Indiaaaaaaaaaa!!!

Hello dear readers,

I am just back from a wonderful one month holiday in India!! So it is obvious that i want to share my experience with you all. In short, my trip was mostly about meeting my family, attending a friends wedding and eating a lot and lot of delicious food ... and mangoes :) :) 

To say the least, my trip started with a lot of confusion. When i reached schipol airport to take my KLM flight on 9th of June, after checking in my luggage and going through the security, KLM informed me at the departure gate that my flight to New Delhi is overbooked and i cannot board the plane!! WTF! I didn't even clearly understood what that meant so i asked the airline what do they mean by overbooked. The lady in blue there told me that airlines are legally allowed to overbook the flight by 10%. This means that if there are 100 seats in a flight, airline will put on sale 110 seats. This is because according to stats, around 10% people cancel their tickets after booking. So if they put on sale only 100 tickets, the flight will on average have around 10 empty seats when they fly which means financial loss for airlines. So they sell 110 tickets hoping that after all the cancellations, the flight will still be full. Now sometimes they sell all 110 tickets and less then 10% people cancel their tickets. As the airline only has 100 seats, this results in an overbooked flight! And this was the case with my flight. In this case obviously all the passengers with tickets cannot fly. To deal with this and to decide who gets to fly and who is left behind, airline allots seats to passengers when they are checking-in (online or on airport). The first 100 people to check-in get to fly and the remaining are left behind. Because of this rule, recently there is so much emphasis given to early online check-in. I recommend everyone who has an important flight to take, please check-in as soon as possible to confirm your seat on the flight. Now, for the people who are left behind, the airline is supposed to arrange their tickets in the next available flight for free and reimburse them for the inconvenience caused. This reimbursement depends on the distance of your air travel going till a maximum of 600 euros cash. And guess what, KLM paid me 600 euros cash on the spot!! And they booked me on an evening flight (the same day) to New Delhi via Athens. I didn't want to take with me 600 euros to India so I decided to go to an ABN AMRO counter to deposit the cash. This counter was in the main hall of the airport. I had to go through the arrivals area and through the passport control to reach this counter. When the security guy at the passport control asked me where am i coming from, I replied 'Netherlands'!! haha imagine how funny it was, entering back in Netherlands without leaving Netherlands :P Anyways i explained my situation and he let me go. So i deposited the cash, went through the security check again to go inside the departure terminal and at the gate waited for my flight to Athens. Just before the boarding of this flight was scheduled, it was announced that an airplane is stuck on the airstrip in Athens and hence all the flights going to Athens have been delayed by 2 hours!! For me, this meant that i will certainly miss my connecting Athens - New Delhi flight. Seriously?? I was quite nervous at this point. Anyways, i went back to KLM helpdesk to discuss this. They told me that the best option i have now is to take the direct KLM flight to New Delhi the following day. If i want, i can decide to stay overnight near airport (in which case KLM will book a hotel for me) or just go back home and come back tomorrow. Fuck! Quite annoying eh? Well, i calmed myself down and stayed overnight at the hotel that KLM booked. And guess what? To do this, I again had to enter Netherlands without leaving Netherlands :P Anyways, the hotel stay was nice and next day every thing went smooth. So after some confusion and waiting, I was finally in India! The only things that made this whole ordeal bearable was the 600 euro compensation and a young Dutch couple who were supposed to travel to India in the same flight as me on the 9th but were overbooked as well. So they were with me the whole time and went through the exact same events as described above!

Finally, I was in Sitamarhi, Bihar. Home sweet home! My 2 week stay there comprised of spending time with my extended family, eating delicious mangoes, cursing the heat, enjoying monsoon and picking fresh vegetables from my parent's new garden.     

With Mom

My favorite person, my grand mother ...

This is how you eat mangoes in my hometown :D

My mom said that after waking up, even before seeing God, she sees mangoes :P

Monsoon Bitches!!

A look at our garden from the roof

Fresh Okra (or lady's fingers) in the garden

One random evening in Sitamarhi, somehow this pic makes me homesick.

