The Nordic Adventure

Continuing on my videsh yatra 2008, the second stage takes me to Europe. Official line: Exchange programme, trying to learn and experience new culture. The chosen venue is NHH (Norges Handelshoyskole), angrezi mein Norwegian School of Economics, situated in Bergen, a city on the west coast of Norway. Not many at IIM A get to do their internship abroad and also go on exchange, but this was too good an opportunity to let go.

The small little vacation I had after my fourth sem was spent on helping my parents move to Mumbai. (Yes, yours truly is once again a Mumbaikar). And immediately the next morning (Friday the 29th), I was off. I met Quaddro at Mumbai Airport and after a little shopping at the duty free shops, we boarded our Finn Air flight to Helsinki. He slept for most of the 8 hour flight, while I busied myself with the personal TV provided. The flight turned out to be surprisingly good in spite of the cheap tickets we managed to buy, however 8 hours is too long a time to be sitting in one place. Understandably by the time we landed at Helsinki, we were jet-lagged and tired. And the walk across the whole of Helsinki airport from terminal 33 to terminal 12 for our connecting flight to Oslo only made things worse.

While we were not allowed to go out of the airport (nor did we have the time), the landing itself give us a picturesque view of Helsinki city, typical of a Scandinavian city. Green coniferous trees, smooth roads, sparse population, pleasant sunshine and vast spans of greenery. It was quite chilly and all my winter clothes were checked in at the Mumbai airport (we were supposed to pick them up in Oslo directly), so Quaddro suggested I put on the coat of my suit that I had in my hand. A little respite, but suits are not the most comfortable piece of clothing. A 3 Euro coffee and a couple of futile attempts to connect to airport wi-fi later, I though the time would be better spent in clicking some pics of the airport. Here are a few. First the inside, then the outside.

We then undertook the next part of our journey, the 1.5hrs flight from Helsinki to Oslo. Compared to the 8 hr flight we had previously, this one got over pretty soon. And thus we landed in Oslo at 4:15 pm local time. We now needed to reach Oslo Central Station, from where we had to take our train to Bergen. We found out that the Airport basement is directly connected to a local train station (wonder when this would happen in India), and we took the train to Oslo Sentrum. Once there, we had 5 hours till our train departed. So we found out the locker room on the first floor of the station, dumped our bags in the automatic lockers and headed for the tourist information centre just outside the station. The lady at the counter gave us a map of Oslo, and suggested a few places. We soon figured out that all the major attractions in Oslo could be covered by foot from the station. How convenient!

Now while putting out stuff in the lockers, we did not think of taking out our cameras. Jet lagged and tired, we were just concentrating on getting rid of those huge bags of ours. So we had to make do with the camera on our mobile phones. We first visited the Oslo Opera house situated on the banks of one of the fjords. Shaped as a glacier or a ship, the building seems to float by the inlet Bjorvika, giving a stunning impression. We then headed over to Akershus Fesnting, a medieval castle which now acts as a centre for the Norwegian military. Since it was already past 6, most of the castle was closed but we spent our time roaming in the castle grounds. We came across used tanks, beautiful sculptures and the royal guards marching, with a unique and impressive attire. The next stop was Aker Brygge, which was once was a harbour, now filled with shopping malls and pubs. Hundreds of people were sitting in the outside tables of these pubs, enjoying the sunset and their drinks. We too entered one of these places to while away some time. The sun set at 9, and we started walking back towards the station. On the way, we saw the Nobel Peace Centre and the Norwegian Parliament (The Stortinget). Dinner at Burger King and we headed for our platform, where we were expecting Landy to meet us (his British Airways flight was via London). He did turn up, but we were surprised by Gilli who was out visiting Norway in his first weekend at the Stockholm School of Economics. We boarded the train, and I was too exhausted for any chitchat. I saw blinds, ear plugs and blanket in my seat. I put the blinds over my eyes, wrapped myself in the blanket and dozed off...Zzzzzz

P.S.: I reached Bergen at 7 in the morning, and spent the Saturday and Sunday exploring Bergen and visiting the Sognefjord. Details and pics in the next post.

Summer of 2008

It has been more than a month since I came back from my summer internship, and life has returned to its usual hectic self. When I was in first year, I was shown this beautiful picture of totally-jobless-enjoying-the-best-of-life tuchchadom (second year), which most of us were so eagerly looking forward to. But with a few small tweaks in the academic programme, the IIM A powers to be have managed to make me wish I was back in first year! It not that things are as bad as first year, but the expectations from tuchchadom were so high that this is a big let-down. I guess my ranting will never end.

