I know Deutsch or do I ..!!!

There I was sitting before the laptop, staring at its screen, which had nothing but a page of google news (trust me on this..!!!) on it, and just moving up and down in response to the scroll on the mouse. Pretty sure the scene from the other end would make it seem as if I was staring into something obscene, which I wasn't. Its just that after sitting at the peak of boredom, I happen to get the internet connection, but after a day or two of checking and re-checking the mail, one just doesn't know what else to do. My internet activities over here, with this ultra-slow connection are limited to reading news of almost everything, getting some old cricket statistics upto domestic levels (I could tell you the number of 100s made by Cheteshwar Pujara, Raman Lamba, W.G.Grace, Peter Pullock, etc and also the upcoming ranji trophy players who should have got into the Indian team, etc, etc..!!). Talking to a friend yesterday, I told him that I was running out of options for doing something, for which he said that this leads to innovation. The only innovation I do is how to position my ass, so as to prevent from getting an ache.

The one thing good about staying at a place, with a different local language is, at some point of time you start understanding the language, well the context atleast, and you have the privilege of putting it in your resume, ofcourse you need to be careful. The problem starts when you try speaking it. The first few words always come out with confidence, but as you end, the expression on the other side, which is made very evident, is like a small child with a bruise but is not allowed to cry. The cry of a person to shut up, and I have been receiving this almost daily, due to the illiteracy of english here.

So yesterday I decided to do something about it (Eureka..!!!) and the results were quite astonishing and thoroughly disturbing. I went to this website, http://www.deutsch-lernen.com/, where one can do some brushing up of the deutsch learnt so far. I decided to start with a small test to see where I stood (Big mistake..!!!). The first one, a short test, which had 30 questions full of vocabs and grammar. The result comes out as 14 correct out of 30. So far for learning 2 levels in India, learning another 2 levels here and staying here for 2 years. But since it had combo of everything, I thought of going for the long test, which had the difficulty split into levels. Each level had 10 questions and you have to score 80% to goto next level. I thought I could easily go past atleast 3 levels, only the computer had other plans to keep me at level 2. There were 4 levels totally. Anyways I figured, now that I have the innumerable seconds at my disposal, why not put them to some use. However, this could work only with an internet, so that means the other days I still get to sit with boredom, so it wouldn't miss me much.

The Rebel..!!! :D

I learnt quite a few virtues of living, after coming to Germany, but ironically, staying in a hospital has taught me one of the most important one - "To ask..!!!" A reason why I add this to virtues, as generally bearing it "patiently" (also in my case..!! :P) is considered to be of higher morality, but after a certain threshold, keeping shut gives the others a chance for immorality. Ofcourse again just going through with that makes one a higher person, but at the expense of one's own deficit.

A recent conversation between a friend, who had just returned from a trip to India, and me:

Friend: Dude, wassup man, looks like you are having a 2 month paid vacation.
Me: Abe, I have been literally doing a Mahatma Gandhi here on a daily basis.
Friend: What you staged a Satyagraha or what?
Me: Somewhat related..!! (Salt--->Food..!! See the relation..!! :D)

Probably the only hospital where I have to ask for food and somehow make them realize that I am a patient and I need nutrition (read ---> Be a Roman in Rome..!!!). The first 3 weeks, almost no fruits and then I guess they realized it, after seeing my friends get them for me, that they started to give them.

But this beats it on a higher note. Probably the only hospital to ask the patient to change his own bedsheets. Even better,when I asked about this, the hospital correspondent said that, because you are young and that your sheets are infectious, the nurses must have ignored it. I was like, dude do you hear what you are saying, the gloves and the masks are not a fashion statement. I mean, is that even a reason. Although, its not a big deal, coz changing the sheets hardly takes 15 minutes and 50 calories(;)) of my energy. Well something notable, the others in my floors were not subjected to this, but with his reason it was implicit as the others were old. It was easy to figure out. Oh and did I mention that they were germans!

Another interesting conversation between a friend and mine:

Me: Dude, I think it might take another 3-4 weeks for me to get discharged.
Friend: Why are they taking so long to release you?
Me: RELEASE..!!! dude its discharge, don't make it sound as if I am in a jail.
Friend: How big is the difference?