The following picture is a very special one. Once i was going with my cousin on a rickshaw and i saw this printed in front of a government office "To stop rapes, we must make toilets". This didn't made sense to us at all! We both thought this was so funny and disgusting. I remember that i was really angry thinking that how can someone write a crappy message like this? How is making toilets going to stop rapes?? I was so disgusted that i asked the rickshaw to stop so that i can take a picture. I went back home and showed it to my grand mother out of anger. What she explained me was so horrifying that i could have never imagined it even in my dreams. She told me that the printed statement makes complete sense. In rural areas, most households don't have toilets and people defecate in open. Women usually (and i guess obviously) go to a bit secluded areas to defecate. A lot of them go in farms with lot of plantation so that no one sees them defecating. This is when they are pulled by men in high bushes and raped. This phenomenon is rampant in rural areas of Bihar. After listening this, i was so shocked and not just because of how disgusting this whole thing was, but also because i realized that as a middle class Indian, I am so unaware and so cutoff from the problems poor people face in India. I am sure that almost all of my Indian friends will have never heard about this heinous act. There is a rape in Delhi and media goes crazy! There are so many protests! What about these voiceless poor women from rural India?        

"To stop rapes, we must make toilets"

After my stay in my hometown of Sitamarhi, it was time to head to Hyderabad to attend my friend's wedding. It was great to meet so many people i haven't met in ages!

@ chuha and sonam's wedding in Hyderabad

With Doga darling @ wedding! :)

Havas and Doga @ wedding!

Offcourse we had famous Hyderabadi Biryani! A nice article about this dish - http://in.rediff.com/money/2004/apr/09spec.htm

After the wedding, it was time to go to Bangalore to meet my remaining extended family. My parent also joined me there from Sitamarhi. It was so much fun!! I was meeting some of my cousins after 7-8 years. In my mind, they were still kids.  

With Mom, Dad and Bro @ some temple in Bangalore

Me and Bro sharing a coconut drink :)

With chinki after 8 years... she came all the way from Mumbai to meet me!

Chinu in my new suitcase, i guess she secretly wanted to sneak inside Holland with me :P 

Papa with ranjan and raju chacha in Bangalore

Pizza party with bacha party :P

It was time to dig in some delicious South Indian food!

It was first time after i don't remember how many years that 10 out of 12 'bhawsinka kids' were together, so we decided to go for a professional photo-shoot. The 2 kids missing are Chinki and Sonu. Sorry guys :( I hope all 12 of us will be together some day soon for an awesome holiday. We will have better pictures then!

The genX bhawsinkas ;)

I am blessed with kick-ass sisters :)

Say cheeseeeeeeeee :)

So after an awesome week-long stay in Bangalore, my India trip came to an end. On last couple of days i did most of my shopping, packed, bid and emotional farewell to my family and took my flight back to Amsterdam. 

Seriously, for a moment there, i didn't want to comeback to Holland. I didn't want to come back to the cold and lonely life. There are too many problems in India and its too easy to get frustrated. Comparatively, life in Holland is so easy. The light bulb is always glowing, the tap is always filled with water, the air is fresh, supermarkets are filled with food and I have a great job. But I have a big and close knit family and leaving them behind every time just breaks my heart. My family provides me an emotional security which is, i guess, far more important then social security of Holland. Anyways, i am here in Holland for the moment. Lets see for how long i stay.        

I will leave you, my dear readers, with a pic from one of the taxi's I took in India. This taxi had a freaking Van Persie jersey hanging in front. As if life was giving me signals that i am going to stay in Holland for the moment.

Van Persie in India!

Well, that's all for the moment. Life is back to its regular grind.

Cheers,

Karan

Life in late 20's!

Hey invisible people, how are you? Here i go again, with my random rants about random things in my random life. Well the thing is that i am 27 and off-lately i am feeling the effects of being in late twenties. A lot of things have changed within me quite quickly within past couple of years. I have realized a lot of things and have probably understood myself and the world better. I wanted to share some of these changes/realizations with you:

• Until few years ago, i use to think that i will never make great friends. Somehow i always missed having a 'gang' which i can call my own. That has changed. I have in past couple of years met some people who i consider my gang. I know they will stand by me in the toughest situations. This has given me a lot of personal confidence. Even tough most of them live far away from me, they are a big part of my life.

• I don't know why but I always avoid confrontation. If i don't like something that you do, i find it very hard to communicate it to you. And because i cannot take my anger/irritation out on time, it bothers me for a long time. Sometimes, things pile up inside me and i burst in the end when i cannot take it anymore. I know it is not a nice way of dealing with these kind of situations. I hope i can change this soon.

• I still don't know swimming and driving and i consider this a big weakness. I am not sure if i want to learn driving anytime soon but i want to learn swimming pretty bad. If any of you living in wageningen can help me learn swimming, I will be very grateful.

