Thursday, May 20, 2010

Hejdå ... !!



That's Good-bye in Swedish ...

Its time to bid adieu to Malmo ... a city that I have made my own for the last 18 weeks ... I say it with quite a lump ... but life goes on ... but its been a pleasure living in Malmo ... a weird city where you feel more Danish than Swedish ... due to its proximity to Copenhagen ...



I will miss the daily routine ... getting up at around 6ish and getting ready before waking up Kunal and then calling Biwi ... then proceeding to get the tiffin ready ... followed by tea/coffee ... getting down and waiting for the rest of the gang and trudging out in the snow (and later some sunshine accompanied by a chill in the air) towards Triangeln to board the bus ... and then walking again from Centralen to office ... while coming back it was a different story ... we started discussing about dinner at 3 pm itself ... the knocks on various doors to get the Belan for roti ... :P

We got so much of free stuff at Centralen ... from ready-to-cook chicen to ice creams ... to juices ... amazing ...



The weekend trips to the open market ... a walk down the frozen lake (its no more frozen and it looks inexplicably pretty) ... after-dinner walks till Gustav Adolfs Torg ... those midnight dancing attacks at the hotel club ... casino hopping ... a laidback afternoon at Kungsparken ... brannboll at Ribergsborg ... just too many memories to jot down ...

We talked about it in February that post-April ... time would fly since most of us were going to visit places around Europe ... and with Biwi also coming to Helsinki ... things only got better ...



Helsinki, Rome, Venice, Zurich, Bern, Spiez, Luzern and Copenhagen ... the only sore point was Paris ... but I will be back ... :P

I also learnt some Swedish ... but at best I can define my skills as below-par... :D

I couldnt stay without my Jojo card (its Yoyo and not Jojo :D) ... coz that guaran-damn-teed that I could freely roam around Malmo by bus without paying a penny ... er ... ore :P

It was weird in Jan and it is weird now ... back in Jan, it was like sunset at 1530 and sunrise at 0900 ... now its sunrise at 0430 and sunset at 2200 ... so its been quite weird that way :) ... we almost saw no sun in Jan-Feb since our office timings are 0800-1600 :P



As much as I am thrilled to get back to India ... I am peeved to imagine that I wont be in Malmo now ... a beautiful city and a great host ... I will miss you Malmo ... take care ...



Cheers ... !!

Thursday, May 13, 2010

A Stroll ... !!

Its overcast all of a sudden here in Malmo. It reminds me of the time I actually landed in this city in January. There was bright sunshine for close to 2 weeks but it has become drowsy again ... I mean the weather ...

Kunal (my roomie) went back to India this morning to be there for this sister's wedding. We have a 4 day weekend starting today. I went with him to drop him off till the Central at 0715. After his train to Copenhagen departed ... I went back to the bus stop to board any of the number 8s, 2s or 7s ... but the first bus was in 11 minutes ... hell crap ... lets go walking methinks ...

Its a straight path from the Central to our hotel unlike the bus route which meanders around the city.

It was only after 5 minutes of walking that I realised that there are not a lot of people on the street. It was almost pin drop silence at 8 am on a Thursday (Yes, it was a holiday). It was now that I started counting the number of people I see (I counted a moving vehicle as 1). When I was done with the 3 km distance ... the count stood at 59 ...

Yeah ... they do take their holidays seriously here ... :P

P.S: There is a fountain on the way that you can control on your own. Each pipe in the fountain has a corresponding button outside ... and anyone can press any of the buttons to get the ripple effect ... slick ... and I discovered this one week away from my departure to India :P

Cheers ... !!

Monday, May 03, 2010

Losing a P ... !!

One of the saddest days of my life ... DAPP disintegrates and here I am sitting at a place far away from the mayhem ... Prakash leaves Pune ... to pursue something better in Noida ... surely a FLAG AT HALF MAST day ...

KYA DIN THE YAAR ... I have repeated this statement with Biwi so many times over the last 4 days ... its such a crushing blow when we both come back to India ... Prakash Bajiya saale ... :(

He will be missed ... from his unmimickable sense of singing ... to his innovative card games ... from his total negligence of timing :P ... to his filthy mouth ... :D ... kya kar diya saale ... I have never had such a MIXED FEELINGS birthday ever ...

My friend Adi's demise is still the worst moment in my life ... but this is a close second ... suddenly I feel too old realising that life has to go on and this is very much close to what's in store post our 30s ...

I dont have too many good (read: close) friends and its doubly screwing when someone as close as Prakash goes away ... I cant stop thinking about how lost we are going to be on weekends ... especially Friday evenings ...

Dev Uncle's kitchen, Meghdoot, Signature, TOaks, Marz-O-Rin, Pizza Hut, Tamhini Valley, Nivaant ... it brings tears when I foresee that DAPP would not be frequenting these places ...

Its with immense pain that I write that each of the members of DAPP would be in a different city starting tomorrow ...

Chal koi nahi bande ... here's wishing him all the best in life ... dekhe to sahi ki Noida mein woh baat hai bhi yaa nahi ...

signing off with a patented Prakash Bajiya dialogue ... one that he used when we reached the top of Rajgad on a terrible windy, rainy and slippery trek ...

Ban naa chaahte ho duniya ki sabse badi company? :P

and I would like to dedicate one more of his punchlines (I have also been using it of late :D) to Prakash ... JAZBA HAI BANDE MEIN ...

Cheers mate ... and Plan C yaad rakhna :P