During one of the extremely dull discussions that were happening in the class sometime last week, my mind wandered to those wonderful days I spent in Thailand. Here are some things I was reminiscing about my “Summer of 2008”:

1) Food: As I had already mentioned in my earlier post, Bangkok has no dearth of places dishing out delicacies. And with vegetarian food being available only at a premium, I indulged myself in some of the best Thai cuisine had to offer. The office junta was more than willing to chip in with recommendations, and soon the list of things I digested included the likes I dare not mention here, lest mom comes across it and freaks out. Fruit bhajjis (Banana, sweet potato and pumpkin) were just one of the many weird tastes I came across. One thing I dared not try, look below.

2) Activities: Ocean floor walking near an island off Pattaya was one of the most memorable experiences (Imagine hundreds of varied coloured fishes eating out of your hand while you walk 40ft under water). Parasailing, snorkelling and sea canoeing also deserve a mention. And of course, I got myself a few sessions of the world famous Thai massage: D. They come cheap and they really rejuvenate you for the week ahead after the weekend travel.

3) Modes of transport: Bus, cabs, tuk tuks, sky train, subway, motor bike taxis, ferry, water skis, canoes, speed boats, golf carts, pick up vans – each one serves a purpose of its own, and is an experience in itself.

4) Ice ice baby: Go to a restaurant, and the first thing they serve on your table is a glass full of crushed/cubes of ice. You can then pour in water or coke in it, and sip it with a straw. Standard practice every time you eat out, no drink is cold enough once I came back. And I almost forgot how to drink stuff without straw, even milk! The omnipresent air-conditioning makes you feel Thailand was once near the poles, and recently drifted across the Indian Ocean and hit Burma.

5) Thai language has a nice musical connotation to it, and coupled with their extremely pleasant demeanour, you constantly feel you are a part of a musical. The sweet sound of “sawatdee kha” greets you in every restaurant, shop and hotels.

6) The Bangkok sky train is equipped with television screens inside, which serve the purpose of both informing the entertaining. And believe me, even you don’t understand a single word in Thai, they can really keep you entertained during your journey. The ridiculously stupid ads (where one doesn’t even understand what the product is) ensures you begin every day on a cheerful note J.

The trip was not all hunky dory. There were occasions I wondered, “Why the hell am I here?!”. Here are a few things I DO NOT look back at fondly:

1) Ladyboys! (Am not going to write more on it, kindly refer to wiki)

2) The where-the-hell-are-all-the-vegetables phase, that one is subjected to when the only form of potato you consume are McD’s French fries and the only other vegetables known to mankind are tomato and basil.

3) Durian! The most disgusting taste known to mankind, it’s a total disgrace to the fruit family. The horrible taste lingered in my mouth for more than two days, and I took considerable amount of mint and Colgate mouthwash to get rid of it.

4) Absolutely no cricket for two months – this was the longest I had gone without any contact with the sport. Cricinfo was my bread and butter, but there is only so much you can read. And on top of everything, I missed the whole of IPL extravaganza. L

5) All live sporting events had commentary in Thai, and only repeat telecasts provide some relief. Half the fun in watching formula 1 lies in the amazing commentary by Steve Slater, and the boring Thai commentary made me realise watching a formula 1 race can be really boring at times.

P.S.: Most of this was composed long ago on my return trip to India waiting at the Suvarnabhumi International Airport, Bangkok sipping a ridiculously overpriced cold coffee (Dark Chocolate Macchiato) while waiting for my flight announcement. The fact the it took me so long to post it just goes to show my rants are not unreasonable.

The tale of 3 Holis and 3 New Years

Yes its a real tiger. And yes thats me. But lets get back to it later.

It has been about a month since I reached Bangkok, and I have already had 5 days of holidays, apart from the weekends. Thailand celebrates lots of festivals just like India, and whats even better is that they have a concept of compensation holiday. If a festival/holiday happends to fall on a Saturday or a Sunday, the subsequent Monday is a holiday. How wonderful! In short, I have had a lot of free time, and there is no dearth of options. Thailand is an exotic tourist destination and is wildly popular among world's travelers. And for good reason too, as I continue to find out.