• I am becoming more comfortable with my professional life. A lot of people around me would tell me that its a great thing but i am not so confident about that. I have always dreamt of having my own company and making it big out there. Somehow this new found comfort with my present job is a bit unnerving. These days i wonder ... Will i ever have my own company? 

• Recently i saw a picture of my parents. My dad looked much older then i remember. This made me realize that in past 4 years, i have hardly been with them for a month. It breaks my heart. Tough i have learnt a lot in life by living abroad, i would never be able to make up for this missed time with my family. I cannot wait to see them all again next month.

• I have become quite comfortable with who i am personally. If you like me as a person, that's great. If you don't ... Whatever!

• I have an average intellect but i am a fighter. I have achieved most things in life by not giving up.

• Through observation and through practice, I have become a much better cook. Its such an important and satisfying skill. I think every one should learn cooking.

• I am finally doing a job that i like. I cannot say that its my dream job but i do like it. And that's itself a big step ahead for me. Its intellectually stimulating and gives me tremendous freedom to work and live the way i want. If i ever have a company of my own in future, i will make sure i treat my employees like my present employer treats me.

• I have realized (quite late, I know) that friendship is a both way bond. I have totally stopped putting effort in friendships which I realized were one sided. It saves me a lot of effort and gives me a lot of free time to do the things that I like.  

• I am still searching for that one thing that is my natural talent ... that one thing that comes naturally to me ... that one thing that i can become best in the world in. 

• I have accepted that politics is an integral part of life, professional or personal. Those who ignore it are always at a loss.

• I have realized that intellect is just one talent. Sometimes we give way too much importance to it. I have met people in past few years who i would say had average or even below average intellect but i was convinced that they will do great in their life.

• One of my finest realizations has been that love is my freedom. Some of my most peaceful and free moments were in the arms of my lovers. Only true love has freed me from all desires, it sounds ironical but its true.

I cannot think of anymore points at the moment and tomorrow i am going to Amsterdam for a day trip with some friends, so i better get some sleep now! But i will sign off with a recent pic ;)

Fish and Fisherman :P

Love,

Karan

Netherlands - Part 3

Hello everyone,

As you can see, i am not quite keeping up with my new year resolution. I couldn't upload my blog in February L ... but well, i hope to be more frequent in future.  On the other hand, i completed one of my resolutions. I submitted a conference paper and it got accepted. So i am going to Marseille on 6^th April to present it. The conference is called IWWWFB (International Workshop on Water Waves and Floating Bodies) and the website is - http://www.iwwwfb.org/. After the conference, i took couple of days off. So including the weekend, i will have a lot of time for sightseeing and for getting some sun in Marseille J. I cannot wait as i am getting pretty fed up of crappy Dutch weather. And off-course i will be couchsurfing on my free days!

Apart from that, i really need to put more effort in learning Dutch quickly. Other international colleagues who started with me are already on a more advanced level than me. I have to agree, i have been lazy on this front, almost never doing my homework L ... a couple of weeks ago, the director of my company suggested me that i should find a Dutch girlfriend. According to him it’s the best way to speedup Dutch learning. I have to agree, it seems to be working for other internationals who have Dutch partners haha but well, i told him it’s too late for that now ;)

For the moment, there are quite a lot of things to look forward in life. Coming weekend is a super-long weekend with Friday and Monday off and on Saturday I will go to Arnhem with my housemates and other friends from Wageningen to celebrate holi. And guess what, we have plans to make space cake and bhang before the holi party :D. Then the next weekend i fly to marseille for a week. After that, i want to finally go to keukenhof to see the iconic tulip fields. Than by the end of May, i am planing to take a month long holiday to go to India. Probably i am going to be deep fried with all the heat!! But well on the other side, i will eat so many mangoes J. We have mango trees just outside my dad’s clinic and my brother who is right now in sitamarhi for holidays told me that its already possible to pluck unripe mangoes from first floor windows haha. I also plan to do a lot of travelling in India this time. I will probably visit mumbai, bangalore and hyderabad.

Well that was a shot update of things that are happening in my life. For the moment, i am having a ball! Hope you are as well.

My second job ;)

Groetjes,

Karan

Munich Trip!

Hi dear readers,

With this post i would like to share with you my Munich trip :). I and Maya left for Munich on 2nd January morning and were back to wageningen on 7th Morning. So we were in Munich for around 4.5 days and we had such a great time there! We stayed there with Linda, my housemates best friend. She is born and bred in Munich, so she is the best host and guide we could have had :)

A classic train journey in the Alps! Let the trip begin :)

With Linda, our awesome host!

