20 cents each at the supermarkets.

Smith the barber- a lesson in entrepreneurship.

Around the market I met a person… budddha man …. Who said “hello” . abhi tak arbit hello ki aadat ho gayi thi , so theek hai “hello” .. to bhai sahib ne thhodi bahut baat shuru ki … you going to the TU/e .. I said yes .. and he started off I used to work there ….. in the spoortcentre….. in the saloon there …… now I am retired etc ..and finally when the conversation ended, I had his phone number and he had told me that he cuts hair for 5 euros compared to 15 that a saloon would take. So that was it.

The interesting part was ke some days later Shaiz told us that he was coming back from the univ and found a person who would cut hair for 5 euros … someone called Smith .. hence .. you propagate your business ..identify potential customers and start off .. not that we were not benefited or were induced into something illegal.. but he got his name and contact out into the market .

Stuck at the university

The univ start off at 7:30 am ( I can’t enter before that) and the univ closes at 10:30 pm .. my entry card doesn’t work after that. On the days that I stay late, some guard comes around 10

“Blah blah blah (dutch)… blah blah “

“I don’t know dutch”

“Do you know the code” (pointing towards the electronic lock of the door)

“Yes”

“Will you turn off the lights when you go”

“Yes”

“Ok, Bbye”

So this happened one day, and then another day and then third time I heard the door open and a guard entered the room :

“blah blah (gibberish to me) … codi ….. blah blah (more dutch ) ..” (question mark on his face)

“ yes I know the code, yes I will turn off the light when I leave and I will be leaving around 10:20”

(smile) “ ok , bbye. Don’t get stuck, goodnight” (wide smile)

Hoofdgebouw

Before you read on … try pronouncing it.

Hoofdgebouw hooft :head, gebouw:building is the name of the main building in dutch and they pronounce it as hoof-te-khabow … (the t being the t of the tari of the curry , the gravy, the kh as being in kharaab (bad) ) and that’s the reason why the first time Enna met me , she pronounced garg as ghharghh … jaise gale mein se kharaash nikal rahi ho.

In my lab there are other people also, Tienna and Catherine … who are Belgians and say “ thee-Bonker” and Marianne who is a French and says di-pun-karrrr

Di as how some say “the”, the pun being a double meaning, and karr of course.. jaise kar kehne ke baad rukna bhool gayi ho.

There is Kakuben who prefers to be called kaku and there is Temesgen; both of them are ethopians and pronounce my name correctly.

Ek chinka hai .. jisne abhi take ek bhi baar baat tak nahin ki and hamesh laptop le kar idhar udhar bhaagta rehta hai. (literally)

And I did mention earlier how De Sitterstraat is pronounced.

Ponker and Kissa Pataal Lok ka: Part 5 June 13, 2006

It has been 20 days now and I haven’t moved anyplace outside Eindhoven as of now. But this week: Amsterdam (if everything goes well). Apart from that, I got this month’s “salary” today. Actually Enna wanted to give that to me in the beginning of the month itself, but I had postponed it so that I would not have to keep a lot of cash with me ( money I had brought from home + the stipend). Enna mailed me again today “ Please take the money now, I do not want to keep a lot of money with me in my office” , so I took the amount from here. And kept aside some as amma had said for purposes I do not entirely condone (donation).

The trip around Eindhoven on cycle

So one day long back ago (the long being not longer than 15 days), Punno came back home and he told how he reached the outskirts of Eindhoven on his cycle. And how Eindhoven jungle hi jungle hai (read green) . So I got a direction on how to pass my time. Next day was probably off and I had nothing much to do. Baahar niklane ka mann to kar hi raha tha because I had not done any physical activity for the past many days, and my legs were etting as restless as a horse/dog who hasn’t been out for a long time. Hence I decided ke cycling kar ke ‘Stratumseind’ chalte hain. Stratumseind is a street with the most number of pubs (more than 40) in a single street in Holland… so I started off, was walking as such and going anyway I wanted to and felt like… since here the rules stipulate that you should move on the right side of the road. Consequently the right turn is a free turn as opposed to left where you have to wait for light… I took some right turns and just cycling around. Half an hour I cycled and then decided ke bahut ho gaya, lets check with the map how close I am to my “destination” and lo … I was moving in the opposite direction. So socha chalo ab vaapus chalte hain. Good thing that I had a map. Better thing that the roads have proper signs which help you identify the road. So I got to know that I was tooooooo far away. Map mein to dikh raha that ke which side I should go .. per sadak per to nahin pata laga that what direction is north and which one is south as the road on both sides is the same. So whatever direction sense I had still left in me, I used it to choose a direction which led me further away form my intended destionation and I reached the Mahatma Gandhi lane. Wondered if he knew ke Eindhoven mein he has a road by his name. Interestingly, most crossroads had signs pointing towards “Centrum” or “Antwerp” or Maastretch”.

