Thinkin' again

Yes I know I’m thinkin’ of you

Thinkin’ of you

Thinkin’ as I always do.

Thinkin’ of those flowers again

Flowers I thought of giftin’ you

And those flowers are waitin’ still

Waitin’ still

Waitin’ still for none than you.

Yes I know I’m thinkin’ of you

Thinkin’ as I always do.

Thinkin’ why this distance we have

Distance which came unwantedly through

And I question myself, what went wrong

What went wrong

Please believe me theres’ no clue.

Yes I know I’m thinkin’ of you

Thinkin’ as I always do.

Thinkin’ of those moments again

Moments colored to red-grey-blue

These moments want you to come

Want you to come

Coz lifes’ so long, they are so few.

Yes I know I’m thinkin’ of you

Thinkin’ as I always do.

You are moving, I am movin’

Both away, everyday new

But today my heart just went down

All colors changed to deep black-brown

There’s emptiness all around

With all efforts, no escape found

Yet I tried hard

Tried hard to move

The world so noisy

This heart just mute

An only option am left again with ...

... as you know, I’m thinkin’ of you

Thinkin’ as I always do!

__________________________________________________

Hmmm ... am actually convinced with myself today to see this composition bring some truest of my expressions in print. No idea how could I write this big but it just came in a flow. 40 minutes. Time taken to compose this rhyme has been seriously out of this world.

Like while flying a kite, it doesn’t matter which direction you try to make it fly, it aligns itself with the wind seamlessly eventually. There’s a beautiful experience I followed myself through, being flown through writing as well.

As I wrote earlier, writing has the power to heal; yes it definitely has but today I realized it’s even adventurous. It also gives you a platform to decode those complex twisted cables of thoughts that keep you choked every moment you find yourself dwindling with them.

You might reason down the cause of your thought process to some odd reason ‘X’ but when you start documenting about it, there’s an eventual drift towards the actual/ root cause of it, which could be some reason ‘Y’ or ‘Z'. Therefore, you get to eventually realize the pattern in the reason’s structure and you start unfolding the chemistry behind your thought process easily.

Today I actually decided to pen-down a rhyme. Rhyme without a theme in mind, just very much casually one can say. I started to write something around loneliness, which engulfs me almost everyday I’m backing home. However hard might I try, words weren't ready to come, even though am quite mentally prepared for the same.

I then stopped pressuring my mind and put my fountain pen to action and yes I could write something. But at the end of it I realized that it ended up with something I never intended to, something I never wanted to pen.

When did my initial idea get transformed into the current theme, I never realized. It was so seamless and smooth that it actually left me surprised. Even better just 40 odd minutes to give this composition a final touch is not less surprising again coz I have never written anything in less than 3-4 hours, writing a rhyme has always evolved in fact over a couple of days and yet this one looks to be so appropriate to the corresponding emotions.

Writing is definitely calling...

Download as PDF

Lillehammer

Its just a few days ago I landed up here at a small town in Norway called Lillehammer. Talk to anyone about the city, the first impression you get is that its the place of 1994 Winter Olympic games (which was around 12 of February back in 94). My office is located at Fakkelgården (seems to be the hub of sports athletes during Olympics).

The other attraction attached to this place is the Lake Mjøsa (read myosa), which is the biggest lake in whole Norway. Lillehammer is actually located on the northernmost part of this lake. One day over a lunch discussion got to know quite strange things about this lake. During winters, this lake freezes to a depth that the surface is hard enough to drive a car or to land a helicopter quite easily on it. It was back in ancient times when Germans tried intruding Norway through to Lillehammer, Norwegians broke down an important bridge to prevent the intrusion but the winter season preferred the Germans, as they could easily land their air vehicles on this lake mjøsa. I saw this lake while driving from Oslo to Lillehammer from within the car, no one can believe that its a lake looking at its size, it certainly looks like a big river!

I can compare this city to a small hill station in India like Nainital or Dehradun. It is a hilly region, surrounded by mountains but displays the efficient infrastructure and magnificent architecture. The wooden houses look quite solemn and beautiful, it is in fact said that lillehammer preserves the beautiful wooden houses of even as late as 19th century. The city has one main street which is like a main market or a place where you can go for shopping, which is as big as the Brigade road in Bangalore but damn neat and beautiful displaying a traditional look quite opposed to the modern visual noise which we encounter in almost every big city today be it anywhere in the world for that matter.