I celebrated New year with the rest of the world on 1st of Jan ( New Year # 1) this year, nothing special about it. Then came the Holi at IIM A(Holi #1). Holi in any college is always fun, and this place was no different. Dripping colours, over-head sprinklers, tanks full of coloured water, keechad, gujiya, torn clothes hanging on tree tops, music and rain dance - how can it not be fun when 200 people come together for a celebration. I went home after completion of my first year, since I had 3 days gap before I had to reach Bangkok. Now 6th April is a Thai national holiday (some Chakri Day), so I was duly informed that 7th will be a holiday, and I got to spend one more day home. 7th April also happened to be Ugadi, the Telugu New Year (New Year #2), and so I got to enjoy yet another of mom's delicious festival special meals.

I reach Bangkok, 4 days in office and suddenly, we have 4 days of holidays. Thais celebrate "Songkran" during this time of the year, which is their biggest festival and it lasts for 4 days. The festival commemorates the ushering of a New Year (New Year #3), and the whole country brightens up during this time of the year. It also incorporates a Thai version of Holi, where people splash each other with water and apply chalk on each other. The only difference is they use only water, and chalk is only white. Kids, teenagers, adults all armed with latest water guns are found on the roads, ready to splash water on any by passer. And its all taken in the right spirit, as it is supposed to cool u down in the summer heat. One fine evening, we dumped all our mobiles and wallets in hotel room, took little money in a plastic bag and reached Silom area of Bangkok. What a sight! Close to 10000 people, mostly youngsters, gathered on one stretch of road splashing water and putting chalk on each other. Not an inch for the vehicles to move, with people crawling like ants in straight lines. It didnt take us 5 mins to get totally drenched (Holi #2), and we saw how a real community festival is celebrated. With two fire engines stationed on either end of the road with their hoses open to the full, it was an unforgettable day.

We went to Pattaya the following weekend, one of the most famous beach resorts of the world. On reaching there, we found out that there is a slight difference in the days when Songkran is celebrated in different provinces of Thailand. To our dismay, Pattaya was celebrating it that very weekend. Again, we ended up totally drenched (Holi #3). Thus, within the first 4 months of 2008, I have already celebrated 3 New Years and 3 Holis.

After having explored most of Bangkok, we started going to other places in the country. So last weekend, we decided to explore the Kanchanaburi Province. Their in lies the famous World War 2 site "The bridge over River Kwai", which also happens to be the backdrop for one of the best hollywood movies ever. This is how the bridge actually looks today.

While the story of the bridge itself is fascinating, the province makes for a wonderful tour. We later travelled on the Thailand-Burma railway line, considered the most dangerous railway line in the world (I know every place tends to exaggerate about itself), christened The Death Railway.

And that brings us to the story of sher khan above. The last stop of our trip was at the Wat Pha Luang Ta Bua, better known as the Tiger Temple. The uniqueness of this place is that it is a temple cum tiger sanctuary, where tigers are allowed to roam free. These tigers have been raised by the temple monks since the time they were cubs, and thus they are tame and more free around humans. For a small fee, they allow visitors like me to get close to these magnificent beasts. I wont lie, I had my heart in my mouth all the time, such was the enormous size of this animal. But as Gabbar said, Jo dar gaya, Samjho mar gaya.

I am still alive, and have this photo as a proof of my daredevilry.

Sa-wat Dee Bangkok

The much spoken about, much feared and much hated fachchadom (first year) at IIM A is finally over. Oh yeah, its definitely a moment to celebrate. No more surprise-quizzes-at-1430 hrs, no WAC-runs-at-1625 hrs, no 0845-classes and no more hearing "Muggo-fachcho-muggo" shouts. Though there wasn't enough time for champagne n stuff, but a birthday at home after almost 6 years did compensate for it. Happy birthday to me :)

Next up on the agenda, the summer internship. Way back in November and months leading to that were spent in the yearly ritual called the summer placements. Sitting through company ppts, preparing resumes, praying for Day-zero slots, multiple rounds of interviews - I finally ended up with an internship offer at ING Asia Pacific. I got what I was looking for - Day-zero finance company with foreign location. Can't complain. Subsequently I came to know that I will be working with ING Life Thailand in Bangkok. Like father like son, insurance beckoned me. So I spent the better part of my birthday and Ugadi shopping and packing for my trip to Bangkok.

I landed in Bangkok 5 am in the morning, and there was the ING driver waiting holding a placard that read - "Vamsee Krishna - IIM Ahmedabad". I always used to wonder when someone would do that for me. They had a nice service apartment waiting for me. Saurabh had already arrived the day before, and he was put up in the adjacent apartment. I dumped my bag, changed and off I was for my first day in the corporate world outside India. Lots more on that later.

