One City -- One Pic

One photograph from each of the cities which I visited in the Summer of 2009 - one of the most unforgettable summer of my life.
ENJOY
(P.S. Please click the Photo for a bigger view)

The Beethoven statue in Bonn with the Post office as the Background. This is the main platz or Plaza in Bonn




The Cologne Dome Steps: Has to be one of the most liveliest places on the Planet. Thousands of people come here every day. One can find crowds here at ANY (and I mean ANY) time of the Day.

The Town Hall of Dusseldorf. It was partially covered with Moss and Vines in the period of disuse in the medieval times. But that hasn't been cleared now and infact has been modified to look kool.



The BMW head office (the tall building) and the BMW museum (The Bowl Shaped one).



Only a Tower remains of this earlier magnificent Church which was the Symbol of Hamburg before the Allied Air raids during WWII.



The Brandenburg Gate: The Grand symbol of Germany and Berlin. This gate leads to "Unten den Linten" which is a road with Lemon trees on both sides. "Unten den Linten" literally means under the Lime trees.



The Baltic Coast on Rugen Island which the Biggest Island in Germany: This photo reminds me Kaho Na Pyar Hai.




A typical Postcard from Switzerland hosts similar photographs. But watching this view sitting on a Boat in the middle of Lake Brienz is a completely different experience altogether.
(P.S. Notice the waves formed by the Boat. The lake is completely still otherwise)



The Famous Coffee shops of Amsterdam. Marijuana is legal here and these coffee shops sell them. Notice the pic carefully.



The Louvre: This is the Famous Louvre Museum of Paris and its famous Glass Prism.



The leaning tower of PISA. No descriptions needed.




St. Angelo's Castle in Rome.




Florence: the Birthplace of Italian Renaissance and an important center of Medieval italian finance.




The Rialto Bridge of Venice: The Oldest and the most famous of the bridges spanning the Biggest canal of this city whose streets are made of water.

The swine and BBVPI

Mumbai 21st August 2009: There has been an uproar in the BBVPI (Board of Bacteria, Viruses and Pathogens of India) with regards to Swine Flu Virus or more commonly known as H1N1. Mr. Plasmodium said in an exclusive interview that the other Viruses were enraged at the undue attention recieved by H1N1. Mr. Influenza said, "The committee is planning to sue AAJTAK and Times Of India for creating so much hype for H1N1. Due to this people go everywhere wearing masks. This has made it difficult for us to earn a decent livilihood nowadays." The committee is very angry at H1N1 family too. "They have invaded our jobs and are killing our hosts", said Mr. Vibrio cholerae. Mr Plasmodium "Attention seeker" Falciparum said in another statement, " How many more do I have to kill before I get in the papers." The committee has decided to undertake a non-coooperation with H1N1. " First Bird Flu and now Swine Flu. Why cant they keep to their own hosts?",said Mr.HIV. But the induction of HIV into the committee is very controversial as it was earlier a chimpanzee host. Rumors are around that HIV threatened to murder all viruses, bacteria and parasites in th hosts infected by it unless it was inducted in the committee. When asked, Mr. Influenza said ,"That is not the matter at hand now. We first need to take care of H1N1 now." Mr. HIV has agreed not to attack the immune system of Swine flu infected people. "We want to weed out H1N1 just like H5N1 before it gets out of hand.", said Mr.HIV.

Lets see what happens next. The next few months will be crucial.
This is The Dark Knight reporting from BBVPI headquarters, Dharavi, Mumbai, India.

Aptly described

This is an E-mail which I received some days back. I think these Definitions are more fitting than the dictionary meanings of the following words.

CIGARETTE

A pinch of tobacco rolled in paper
with fire at one end
and a fool at the other!

LECTURE:
An art of transmitting Information
from the notes of the lecturer
to the notes of students
without passing through the minds
of either

CONFERENCE:
The confusion of one man
multiplied by the
number present

COMPROMISE:
The art of dividing
a cake in such a way that
everybody believes
he got the biggest piece

TEARS:
The hydraulic force by which
masculine will power is
defeated by feminine water-power!