Another observation which mesmerizes me is the presence of the small candles at the restaurants everywhere. They say that the burning candle makes the ambiance livelier, which I myself felt to be quite true, you actually feel good to see all the tables with a small lit candle. Whole room gains immense energy from so many lighted candles around. You can even encounter a big candle burning outside the shops, which signifies that the shop is still open, which are blown off only while closing the shop.

My accommodation has been arranged at Nedre Lundebekken; inside a small beautiful wooden house (completely engulfed with snow outside) about a Km and half distant from office, this place is actually the hostel for the college students here. And am sure its worth a sight for the people who haven't seen wooden houses and snow in life, it simply looks ecstatic.

Another concept of having your garbage sorted out at home in three different containers certainly needs attention. At home everyone maintains three different dustbins. A blue in color, to collect the paper garbage, a brown one should be used for the organic waste and the white one should be used for rest everything. And there are bigger dump baskets in a housing colony for different garbage. It’s every week that the govt. vehicles collect the garbage and dumps different kind of garbage at different places, which ensures that the plastic and paper can go for recycling easily and extra labor can be avoided for the same. Looking at the packaged content growing in its reputation, the disposal of plastic garbage certainly is becoming a global issue today and such simple efforts are worth an attention.

Although the Norwegians too have advanced and supposed to be quite well-to-do in monetary terms compared to the global standards. The divide between the rich and poor is like negligible (doesn’t mean that they don’t have riches and poor), the middle class here rules the society with a major share, I am impressed to see the perseverance towards their customs, traditions and culture, which is very much reflected in every small activity of their daily routine life.

Although it’s the winter season here, there is no way any activity is restrained on account of this snow. In fact Norwegians I believe get more enthusiastic during winters with their skii(s).

The kind of hospitality I’ve received so far is again euphoric and I indeed have several things to mention about. Usually the floor at my room gets so cold that it’s not possible to even stand on it and I didn’t have any slippers also in place, about which I mentioned to a colleague on Friday. On Monday before I could connect my laptop, I was presented with the warm woolen shoes by Kari. I came to know through her that these shoes are by the courtesy of Hilda. I was amazed to hear this because I don’t have anything to do with her except that we work in the same office and we even sit way apart. Somehow she got to know about the problem, she purchased these shoes especially for me. I was out of words about this enlivening experience, since she is not keeping well, I’ve still not been able to thank her. But while writing this blog, just today I realized that I could have at least called her up to ask about her health and thanked her for the same. Gosh! I shall do it tomorrow as the first activity.

Last Thursday I chopped my finger with knife, which let some 50ml blood ooze out of my finger. I kept sucking my finger whole night, pain was literally bad, and blood wasn’t stopping at all, after about 2 hours I even kept the finger inside the freezer to allow the blood to freeze, couldn’t even sleep whole night. But next morning the care and the concern shown by everyone was once again thrilling. A colleague (Bent) drove me all the way to office then to hospital then back to office and then to home inspite of the fact that, he was one of the key player in the delivery which was due in a few days and he was already short of time. Saturday I kept receiving the calls from colleagues, asking about the finger’s status. Another colleague who was on leave on Friday, showed a great amount of disappointment.

Simply overwhelmed.

For some pictures of lillehammer click here.

Paris to Oslo

(Contd. Bangalore to Paris)

The journey was more or less okayish except that it was really difficult to sleep on such a long duration flight. I remember how uncomfortable everyone around was as and when I woke up late nights and observed, the girl next seat was struggling with the blanket to let it embrace her from tip to toe and so was I.

It was around 2pm IST, the flight arrived here at Paris airport. Believe me Paris looks ecstatic at least from the top view. Wonderful Landscape, structured residential areas, beautiful curvy roads, greenish background and several lakes around. May be any place looks the same from within the plane window but the neatness & calmness portrayed by the landscape is worth the view and since the day was cloudy it looked even sexier. For a moment there was a flash on my memory of the olden days when a sadhu baba (usually local fortune tellers) looking at my palm said, "Tere haath mein videsh jaana nahin likha" (there's no line on my palm that would ever lead me to a foreign land) and then i smiled & looked outside again.