This being the first time I crossed any of the seven seas, I did expect to see a lot of different things. Had it been the US or UK, things would have been different since the sitcoms and Hollywood movies give one an idea of what to expect. But Bangkok was unchartered territory, we being the first interns ever from IIM A here. Its been almost one week, and some things I have observed about this place.

1. People here are shockingly polite. Am yet to see a heated conversation anywhere in the office or the road. One is always welcomed with smiles everywhere.

2. Traffic is excruciatingly devoid of horns. Drivers have a lot of patience, and I doubt if any of the Toyotas (they are the only cars one would see here) here even have a horn built in.

3. They consider themselves a traditional society, and it shows in the way they interact. People have immense respect for other. They greet each other with the traditional Wai, which is exactly like our Namaste, even in the corporate world. And everyone transaction has to end with a “thank you”. They are also very religious, with beautiful temples in front of almost each and every building.

4. Ironically though, the Thai dress very modern. Specially the female. “Aggressive” is the word one used to describe their dressing sense. They do it pretty smartly though. No wonder fashion brands and cosmetic industry are flourishing here.

5. Thai people eat out A LOT. You find food stalls absolutely everywhere…shopping malls have food sections (that’s plural) on every floor, plus a wholly dedicated floor only for food; the side-walks are full of food vendors selling all sorts of things imaginable. Believe me, within 5 min walking radius of my office, there are more than 150 places where you can eat. And I am not exaggerating.

6. Strikingly though, Thai people are very fit. The average weight of a Thai would be a good 15 kgs less than that of an Indian, if not more. I wonder how.

7. A surprising low number of people are well conversant with English. Communication can be a major struggle, sometimes even inside office. Poor Saurabh has already resorted to dumb charades. It took him a good bit of 20 min to explain the receptionist that the bathtub-plug in his room was missing.

8. Bangkok is a beautiful city, and extremely clean. Case in point, I polished my shoes the first day to office, and till date I haven’t even had to brush it again.

The next two months are going to be really interesting. Meanwhile, am just glad that won the third test match against South Africa. Dada rocks :D

Vindicated!

I proclaimed in my last post that "Nothing good ever happens on Valentine's Day". Well, today I stand vindicated. The point was that one big reason I missed out on exchange program was due to the fact that it was scheduled on that (un)fateful day.

The big-wigs of the college went on meet on a later date to mull over increasing the allocation limit. New day brought new luck, and lo behold; lets make it 100 students going out. And guess who was the first person in line this time around :D . Things fall in place, and finally Norway it was. Me and Quaddro will eventually end up at the same place, the Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration, Bergen. The company of Landy-boy and papa will only make the trip more interesting.

Look out Vikings, here we come!

So close, yet so far

This is my third Valentine’s Day post. It goes to show two things. One, my blog has been in existence for such a long time. Two, nothing good ever happens on Valentine’s Day. I seem to have some sort of a “chattees ka aakada” with the day. Case in point, look what happened this time around.

The story begins long long ago, circa October 2004. My first visit to IIM A in the company of GA, Ram, polie, quirky and gang. The occasion – SPIC MACAY west zone convention. While it was more memorable for the incident of my first nap in a classroom at IIM A, I also distinctly remember us looking for a college senior of ours who was in IIM A at that time. We came to know that the guy is in Turkey, on a student exchange program. Tintin (D-12 was it?) went on to explain the funda behind exchange, and we were fascinated by the whole concept and wished we could do something like that! Cut to April 2007, when I came to know that I would be going to IIM A and I told my mom, “Looks like I will finally get to use my passport”. I was really looking forward to my turn to go to Europe on a “three-month vacation”, as they call it.

Once on campus, tuchchas (seniors at IIM A) went to tell me that almost everyone who wants to go to exchange, gets to go. So things were all hunky dory on this front. Then came summers, and when ING offered me an internship in Thailand, came the first hurdle. How? Well IIM A believes in the concept of equal opportunity, and hence they have a rule that for allocation of exchange school, first preference will be given to those who have never had a previous foreign exposure. Now I knew that my options are going to be very limited, but the tuchchas still maintained that Europe is still within reach with more than 82 seats in Europe alone. Out came the ranking list according to which allotment was to be done, and I stood at 121, thanks to my foreign internship. But with 126 seats on offer in total, and also the fact that most people tend to opt out eventually put me on the safe side. History was also on my side, with allocations last year happening till rank 160.