CONFERENCE ROOM:
A place where everybody talks,
nobody listens
and everybody disagrees later on

ECSTASY:
A feeling when you feel
you are going to feel
a feeling
you have never felt before

CLASSIC:
A book
which people praise,
but never read

SMILE:
A curve
that can set
a lot of things straight!

OFFICE:
A place
where you can relax
after your strenuous
home life


ETC:
A sign
to make others believe
that you know
more than
you actually do

COMMITTEE:
Individuals
who can do
nothing individually
and sit to decide
that nothing can be done
together

EXPERIENCE:
The name
men give
to their
Mistakes

NUCLEAR BOMB:
An invention
to bring an end
to all
inventions

PHILOSOPHER:
A fool
who torments himself
during life,
to be spoken of
when dead

DIPLOMAT:
A person
who tells you
to go to hell
in such a way
that you actually look forward
to the trip

OPPORTUNIST:
A person
who starts taking bath
if he
accidentally falls
into a river

OPTIMIST:
A person
who while falling
from EIFFEL TOWER
says in midway
"SEE I AM NOT INJURED YET!"

PESSIMIST:
A person
who says that
O is the last letter
in ZERO,
Instead of the first letter
in OPPORTUNITY

MISER:
A person
who lives poor
so that
he can die RICH!

FATHER:
A banker
provided by
nature

CRIMINAL:
A guy
no different
from the other,
unless he gets caught

BOSS:
Someone
who is early
when you are late
and late
when you are early

POLITICIAN:
One who
shakes your hand
before elections
and your Confidence
Later

DOCTOR:
A person
who kills
your ills
by pills,
and kills you
by his bills!

Raju in IIT..

The big day arrived.... Raju opened his mailbox to check for any mails. And there it was... Mom and Dad were so proud....... Mom ran about the street with sweets for everyone. only one thing in her mouth " राजू बन गया IITian.."

And then finally the big day came. Raju sat in the S4 bogie of the Charminar Express from Hyderabad to Chennai. Raju had got admission into the BTech Programme of Mechanical Engineering department of IIT Madras. Poor Raju was alone for the first time. He had not even left his garden ever before in his life of a whole year. None of his 4 siblings were able to do what he could. Oh!! in fact no one in his species could pull off this feat.

His initial days were great. All the professors liking him. Always cuddling him. Even all the seniors liked him a lot. There was no Interaction Session for Raju. He passed his first year in flying colours. (Even Prof. RKK loved him and gave him an actual C++ program to write!!). But life is not always easy. Raju was introduced to Boozing in his 1st year Hostel nite. Come second year and Raju was in deep Shit with all the Boozing. Once after a big night with 3 bottles of Wodkas, he called up his home and began blabbering something about the crappy life lived by his family and the crap his father always spoke about being "Man's Best Friend." The next weekend, his father came to his room and found cartons of cigarettes and many bottles of booze. What a sound thrashing poor Raju recieved that day. Poor chap still whimpers in pain when he remembers that day. Raju always btiched about there being no good Bitches in IITM. Even the strays were undesirable. He had only one word for them "non-Dogs." He always thought about those old days back home when he used to see cute and sexy bitches and shout at them "आती क्या खंडाला ?" But ALAS, he bid farewell to those days when he decided to write JEE.

Raju picked up another Dangerous habit while in IITM. Hunting Deers especially Black-bucks. He was very much inspired by Salman Khan. He used to hunt them day and night. One fine day, while he was chasing a plump deer, he was caught by the Prakriti group. A DISCO (Disciplinary committee) was set to decide the extent of his crimes. He was made to sit alongside students from Ganga Hostel who were caught apparently ragging freshers. Poor Raju was expelled from his hostel (Mandakini was his hostel) He had to spend the rest of his IIT life in the Kala Pani of IIT Madras viz. Mahanadi Hostel. This was in his 6th semester.