Now I deviate to the roads… each and every road even if the road is 50 metres long, it has a name.. so there are so many names that it makes it impossible for anyone to remember each road, which explains why I did not get good directions the first time I got lost. To counter that, the pin code changes every 50 or 100 metres. The pin code is a 6 digit alpha numeric number, e.g. 5612PM is De Sitterstraat , but the code changes after small distance.. so that makes the postman’s job easy. Contrast it with Amritsar jahan poore Asr ka ek hi pin code hai. So here we have Winston Churchilaan, Roentgenlaan, Einsteinlaan, Kelvinlaan, Keesomstraat, Boschdijk etc. So I got lost and came back again , (bhala ho ek aur cycle waale ka) the only good thing was that I finally got my directions right and came around the area around which we are staying, so I could figure rest of the way by myself.

Horse show

Some time later, we were on a holiday again and as always, did not have anything specific to do; so me and Punno decided to explore another side of Eindhoven. So we started off on our cycles. Arbit ghoom rahe they and just seeing the buildings. We were told ke yahan per there are many people who take up architecture because people are always demolishing and rebuilding buildings. We have a very good example in the univ itself. There was a building which was the main building. Then a new building was designed and designated as the main building, the old building was restricted to being a students centre. Now this old main building will be demolished and the new building created which will be the new main building … hadd choohe billi ka khel hai . So we saw a building which looks like a doll house but thhoda tedha hai. Cycling along, good landscapes were seen, of the type which make the wallpapers, especially the ones where trees are lined on both sides of the road. Moving around, we saw a number of posters with the horse theme, and policeman guarding certain roads. We asked them what’s going on coz I had read on the Eindhoven website that there was supposed to be an international horse event, and horse sense said that this would be it. They guided us to the entrance and hence we saw the horse show.

The very vast ground was divided into different areas. At one place equestrian was going on, on other show jumping was taking place, and certain area was designated for practice and warming up. We saw the show jumping first and then the equestrian … and the horses were amazing… unko dekh kar royalty ki feel aa rahi thi … especially when you compare them with the horses that I have been exposed to in amritsar .. the tthele waala with the horse jisko dekh kar aisa lagta hai ke agar thoda chhota and grey hota to gadha hi maan leta.

You all must have seen horse shows on ESPN so won’t be describing them in detail, but a few point struck me. Junta bahut zyaada nahin thi, infact , I think the participants outnumbered the audience… very few people as audience especially if you consider that it was an “international” event , but even so , there was a lot of money being spent on arrangements and all. Audi had sponsored the event and I have no idea what prompted them and what publicity (worth their sponsorship money) would they get, considering that a lot of money is required for such an event. The transportation costs of the horses itself would be astronomical.

Apart from that, the atmosphere was a like a family picnic. Families had come with the perambulators for small kids, lots of people who had brought their dogs with them to the show. A perfect place for a family picnic and especially when you consider that there was a lake nearby where ducks were swimming and it was a quiet area, perfection.

Exasperation

The quality of life that these people have is much better than what we have. They do not work on weekends; they work only from 9-5; they plan their weekends and plan excursion for themselves. In the univ, the quality of their students is lower than what we have. But still… they have the resources to lavish on themselves … is the world trade that skewed? The amount that we toil in our economy and the rewards it would bring there is much much less than what it would do if you toiled the same here. Where do they get their resources from ??????????????????

Museum

This Sunday we went to a museum. We were supposed to go to the Van Abbe museum but beech mein we saw the Philips light bulb factory and museum of artificial light and hence vahan chale gaye.

