Sweet memories of a not so sweet trip

Sitting in the office, piled with loads of work, I was searching for something to soothe me, and in the corners of my mind, I found an old trip, that calmed and relaxed me. It was so engrossing that I decided to write it and hence have ended up sitting in office till now. Will take your leave for now, please comment. Thanks! Adios!

It was November, absolutely NOT the right time to visit the cold Norway, which gets covered in heaps of snow, by the time the first week ends. However, given the tight schedule that we were put in due to the exams spread across weeks, it was the only time that we could go peacefully.

Just for the context, I was on a student exchange programme to Stockholm for four months and was desirous of seeing the whole Europe in whatever little time that we could jostle between the studies and the exams.

However, the 2-day journey had an ominous start to it, giving an indication of the things to come, forcing us to think of the wiseness of our decision, but the second thoughts were soon drowned in a spate of excitement to visit the most beautiful country in the world. So, even if we had to go to Oslo at eight in the night, and then take a connecting train at 1 in the morning, when the temperature was a warm 10 degrees on the other side of zero, we were only more excited about reaching the small sleepy village of Bergen.

However our disappointment only continued as we were stuck in the middle of a place where all were asleep, including the sun which showed no signs of coming out at seven in the morning. However, with nothing else to do, we went on trekking a small mountain that we could see. And while on the top of it, we saw the most beautiful sunrise of our life, the sun overwhelming the darkness, and rising high above the small town, and the large lakes. However, the darkness was cast aside directly on to our minds, as we got so engaged in the beauty and clicking photographs that we forgot our impending train at 8.30.

Exactly at 8.02, when we realized that we were late, we rushed, and the climbing down seemed tougher and longer than the climbing up, and soon, we were running down the hillock. 8.15, we were down, and we were still 20 minutes away from the train-station, so, the deficit of 15 minutes ensured that we ran and ran hard. Now, that is something, I call a morning walk.

However, huffing and panting, we finally boarded the train, proper Mumbai ishtyle, running after it as it arrived, and jumping at the gates just before they were about to close. We high-fived and all, until I started looking for my cell phone, that was amazingly absent from my pocket, normally where I keep it. So, the trip so far had costed me of my cell-phone, and my breath, which I was then out of.

However, the beautiful valleys, the clear water, the small houses, the wild greenery, and a serene peace on the way, balmed my mind. We enjoyed the natural scenery for the next two hours clicking away, until we reached Voss, and for the first time, I could understand why the Egyptians worshipped the Sun-god and the whites the sunshine. It was divine then, as we took a bus to Gudvangen.

On our way to Gudvangen, we came across the first snow, and it was more beautiful than it could ever get. We were merrily clicking away, and we continued to do so, even at Gudvangen, which turned out to be a small village of 36 entities in all - 5 houses and one superstore, and some 30 tourists along with us. But, the sole purpose of all was to take that single boat service, through the beautiful fjord, and enjoy the beauty that abounded in between those two mountains. But by the time, we reached the boat, the gates were about to be closed and we were promptly informed that the boat had been already full and that there was no extra space for any of us.

It was disappointing, but after a failed hour trying to hitch-hike on a sparsely populated road, where all we could count was three vehicles in one hour, we decided to hire a car, and we hired a Mercedes Benz E-class, and it was pure fun for the next twenty minutes as we traversed through endless lengths of darkness (Norway has one of the largest tunnel network in the world).

The end of the fun saw us in Flam, another typical small Norway town, which was a little larger than Gudvangen but not very large at some eight houses and a super-store. The plan was to take a train to Myrdal, in what is considered to be a toy train and one of the most beautiful rides in the world, as the train climbs up the beautiful hills, and comes back down into more beautiful valleys. However, it was two hours to go before the train was to start, and so we warmed in the winter sun, looked at the starfishes in the transparent waters, and what else? We went trekking! And ended up seeing a cattle ranch, in the middle of nothing.

However, the train trip was uneventful thankfully, and ended up meeting all the tall claims that it makes about itself, but the fact was that we were to wait at Myrdal for a couple of hours to catch the connecting train to Oslo. Well, we had been used to these connecting waits by then, however, it becomes painful when there is heavy snowfall, and your Indian body can't survive a sudden fall in the temperature to an obscenely low level, and when there is no waiting room to warm yourself in, things do get really bad.

And, so we were shivering on that deserted platform. An attempt to visit the place, also failed due to the absence of anything but snow, and a couple of deserted houses nearby. However, it too turned out to be an adventure of sorts when we decided to shed our fears and vendured out to wade through the knee deep snow, and it was then I had the opportunity to make the first snowman of my life. It was fun!

