An Eternal Optimist

This is a story about a friend who believes that the Indian cricket team can do no wrong…if the team bats miserably – the pitch was bad, how could they help it, the bowlers will surely do a good job and win the match for us …oops they got hit all over the place – poor guys, some of them were suffering from injuries but still played, fielding is bad – they try but somehow cannot seem to see the ball due to bad lighting… when he cannot convince himself longer, he also puts the blame on Dawood Ibrahim and his devious methods of earning a quick buck through cricket!!! This is a cycle that goes on and on, but my friend doesn’t lose faith and still believes that Indian cricket team is the best…

And best it is…I mean who can refute the fact that its one of the best batting line ups on paper, it is another matter that this famed line-up chokes on most of the crucial games …Bowling is an area that India has always been weak in, but when we get a decent fast bowler, in the hope of creating a Kapil Dev, we ensure that he forgets how to bowl too…then there are this list of fast bowlers, medium pacers, spinners that I cannot seem to remember because they keep flitting in and out of the team…some of them we remember more for their in-field behavior as compared to their performance…but then whatever catches attention right? My friend tells me it is because we want to develop the second line of talent that we never seem to have a permanent team, a permanent opening pair I guess is too much to ask for… how does it matter if we lose a million matches in the name of developing talent! Fielding is something I don’t even want to start with.. I think Indian fielding has been a subject of a million jokes and was even a successful ad campaign for a washing powder brand, need I say more….but despite all this, this eternally optimistic friend of mine bought a subscription to watch the match online, went to office to watch the match with a LAN connection on a big screen, hooting for India to win…. Just to come back moping yet again!! But like I said the cycle repeats over and over again, so this friend is disappointed that the wireless connection does not work at the airport, is secretly thrilled that the flight is delayed and there is trouble with our tickets just so that he could stay a little longer at the airport and call home in India to check on the scores of the match between India and Pakistan in the 20-20 world cup… I am hoping for his sake and the sake of a million others like him that India at least keep this record of beating Pakistan in the world cup matches… It’s the Indian team – you never know… they love breaking these type of records!!

I guess it’s just too much to ask a team of 12 players to carry the hope and expectations of a billion people… I guess it’s too much to ask of them to perform well…at least to make us feel that they tried their best… but then again I guess its not too much considering all the money they make out of the sponsorship that they get – all thanks to the expectations of the very same billion people…

Today the captain of the Indian team has resigned, we are a team without both a captain and a coach…My friend says, things cannot get worse than this…we have to go upwards at least now.. I thought we already hit rock bottom when we lost to Bangladesh and Srilanka, didn’t make it to the Super eight and the team winning against Bangladesh in Bangladesh was making news!… Oh but then I forget my friend is an eternally optimistic Indian cricket fan…

PS: we reached Skelleftea and got to know that India finally managed to win the tie breaker...never mind that after reducing Pakistan for 59/5 in the 11th over there should not have been left a scope for a tie breaker in the first place…the good news my friend tells me is that they managed to keep this one record intact – at least for now…..

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Contradictions Galore

A new Indian, or desi as we call ourselves here, has come to Skelleftea recently, and as always, I treated (read dragged) him to my famous 5 km walk by the river, on our walk he threw a wrapper on the road… and this became the topic of discussion on the dinner table… how conscious are we as nation towards cleanliness of our environment??

The answer comes easy to all of us, since we do walk/drive on streets with out eyes wide open – its there for all to see!! It’s amazing how we Indians generally insist on keeping our houses spic and span, but don’t follow the same rules when it comes to the streets…..most of us do not think twice before throwing something on the streets without a care for what will become of it, how unhygienic it is, or what impression it would create on the minds of foreigners coming to visit one of the fastest growing economy...we don’t care since its not our house getting dirty!!!