I had to spend some 4 hours on the airport, initially I thought its a good amount of time, may be I can easily go around the city for sometime but an immediate second thought suggested me to explore the fashion & beauty within airport's premises itself, the sole reason was the thought of my wallet factor (with just 160 Euros in pocket and the Visa card still inactive), it was not a wise step to go for.

Somehow reached the Terminal where I had to check in. Looked around for about decent 2 hours before taking a nap. The hairs of the people actually caught my attention, by the way they are the people working at the airport, the security personnels and of course the passengers included. The stylish hair cuts for which we pay a hefty amount back in India am sure people here manage to get it without any cut itself. The messier your hair structure, better is your style and its not just the language restricted to the young kids but applies to the people of all ages. Quite a fair deal, isn't it? But with all the observations, all I concluded at the end is 'Paris indeed is a fashion city'.

It was the time to check in, at the entrance a big English-men pointed me to several plastic bottles lying on a table, they all were half filled with some sort of liquid, either water or soda or some sort of wine. I actually couldn't understand what exactly was he trying to say and I just uttered a loud 'NO', he then let me inside, I still din't understand what exactly was that but he let me inside, what else matters!

Anyways that big rucksack was through the security check now and their gadget finally alarmed them of something unethical i was trying to carry inside. I know it was little scary & my breath was down to see a team of personnels rushing towards me. The bag was opened, they spread every damn thing out on the floor and there came two bottles which I had packed with extra care in plastic bags and then rolled them with the big cloth pieces. All of them pointed me to unfold the packs, i just kept following and there came two glass jars containing the Mango pickles (An Indian in Norway had actually requested me to bring two of those Priya Pickle bottles). I tried my level best to make them understand that its something that we eat with food but all in vain.
Result: Either leave the bottles with them or put them through the check-in. I din't want to leave those bottles hence followed back to the check-in counter. Soon as I put the rucksack (6kg) for check-in, the person here also warned me about the 22Kg(s) that I've already loaded at Bangalore, so whatever I check-in now is gonna be paid and that too in Euros! Well with a quick thought i decided to check-in the small shoulder bag with just two of those bottles, which weighed about 2kg(s) which should cost some 70 Euros.

Wow! pickles cost just 130 INR. and the transportation charges were approx 4000 INR. And when I asked the guy about the cost, he said, "Thats okay, You now need not pay anything" That was strange but in my favor of course, so theres nothing wrong :). One thing is clear that such cases do happen outside India also or may be my heavenly stars tussled with his and hipnotized him, no to charge anything from me. May be who knows! If such things happen in India, we could have easily related the incident to some or the other emotion that the person must have gone through but what should I relate this English-men with huh?

Alright, while trying to check in again, that English-men again pointed me to those half-filled liquid bottles, this time I decided to decrypt the mystery behind these bottles and followed my intuition, I thought may be we can pick up some of the bottles to carry inside the plane, I was thirsty by now, so I said 'Water Bottle! Give me one water bottle!', to which he replied, "No, No, its not allowed". It was then it clicked to me that the liquid is actually not allowed inside the plane, therefore, he was actually asking the passengers to leave their liquid bottles out on that table itself but by the time i understood, i noticed a few kids already making fun, about what? ... that I wasn't really sure!

Finally everything was through and I could actually board to the flight #2374 to Oslo.

How good are these online surveys?

That certainly means that I too got a digicam in my wardrobe. I never thought that I’ll do the research on the model of digicam after getting it purchased.

Alright, now I have an Olympus FE-170 model (also known as X-760) which I chose over all other brands & models on the display, solely for the reason that it was the cheapest available then but yes it did look good too. This camera looks very much like any other digicam(s) available in the market.

According to the Flickr survey done across a brand of cameras available in the market, this model ranks 17^th among the different models available within Olympus brand, which went some way to convince me that it wasn't a big mistake purchasing this one with the budget in hand.

There is also an exceptional growth seen in the user base of this camera over last year. The graph below should make this rather more clear.

FE170 Usage this year

no. of users

It so happened that I had to move to lillehammer next morning and my senior manager asked me to complete the basic shopping in Oslo itself coz Lillehammer is not a big or even a happening town. But since it is a small place, I anticipated better sight seeing there compared to the urbanized look at Oslo, hence, a digicam was quite inevitable in the pocket.