However, the train finally came, and we bid goodbye to the snowman, and went towards Oslo, such was our tiredness that we fell asleep the moment we lugged ourselves onto our seats, and only got up after the train had stopped at the Oslo yard, a good forty minutes before we woke up. So, another plan failed, this time to go to a hostel to spend the night, as none of the hostels stay open after one in the night. The only safe bet, or rather the only available option to us was to spend the night at the train station, since it was unbearably cold outside.

However, as if the bad luck was chasing us, and that we hadn't spent a night at a European station before, we were soon informed that the train station closed at two and remained so till five in the morning. There was no other option now, than to go out and shiver in the unbearable cold that the Northern Europe plunges in even before November begins.

But, the scene was totally different when we came out. It seemed that the whole town was in the streets, partying. The air smelled of alcohol, the people were reveling, celebrating, a cocktail of music intertwined the night, as almost every built-up place had become a disc, a club. Even the streets were not spared, as couples danced, and music played on, recorded and live. There were the policemen and policewomen on, take a guess, horses, controlling the small fights that erupted now and then, after an overdose of the alcohol or the drugs that were consumed openly and abundantly on the sideways. It was an ultimate party; bigger and better than any I have seen or heard of, may be next only to the Rio carnival.

The party must have continued a little too late, as the streets were still half-full when we went back to the train station to catch some sleep, but it was confirmed when we saw that the streets were completely empty and the shops all closed, on our planned detailed visit to the town of Oslo the next day, at eleven thirty in the morning. It seemed that everyone was asleep. The streets though showed the signs of the party that we were a part of. Everything was there except the people, and not even a soul was seen in the two hours that we went to walk around the station. The detailed Oslo trip was so cancelled, and we were back to Stockholm the same evening.

This might not have been a trip where everything goes how you had planned it, but rather one, where nothing went as per our plans, and it was initial disappointment at every point. However, when I look back at it, this was one of the best trips I had, and where a series of unexpected surprises (mark the combination of the words) was more fun to us than what every other normal traveler gets to see.

Are you cheap enough...??

cheap P Pronunciation Key (chp)
adj. cheap•er, cheap•est
1. Relatively low in cost; inexpensive or comparatively inexpensive.
2. Charging low prices: a cheap restaurant.
3. Obtainable at a low rate of interest. Used especially of money.
4. Devalued, as in buying power: cheap dollars.
5. Achieved with little effort: a cheap victory; cheap laughs.
6. Of or considered of small value: in wartime, when life was cheap.
7. Of poor quality; inferior: a cheap toy.
8. Worthy of no respect; vulgar or contemptible: a cheap gangster.
9. Stingy; miserly.

Today, when we keep on saying that we are more concerned with the value of the human being and his mannerisms, the relevant definition of the word, “cheap” should be very clear, bordering somewhere between the last and the penultimate one according to dictionary.com However, if you learn by examples and you really need to be in a few real life situations to understand the meaning of the same, read along, and I promise a solution to all the doubts arising now in your mind.

Or, If you are wondering about the meaning and the relevance of the question which is the topic above, and that you have been wondering all along whether that particular friend whom you always thought of being a cheapo, is he really the one? Now is the time to clear all your doubts, to step into the shoes of that person, to read along, and to answer the following questions.

Imagine that you and your friend are sharing a flat!

Do you go around changing soap cases when your friend is not at home just coz that’s better in terms of color or has a few holes at its bottom?

Do you bicker with your housemaid everyday and none of them stays with you for more than a month even if she was working for years in the same place before you moved in? No, you don’t molest them or make sexual advances but ensure that the amount of soap used by her is just right, or that she is washing the clothes with exactly the right number of brush-strokes, or just that you are a little sissy, and like any woman can’t allow her to work on her own.

Are all the restaurants in your area afraid of the demanding customer in you and weary of your face and the habits of dictating the cook the composition of the spices, the quantity of oil, and finally leaving the mess in a haphazard manner before waiting to receive the exact change of two rupees and seventy five paisa?

Do you bicker with your milkman everyday for a little extra milk over and above what you had asked for, while not bothering at the same time if the actual quantity was correctly measured or not?

Do you spy your friend's room when he is not around or pry through his belongings, checking out his computer for any document that might be of any use to you against him, or through his phone book to look for the phone numbers of his girl-friends and then trouble them with cranky flirtatious calls and those million times forwarded and deleted romantic 160 lettered sms-es? the fact that you're doing so forgetting your impending marriage in two months, or that your fiancée is on hold on the other phone, or even that you're doing so without his permission are secondary matters and of no importance.

