greenBreaD

a question of answers

2006-10-16T22:26:00.000+02:00

does that mean they were "kinder unfreundlich" before?

brick lane

2006-06-03T23:56:00.000+02:00

far from the tourist molehills of london, brick lane smells totally different. it doesn't smell of in-your-face-dal-makhani like southall.

the district is shorn of glamour but still holds a lot of charm. the narrow lane winds down from pirated bollywood music via mithai stalls to sudddenly erupt into organic food houses, independent designer salons and a nameless store selling stolen stuff (..or so it seemed).the desi ethos stays halfway and slowly turns on its side to reveal an urban side london that actually looks more rustic.

i gave in to my primal instincts and had some wicked volcanic chicken biryani in a place with formica-topped tables. posters of wrestlers were ruddily smacked on the walls. makes sense - wrestler dara singh's got to have his time in the sun too.

Denglish

2006-05-17T23:25:00.000+02:00

if you thought Hinglish and Tanglish were the only adulterated liguistic commodities around, wait until you've heard Denglish.

there's a strange impulse in the german-speaking world, i'd say relegated to the city-bred community at large, to introduce germanized versions of english words. "downgeloadet", "uploaden", "gekillt" are some samples. now, these could be mainly technology related words. but i guess there's definitely more.

there are times in a midst of a presentation when you don't really know the german equivalent for a certain word. then, you go into a trance-like position, beckon to your audience with a sophisticated swish of your fingers in an animated quote and pronounce the english word in a german way.

and smile at the end of it. the Schwäbisch sitting across would atleast be a bit amused at this act of deference.

Deutsch ist ganz einfach. oder?

Bavaria Da Da Da

2006-03-28T01:18:00.000+02:00

Pepsi's latest ad goes Bavarian! Schuhplattler, Dirndls and those big fat cheesy oompah musicians - check it out!
Thanks for the link, anglofritz

potatoland

2006-03-26T18:31:00.000+02:00

mention the divine word, "kartoffel" ( "potato" in german, ye tongue-lashers) and the true-blue, self-respecting german will definitely react. nowhere else has this tuber been so abused and thrashed into submission. its everywhere - pervasive or ubiquitous dont even come close. the first few weeks after setting foot, rather tongue on potato-based-dishes, i was having nightmares of giant-sized Orwellian potatoes out to conquer earth (and then Spielberg stole it right outa me silly head).

mashed, fried, baked, roasted, as pancakes, in soups, even desserts! the list is endless. its almost like its the last surviving thing that somehow should be eaten everyday. every uni/office canteen will definitely have it on their menu. if you're vegetarian, you can count on the spuds to save your day. it also finds its place in society. a whole gamut of phrases, metaphors and sayings that relate to the poor potato. i heard someone use "augen wie kartoffeln" (eyes like potatoes) the other day.

i bet if it had eyes, it'd cry - leave me alone, pick on them pumpkins fer once!

anglais did you say?

2006-03-17T16:20:00.000+01:00

picture zis - ze French students protesting in English against the new law (CPE)! trust the famed french snotnoses, self-confessed anglophobes, french-answer-givers-for-english-questions, to actually say "we shall never surrender"..by toutatis! i scratch meself over and over again - is zis really happening!??

?

2006-03-09T13:49:00.000+01:00

this is probably a classic example of the ads i've seen round here. it roughly translates into, " you might have to go to India to find Computer Experts; but your Grocery Expert is just round the corner".

it sounds highly strained - copy written just to exploit the Indian-IT cliche. ok, it momentarily grabs attention, but then you need to go on and make sense of what's written, why on earth the reference to Indian-IT is being made - because of the distance?!! brownie points to Edeka because they are'nt so far away? sounds like a very long shot at doing a different ad-campaign to me.

but it does give birth to a faint self-destructive smile.

i was gone

2006-03-04T22:44:00.000+01:00

resurrection was long overdue - my apologies: a diet of eating, sleeping and loafing over a finite period of time in an endless loop does not improve blogging.