The first danger signal for me was when it was decided that the allocation was going to happen on 14th of February. It was a bad omen for me. Then one fine day, someone unearthed a tit-bit from The Constitution of WIMWI which reads “Not more than one-third of a batch can go on the Exchange Programme (refer to Appendix 13)”.That meant a maximum of 87 students. Still dry grounds, but something that started to bother me. Yet the still was enough hope.

Now I and Quaddro (my next door neighbour) were separated by just two ranks, and there was a good possibility that we would end up at the same place. So we began our research and come up with a priority list. Thing to consider – location (travel wise), academics (who wants to study on exchange), attendance (bunks are essential for travelling) and reputation (the thing will be going on my CV). It took 6 hours, 2 chicken sandwiches and some coffees, and we had a pecking order ready by bedtime (5 am).

Come 14^th February, Valentines’ day was marked by a very distinct red tinge to people’s attires. We attend morning lectures as usual and eagerly waited for process to start, scheduled at 3:30 in the afternoon. We were sitting in our rooms, armed with laptops and our excel sheets with all our calculations. Updates started coming on Dbabble and we started crossing off b-schools from our list. As expected, the top rankers began with US B-schools like Stern, Columbia and Chicago GSB and then started the European parade. And as usual, some people opted out at the last moment and all was going as planned. 60 ranks and 48 seats gone, it followed the last years’ pattern and opt-out rate was set to increase.

And then things started to go really wrong. HEC, ESSEC, ESC-CAP (all France), Cologne, EBS (Germany), ESADE (Spain) went as expected but the trouble began when people gobbled up Bocconi (Italy), Vienna, Solvay (Belgium), St. Gallen (Switzerland), Nice, Toulouse et al. in absolutely no time. These were the schools we had bet on based on our calculation from previous trends, and they started disappearing from the radar. And the more serious problem was we were getting too close to the magical figure of 87. The countdown began, 40 ranks to go and only 28 seats left. It began to feel like the end overs of a cricket match with the team chasing getting iffy. We reached to the exchange office only to find out that the whole of Western Europe is done. 12 ranks and 8 seats left, people began to gamble on Canada and Scandinavia. I and Quaddro could see our exchange dreams disappear. 6 ranks and 4 seats left, one guy suddenly opts out. Quaddro let out a whoop, “I am in!”. And then one more guy opted out, “We will be taking till rank 120 only”. Disaster struck, and I was left stranded with nothing in hand!

It simply couldn’t get worse. So near yet so far. There I was, dreams shattered, thinking what a great blog entry this will make. Aussies believe 87 is bad luck because it is 13 less than 100. Now I knew why. And I slowly walked back to my dorm, with only one song in my head:

“दील के अरमान आंसुओं में बह गए ..."

Good ol' Sunday television

After completing my second term here at IIM A, we had what was easily the biggest break of first year. 10 full days at home, doing more or less absolutely nothing. On offing was the exciting prospect of India-Australia test matches, and the Sydney test match turned out the be fantastic. This I say despite the result and blatant "Aussie-ness" on display. Every matchday, I was up at 7 30 in the morning, which gave me 20 min before post-lunch session started for all my morning ablutions. And then, there I sat, in front of the idiot box till 2:30 pm, when Harsha Bhogle finally said

"Thats all we have for you today. Join us tomorrow morning for what promises to be another day of exciting test cricket".

Yes he said the same thing every day. And that was cue for me to begin my normal life.

This was the period when I realised how useless TV has become now a days. Television the rest of the day became extremely boring. Yes, there are more than 80 channels to choose from, but what can one do if each one of them doles out the same thrash. Every one of them tries to please the same audience leading to absolutely no variety. Soaps are shit (I hate Ekta Kapoor), news channels cannot be watched for more than half an hour (Syed Kirmani and Nikhil Chopra are called cricket experts!), cartoons are not funny at all (Japanese Anime dubbed in Hindi is the only option) while discovery/history channel are also telecast in Hindi, where I need to spend half my energy in deciphering the complex words that they try to substitute. A friend of mine took 3 days to figure out that a "Saanganik" was actually just a computer.

I still remember the old days when DD 2(or DD Metro) was something to envy about. Chutti-chutti was something to look forward to in holidays, while Alif Laila, Surabhi and Byomkesh Bakshi kept our week nights interesting. However, Sundays were by far the best. Stuff like Ducktales, Talespin, The Sword of Tipu Sultan, BQC, Chandrakanta, Jungle book and many more. Here's a small sneek peak of what used to be.

DuckTales

Malgudi Days

Mahabharat

Jungle Book

Surabhi

Vikram Bethal

Giant Robot

The sword of Tipu Sultan

Gosh I miss good television.