And then it struck me, the only difference was, I don't have a charge-sheet (touch wood..!!) but a medical-sheet,  I have a cellphone and a laptop and no uniform.

P.S. : I know talking ill of the hospital where am getting treated is not really virtuous of me, but then, I aint got anything interesting other than this for my blog. ;) :P :D

Be a Roman in Rome..!!!

"Be a German in Germany, or watch out for your health and don't get admitted in a hospital..!!!" Although the fact of staying in a hospital is thoroughly depressing, other than the fact of helping yourself to recover,an experience which I didn't want to mention here, but certain scenarios just help you to bring out humour amidst desolation.

Well, yeah getting admitted in a hospital 3 days before the trip back home could be devastating, but cutting the emotional attyachar here, the hospital is desperately trying to bring out the German Harish within me. Prior to this, my usual schedule was to have the breakfast at 10-11am, lunch at 2-3pm and dinner at 9-10pm and I also had lot of spices in my food. And now with the so called german military standards, I get my breakfast at 7 30am, lunch at 11 30 am and dinner at 5pm and, I dunno if its the cooking standard, but food which has only salt in it and absolutely nothing else. The first day was the best, I will never forget the nurse's and my reactions at the evening's dinner/snack or whatever.

So on the first day the dinner comes at 5pm, which I considered as snack. I mean seriously, you have some liquid called as tea and TWO bread slices and cheese. What else do you think of it as..!? I waited till around 8-9pm and then called up the nurse asking for dinner. She only replied that it was already served at 5pm. The only reaction I had was "are you freaking kidding me..!?", just didnt have enough energy to get them out. Nevertheless, I asked her, how were 2 slices of bread and cheese supposed to be dinner till the next day morning 7 30pm. The reply was the best, saying that its the standard (Man, and I was under the impression that the patient's comfort took a priority, what a dunce...!?). I was able to hold back for a few days, but then I started telling that I get hungry at 9pm  and thankfully they did get me something to eat. And now, its 11 am here and am already hungry, waiting for my lunch. I guess I just need to furnish my german, and use salt as the only spice, and start pronouncing "thinking" as "sinking" for my complete transformation.

Hit/Miss - No wait Spams..!!

Looks like my blog hasnt been receiving much hits of-late (in a way its good to see my friends still having the patience to read this crap..!!), nevertheless, to entice the others, I have come up with an initiative to churn out my fortune with all those who read my blog. Rings a bell, ofcourse, its the same program, on the paths of the computer genius, Mr.Gates, who had first launched this program by sending out mails to all the folks around the world. And I am still wondering that even after 8 years of this program, he still has all the fortune intact, and infact increasing. Alright the argument in my case is the word 'fortune', but I can start up with small values, say 0.005 cent for every hit. :P

Anyways coming back to the topic, I cant believe that people still fall for this and keep forwarding those craps. I remember the first time when I got the mail, I was in 11th. It was quite unbelievable, but the true testimonies or the so-called true testimonies where people specifically mentioned cash to the precise value of 2 place after decimals, was not easy to ignore. Naivety took over me and I forwarded the mail to all of my friends, strangers, random email ids, however, it did strike me that I did not have a bank account then, so where will the cash go, if it ever comes. But then another friend of mine, amazing encourager, clarified me on Mr.Gates' repute ,of the ability to find anyone's personal identity and details, and yep, I walked out of the internet center gleefully, expecting to hear some kind of cash arrival announcement from my father, only in vain. Nowadays, we have similar mails in quite a lot of categories, involving Canada Lottery Organizations, Lucky email ids, etc along with people's names and digital signatures (gimme a break..!!). In a way one can take some kinda humor from these ones. The worst ones are some of these religious oriented mails, where you are bound to send them to your friends, else you'll undergo a year of bad luck. Anyways, I just got this out today, after receiving yet another mail of Microsoft, sharing its fortune, just had a few moments' laugh and SPAM..!!!

Whispers..!!