One major excuse that I get to hear whenever this comes up is that there is a lack of infrastructure (read sufficient dustbins), but come on guys, how much of an effort is it, to keep the wrapper, or any other kind of garbage with you until you find a garbage can and then just dump it… its basically just a mindset issue… on my last visit to Cochin, the burning issue was the garbage disposal system, and I am not exaggerating but there was an ever-growing pile of plastics bags full of rubbish every 100 mtrs on the streets.. The whole city was stinking and there was a hue and cry created on this issue, which finally needed the intervention of the high court…well yes the blame was put on the municipal cooperation, but what do they do in a state where almost no land is owned by the government and everyone is ready to go on a strike for just about nothing….I saw some really well dressed people, living in beautiful big houses come early morning and throw their bags on the street … the question on my mind was that hadn’t they heard of the age old method of disposing waste - the decomposition pit!! You don’t really need a court to tell you something which is basic common sense…but then again common sense is not so common after all…

The amazing thing to see, is that these same very people who have no regard for the surroundings in India, become an epitome of following rules in every aspect when go abroad, so much so that they surpass that the locals living there ( my friend was an exception though)…the heartrending thing is that we have become so insensitive to the whole issue in India that we don’t even notice it as a problem …its only when you come abroad do you see a stark difference…. its not that the Swedes are extra clean, they are far from it….its there for anyone who wakes up and takes a walk early in the morning before the cleaning happens – there are beer bottles and wrappers everywhere. They have the advantage of being so scarcely populated for the place and the money they have that they can afford to look spic and span despite not being that… We don’t have that in India, so isn’t it as dutiful citizens our duty to keep it clean?? I know it’s a fairly basic issue but then shouldn’t we get the basics right before we aim for the stars??

PS: I know a lot of us are conscious about what we do.. this is targeted at the other 75% of the population

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The battle is on...

My blog has started looking more like a National Geographic write up or that’s what my friends say. And hence I have decided to finally write about something which has been on my mind for a while now, but just didn’t seem to have the courage to write about it for fear of backlash!! Read on and you’ll know what I mean…

For years I have heard my male friends cribbing about how women were confused people who didn’t know what they want, they kept changing their mind, and to please a woman was an impossible task – this among a whole list of other cribs…and when I heard stories of how those “poor” souls were tortured by their girlfriends, I felt a tad bit sorry for them as well….

However have realized completely on what a waste my sympathies were since it was either lack of tact, or insensitivity or some other stupidity that led to such behavior( if at all it wasn’t anything but mere figment of imagination)…

Experiential learning - I am going through the whole arrange marriage process right now and if I wasn’t the one going through the pain of conversing with guys, it would probably be down right hilarious, though I do end up laughing about it while sharing similar stories of guy behavior with my friends…

Most guys tell me they want their wives to be independent, consultative and have opinions.. however there’s a rider to this – she cannot have a different opinion from him and the skies fall down if she voices it openly too….another funny one “ she should be smart, beautiful, intelligent, witty, homely etc etc” – question if she was all this, why would she marry you and why not Tom Cruise?? And this from a guy, who looks like anything but Tom cruise, I mean get realistic dude!!!! It’s alright for the girl to have a job, but her taking her career seriously is concept alien to a guy… its okay for a guy to be opinionated, go getter, well traveled and ambitious , but a girl be that and she’s labeled as unmarriageable!! Then there is a breed of guys who are working in the US – and OMG do they think they are god’s gift to woman kind or what – they are definitely not going to settle for anyone else than an Aishwarya Rai look alike, how does it matter if their scope is limited to the one place in India where they lived in forever before being transported to a city in the US (some of them have a combination of pathetic English with that horribly fake American accent)…am just wondering now on who is the more confused species – the girl or the guy….

It gets funnier when you actually start talking to them that sometimes you actually believe that we women are such a superior race!! While women talk to compatibility, understanding, ease of communication etc, the guy ends up talking of are we comfortable speaking the same language (literally and not metaphorically) - now I understand communication is important, but shouldn't you look at ideas, views etc rather than the language they are spoken in, how difficult is it to master a language if you really like someone; similarities in the kind of movies we like – am still to understand on how that can be a criteria for someone to decide on marriage but whatever, oh yes how can I forget the all important question – do you know how to cook?? wonder of wonder, if you do manage to find one remotely decent guy among this crazy pack – then he for sure will turn out to be the commitment phobic kinds who is looking at girls because he’s getting older by the day but is so damn cautious about committing that he might just take years to decide!!!