The light museum had two floors … the 1^st floor was neon lights exhibition by Fransisco Mortelli ( probably 1940-90) . Infinitely bakwaas cheez thi, it actually strengthened my belief that most artists are basically people who give faaltu ke fundae. I have seen paintings of Tyab Mehta and Hussain and Picasso and Van Gough and fail to make out why do they command such a price. (there was an article in the reader’s digest on modern art titled “Did a car run into it ?” ) Anyway, to Shreeman Mortelli had a display … three white vertical neon lights crossed by 3 yellow horizontal neon lights (basically a knoughts and crosses ka board) and the description .. tauba …. “ this work consists of three horizontal neon lights crossed by three vertical neon lights. Mortelli wants show that the meaning of an object depends upon the perception of the viewer. Here, the viewer might think of it as 3 horizontal and 3 vertical lines , or the 9 squares, or the 16 crosses formed” …. And such crap … ek baccha bhi bata de ke you make intersecting lines and various formations can be made out of it. There were many more displays in the “museum” which extolled more such definitions of art.

But there were a few displays on the 2^nd floor which were visual effects. We have the videos of them. One was a hologram; you moved around a flat copper plate and see a 3d bulb suspended in air. Then there was a screen which freezed shadows. (something to do with emission and absorption of light by the background material.. we have that video too) .. and since this museum took a lot of time, the Van Abbe museum was left out for the day.

Netherlands vs Mexico

Haan to as we all know.. Europe yaani football. And jaisa ki I told earlier, we missed the UEFA cup final the day we landed here. Not that mere ko farak pata hai, I am not a great follower of football, but I have Punno for company. parson pata laga ke aaj Netherlands vs Mexico ka friendly match hai .. warm up matches before the world cup and bhai sahib…. Punno hadd pareshaan hai ke match dekhna hai .. match dekhna hai …. of course now we won’t get the ticket (a ticket at a price out of our reach is as good as a no ticket. ) “Punno: yaar main bata nahi sakta itna dil kar raha hai jaane ka .. this may be our last chance to see a match in Europe” “Punno: yaar .. I’ve seen the smile on Alejandro’s face … he was so happy “ “Punno: aisa lag raha hai .. ki aaj nahi dekh paaya to life khatm hai” so you can imagine ke bhai sahib dikkat mein hain. And did I mention ke his Ph.D guide Alejandro is from Mexico and is a great follower of football ? Jale per namak aisa hai ki Alejandro has 5 tickets for the match, bought 2.5 months ago at 20 euros each and he is taking others (including Punno ka Prof Clerx) with him, but no place for Punno .all seats booked >:)

Ponker and Kissa Pataal Lok ka: Part 4 June 10, 2006

So we have had Thursday to Sunday off and did nothing the entire 4 days. The rains spoilt all. No trip to Amsterdam or Maastricht or Hague or Antwerp or whatever. Not even Eindhoven. All we can do is while away the time at home. So I am back here at the univ as there is nothing to do at home. Guess the university is the default case, and I open up my mailbox to read the following mail.

/////////////////////////////////////mail start////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

It’s half past 8 in the office
but the lights are still on…
PCs still running,
coffee machines still buzzing…
and who’s at work?
Most of them??? Take a closer look…
All or most specimens are 20-something male species of the human race…
Look closer… again all or most of them are bachelors…
and why are they sitting late? Working hard? No way!!!
Any guesses???
Let’s ask one of them…
Here’s what he says… “What’s there 2 do after going home… here we get to surf, AC, phone, food, coffee.. thats is why I am working late…
importantly no bossssssss!!!!!!!!!!!
This is the scene in most research centres and software companies and other off-shore offices.
Bachelors “time-passing” during late hours in the office just bcoz they say they’ve nothing else to do…
Now what r the consequences… read on…
“Working”(for the record only) late hours soon becomes part of the institute or company culture.
With bosses more than eager to provide support to those “working” late in the form of taxi vouchers, food vouchers and of course good feedback,(oh, he’s a hard worker… goes home only to change..!!).
They aren’t helping things too…
To hell with bosses who don’t understand the difference between “sitting” late and “working” late!!!
Very soon, the boss start expecting all employees to put in extra working hours.
So, My dear Bachelors let me tell you, life changes when u get married and start having a family… office is no longer a priority, family is…
and that’s when the problem starts…
becoz u start having commitments at home too.
For your boss, the earlier “hardworking” guy suddenly seems to become a “early leaver” even if u leave an hour after regulartime… after doing the same amount of work.
People leaving on time after doing their tasks for the day are labeled as work-shirkers…
Girls who thankfully always (its changing nowadays… though) leave on time are labeled as “not up to it”.
All the while, the bachelors pat their own backs and carry on “working” not realizing that they r spoiling the work
culture at their own place and never realize that they wuld have to regret at one point of time.
*So what’s the moral of the story?? *
* Very clear, LEAVE ON TIME!!!
* Never put in extra time ” *unless really needed *”
* Don’t stay back un-necessarily and spoil your company work culture which will in turn cause inconvenience to you and your colleagues.

