"I Hate Computers" ..!!!

This is the line that has kept richocheting my mind for the past one and half week, which has almost been a testament to my tolerance. Computers could be the most frustrating element on earth. Personally, computers and I have never gone well with each other. My first comp (back in 2001), broke down within 6 months and somehow it survived on its deathbed for the next 4 years, or rather I tortured it towards it slow death. Ofcourse I tried to take care, by frequent servicing, but all in vain.

The next one, a laptop provided in my company, started to freeze itself within 2 months I start to use it. The worst part, laptops older than mine, functioned with a million applications on, without even a blink (some deep conspiracy! only if I could get my hands on Mr.Babbage!! ). Well, what makes it really frustrating is, one doesnt bloody understand why in the world its not functioning the way it should, or rather, one does not have the access to the information and when you think you have got clue, you are not authorized to know the information (what the hell!?). And finally, when you feel, that the jinx is over, realisation of a hallucination strikes venomously.

The past 2 weeks, I have been trying to install an application in a few computers, again a few computers (not one..!!), which installed perfectly in the previous ones, would just not go here, giving the worst possible errors, which would drive not only me but every around me crazy. Ironically, the funny part here is, everytime I ask someone about the error, I would get an immediate expression, "Holy Cow, thats the first time am seeing this..!!". Well, one cant blame someone for not seeing the error earlier, but there is certain humour there (dont judge me as a sadist..!! its Mr.Babbage..!!). Yet another irony, I write this post on my laptop, which has so far proved to be a harry potter's wand. I hope it waves its magic to its fellowmates too.

Final Destination..!!??

The lecture was at 10 am, and surprisingly I was ready by 9 30 am, to catch the bus. Obviously something was not correct, considering my previous history of being just in time when the Prof starts to close the door or eventually even later. Nevertheless, I just thought that it was one of those nothing-goes-wrong day. So as I was about to leave my dorm, I pinged Bhuvan, to check if he was ready, and we set out to catch the bus at 9 32am, precisely. The bus stop is around 5-8 mins from the dorm. When we reach the bus stop, a rather, ahem, interesting conversation commences between Bhuvan and me and when we say interesting, we generally narrow down on very few predictable topics of sports, the recent diplomatic stories (or rather our own international diplomacy..!! :P) and ofcourse the main, 'Women'.

Bhuvan: Dude, am so much reminded of Bangalore, when I see this place. Anyways when I was in Accenture, Mumbai, there was this hot chic called Richa Sharma, whom we used to call rank 1 and there was a friend of mine, whenever we went for lunch, he just used to say here she comes, without even looking at the entrance.

Me: Bhuvan (in an irritated tone), for once stop comparing everything to your so-called-Bangalore. So talking about Richa, looks like all the Richas are the hot ones. I knew someone named Richa and she was phew! Going by statistics, the same applies to few more, like all the Aditis'.

Bhuvan: Thats so true man..!! Yeah and there used to be another chic, we used to call her rank 2.

Me: You should have had a better numbering order, well looks like bus no.5 's here, its a round trip in this, and is followed by bus number 14, which is crowded, lets wait for 3.

Now Bus No :5 takes a longer route to the uni while bus no: 3 is the direct one.

Finally the bus (which we thought to be bus no: 3) comes.

Now the scene in the bus.

Bhuvan: Yeah statistics says, the sowmya's can be approximated around 50-50.

If you are wondering what 50-50 is, it means 50% of the girls are good looking.

Me: yeah and generally they are more of book worms. But yeah the Shruthis', they goto around 80-20

Bhuvan: Noways, 60-40 will be better. But there's only one Aishwarya machan.

Me: Thats so true. But now even thats gone. The last movie where she looked amazing was, Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam and a bit in Devdas. Going by this rate, Minissha Lamba will lose her charm soon. But the one still in the race is Preity Zinta

Bhuvan: Yeah Minissha, she's 26 right. But Preity, I dunno machan.

The discussion and research, pretty constructive, completely took over us and we hardly realised where the bus was headed to.

In the meantime the bus stop here was Botanischer Garten. Our stop was 3rd stop from here on the left. On any other day, generally the bus takes a left after stopping at botanischer garten, however, we were a bit surprised to see the bus taking the right and going on the outer ring road and the time was already 9:50am. What made it even worse, the bus just didnt stop anywhere near and when we reached the stop, it had already traveled for 15 mins (which is a long distance in this small town of Ulm..!!). When we got down, both of us uttered in a typical Sachin's ad campaign, "Main kahan hun? (where am I?)". Luckily help came to us immediately, as a girl who had noticed Bhuvan's panic, when the bus took the other direction, directed us back to uni. The bad part was, we had to walk all the way back to uni, as the next bus, was only in the evening 4pm. Now the big question, was, what was the bus we took. As I got down, I made sure to take note of this which was bus no: 45, evidently quite a late information. So with temperatures of -2, we started our way back to uni. It was a long journey of 20 mins, eventhough we found a short-cut among the lost paradise :). Now Murphy couldn't have been more wrong. As we reach the bus stop close to the uni, Bhuvan, the genius, decides to draw some cash from the bank (just adjacent to the bus stop) and it so happens, we miss yet another direct bus. It was definitely written somewhere that it should be a long-walk-day for us, with another 10 mins walk to uni. So we land up in class, missing the first hour. However, the one good thing here was, the walk greeted us with some amazing landscape beauty . When I sat for the lecture, I thought that it was almost nothing-go-wrong day, except that, the thought went wrong.