Some of my married friends tell me that what I am going through with guys is just nothing; they live with these confused, erratic souls so they need to be pitied more... Living with creatures who are highly disorganized, moody, dirty, lazy, ill mannered and ungrateful am sure is not an easy task!! Its hilarious how a guy is bewildered when his wife sulks coz he commented that some chick he saw was hot – honesty yes we are all game for it, but tactlessness is a definite NO…they get mad when the wife nags on them being untidy, but quite honestly who wants to live in a place which closely resembles a pig sty!! Well I guess the list just goes on and on…

I am sure some of the guys reading this must be thinking, if men are so bad, why do women get married to them. The answer is simple, women being superior want everyone to try and be perfect like them.. men for us are like a project… we take pity on them and try to make them better, since perfection, is beyond men :P

Note to all my guy friends: don’t get angry at this one – learn from it!!

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The story of 14 islands

Just before I came to Sweden for the first time, someone told me that Stockholm was the most beautiful city that he had visited. Since he is a very well traveled person, my expectations hit the roof!!

My first visit to Stockholm was sometime in March for a day – and I was thoroughly disappointed. It was pretty no doubt, but definitely not out of the world. I couldn’t understand what was that special in the city. It could be because the weather was terrible, it wasn’t all that cold in terms of the temperature but I didn’t really appreciate the cold winds and the rain. This is why I decided, to visit Stockholm in all its glory before the winters came in - And finally, I understood the magic of Stockholm.

Stockholm has a lot of water channels since this is where the Baltic Sea meets the lake Malaren. It’s very common to see regular ferries connecting the 14 islands that form Stockholm. I decided to ditch the regular sight seeing by bus kind of stuff and travel by boat to all the places I wanted to visit. Though it takes a little more time to see the place as compared to taking the bus or even walking, I really felt that the whole experience made it worthwhile.

The first place I went to was the Vasa museum. This is where the sunken ship Vasa is restored and kept. Vasa was a famed ship of Sweden which sank just after sailing for 1300 mtrs. It was found after 300 years, restored and kept in the museum. It was all that, the Swedes had promised it would be- it’s a massive ship (for the day and age it was built it) and the carvings on the ship are intricate and beautiful. You almost end up feeling sorry for the people who made the ship with so much of care. The whole museum is darkened and the effect of the yellow light highlighting just the ship is brilliant. From there I walked to the Nordic museum, which gave a quick snapshot of the culture of the ancient Vikings. The Nordic museum also had an exhibit of private collectors going on. It was good to see people being encouraged to display their collection of coins, stamps, matchboxes, openers, dolls etc. You name it and they had it there!!

Stockholm is often called the museum city since it has more than 70 museums, but lack of time meant I had to choose between museums and other flavours of Stockholm. Hence I decided that the next stop would be Gamla Stan or the old town. The old town is basically the original Stockholm area sometime in the 17th century or earlier. Just walking in the streets of the old town, takes you into a completely different world – the small open cafes, the numerous antique shops, and the street musicians whose music you can hear everywhere you go, just wove a spell around me. I saw one of the most enthusiastic and fun street musician group there. They were just so full of energy and amazing music that the half and hour I spent listening to them seemed like just a few minutes. It was time then to break away from the magic cast on me to see the world’s first Ice bar in the hotel that I was staying. While walking towards the main Stockholm center, the change of architecture was dramatic that I could almost feel the transition between the old and the new.

The ice bar is a bar where everything, from the tables, to the chairs to even the glasses are made of ice. The temperature of the bar is maintained at a -5 degrees Celsius all year round and its quite a popular tourist destination that appointments are needed to get inside, since they do not allow more than 30 people at one time. It was good to see something so different and so crazy. I had my drink served in a glass made of ice… Cheers or Skall as the Swedish say to crazy ideas!!!!