There are hundred other things to do in the evening..
Learn music…
Learn a foreign language…
try a sport… TT, cricket………
importantly get a girl friend or gal friend, take him/her around town…
* And for heaven’s sake net cafe rates have dropped to an all-time low (plus, no fire-walls) and try cooking for a change.
Take a tip from the Smirnoff ad: *”Life’s calling, where are you??”

*Please pass on this message to all those colleagues
And please do it before leaving time, don’t stay back till midnight to forward this!!!

//////////////////////////////////mail end//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

So this is the classic case of what is happening here.

So back to the new things out here….. very many small pending topics.. with small descriptions of each, I guess I can finish them off.

The keys to the apartment:

One key for the building, one key for the apartment number 10, another key for the room 10B; apart from keys for the garage and the gas meter and 2 keys for the cycle. The door keys are troublesome, the spring of the lock has to be compressed using the key itself which increases the effort tremendously as the torque has to be applied using the key as the lever arm. This also requires the material of the key to have a higher yield strength to withstand the stresses, increasing the costs if not the weight. And the first day I was here, it took me time to figure out how to open the door because I would not have even tried to apply the large amount of force required on the key. Hence the locking system can be improved. Thank god Landry was in the house and opened the door for me and showed me how to use the keys, varna pata nahin kitni der tak fight maarta rehta.

Cycles:

Holland is famous for its use of bicycles… many people use them ..almost everybody uses them. The roads are 6 laned, 3 for each direction : 1 for car , and for cycles and 1 for pedestrians. Hence WIDE roads. And the cars stop for bicycles and people to cross, I being not used to this in India, stop for the car to pass and hence we both stop for a few moments before I realize the difference… the first two times, the driver had to gesture out to pass before I actually crossed the road. .

Daylight

It summers here … or whatever… but the sun stays right up from 4 in the morning to 10 in the night. Hence, we can have looong work hours and raat ki feel hi nahin aati and hence dinner ki feel bhi nahin aati

Window

The window in the apartment is good. It’s almost soundproof and the good part is the handle has 3 positions. First position to lock it closed, the second causes the door to be hinged around length and the 3^rd position makes the door to be hinged around the width. The downfall is that only half the window is movable, the rest half is fixed glass. I think I shall photograph the mechanism for better explanation.

Pulao

I tried pulao yesterday. With a zero idea of what exactly should be done but a general direction…. took a bowl, put water and rice and kaali daal and yellow daal and namak and kaali mirch and laal mirch and garam masala and pyaaz and tamatar and cabbage and gaajar (basically whatever was there in the kitchen ) and microwaved it for 15 minutes. Then for 5 minutes more and then since kaali daal nahin paki thi, for 10 more minutes. And then ate the thing.

Since kaali daal abhi bhi paki nahin thi ;… I spent another 45 minutes separating it from the rest before I could eat the mixture… anyhow.. now I can make khichhdi too… infact I made it for lunch today. Paani thooda zyaada tha, namak thhoda kam tha .. but the details can be worked out later.

Visit by Vestide

There is a company Vestide which arranged accommodation for students of TU/e and our accommodation was arranged through them only. A few days after we were here, Landry showed us a letter from Vestide saying that they will be coming for the quarterly inspection, but it wasn’t a problem since Landry would take care of it. Unfortunately when the guy came, Landry was sleeping. That morning itself since we were getting late, we had not washed the breakfast dishes. I was just about to leave for the univ when those people came. The kitchen had a bit of a dirty look and so he said you should clean up the kitchen, take out the garbage etc. etc. and that ty shall be back on the 30^th to check on the things. Pata nahin maine kya shakl banayee hogi ,,, he added “ don’t be wary” … ab bhai sahib, 6 foot 4 inch ka banda with a 6 foot 2 inch ki bandi , the man had a wide girth and a walrus moustache, me bechara 5 foot 10 inch, desh mein naya nay aaaya hoon, and accommodation per ungli uttha di gayi hai on which I am living on rent… wary na ho jaaoon to kya karoon ?? ) … so they’ll be back on the 30^th may … tab tak to spic and span kar denge kitchen ko