Munich is one of the richest cities in Germany with a huge economy. Many German MNC's have their headquarters there. Situated almost the the southern tip of Germany, it is very near Austria and Switzerland and is surrounded by Alps. It is the capital of Bavaria province and is known for its October Fest all over the world! For the first time i saw beer houses there. Basically you can eat food and drink some classic Bavarian beers in them. They are all over Munich. You gotta love their craze for beers!

On our first day, we walked around the impressive city center of Munich, did grocery shopping and made some couscous salad filled in roasted red pepper for dinner.

Maya and Linda @ Munich city center

Roasted red peppers stuffed with couscous salad and some red wine for dinner!

In next 3 days, we saw the Deutsches Museum (largest technical museum in Europe), Neuschwanstein Castle (inspiration for Disneyland's Sleeping Beauty Castle) and Kampenwand mountain.

en-route Kampenwand mountain

en-route Kampenwand mountain

We took a rope-way to ascend 1500 m

and Linda and Maya were so scared that they didn't even wanted to look outside :P

On the top, we found nothing but snow :( and no view because of fog!

I will eat Neuschwanstein Castle :D

Maya @ Neuschwanstein Castle

In between all these excursions, we offcourse found some time to try typical German drinks like Feuerzangenbowle (you can only drink it if you can pronounce it :P).

Cheers over Feuerzangenbowle!!

Here is a nice video on how to make your own Feuerzangenbowle: 

On our last day in Munich, we were invited for dinner by Eva's family. Her mom made the best Korean food ever!

Dinner with Eva's family and friends

It was the best end of our trip i could have expected. We had to roll after dinner to reach station to catch our train back to Wageningen. I wished goodbye to Linda and to Munich with heavy heart and with a promise that i will return for Oktoberfest next year ;). As train zoomed out of Munich, I tried to catch some sleep (unsuccessfully i must say)! We were back to good old Wageningen on Monday morning :)

That's all for now, its 1 am already and i have to work tomorrow. So good night dames en heren! Lekker Slaap!

Yours,

Karan

     

Life in 2012 and wishes for 2013!

Hoi readers,

How are you all? I have been thinking from a while to write again, but you know, I am a lazy man! My work load is pretty high and I have been travelling during a lot of weekends, so time is flying at the moment. I have met so many people in past few months from KGP, its actually pretty awesome to think about it. Shivaji Bose, KC, Chuha, Sonam, Abhi Da, Dholu, Bhangar, Nirav, all passed by Holland and I got a chance to show them around and spend some quality time with them. It was great to meet you all guys! In this globalized world where people are living everywhere for work and education, it has become very hard to maintain a meaningful long term friendship. It needs a lot of hard work, calling each other, making efforts to remember important dates and most importantly, not missing a slightest chance of meeting each other. Lets hope this series of visitors never end!! My doors are open for you guys :)

Well, 2012 is coming to an end. In few hours, it will be 2013! As the trend goes, I have also made some New Year resolutions and I want to share them with you:

• To invest in property in India
• To gain decent proficiency in Dutch language
• To get in shape :P
• To write a blog post once every month
• To publish at least 1 research paper
• To trek from Rohtang Pass to Ladakh
• To take a train from Amsterdam to St. Petersburg via Moscow

All these wishes, I aim to fulfill in 2013. I have more wishes, but their execution is not totally under my control. Hence I am not making them my resolutions but I still hope they come true.

As of 2012 … well, I have to say, it was an interesting year for me! An year of emotional ups and downs, an year of personal achievements and an year of making great new friends. Here are few pics that summarize the year gone by:

Himanshu, dipping his chips into my coffee :P 

With KC and Abhi da @ Amsterdam Central Station

With Gangwal, Kshitij, Havas and Yogi @ Ranthambore Fort

Snake dance with Priyanka @ Arnhem for Holi

ISTANBUL with Saima!!

   

With Chuha and Sonam @ Montmartre, Paris

Rock and Roll party in Antwerp, Belgium!

With colleagues @ Efteling theme park :)

With colleagues @ MARIN open day

With Bobby and John @ Copenhagen

Shankar Ji on his birthday! 

Me, John and Iris made masala dosa and sambhar :)

with Eva, one of my two new awesome flatmates! :) 

For the moment I wish all the readers a very happy new year or a Gelukkig Nieuwjaar :)

Cheers!
Karan 

Whirling in Istanbul!