Do you emphasize too much on the hygiene and cleanliness of the house and the conditions that you’re living in and expect your room, your kitchen and your bathroom to be spic and span, but still allow the used utensils to stink in the kitchen, the garbage to rot in the dust-bin and outside it freshening the entire home, as the wash-basin lies in a dirty mess, because you don’t like/don’t want to clean them? A totally different thing is that you make faces about the state of things out of the bulky gas-mask that you keep on wearing on your visits to the kitchen and to the wash-room, one that you wouldn’t take out drinking your tea (the mask’s too large to allow you sip it in a normal manner), or even when you’re taking your bath.

When you share your iron-board with your friend, while ironing your clothes with his iron, in the common drawing-room that you share, do you lock away your iron-board in the cupboard, as and when you’re done with it?

Walking on the street, when you look at the females, and their accompanying boyfriends, do the first thoughts that come to your mind relate to the clothes which they are wearing and very soon you go out looking for something similar yet something different, similar coz that was stylish and new, but different because he had already worn the same? The size and structure of your body, leave alone your age is a redundant and irrelevant fact to the decision at hand.

Do you pester your room-mate to settle the details of that small trip that you made to the sea-side, at least once everyday, for two weeks after the same was undertaken, when the expenses-statement would read a total expenditure of Rs. 50, and you incurred Rs. 27, thereby having a right to pain the other for the princely balance due to you of two rupees?

Now, here’s the classic and the most important question that will decide for once and for all what you are. Assume that you and your friend are sharing the gas cylinder. Now, one fine morning, you wake up and tell your friend that the gas is over, despite the fact that it is very much in existence, but you know he will not bother to check, but just for an added safety of yours, you decide to disconnect the supply, but when he accidentally checks it you tell him that it is working because you inverted the cylinder?

Result time!! First, for the first eight questions, what did you answer? Does your score-sheet say four or more yeses or maybes? Sorry! (The cheapo wannabes can read this as congratulations). You are really one cheap person and you either need to change yourself or you’re already on the right track. Choose the option according to your inclination, aspirations, dreams, desires and wishes.

I know that the last question is puzzling, but if you managed to get an yes to it as well as the first eight questions, you’re either my ex-flat-mate, or you have a thinking process that maps very perfectly on to his, and that you’re running for the crown of being the one cheapo, the one and the only one! But, I’d request you to also kindly explain me the logic of the action taken and enlighten, while allowing my puzzled mind a bit of much-needed rest.

Oh, by the way, the cylinder incident having happened on 29th April, 2006, it was still working when I left the flat on 28th May, 2006. Phew! Are you cheap enough?

Twenty-five days... 25...

Twenty five days remain today. From today we shall never talk, never irritate each other, never shall we bicker again.

Twenty three days remain today. This morning, I missed the time when we had not spoken to each other, not that such days hadn’t been in the past. We parted ways until the fires of anger were ceased by a calm rain of love that was our balm easing us of all our pain. But now the fire has died down, the fountains have dried and the numbness of indifference has replaced all.

Twenty days to go, but still that touch haunts me, but I can be sure that it would soon be a ghost of the past, as seem those poems of love, the silly confessions of eternal love in the middle of the night. Soon, all shall be over, even the memories will be forlorn, and forgotten for once and for all.

The inordinate delays that bothered me and caused worrisome days and troubled nights even after we reunited don’t bother me today. I am only seventeen days away from freedom.

I should be able to forget all our small trips and journeys that we did together, how we would bicker over little packing and ended up giggling at our efforts each and every time. I will soon forget that there needed a packing to be done today, today when there are thirteen days left, the first time we didn’t pack together.

It is still ten days to go, and today I felt like calling up the train station, calling up the airport to enquire the delay, like the old times and make those endless trips to the door and back. But, I will soon learn to live without this; it would be a new life, a new routine.

Exactly a week to go, and forgotten would be those sleepless nights, learning new things to please each other, a phase of continuous change, a saga of compromises, a timeless pillar of understanding shall all be over, all over once and for all in seven days.

Five days later, I will never ask myself again, is that the right decision that we took. Though my instinct says that this is the best for us, even if it will not be, nothing could ever be done; there will be no going back, or no looking back, no time to rethink about it, just to live with it then, tomorrow and forever.

When it has come down to four days, and just close to hundred hours to go, why do I remember the paths we traveled together all these years, supporting each other on the slippery bridges of decisions, the jungles of problems, the deserts of needs and the transition of the waterfalls.

In three days from now, I shall be free, far away from the constant quarrels, the incessant bickering, and the gruesome arguments, accusations and counter-replies. Gone for good will be the times of no conversation, and the post-facto acceptance of faults, defeats, the need, the helplessness, and all that made us come back again, live again - together.

The doomsday, the day zero is here, I vow that I will soon be able to bear my mornings alone, shall not think of the past in the day, or have sleepless nights again, as I walk out of this holy court. The divorce papers in my hand, I'll remember this day of my independence forever, the same day that we entered into another sacred institution- marriage, the same day, exactly twenty-five years ago.