a month's vacation and i can hardly remember my computer's name.

india was refreshing as usual. i heartily inhaled carbon monoxide in bangalore, scraped through near death experiences in hyderabadi autos and braved the chennai heat to ingest slightly-scalded molaga bajjis. a major chunk of travel time was spent haggling with auto-drivers. they've turned negotiating into an art-form. The Hindu refuses to come out a time frame where service is always "yeoman", relatives are "kith and kin" and youth are "gangling". The Deccan Chronicle retails at Re.1 and devotes an entire page to random unknown, unheard parties and Page 3 wannabes.

there were upsides too. a nostalgic trip back to school, shopping for attar and mojris in the bylanes near Char Minar, hyderabadi biryani, irani chai, old friends getting hitched by the dozen and of course quality-family-time.

i've uploaded a few snapshots on bleepbleep

Live!

2006-01-23T11:22:00.000+01:00

i'm blogging live from the Digital Lifestyle Day '06. its a lot of talk. the words 'india', 'blog', 'mainstream media' and of course 'digital' are being thrown back and forth.

the panel discussions were pretty restrictive with not much participation from the audience; its getting better though. i expected atleast a forum where bloggers could get together and talk about what drives them and where things are moving. nope - its not here!

asimo, the robot, made an appearance just now!

Go Rathi!

2006-01-01T23:04:00.000+01:00

my amigo from school, rathna prabhu is running the Carlsbad Marathon '06 on Jan 15th. its not just another cardio high for him..he's doing this to raise awareness about various developmental causes in apna Bharat mahaan. its called 'Run for India' with a team of 8 maxing their endurance.

rathi is trying to use this opportunity to raise funds for rural projects initiated by AID India. testing your limits with a cause to boot. can't get nobler than this, eh?

so, point your mouse clicks at his page and keep those donations coming. every cent counts.

go rathi!

Deconstructing Santa

2005-12-27T13:26:00.000+01:00

Andrew Hammel posts a geeky note on the existential problem of that big red cheese, Santa Claus. Its hilarious just for the astounding numbers that someone bothered to compute. Estimating the payload on the sleigh,

"This increases the payload - not even counting the weight of the sleigh - to 353,430 tons. Again, for comparison - this is four times the weight of the Queen Elizabeth."

Anyway, now that the weihnachtsstimmung is melting away in competition with the snow, here's wishing all of you a very healthy 2006.

screw the past, go for eternity!

BMW in Chennai

2005-12-09T21:53:00.000+01:00

today's Hindu is peppered with news about BMW pitching its tents:

BMW's decision to locate its assembly unit near Chennai has reconfirmed Tamil Nadu and its capital as the automobile hub of the country.

whoops! the Bavarian wants idly-vada-sambhar to go with his Helles.

i did hear long ago that BMW had decided quite some time back to settle for Chennai. the auto hub will definitely see some action with the big Bavarian on the potholed streets of Chennai. here, the company's gung-ho on cost-cutting with a lot of new regulations. it seems interns no longer get to drive out in style to the model workshops. no internet usage. employees don't get their extra hours paid - in fact a whole departments' goin on vacation for december.

imagine amma trying to squeeze into a Z4. teehee, that'll be the ultimate stress test. or will the Bavarians present her with a Dirndl!!??

this is perhaps the right time to open a biergarten in Chennai...was denn?

blah blah in the right lingo

2005-12-09T21:32:00.000+01:00

ennis over at sepia mutiny talks about using languages other than english in public. he also cites instances where the frayed amreekan junta jumps to al-qaedaistic conclusions before you could say "dilwale thalaganiya le jayenge". the school incident reeks of our inglees medium schools where it was fab to be seen talkin' the talk. the post sparked a huge debate on everything over the moon ranging from bilingual education to ethno-nationalistic tamils.