But all through this, Raju never lost his ability to convince people. He even managed to convince the Mech HOD to allow him to do an internship in Germany after his 3rd year. Raju went to Amsterdam and was introduced to Pot (or weed or Marijuana). He was so fascinated with it that he spent almost his whole summer smoking pot in Amsterdam. But he still managed to get a good reco from his German Professor. But Raju had smoked so much Pot in Amsterdam that he was thin and weak when he returned back to India. His parents thought that it must be because of the climate in Europe. But Raju knew better.

On seeing his माँ का प्यार and बाप का विश्वास, he decided to mend his ways and do something good with his life. He mugged and mugged hard for his GRE and got 1590/1600. Raju is now contemplating on apping in MIT.

Will he get into MIT? What will become of his American Dream?
जान ने के लिए पढ़ते रहिये।

MED SCHOOL

I got this mail from a friend once. Thought I would share it here with you all..

Any Medical student would surely commit suicide after reading these definitions

Antibody - against everyone

Artery - The study of the paintings.

Bacteria - back door to a cafeteria.

Caesarean section - a district in Rome.

Cardiology - advance study of poker playing.

Cat scan - searching for lost kitty.

Chronic - neck of a crow.

Coma - punctuation mark.

Cortisone - area around local court.

Cyst - short for sister.

Diagnosis - person with slanted nose.

Dilate - the late British Princess Diana.

Dislocation - in this place.

Duodenum - couple in blue jeans.

Enema - not a friend.

Fake labour - pretending to work.

Genes - blue denim.

Hernia - she is close by.

Impotent - distinguished/ well known.

Labour pain - hurt at work.

Lactose - people without toes.

Lymph - walk unsteadily.

Microbes - small dressing gown.

Obesity - city of Obe.

Pacemaker - winner of Nobel peace prize.

Proteins - in favour of teens.

Pulse - grain.

Pus - small cat.

Red blood count - Dracula.

Secretion - hiding anything.

Tablet - small table.

Ultrasound - radical noise.

Urine - opposite of you're out.

Varicose - very close.

THE UNRELENTING MOUSE.....

PROLOGUE: The EU Animal rights protocol states that the mice should be kept in a closed container with excess of Isofluran (For the information of the Ignorants: Isofluran is an anesthetic). Wait for the mice to die before cutting it open.

After the above-said protocol one fine day in the lab, I got 1 mouse on the table. I checked for its heart rate and vitals (check whether it moves or not). Confirming that it was dead, I sprayed it with Alcohol and was just about to cut it when lo and behold it starts gasping for air. The stupid mouse hadnt died yet. I thought that maybe the Isofluran dosage wasnt enough. So I kept the mouse in the container again with an increased dose of the above-mentioned anesthetic. In the meanwhile, I thought of carrying on the experiment with other mice. By the time I kept the second mouse, the Isofluran was so high that the mouse died in seconds. Same thing happened with the 3rd and the 4th mouse. By the time I kept the 5th one for execution, I checked on the first one. And to my utter surprise, it was still breathing !!!!!! This was really surprising. No other mouse had survived for so long in the Execution box (A name given by me to that particular box which is used to kill the mice). It seemed like the Death-God of the mice (If there is one) was just unwilling to accept this particular individual. Who knows what reason it may be. May be because this particular mouse had committed too much PAAPS in its lifetime (which was about 7 weeks). Or maybe because it had something to accomplish before leaving this mohmaaya bhara sansaar. But whatever the reason, it was hampering my experiment. If it hadnt been for the EU animal rights protocol, I would have killed it there and then ekdum desi ishtyle. But NO!!!! I had to wait for it pass on the next world before I could cut open its materialist body and extract those few million cells which were floating around in its abdomen due to the injection which it had been given 2 days prior.

EPILOGUE: Finallly after 6 mice gone before its eyes, इस चूहे ने दम तोड़ दिया। And then finally I was able to go ahead with my experiment happily ever after.