So ladies and gentleman, when I visited Istanbul on 6th of July 2012 for a long weekend, I fulfilled a long-cherished dream. A city like no other, Istanbul is overdosed with history, filled with pride, bustling with energy and dreaming of a glorious future. After all, before the modern settlement in the America's, it was the center of the world.

I went there for a long weekend, so i left Friday evening from Holland and i was back on Monday evening. I was joined there by my adopted sister Saima and her friend Tanzeen. Saima did most of the planing, and as always, it was flawless.  

In front of blue mosque (or Sultan Ahmed Mosque)

We stayed in very nice and cheap Piya Hostel, a 10-15 minute walk from most touristic sites. Saima flew to Istanbul from Toronto and Turkish airline left all her check-in baggage in Canada! Luckily the luggage was delivered to her in 2 days but she was very stressed about it in the beginning. But she did some shopping and managed pretty well. If I was at her place, I would definitely not be able to stay so calm.

Me and Tanzeen @ Baklava festival 

It was my first time meeting Tanzeen, saima's best friend. And it was great to meet and talk to her. Very smart, funny and straight forward person, someone whom you can easily make a friend. We had some great conversations about India, Pakistan and our lives in general.

One of the many clicks @ Sultanahmet Square

Next morning, we had a filling breakfast provided by the hostel and left for sightseeing around 11. I wanted to leave earlier but 11 is the best you can expect when you are travelling with two other girls :P. We covered Sultan Ahmed Mosque, Aya Sofia and Basilica Cistern by 5 in the evening. They are all magnificent and dominating structures with weird mix of Christian and Islamic influences. Istanbul might be the only place on earth where Islam and Christianity have come to peace with each other to achieve a common goal: to create a prosperous and modern society.   

Inside Aya Sofia, first a church, then a mosque and now a museum!  

In the evening, we went back to the hostel to rest a bit and then left for eminonu around 8 pm. Eminonu is the place where you go to take most of the ferry tours in Istanbul. It is an extremely crowded location, with locals and tourists everywhere you can see. They say that best fishes in Istanbul are served here in boats that make a fresh catch everyday.

One of the many fish restaurants by the sea @ Eminonu

my favourite click! @ Fish restaurants, Eminonu

We took the 1.5 hour boat ride which showed us the European and Asian sides of Istanbul. One of the things i highly recommend! We were completely exhausted by the end of the day, so we went home and crashed around midnight. Next day, we went to see the Topkapi Palace. It was the primary residence of the Ottoman Sultans for approximately 400 years (1465-1856). The palace is twice the size of Vatican City and half the size of Monaco. I usually don't go to museums, but this place just blew my mind. The amount of history stored in here is unprecedented (Prophet Muhammed's cloak and sword are just few examples). Presence of Saima and Tanzeen helped me a lot to understand the artifacts as they could tell me the stories behind them and their importance in the Muslim world.

We left Topkapi palace around 3 pm because we wanted to go to grand bazaar. Unfortunately, when we were outside the palace, we found out that the bazaar is closed on Sunday!! Ah, gross disappointment. I was leaving back to Holland next day @ noon! :( ... Oh well,next time.

So we decided to go and sit down at the sultanahmet park and eat watermelons. You can find watermelon outlets everywhere in Istanbul and they are most delicious! Turks love watermelon. But this was a very unfortunate moment for us. When we finished our watermelon and wanted to getup and leave, Tanzeen realized that her hang bag is missing. It had all her cash and documents including her passport. So for next few hours we were running around with Istanbul police trying to figure shit out. Tanzeen was obviously super stressed but police coordinated very well with us and we got things figured out fairly easily. Police didnt recovered anything but registered a stolen passport FIR and gave Tanzeen a letter stating the same. Next day tanzeen went to Pakistan Embessy in Istanbul with that letter and got a temporary passport. I hope this never happens to anyone, it is one of the worst situations you can get yourself into. 

So all tired and upset, we went back to the hostel after all this drama. Tanzeen wanted to take some rest, so we left her there and i and saima went out to do some shopping for me as i was leaving next morning. Later that night, all three of us had nice dinner together and then went to bed. Next day morning, i did my goodbyes and left for the airport around 9:30 am.

Things bought: a turkish lamp, game of backgammon, postcards with whirling dervishes and lots of baklava :)

The best thing about this trip was a chance to hangout with saima again :D     

Me and Saima posing as Ottoman royals ;)

Hope you all are having a great time as well!

Yours,

Karan