i work in a truly international environment. the french guys potter on, the germans grunt along, the italian swears and i also manage to turn a few heads when i'm on the phone pawing my way through a few languages sounding like a scion of the Addam's family.

when me was not so accustomed to facial hair, mom used to tell me that using a foreign language in a gathering that did not understand it was outright rude. and here, i'm wishing i had a babelfish in my ear. it really does'nt irk me when they talk personal, but in a knowledge-based environment like the one i work in, it's sometimes essential to hear the right things. i prefer learning by discussing certain key concepts rather than read it from a manual.

as one of the mutineers said, "..speaking in another language by its nature erects a barrier and distance.."

the Infy way

2005-11-27T21:40:00.000+01:00

the other day, i was talking to this guy who's recently moved to Infosys, Stuttgart. he was going over the experience of being in a true blue desi company. we bumped into each other in C & A where he was busy co-ordinating ties and suits. he then told me the "dressing-up" was mandatory. i found it quite acceptable since he gets to meet a lot of corporate types.

but then as the conversation meandered to india, he said that it was compulsory for Infy dudes to be formally attired. it seems the security guard has instructions to stop employees without a tie. they even get to pay a rs.200 fine if they don't have a tie on them before stepping into the hallowed workplace.

this sounds so juvenile. could it be true?

exemplary consular service

2005-11-27T01:06:00.000+01:00

i don't understand the problem with indian consulate generals in germany. the first time i called to clarify something, the guy on the other end of the phone gave me an impromptu lecture on saving money as an indian in germany. believe me - i never asked for it.

this time around, i call the embassy in Berlin to find out if i can travel within Schengen states without my passport (which is incidentally getting itself a tourist visa at the british consulate) , i receive blunt, impatient grunts of disapproval. there is simply no effort to try and even converge towards a solution. "no, you can't travel anywhere without a passport. it's impossible". on being asked if an emergency travel document could be issued, the lady said (with highly impatient pauses as if urging me to end the conversation on her last word) that i needed my passport for that too. ridiculous.

later, on speaking to the Bundesgrenzschutz (German Border Security) over their 24 hr hotline, they were very helpful in suggesting an Emergency Travel Pass that i could apply for at their posts. although they said that the passport was essential as a document establishing identity, they did accept that certain arrangements could be made in dire cases, since officially there was no border control within the Schengen states.

the consulate could have atleast pointed me to an alternative source for more information. agreed that my passport was not lost in order to go for a travel document, but there could have been some advice on their part in special cases like these.

talking music

2005-11-10T23:03:00.000+01:00

talk about scratching backs, i could'nt even thoughtfully tweak my big flappy accessible jumbo ears over the past week. work, more work and a little more work made sure i flitted back and forth between black and white terminal windows.

a huge "Thankiee Youu" for all those wishes that poured in for my birthday. somehow, it was a friday and i found myself at "Schocken" with a coupla folks. i was vaguely told about some jazz event which morphed into electrojazz and finally experimental video-game-based music. the first few bands were vague reproductions of croaking frogs, car tires breaking wind with a "squelchh" and other annoyances. there was also one band which showed a lot of promise (literally) by displaying their instruments. this really got us talking-- maybe we'd get to hear music today. and then they came on stage and proceeded to suck the air out of a saxophone while inflicting maximum random damage on a retired double bass. i'd be a befuddled Boandlgrama (bavarian gravedigger) now.

the quasi-electronic stuff that came on later was pretty neat though. a guitar keeping pace with a gameboy console; synths with an anonymous cousin of the violin. i don't know my freeform jazz from the raagas but music has to connect on some level with that grey lettuce between the ears.

on that note muchachos, i'm going back to another Friday tommorrow.

overheard...