NO MORE!!!

After my first trip in Europe, I understood that spending money for food outside burns a HUGEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE hole in the Pocket. So I decided to carry food from home for any further trips. Well the easiest thing to carry was bread and Jam/Mayonaise. After n trips, and eating Bread and Mayonaise day and night, I realized that I will never ever ever ever ever ever be able eat these things once I reach home. Soon after that I realized that there are quite a few things which I would not eat/Drink once I am back in India because I will be overloaded with these things here. I also went a step ahead to list out the things which I will not appreciate back in India.

Here goes:

1) Bread: No matter what, I will eat the 'stone cold, drier than sand' Aloo paranthas in the Mess on Sunday morning but I will not touch Bread at allllll..........

2) Mayonaise: Next time I go to McDs in India, I will ask for Burgers WITHOUT Mayonaise. I am super fed up with the taste of Mayonaise which once I adored and longed to eat.

3) Egg Omlette: While at home, I thought ," How cool it would be to eat an Egg omlette every morning." But believe me it is not cool at all. After 6 weeks of egg omlette in the morning, I feel like I will puke the next time I eat Omlette.

4) Beer: The German beer is considered one of the world's best. But after so many of those, I feel that I will never ever touch one back in India.

5) Porshces, Mercs, BMWs: Earlier whenever I saw a Merc or a Porsche, my heart would leap at the sight of those beautiful cars. But after seeing a beautiful Porsche or an elegant Merc around every corner, those beauties have lost their charm. In the first few days, my heart would dance on seeing a Beautiful Porsche or a BMW. But now, I feel like it is just another car.

6) Bikinis: If you ever see someone wearing a Bikini (Mind you I have seen someone only once), it would become a HUGEEEE fuss. But ever since the mercury touched 25 here, all you can see is a Bikini. In the Lawns, in the pool, at the Railway Station, in the Kitchen (yes!! in My shared Kitchen too) they are everywhere.

7) Underground trains: When I first sat on the Metro in Calcutta, I was excited to see how the train runs UNDER the ROADS. But after travelling in the Underground trains almost everywhere, they dont seem so great after all.

And some of you smartasses who read this will ask me why do I still eat/drink/experience/see these things.
For you people, I have only one thing to say :
" कोई चारा नही है भाई क्या करें."

Broken Eggs

After consuming more than 4 dozen eggs after coming to germany, I think the eggs here thought of a perfect prank to play on me to deter me from consuming more of their fellow kinsmen(or kinswomen whatever). So this is the cascade of events that unfolded at exactly 1745 hrs on June 02, 2009.
After waiting in the Queue at the supermarket for 10 minutes (believe me that is a lot of time considering the speeds here), I finally arrived at the counter. There I had difficulty finding change as I had given that man a 20E note for the bill of 10.43E. finally giving up, I told him to give me change. Hurriedly keeping the items in my bag, I kept the box of Eggs on the top of everything and forgot to close my bag. Right then I think one of the Eggs thought of this prank and he caused a whole box (consisting of 10 eggs) to drop on the floor. Moreover, I slipped on the syrup (I am using syrup as I cant seem to find another appropriate word for the liquid which fell all over the floor) and caused all my change of about 10E to drop in them and get covered with with that slime. After I picked up the coins, I reached for my handkerchief to wipe those coins. and then out of nowhere, my cell phone fell in that mess and in that commotion, I dropped the coins again. And at that very moment, my cell phone began to ring. And to top things off, as I reached for my cell phone, its back cover fell off with the Battery causing it to bathe in the glorious egg syrup.

And the most amazing thing is that the people around were completely in their own worlds. Not even the smallest mouse must have been disturbed by this whole drama.

Epilogue: I smelt like eggs till I reached home. I washed my coins with dettol to prevent my wallet from stinking. And the best part: 4 eggs survived this massacre/suicide attack. And they now rest peacefully in my stomach.
Finally I feel like saying something to all the eggs who are out there:
No matter how much you revolt, cry, crash, fall, spill all ur stuff, I will get to you, I will eat you, You will all rest peacefully in the Acidic stomach of mine.
Amen

I WISH........