These days I end up spending major part of the day in the library. Now this post is not to brag about this, coz I know its tough for people to comprehend me spending the time in there. Its just that, the library has so much to offer in terms of silence, focus (you got that right..!!!), surrounding, getting out of the dormitory, beautiful eye-candies, ahem, I meant eye-refreshments and ofcourse, my part of studying :). Needless to say, its a library,so your voice cannot raise above a certain db level. So whenever we feel a requirement for a discussion, we do it in whispers. At a certain point, we end up discussing so many stuffs, that we get habituated to these whispers. So on a certain day, the same happened, and I decided to take break. After a moments time, I see Bhuvan walking towards me, and whispering something, there was still some distance to cover, so I couldnt understand anything. Here is the conversation. Bhuvan had received some stuffs of mine from India and :

ALL IN WHISPERS

Bhuvan: Machan, am unable to open the box which has the stuffs.
Me: WTH, you dunno the number or what?
Bhuvan: Ayyo, no machan, its just not opening and I dont want to damage the box.
Me: So I cannot get the stuff today right, damn..!!

TTTTTTTTTTTAAAAAAANNNNNNNNNNNN - Eureka - BULB GLOWS..!!!


In a quite loud voice now,

Me: Machan, why did we whisper, just now..!!!

And what followed was 5 minutes of uncontrollable laughter,  yep we were outside the library premises.

I guess we just gave a topic, for research, for the neuro-informatic guys..!!
P.S.

This is way unrelated to this post, but I cant miss out on this. While writing this post, I happen to notice a mosquito here (in one and half years), yep thats right a mosquito and looks like am still pretty good at killing them. THWWWWWAACCCCCKKKKKKKK and it was on the carpet..!!!

Almost Conspired...!!!

Quite a lackluster month of September, marking the end of the summers and start of the winters, set the mood of depression quite soon, making me wonder how am I going to stand the next 7 months. The initial few weeks of snow and an India trip seem to be the only prescription for me. Oh, did I mention India trip, yyyyyyyyyyyeeeeeeeeeehooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo..!! Ok, thats enough for the initial excitation, hasn't been helping me much for studies. Yeah I know, my examinations are quite redundant now, with most of my posts talking only about them. Actually one cant blame me, as the exam times are definitely interesting ones, with all the emotions doing a disco within.

Talking about exams, with 2 more to go before making the India trip, I took almost the entire first half of September to relax, not for a specific reason,as the same old enemy/friend Mr.Procrastination made his appearance, filling me up with guilt, on these days. And it always so happens that the first day after this so called hiatus, I find it highly conspired to keep me from studying, else how would one describe this.

So yesterday, I finally wake up, with quite a euphoria to start solving the problems, early in the morning. However, I whiled away my time till the afternoon, and I don't want to think about the details now. Nevertheless, as goes the saying "its never too late..!!" (I'd kill the person now, who laid this down..!!), I took a stance at 3pm to get started to the Library and so I did. The entire enthu was crushed like a candy stolen from a kid, when I found that I had left the solutions at my dorm. But the decision was made and I came back to collect my solutions and by the time I reached the Library it was already 5pm. However, the universe still wanted to play with me. How does one solve without having the questionnaire, I asked to myself. So I took another trip to a friend's place, to collect the same. At that time, I don't exactly know what struck me but I started watching 'Mahabharat' at his place (Possibly trying to find the early traces of science and solutions in our age old history. The only related solution which I could think of and is quite close is, "is prashna ka uttar to mein bhi nahin de saktha". The history or rather wikipedia says, the first instance of time travel has happened in Mahabharat..!!!). So after squandering another 2 hours, I was still determined to make the day constructive and so I did. I went back to the library, by then it was 7 30pm, but thankfully all the ammunition was available this time. Hence I made the day constructive by solving two full problems, which didnt even fill up half of the workout sheet. But still at the end of the day, I was happy enough that I did a start.

There's always another door..!!!

One of the few things I have picked up after coming to Germany is to watch sitcoms. The best thing about them are, the humour and those silent verses in between, which strike you hard, and which end up being the string within your reach, just when you feel like falling off the cliff.
The latest among these sitcoms has been "Two and a Half Men" about two brothers, one of them single and the other a divorcee, with a son (hence the title).

One of the most common thoughts which hits me is "what am I doing? is this really what I wanted to do?" In most cases there's just a compromise and I end up finding a reason to satisfy myself as to what I am doing is what I actually wanted, by some relevance miles apart.

One of the characters in the sitcom goes this way:

Allen: "Neither of us are doing what we wanted to do, but you know what, we could have been doing much worse..!!!"

And here I get my answer.