Since my Visa card was still inactive, therefore, this camera is by the courtesy of my manager again. That evening he picked me up to visit a shopping mall named “Lefdal”, which claims to sell the stuff the cheapest in Oslo, having found the price cheaper compared to them elsewhere, be sure to receive the 150% of the amount you pay for the item.

Cost of Camera - 1495 Kroners (10.5K INR)

256 MB memory card - 399 Kroners (2.8K INR)

Camera Cover - 99 Kroners (700 INR)

A total deal within 2000 Kroners (14K INR)

But many a times things aren't they way as they look. I went through several links finding about the model but most of the description were quite amateurish. Its was only after reading CNET's insider view, I understood how several of these surveys can actually be misguiding.

What CNET Says: FE180 is much better a choice with just a $30 differences between the models. Lets look over at the major differences.

1. While both are automated, the FE-180 uses Olympus's TruePic Turbo image processor. The FE-170's unbranded image processor is the main cause of its performance woes.

2. The camera takes 5.7 seconds from power-on to first shot and every shot thereafter suffers a wait of 4.8 seconds without flash. With the onboard flash enabled, that wait becomes an even-longer 5.5 seconds. Shutter lag was almost as painful, taking a full 1.3 seconds from shutter release to shot. These numbers are more than double when compared to FE-180, which offered a 1.6-second shot-to-shot time and a shutter lag of just 0.6 second.

3. While the FE-180 displayed very good white balance with tungsten lights, the FE-170's tungsten shots looked almost like old-time sepia prints.

4. Also FE180 comes with two rechargeable batteries and a wall charger against the alkaline batteries with 170.

Thus, the lesson to be learnt here is that sometimes spending a little extra can go a long way and never research on whatever you have done already, it only leads to disappointment. Had I purchased FE180, I'd have read the comparisons with its daughter versions, hence, disappointment is inevitable.

Bangalore to Paris

The gang of 'three' (Bhaisaab, Arushi & Rasika) came to drop me at Bangalore Airport. While obliging that last touch with everyone of them, all I felt and told myself was 'Alright, thats okay!' and it was for the first time while starting a journey I felt little emotional (also felt as if it was a little incomplete see-off!).

Next the 'International Departure' hall was ready to welcome me with a little wonderful experience ahead. Went to the Currency converter counter. Asked the guy to convert the 10000 INR to the Euros. In return all I got was 4 Notes (3 notes of 50, and a note of 10, in all 160 Euros). First of the smile I had about the experience am gonna have soon.

Further I was asked to pay approx. 9000 INR towards the luggage overweight (by 6kgs). 'OMG! Now theres' nobody around I can ask to take back some stuff home. Can't even throw anything just like that, don't have money either. What do I do?'

Then I realized the rucksack inside my suitcase could be carried to the cabin with a few more things & even my shoulder bag could easily accommodate inside it, did the same, weight still loosened only by 4kgs but the lady on the other side of the counter somehow relaxed rest 2kgs for me ... lol first surprise happened for the journey. But the penalty had to be paid and it came in terms of the surprising & astonishing looks of the other passengers, who must be thinking, "How the hell this guy gonna fit in this big huge rucksack inside the cabin"?

On top of that, the luggage space corresponding to my seat number was isolated, hence, extremely small to accommodate even half the size of my rucksack. And I was like, "Hell! What do I do now? "

Being little clever, I utilized the others' space (Seats 30-32, since they were attached) and my rucksack finally got away from the sad looks of the people but yes I ended up using others' space and soon I realized the sweet deadly looks of an Indian lady and an African guy, since neither of whom were sitting on any of those seats, hence I didn’t care about them at all.

Little later noticed the way the seat owner's were actually struggling to accommodate their luggage, I kept observing them, felt relaxed soon as they all got settled. As I started to bring my eyes back to normal, they gazed through the eyes of that Indian lady once again and the deadly looks were still on, this time I too didn’t try to avoid and decided to give back the equivalent looks back again, hence we kicked off a short n silent conversation:

She: "Yucks! What the hell, you cheapo!".
Me: "Shut up! Why the hell do you have to bother?"

Lol. I immediately decided to leave that state of conversation n get myself back to normal self again.

Wow! A great start to the journey!