The next day was reserved for the famed archipelagos of Stockholm. Stockholm has around a 1000 small islands surrounding it. A trip to Stockholm is definitely incomplete without visiting at least one of these archipelagos. It takes quite a while to get to even the nearest of the archipelago and get back. But it’s a trip was well worth it, some of the views were just out of this world. I got down at one of the archipelago called Grindo, walked around and then had a cup of coffee in one of the most beautiful restaurants I have come across – I could spend the entire day, just sitting there and gazing at the sea, however reality sunk in and I caught my ferry to the mainland.

Before I set out for Helsinki, my Swedish colleague asked me to tell him, which capital was prettier – Stockholm or Helsinki. He also assured me that I would be killed either by him or my Finnish colleague!!! ( the Swedes and the Finns share a love hate relationship and its good fun to see them joke about it – a more tamed version of India and Pak). But coming back to his question – I really don’t know....each had its charm – Helsinki was small but fun, and Stockholm enchanting, comparing them would be unfair to both… I told my colleague the same, he wasn’t too convinced though!!!

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Sauna Land

When I planned a work week to Finland in a place called Pernio, I decided that this time I would definitely visit Helsinki. That would be the only way I would be able to compensate one week of living in a place which to me resembles a meditation camp (it’s just got our factory and the guesthouse and nothing else) .

Finland in spite of being neighbours to Sweden and having being ruled by Sweden for a long time, as quite different from the Swedes. Finnish for example, is completely different from Swedish and English and quite difficult to learn at that ( not that I am trying, Swedish is enough for now). Their love for saunas is unbeatable. The ideal Finnish holiday is having a sauna party, in a summer house close to the sea, and cooling off by swimming in the open sea. I was lucky sample a little bit of this idyllic holiday, if only for a few hours. We were taken to the company’s summer cottage close to the sea, and though I didn’t go into the sauna with the guys, spent a lot of time just soaking in the nature….. After that brilliant evening, I set out to Helsinki by train the next day . The train was not as extravagant as the trains in Denmark, but definitely comfortable and not to forget a whole lot cheaper!!

I instantly fell in love with Helsinki! It’s not as big as the other cities I’ve been too and there are not many monuments to see there, but to me it was charming nonetheless. It was bright and sunny, and there were people happy and celebrating everywhere. I guess that played a part in creating that magic. The city is a perfect blend of being big enough so that you don’t feel like you are in a small town and a feel of a small town where everything is in a radius of 5 kms so that everything is in walking distance.

One blooper – the hotel refused to check me in before 2 pm, so instead of wasting time, decided to make full use of the good weather and went to Soumenlinna fortress. The fortress in itself was pale in comparison to the Agra fort and the Red fort in Delhi, but what stood out was the beauty it was surrounded by. Some of the views were just unbelievable with the grass lush green and the sea surrounding it on all four sides, I really don’t think any words or even a lot of my pictures can do full justice to the beauty that I saw there. Its because of that, its really not a surprise that the fortress is a popular picnic spot for the locals and a top tourist spot.

After spending close to three hours in the fortress, we headed back to mainland and went to rock church. The church is built from one massive piece of rock, and the architecture inside is worth noticing. It was about to close so we needed to leave early, but otherwise would surely have loved to spend some more time inside.

The next stop was the Cathedral, which is right behind the market square. It’s stark white and hence impossible to miss. The insides of the church were as pretty as the outsides, and once we were done with being a little religious, we headed out to have some good Indian dinner after a long time – all in all a good day!

The next day, we went visiting a zoo, all on my insistence. I went into a zoo after a really long time (can’t even remember when I went last). It’s quite a small zoo, but what attracted me was that it was on an island. It was heartening to see the animals healthy and happy. That’s when I remembered why I stopped visiting zoos in India - they always left me with such an unpleasant feeling! Anyways the rest of the day was spent in walking around on the streets of Helsinki, and not to forget one of my major hobbies – shopping!!....