The first thing which came to my mind was the Colt .45 which I held for the first time 10 years ago. I was too excited then to foresee this day. 3 days later was my first murder. It felt so exhilarating. I felt on the top of the world with all the power in my hands. 2 years later, I got my first semi-automatic; 3 days later emptying the whole magazine into that diamond trader’s chest who refused to cough up 3 crores (khokha as we call it). Not even in the remotest corner of my mind did this day appear. Entering Mr. Unknown’s office and shooting him at point blank with those rounds which any Army would kill to have gave me an unknown joy which I could not comprehend and never in my wildest dreams could I imagine this day. 3 years ago I met her. What a wonderful time we spent together. I could tell that I loved her from the first time I met her. Those beautiful eyes, that cute face, oh my GOD…. Those evenings spent at Marine Drive…. I do not know why I did not think of her when I was pumping those goddamn bullets into that Inspector’s head. I wish I had not married her 3 months ago. I wish I did not leave the house last week with that loaded gun. I wish I did not get caught by those goddamn cops who were there where they weren’t supposed to be. I wish I could get a fair trial by that bloody inspector whose brother I had mauled by the Diwali of my gunfire. I wish he did not get me to this secluded road on the pretext of taking me to court. I wish he hadn’t shot his subordinate in the ankle. I wish he did not open up my chains and put an empty revolver in my hand. I wish he did not take my semi-automatic from the box of my belongings. I wish the gun was empty. I wish he did not aim it to my head. I wish so many things. They say that your entire life flashes in front of you when you are in mortal peril. I wish my life was better, longer and more fruitful. I wish all this when the .45 caliber bullet is whizzing towards me with god-knows what speed. I wish all this is a dream and I wake up tomorrow with none of this happening.


Who am I kidding…….. BAM!!!!! SPLAT!!!!!!!

UGLY MONKEY- PIG or WHATEVER

Some days ago I had to prepare a presentation for my Med Chem course. The topic was related to Cancer. As I always want to make my presentation more presentable, I add numerous pics (related/unrelated doesn't matter unless it looks good).

So there I was frustrated on the deadline and in no mood whatsoever to read some stupid research papers for my presentation. I was searching for gross pics related to cancer (trust me try searching for "Gross Cancer Pics" in google image search and you shall be amazed.) Suddenly I stumbled upon this awesome (or awful) looking creature. I just couldn't stop myself from finding more about it.

This actually is a piglet born in China. It has some sort of brain disorder which makes it look like a monkey.

Poor thing is like the old familiar UGLY DUCKLING of its family.

Well I hope some evolutionary marvel takes place for this piglet/monkey being so that it becomes like the SWAN which the UGLY DUCKLING turned into.

Any guesses what will happen to this awesome looking bugger!!

The Book of revival

Tired with watching all those movies on LAN and playing the NFS series over and over, I decided to go back to my old hobby of reading BOOKS........
Ya it may seem abnormal for a non muggu (Well I consider myself as one) IITian to READ BOOKS when exams are not looming large. But after a Rs. 1500 shopping at Landmark and Rs. 2000 shopping at Crosswords, I myself felt guilty for not reading those precious jewels which I once cherished more than anything (After FOOD obviously ;) ). But once I was immersed in a beautiful book called " Sea of Poppies" I couldn't stop myself until I had read it not once but Twice... It felt really AWESOME after regaining my old hobby.


I remember those old days (Especially the monsoon days) when you could just turn on some great music, eat great bhajiya and read an AWESOME book. I dunno where has the old ME been lost in this new IITian ME. I wish none of the new entrants lose themselves in this superficial and stupid world of LAN.




Well I know I am ignoring the fact the if this very LAN wasn't there, this Post would not have existed and I would not be frustrated by LAN. :)