Back to my senti posts again :) Hope you liked it. Please comment.

Oh Calcutta...

This city will never cease to amaze me.

Even though I lived the first full twenty years of my life there, I can spend another twenty years there, and them another twenty years until it is eternity. Everyday that I have lived there has met my expectations – justified and unjustified, the old and the ancient and the most modern, and I could have banked on a new environment that was just perfect to suit my mood everyday for all these years.

It was not as if I was always in love with this city. Five years back, I thought that this was rotten and beyond its expiry date with all its smoky narrow streets choking having been clogged by vehicles of all shapes, sizes and age, some dating back to my great-grandfather's time. The city seemed to be a mess of political rallies, processions and numerous strikes that seemed to be on forever. The buildings were all ancient and a fear of being crushed by one such superstructure engulfed me every time I passed one such dilapidated house. Though, It was a different story that such buildings existed on every nook and corner of the city, sending me into cold shivers every ninety seconds.

Now, as a carefree youth, it really hurts a lot when there's no place to freak out near your college. And I had to bear this twinge of pain everyday, as the only cafeteria around closed just twenty minutes before we left our classes. Another painful memory was how the cafeteria waiters shooed us students away every time the owner saw us there during college hours. Negotiation was enjoyable but not everyday and I missed those fancy malls that my cousins, from Bombay and Delhi, used to tell me of. But, I really hated the rains that bring a joy to everyone else, because the streets were slushy poodles of water with every shower – however light or heavy that might have been.

But what I absolutely hated were the hunger pangs between meals when all I could find around myself was the spicy jhalmuri, the monotonous puchkas, and the all pervading, present everywhere, rolls with anything under the sun stuffed in them, right from raw onions to dripping fried chicken, and when you are a strict vegetarian, and when everything everywhere smells and contains, either egg or chicken at the very least, it really ticks you off. At least, it did trouble me every time.

So, I was not the one who fall in love with the place they are born and brought up. On the contrary I was the one who criticized everything there – the casual people, the Bengali food, the non-trendy gals wrapped in salwars, an ancient infrastructure that was crumbling down with those bumpy black roads laid out of burnt black stones.

Was there anything that I liked? And I got no answer of myself, when I had asked this question myself three years back and all I felt was that I was staying in there only because of my home and my family. But when every now and then, my cousins visited us, the pain was revisited, as they bragged and boasted excitedly about Bombay and its life, thus grounding my last remaining positive perception of my home-town. And it was one such evening that I had promised myself that I won’t turn my back again towards this city, only if I am able to get out of there. And lo behold, it was a miracle, I left Calcutta in exactly a month after that.

But now when I look back at it, it all seems an act of voodoo and of black magic than of a miracle, but only now when I look back at it. Three years of eating out across cities, I quickly learnt how it was the quality of the ingredients and the hygiene and not only the ambience contributed in the determination of the price of the food, as I had thought and experienced in Calcutta, before coming out. It has been three years since when the surroundings seem oblivious of me, unaware of my mood, remaining the same monotonous self of them day after day, everyday. For three years, I searched for a place alone for myself, to sit and to think of the routine that my life had become, but the mob of the blind dead zombies pulled me and pushed me wherever I was, sweeping me in their deluge to whichever direction the things were headed then. The fancy malls have now lost their charm as they all look the same hollow, steeply priced impersonal places that they are, fleecing the dazed customers not of their wallets, but their senses.

Eating out between meals, what seemed dreary once only turned fearsome as now, all I have available are some poorly made dishes containing nothing but loads and loads of red chutney, as mighty and omnipresent as my accumulated dissatisfaction over the last three years. The small memories of the puchkas, that seemed monotonous once, now seem what I can only dream of, as here they are filled with everything under the sun – mineral water, yoghurt, and even… you guessed correctly… the red chutney. The rolls cannot be replaced by the so called frankies of the day – a blatant but unsuccessful imitation of the Calcutta rolls, similar to a vada pav being an Indianized cheap look-alike of the successful burger. The rains might have brought slush and poodles in the past but now they have become synonymous with halted trains, and only inculcate a sense of fear, replacing the vacuum of the lack of joy that I suffered in the past.

Yes, I miss Calcutta; I miss all of my past, all the years that I spent there. So, when I went home this time, I made it a point to hog on the food there, to gorge on all that was environment, to live and remember every moment of the one week I was there. But, now I am back, missing Calcutta, missing my past, missing my life, and missing myself.

This city will never cease to amaze me!

My apologies for the delayed post, as some work on the office front kept me busy for a while. Will be back soon with something sentimental/funny. Adios!