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Breathe free... You are born in a free country!!

At the breakfast table today, we had a long discussion with the Vikings on India’s independence. Surprisingly the Swedes are very aware of the Indian Independence story a little bit due to us talking about it for days, but more so because it’s been in Swedish papers and the TV channels here are showing Hindi movies this whole week!! (Pity I am missing it all because I am in Finland this week)

During the course of these discussions, when we talked about Sweden, Finland, their development as a country, a few things just struck me deep, and I was proud I was born in a free country – free in every sense of the word.

Sweden for example got its freedom of religion as late as 1950 in spite of never being ruled by someone else. It basically meant that anyone born on Swedish land would automatically be Christian. I was taken aback by that concept, since I could not fathom a life like that; where I would not get a right to practice any religion I wanted to. It made me appreciate the true meaning of being born in a secular country, and no I am not denying that there are numerous riots that happen in the country in the name of religion, but still for a country diverse in every aspect of societal norms, most times we coexist peacefully. There are yet some other countries, where the freedom of press and speech is an alien concept, and in some orkut is banned ( poor those guys), when I think of living in such places, is when I realize how important freedom is. And most times, you are free in India (except for when some crazy people try and be the moral police)

Another thing that I realized when the Swedes talked of 1930s being recent was that how young we are as a nation - I am ignoring the long history of the pre- independence era, since we were not free and definitely not one country. And when I realized that, I grew immensely proud of what we have achieved as a country in this short span of time despite the three wars. For a country which is just 60 years old the economic growth that we have had is worth mentioning, specially the past 4-5 years have been really good for India, with everything going its way, be it a string of acquisitions putting India business houses on the global map, or the Indian movie industry stars gracing Madam Tussauds in their statue forms.

Not that I believe totally in the “India shining” story, or that I believe that we have truly arrived , and I know we have miles to go before we are called a developed nation, before we can be close to a developed country…but like the rang de basanti dialogue goes - koi bhi desh perfect nahi hota, usse perfect banana padhta hai…..

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Sleepless nights

I have been meaning to write about the summer festival in Skelleftea which happened last week but have been extremely busy working, getting ready to go India and trying to catch up on the Harry Potter mania. The Potter bug caught me a little to late in life, with me finding it extremely boring and childish the first time I tried to read it. This time, it truly caught me (me thinks its just coz I haven’t read a book in a really long time). Anyways, almost all nights were spent trying to finish the books, and have finally managed to finish all the seven books (at least I hope the 7th one is the same as what’s given on the internet).

Getting back to the festival – Skelleftea has a summer fest every year for 3 days to celebrate the coming of the summer and the start of the summer semesta (vacation). We could actually notice the transformation in the city square which suddenly came to life. There were rock shows, a lot of games, shops on the roads and bungee jumping too. For the first time in the 6 months I have been here, I got to see so many people in one tiny place for an extended period of time. Malmia (the hotel I call home now) which usually has a deserted look was taken over by the neighbouring Norwegians and some others from nearby towns, there were people buzzling around just everywhere. Skelleftea underwent a complete metamorphosis – was good since it reminded me a bit of India. It was good to see some life coming into the otherwise drowsy town. Though beyond a point in the nights, I just wanted to get some sleep, which was almost impossible with all the loud music and people shouting downstairs (imagine sleeping in a pub with the loudspeaker next to your ear!!). That’s when the Potter bug caught me, and I had something to do in the nights over the weekend. Didn’t really think it would go on for the whole week. Anyways Harry potter is done with now and am on my way to India.

Yippee!!! That’s what I thought at first. But that was before I saw my itinerary to get to India. I have almost 10 hrs of waiting – 5 each in Frankfurt and Dubai airports. I am sure that by the time I finish this travel, airports and planes would feel like home to me!! Have managed to kill 30 mins at the Frankfurt airport writing this completely uncoordinated piece – I guess it’s a reflection of my tired mind….

PS: this is written sitting in the Frankfurt airport about 10 days back....managed to post it only today

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