The Course

Things must be mentioned about Punno’s work too. He was given an idea of his work and the (May-July) schedule of it in September itself and kaha tha ke baaki tayaari yahan aa kar hi karenge , his work is in turbulent flows and we have not done anything in that, only done laminar flows. Here on the first day itself he was given a few papers, 2 Ph.D theses and a book to read ( to get an overview ) and his guide Alejandro said ke at week end I will start you on a course which will help you in getting a better idea. Till then Punno papers etc etc khud hi padh le . weekend came and chala gaya .. course postponed. Thursday aaya and chala gaya . course postponed some more… Punno still reading by himself. Plus the problem was that Punno ko kuchh kuchh idea diya gaya tha , if Punno asked for clarification of any point which cropped up during his self study, to baat course tak tal jaati thi (“the course will make it clear”) and hence the joke was ke Punno bina fail hue Eindhoven mein summer course kar raha hai … so by the time the course was started , Punno had read a lot and abhi tak ek class lagi hai after which Punno said “ jitna padha tha , wahi revise ho gaya” .. waiting for other classes now and yet to find out ke usse exactly karna kya hai.

Ponker and Kissa Pataal Lok ka: Part 3 June 3, 2006

The work

The subject of my mail when I applied for an internship was “Numerical Methods in Engineering, Internship during May-July 2006.” I had first mailed this prof in October. Here again.. I will skip the details of how it was almost cancelled and in February I got the intern confirmed finally (much before I had my passport ). I had asked Enna to mention the topic of my internship in the invitation letter which is required for the visa and hence for a full 2 months (after I got my invitation letter and before I reached Eindhoven), all I knew was that I will be involved in “gradient interpolation of scattered data in fairing of ship hulls using splines.” I know what splines are ( basic idea), can understand what interpolation is, what ships are, but I couldn’t make sense of the topic in totality ( and the English did not help). I had heard from the seniors that this is what happens, wahin per jaa kar kuchh padh lena and it will all be fine, but still it would have been comforting to know something more about what I was supposed to do, more so so that I should read up something, learn anything new which might be required. So I mailed the prof ke tell me some details, and he replied that I will do that in a few days. I had to send him a reminder again and 1 day before I was to board the flight, he mailed me the name of a book “ A Practical Guide To Splines by Charles De Boor” .. so I came here, with no internship specific preparation, but having done three courses in mathematics.

On the first day, he gave me an overview of the problem that was to be worked on. We get a data set with coordinates x,y,z for points on a ship hull from the company Mastership and the software should adjust the z so that the surface is smoother, and define many more points between the given points so that the surface is well defined. The major part of my internship was supposed to be the calculation of the gradient of the surface. The B-Spline used for interpolation is a function of x and y , and well, I told Marc that the gradient would be a simple matter of partial differentiation if I was able to reconstruct the B-Spline function. The existing software was using a library function which gave the numerical values at points but not the function itself, and hence we were unable to get the exact gradient. So I reconstructed the function for a 1-dimension case and found the derivative(gradient). To verify the results, I calculated the corresponding Bezier spline (it’s different from B-Spline) and calculated the control points for a post script file for accurate visualization of the results and verified that the results were correct. Then I reconstructed the function for the 2d case and found the gradient. Hence, yesterday, on 23^rd May, I finished the major part of the internship. Of course, the finishing touches are left, the superficial things, the presentation, but the content is ready. Marc had said earlier that what he thought would be the major part would be finished quite early and hence had put me on for accurate visualization thing for 1d before going on for gradient of 2d; else the 23^rd may would have been something like 20^th may. So as far as work is concerned, I am happy.

Just in case you are wondering or thinking that “Oh it was sooooo easy!!!”, I had zero idea of what B-Splines were when I landed here on 10^th May, but I have put in put in 11 hour days for the work and have put in the weekends too; hence have been able to finish 90% of the two and a half month project in approx 10 days.

