German chronicle 3

Mankind for ever has always been filled with stories about the lust for power.wealth and domination. Endless tales of horror and carnage... But sometimes, some limits are crossed which can never be forgiven..some wounds made tht will never heal. Germany is still reeeling under it. A silent guilt runs through their blood. The price for the rage of their past is still being paid. The endless TV shows which keep running on national television keep reminding ppl of the atrocities comitted by them. The silent gas chambers. the gory death pits, the horror of the Auschwitz....................no wonder ppl in there used to say "God is on leave"...There has been a lot of reconstruction over a period of timeover here..... there are cities like Stuttgart where none of the buildings are over 60 yrears old.... I just pray that there is no third world war.... the earth cannot sustain another bout of madness.

Dogs of war and men of hate
With no cause, we don't discriminate
Discovery is to be disowned
Our currency is flesh and bone
Hell opened up and put on sale
Gather 'round and haggle
For hard cash, we will lie and deceive
Even our masters don't know the web we weave

One world, it's a battleground
One world, and we will smash it down
One world ... One world

- David Gilmour. ( The Dogs of War from the album A Momentary Lapse of Reason )


Man, such topics are so depressing to discuss........ lets talk abt something else...


I had been to Munich on the last weekend of my stay. The city famous for the Oktober fest, FC Bayern Munich, the BMW head office and the Olympic park welcomed us with gr8 weather. It was nice to see a city centre bustling with ppl on a Saturday aftenoon ( reminded me of Brigade Rd ) . The city is a nice blend of the old and the new giving it an unique facade. I met my TCS Hyderabad collegue there, Kamesh ,who is working there and it was nice to meet a familiar face after a long time. As he had been in that place for a couple of months he knew the place pretty well. We saw the spot in the Olympic park where 11 Isreli footballers were gunned down by Palestini millitants during the 1972 Olympics ( what a sick thing to say..." saw the place where some guys died !!! " ) ..Unfortunately we did not have time to see the world famous Deutche museum. ... they see one needs three full days to see everything inside in detail. The next day we went to visit the castle of Neunshwinewstein ( boy ...it took me half a day to get the name...let some German come here ...I shall ask him to pronounce my address, Vyallikaval.Mahalakshmipuram ...hehe) . The castle built by King Ludwig the 2nd in the early 19th century,is nestled in between the rising Alps on one side and beautiful lakes on the other...was a breath taking scene but those castles look so small whn comapred to our palaces.. Had the opportunity to see the famed Bavarian horses over there... and I bet they would give our Indian horses a complex like the German guys gave me..

. Out of us three guys who had been to Germany, .I was the only vergetarian ( to the gr8 distress of my Team Lead..hehe). Infact the point that one among us three was vegetarian had become so amusing for the Germans that the first thing their manger three levels higher (who had never met us before) enquired us was "Who among u is the vegetarian here?"...Hey, dont sue me... I dont eat dead birds...its not like if u dont eat meat u hv to survive on air and water.....what do they know about bhindi masala and bisibelebath !!! We had the unique opprtunity to have dinner at two of our German collegues' homes. It is not very natural for Germans to open up quickly tp strangers and it was a nice surprise for us. So, both the occasions they ended up preparing ghaas poos and all the expectations of my friends to hv home made German meat ( home made meat !!!!) went kaput. One of them had made some thing like a dosa ( actually a pancake) with asperagus inside. Aperagus is a delicacy for the Germans and they prepare it on spcl occasions. Ya, it may be a spcl thing for them but it was a pain for me. That thing is so slimy i dont undestand how they were cutting it with the knife. The damn thing was as slippery as an eel. Everyone had finished their course and there I was trying to eat the damn thing and to keep the stupid thing from slipping off my plate.It was really funny... 6 ppl who hv finished eating and staring at the last one who was acting as though there was a bomb in his plate...I guarentee guys the most embarassing sound in this world is that of a scratching knife on slippery porcelain.