2005-10-24T22:05:00.000+02:00

...the story of leptop and peptop .

hi i am A**** I want to know if any bady want to sale leptop then i am intersted to bay leptop THANKS

can u tell me how much prise he want to sell peptop
or con. me.-0173*** ****

hi, i send u post but u did not replay to me can u con. by handy to me then we can talk better for leptop THANKS

i like the part - "con. me".

amchi München

2005-10-05T12:52:00.000+02:00

i'm back in dreary stuttgart after a smashing weekend in München. somehow, i believe it all lies in the way a city smells. and it smells real good over there.

the weather was good enough to remind you of Old Blighty, this made getting into the tents at the Wies'n quite an ordeal. but i did manage to get into Schottenhammel. no strong-arming, no stress tests. just walked in like i owned the place. unglaublich!

i was ferried to and fro by the trustworthy Mitfahrzentrale. its a humongous car-pool where people look for other people driving to places. its a nice way to meet new people especially if you're an alien (not the green kind). i made my first trip in D'land a month after i landed and have never looked back since then. its' dirt cheap because you just split the gas prices and you get a chauffeur driven comfort with some good music to boot. they drive all over the place..spain, czech..you name it. i've always thought about how this would work in India. "trust" would not even closely qualify as the preferred adjective. maybe this would work within a circle that knows each other pretty well. otherwise, i'd personally think twice about travelling with strangers. there definitely must be stories of bad experiences on Mitfarzentrale but none that i've experienced or heard being publicised.

this time my fellow travellers were a bunch of students from up north. we had a nice time swapping stories in the spacious Alfa Romeo. these guys were actually Sorbisch, an ethnic minority living mainly in Sachsen and Brandenburg with Slav roots. they have their own language, script, culture and all the oompah. one of them was a girl named boujana - sounds more like a stringed instrument i said.

durga puja started yesterday. i was at the hall where they have the idol and do the puja. apart from Pavlovian drooling for the bong sweets and debating the authenticity of the priest's hair, it was strange to observe how diametrically opposite intra-indian rituals are. the music being played was that used for funeral processions in Tamil Nadu. someone however threw a line about the death of the demon Mahishasura being accented. plausible extrapolation.

ho hum. another week.

gulty as charged

2005-09-29T20:47:00.000+02:00

no offense my andhra brethren but i really have to crib about this movie that i saw the other day. if my nostalgia serves me right, those were the days of telugu cinema - a righteous hero, blood spilt like disinfectant on a hospital floor, a wet-saree number in the rain and of course, the delectable ramya krishnan.

i was however in for a surprise when i decided to check out "athadu" (another "why not?" whim). the film started out on quite a raw note. the making of a teen-gangster and his eyes up close. i was impressed. but then the boy grew up into mahesh babu and started outdoing jat-da-puttar bobby deol in playing - 'i'm wooden, are'nt you too?' this baby-faced clod was supposed to be a hired killer and kick sand into the bad guys' open orifices. duh! everyone, including a few foggily visible cows and stray dogs were trying to act except him. even the guys he killed did a good job of dying.

its a long weekend with monday being the reunification day. i'll be in München trying to soak in a few last hours of the Wies'n. i hear this time the decibels have been turned down and the music is more folksy than "Country Roads" and DJ Ötzi. i found a whole cache of the songs that they play in the festzelts. these were recorded live in the Löwenbräu tent (thanks ToyTownMunich.com!).

Oains, Zwoa, G'suffa!

of Trash parties and Photoshopped posters

2005-09-18T12:00:00.000+02:00

its a totally weird sunday morning (noon rather). the sun's been playing hide'n'seek over my balcony not affording a few shards of constant warmth. they're going to the polls today and the place is abuzz with animated discussions on which permutation of colours will be chosen.

it seems a lot of people are still undecided about whom to vote for. i think the posters are to blame. they were'nt too hard to design i guess. just a damning closeup of the candidate until you can count his/her unruly strands of nosehair. in some posters, the candidates even have the whitest of teeth. next, slap a vague message like "Deutschlands chancen nutzen" and print them by the thousands. of course, this is a good chance for people to practise their drawing skills from kindergarten. there's this one poster of a guy that got stuck in my mind. his putty-like features were streaked into a perpetual 1 km smile all the way across his face.