Super Tu/esdays

(TU/e) is celebrating its 50 years this year, so it’s kind of the festive year. They have something called super Tu/esdays so every Tuesday there is something or the other special happening. I missed the first Tuesday that we were here although Thapa had informed us that when he was coming back from univ to apartment, there was a party going on in the lawns. Khair, yesterday the theme was something called ‘nano technologie’ and the department was organizing a party/debate/conference and dutch mein A1 size ka poster laga hua tha with some ‘DJ Lady Aida’ mentioned on it too, so I guess ke inka conference ka concept kuchh alag hai. Anyhow, among many other things, 1700 hours and auditorium was mentioned, that so we went there. Outside there was music playing and beer being served. Puneet knew a person who was involved (he was a visual artist) in organizing the thing and we asked him what’s going on. He said the show starts at 7:30, currently there is a just a party going on and everyone is invited. Anyway, we did not attend the “party” and missed the beer. Punno wanted to go home and Thapa and Gogo had to do some work. So the party was missed. At 7:30 we went again and were told that the “show” was full though we got entrees for the debate at 8:30 and the repeat performance at 10 PM. I went back, finished my work(as said above) and then we (me and Thapa)reached the Blue Hall (‘Bleaw Zwaal’ ) at the appointed time (10pm).

Now a bit of dehati awe again. The blue hall is not huge… maybe a seating capacity of 200-300 but the infrastructure that they have for the stage … WOW!!! The amount of lights and mechanisms that have been installed … it’s a full fledged thing, something that we would have for say … the Miss India pageants or the Filmfare awards.

Another good thing in terms of creativity and presentation …they were using cloth screens for projection … they had multiple screens (something similar to a mosquito net) placed one behind the other. If the beam is 3 mm in diameter and the screen cloth is 2 mm in diameter ( with blank spaces around it), then you would have 1 mm on the screen behind and so on ….So the effect was an actual 3d image instead of just a 3d projection on a 2d surface. That was about the design part.

So we were sitting there for the show to begin when a person comes up to us and starts a chat. He told us that he was a bachelor in comp. science and then moved on to visual arts and got involved in nano technology. Supposedly there was a discussion going on the internet saying that lots of stuff on anti gravity was done in India and just that the people outside were not aware of it, so he was asking if we were aware of the research going on and things done. He mentioned that the debate which was earlier was in dutch .. so we did not miss much because anyway we would not have understood what was being said. I said that I hoped that the presentation and the show atleast would be in English and he said its more universal language , the language of mathematics and hence we would have no trouble in following it.

Hence the show started. Music being played in the background with lots of high frequency noises. On the screens, triangles and rectangles and spheres being projected.. all incoherent to me and we could not understand what was the significance and relation to nano. 10 minutes into the show, a female appears on the stage and starts belly dancing. For those unaware of belly dancing, it’s an Arabian style .. and in Thapa’s words …. The song ‘Mehbooba mehbooba’ in ‘Sholay’ … that attire and dancing was presented. Of course, squares and cubes and molecules being projected on the screens in the periphery. The icing on the cake : a remixed version of “yu zindagi ki rah mein majboor ho gaye” was a part of the music . absolute trash. I have no idea what relation to nanotechnology did all this have and what mathematics was involved in it but that was it. Post the show, it looked like a work of an entertainment company hired to do something for the nano day and someone who did not have an inkling of what nanotech was except that it is science. .. which might also be true…. Anyway …my takeway…. live belly dance…. Good >:) >:) >:) >>:)

After the show, a person came up, presented bouquets to the lady DJ and the dancer and the lady on the projector and dutch mein kuchh kuchh bola , thoda nano nano kiya and we dispersed.

The pub

So we dispersed from there, we being Thapa and me. Thapa said pub chalna hai kya ? I said fine, hence we moved towards the city center where all the pubs are supposed to be located. City centre hadd jagah hai … It’s basically markets, but awesome. Next time we go, we will click pics and they will be self explanatory. There is supposed to be a road which is lined with pubs. Well we tried to look for it but could not find it, but we did find an Irish pub and into it we went. Being a weekday, there were only a few people there; it is supposed to be better on weekends. Nice place though the music was not that good. Later we requested songs of U2 and he played those, so the music wasn’t a problem later. We were out of cigarettes, so we asked the bartender ( Collin , from Scotland) if he had cigarettes and he says yes… right there at the back. Thapa went and could not get them from the vending machine(the instructions were in dutch). We asked the bartender and he said oh .. sorry I forgot to give you the initial coin to activate the machine. With the coin we went back to the machine and could not get the packet. Called the bartender again and he helped us get a Marlboro out of the machine (cost us 4 euros )

So we sat at the bar, smoked, tried drinks, variety of them, sweet wine, Guinness, beer, tequila sunrise, coffee liquor with cream etc.. A few ingredients were coerbach, orange juice, tia maria (if it makes any difference to the reader). Then we went back to the apartment.