One of the major differences b/w the lifestyles here and there is the distribution of population. There are a lot of people who prefer to stay in villages and travel 30-40 km daily ( with highways and cars like that who wouldnt ???) . Villages there are categorized only in terms of size. There are no facilities lacking or no comforts lost. The concept of villages I had took a total beating after i saw them.No comaprisons to our villages which stand for lack of basic amenities and comforts. But the German country side is one of the most beautiful sights i hv ever seen. With lush green outfields( every time saw one i thought they wud hv taken the Windows Xp wallpaper snap from there ), extensive wineyards, breathtaking flower gardens, picturesque roads.....i felt if I were removed from the scene, it would be a perfect setting for a postcard. Talking about countryside I hv to talk abt the rivers, Since all the rivers in Germany originate from the glaciers on the Alps they are always brimming with water unlike our seasonal rivers. They are quite deep too making it an efficient and cheap means of tranport esp for goods. But they look so dull and lifeless, I would prefer to see the bright and bouyant Cauvery anyday. :-)

Its really disturbing to hear the sort of impression ppl hv abt India. We met a family on the train and started a conversation. The sort of iamges comin g out of those ppl were really bad..."There are many poor ppl back there right?..everyone who goes to India returns with a disease...U shd be really rich guys to hv come here...there are cows everywhere....". Later we came to know the base for these details...u guessed it right...German christian missionaries running in India. Tht guy has a frnd who works somewhere in Bhopal with the poorest and sickest of the lot and passes on a distorted picture abt our country. Really sad... they will never know abt the developments and progress India has achieved...These missionaris are not only a mencae back homee but also in GErmany. "The Lord loves you with all ur heart...come join the path of the Lord.." whats their problem I dont understand... we guyz never go around telling ppl to join the path of Rama and Krishna... let the ppl be.. why force ur thoughts onto them....and if thwey can do this to us imagine the state of those who are barely making ends meet..."dont sell religion to a hungry man" Swami Vivekanada had told long ago at Chicago...


The Germans are fitness crazy. You can see ppl jogging and cycling anytime of the day, 6 in the morn, 1 in the afternoon, 8 in the evening....I was shocked to know that they cycle on a avg 60 - 75 km a day or run 25-40 km a day!!!!!! Man , i havent cycled 10 km in the last 5 yrs....no Sir,,, never heard of Tour De France before...hehe. The amazing thing is that age is not a barrier for such activities. Infact age is not a barrier for anything. Old guys are the ones u see outside the most and they enjoy the most....very very different from old ppl back home...One of the Organization heads who had to come a team dinner with us told that he rides a 600cc Suzuki bike and plans to buy a 1200cc Honda nxt year ( FYI,,...he is around 55 or 60). Its a combination of both mental and physical fitness which keeps them active even at that age..this is one change i hope to see one day in our country too.


The funnisest thing i ever saw there was the loo in the office. There are 4 or 5 of them nxt to each other in a row divided by some sort of a wall. The crazy thing is that the doors and the walls on both sides are not touching the foor and the cieling. Infact there was no cover on the top. The walls were atleast 10 inches short of the floor. So , if anyone is in the loo nxt to urs u can see his shoe ( if its not covered by his slid down pant ).... So imagine going to such a place on the first day and realizing that the damn place is not sound proof !!!!!!!! All sounds being genrated are audible in all corners of the room. I had a very hard time muffling sounds on the first day but when i heard the Germans ...shamelessly going on like motorboats with blown engines.. i felt what the hell....while in Rome do wht the Romans do... its a no holds barred game here folks.......welcome to fart mart !!!


The filght back home was killing..Of all places I didnt expect Luftansa to play "Naach" on air. The American nxt to me was so confused she didnt know if it was a musical or a love story or an art movie. Hey neither do I .. so spare me the blushes......but she went on ...bothering me abt musicals and Indian movies, tht even the diretors would hv forgotten they had made.......And thn the babies!!!..Babies are always cute..but crying babies are a bit of a bother... but if u hv four of them around u in all the four directions crying like there is no tomorrow ,it becomes a major pain .....and to add to ur woes if ur sitting in a cramped economy seat sandwhiched between two large hippos disguised as aunties who are literally flowing out of their seats into urs....it becomes a torture.They were so huge I could move my hands only in the fwd axis.. so while eating, my elbow was almost perpendicular to my face.......u cant even get up and go to the loo...she has so much trouble getting out of her seat.. u feel u rather hold ur bladder than see her struggle...and to add to all the misery, someone dropped a bottle of perfume from their bag behind me... so there i was 10000m up in the sky, seeing the worst movie ever made on earth ( can anyone plz shoot Abhishek Bachan...?), struck between mosters, listening to a symphony of serenading todlerrs, drinking endless glasses of juice , but holding my bladder, holding my breath to save myself from the nauseating perfume.........i almost thought of suicide...but realized there was no space for that either..... and then I had to wait for 6 hrs in the night at the Chn Airport for my connecting flight... had nothing to do..so was watching the highlights of a cricket match b/w Karachi and Faislabad !!!!!!!!!!!!


Mama, I'm coming home................... yeah but its not as easy as i thought it wud hv been.