there are also all kinds of fun parties apart from the usual suspects. there's the anarchist pogo party which advocates, well, anarchist behaviour! their tv spots are all about gross images, trashing things and punks getting sloshed. this is one of their posters:

quite self-educational i'd say.

here's a short primer on the german political shebang -

there are 2 votes. with the first you elect the local representative for the Bundestag. however, its the second vote that decides the Bundeskanzler guy. irrespective of your first vote, you can choose any party for your second. the party with a national majority get to take home the cake. there are again a lot of intricacies involved since the first and second votes don't match. extra seats are created and this sort of influences the party coalitions.

there's a plan to gang up over some Augustiner today evening to check out the results. meanwhile, there's quite a good piece on the state of affairs here.

9 days to ozapfa

2005-09-07T23:23:00.000+02:00

the countdown's narrowing. only 9 more days to go for that thing they call the oktoberfest. i still have'nt figured out why it starts in September. if your bai'risch is rusty, get it fired with the wiesn dictionary. ogschdoscha times are here!

this year's highlights:

14 beer tents, 6 million liters beer with 4.5 per cent alcohol
lowenbräu possibly introducing plastic beer mugs (yuck!)
talk about an EU-ban on dirndl necklines going up and not down :(
an oktoberfest movie, made during last year's fest is being released
and of course 1 Mass will be a bit more expensive than last year

The Madras Taliban

2005-09-07T22:12:00.000+02:00

Its moral policing time again, good old madras style.Anna University imposed a dress code on all its constituent engineering colleges this month. The Hindu says:

The dress code states that students should not wear jeans, t-shirts, skirts or sleeveless and tight-fitting outfits and enjoins them to dress conservatively.

So, will the real Slim Shady, Vice chancellor Vishwanathan D, accept it if someone turns out nattily in a blue and white chequered lungi? It satisfies his criteria of not being a pair of jeans, conservative and at the same time allowing the complete pursuit of academic excellence (hardcore users will vouch for this). Best of all, its natural ventilation with a high inflow of cooling air mass flux makes it a surefire favorite. What about the fairer sex? I'm tempted to imagine that hot Mallu lecturer we had, dolled up in a non-linear madisar or even those B.Arch barbies in fluttering half-saris. Well, as they say, good koseen (pure madras lingo for "question"). In the twelve months of summer to be endured in Madras, t-shirts are to be outlawed. And that unruly, unwashed pair of jeans will join other decaying relics in the Egmore museum. I can already see a surge in the sales of old Gemini Ganesan movies for style tips.

..According to the Vice-Chancellor, while certain outfits detract from the seriousness of academic pursuits, ...

So, what according to the High Priest of Modesty, is an appropriate outfit that induces academic fervour? I fail to see the connection. Since when did Anna University become Auschwitz? Did wisps of Mullah Omar's beard waft into the Marina and inspire this rule?

Someone tell this fag to put a sock in it. This is a complete violation of privacy. Does he want to breed obedient zombies who'll dress acoording to his whims? The engineering janta better react or there'll be more rules prescribing komanams instead of your Tantex or Sudarmani.

Or will you prefer to stay mum, sigh mournfully and join the inmates of Satyabhama Engineering Penitentiary in their quest for discipline?

why?

2005-08-27T23:45:00.000+02:00

"janmashtami mubarak ho"

with such oxymorons germinating within, the only reason that i can think of to blog is,"why not?" funny : it sounds eerily similar to all my other reasons.

i'll try not to write. i'll try not to fly to the moon on my ego trip. i'll try not to get too personal.

if you stop by; take a whiff and move on. you never know, i might've just made your day.

zum Wohl!!
(former german battle cry whittled down to present day beer-drinking wish)

2004-01-08T22:42:00.000+01:00

ok final try

2004-01-08T22:24:00.000+01:00

resized banner

2004-01-08T21:59:00.000+01:00

new new banner