Halaal (Bhai) for an hour..!!

Now, its the 10th month of independent life stage going on for me (with respect to living alone..!!) and the journey so far has been nothing less than exciting. Not that I don't miss my folks back home, which forms the only part of misery I have to go overcome, but the thought of a new tomorrow suppresses them. So I carried out one of the explorations today of cooking non-vegetarian dish and thought of trying out a complete chicken. Earlier I had a bad experience with Tuna but a good one with Prawns. It was chicken's turn now. So got a full chicken, not cut, just with the proper dressings. The first look at it, was pretty satisfying, which was short-lived, when Vamsi and Eb (both good at non-veg cooking!) chuckled saying that this was the most difficult as it would take hours to cut it into pieces. How did they know, they fell for it too :D.




Not the kinda feedback I would ve liked to listen, nevertheless, I couldnt return it now, so had to do something about it. An easier option would have been to soak it in spices for sometime and shove it in an oven, but our dorm doesn't have one. So had to go the tougher option. As I started, with every cut, my respect for the halaals (bhais in tamil) only kept increasing. I had to take be extra careful not to cut myself (already there isn't much part of my hand left without a bruise!) and the fact that the chicken was slippery, didnt make it much easier. It took not less than hour to finally cut them and start cooking and finally after 2 hours, I was able to hog on to some chicken delicacy. Oh yes! they were delicious :)..!!

A pic of the same..!!

Donau..!!!

So as my experimentation with the poems continue, I lay down a few thoughts on the river Donau (Danube in English, its a french word though..!! :P). An amazingly beautiful one and one would never want to leave its banks in summers.

the slow rumbling sound as it moves
the sight is precious, you feel its grooves
the silent wind that hits your face
blows along the river, flowing with grace

the green meadow along its banks
traps one's eyes with its beauty enchants
you sit and you stand and you walk with it
you wish the time stays still, as you cover every bit

it was long, since I'd been to a river
Kharkhai was its name, as I now remember
it had its water coming from the ridges
there were no banks only the bridges

"sie freut mich!!" as I say in german
"it makes me happy" is its translation
Oh Donau, as goes your name
your beauty radiates beyond your fame..!!!

Ice Skating - The fun fiasco..!!!

Looks like the saga of fiascoes, has its eternity for me in Germany. The only good I see is to stop underestimating my challenges ahead, atleast the ones I am new to. So the previous month, being quite eventful with the temperatures refusing stay positive, thoughts of experiencing the maiden Ice Skating chance spurred in my mind, as the time was right. For a person who hasnt tried a rollers or an inline skates, I was pretty confident, after watching a few of the youtube videos and thinking all the physics and aerodynamics related to the same. Little should I have remembered the fact that the difference between a hypothesis and reality is unanimous everywhere. As I reached the place, the scene couldnt have gone worse, than seeing kids hardly reaching my knees, skating with an ease of eating Pommes (french fries in German! easily available food here!!). Surprisingly, I wasn't shaken up, as I had the physics all worked out, and I had not yet put on the skating boots. While renting the skates, it struck me for the first time that this might not be as easy as I had imagined, as I saw the boots with the skate of the thickness of 1mm approx. I just thought to myself that if I could balance and stand with those on, I could skate and I was happy to see that it was quite easy. I was able to balance myself infact walk with them, on the floor outside the skating ground. I knew I should have listened to the voice inside my head, not to get too overwhelmed! Vamsi and Andrew were already waiting for me near the gate to the skating-ground. The scene what followed will be with me forever, as I crossed them saying, guys this is easier than I thought, the first step on the skating ground, followed by the summersault stunt (accident actually!) of mine would have envied any acrobat, I bet and all the physics and youtube videos just went into extinction. The good part, I got on to hold something to prevent my head from getting banged on the ground and passing out, though sprained my hand and a few hits here and there. For the first time I realised, how slippery ice could be. Something consolidating, I was not the only one to experience this, Vamsi and Andrew followed it too :D. We spent the next 15 mins holding onto the railings and moving ahead, when a few people offered to help us. The next 2 hours, would see us on a cycle of novice-skating, falling, holding the railing, laughing, more falling, etc. a thorough entertainment for us, as well as for the on-lookers. We did decide to venture it again, as we had learnt quite a good deal on day 1, but other appointments kept us busy. In the end, I was happy that my list of unfulfilled things was getting shorter as the days progressed.