Philosophy lesson

Do you remember the days when you had time to think about your life and what it means to you? My engineering days were by far the most productive in terms developing a personal philophical grounding, most of which remains intact today. More trivial issues seem to have gained far more importance in my life now but hopefully that will change in the years to come. The basic jist of life can be summed up in one line - 'Hypocrisy rules the roost'. The philosphical translation is that life is a contradiction. Whether its dispensing sermons to your kids for lying or firing someone from substandard work, we are unknowing creating a baseline of conscientiousness for ourselves that we ourselves cannot keep. We all fall prey to our doublestandards and continue to live in denial. This discussion does preclude certain activites we endeavour in but in general its applicable to work, love, marriage and our attitudes to others, politics and most of all to the promises that we make. How many times in the course of this lifetime have you contradicted yourself? So in essence, try NOT to let Hyprocrisy rule the roost. We are off to Norway from the 13th to the 23rd of August, we hope to do some nature loving, fish eating and fjord climbing. Hope to meet a classmate in Oslo and perhaps even get a tour. I am thinking of writing a travelblog but that maybe a bit much. HAPPY BIRTHDAY ANU!! Went to a Sushi place in the same block that we live in last night, excellent sashimi and mouth watering dragon rolls. Warrants a repeat trip, more reasons for you guys to come visit Munich. Dare I say it, the house is finally ready for people to come visit!!!

Jumbo Seafood - Sehr Schmeckt!

Met up with the boys in Singapore, we had a very productive bitching session highlighting the vagaries of rising indian population at INSEAD, body odor and colleagues, Saroj Mishra imminent move to Hong Kong and closed the discussion reliving some old stories about certain luminescent personlaities that we all spent time with! The food at Jumbo is still first class and the suprise 'man of the match' was the Chilli venison. Singapore is cool, I mean literally cool. The jetways have airconditioning on in full blast, their taxi's are fridges and you need to wear a jacket after sundown in the office. Nokia regional headquaters is in Singapore, so perhaps the frequency of my visits will go up (or maybe none at at all !) once the merger is completed. Munich on the other hand is hot. I mean digusting hot, the thought of winter right now is sexy! Beer consumption is high, fans are sold out, italian ice creams is the staple diet and all the meeting rooms with airconditioning are always booked. During the day most of the streets are deserted but everyone crawls out of the woodwork after 9:30. It seems to be baby season AGAIN, a friend of mine from Singapore just had a baby boy, Karode is again a proud father, my cousin in Delhi had a boy, my boss (wife) is expecting and some of our other friends will be popping soon. And from all indications there are many more in the pipeline, some people have been busy the past couple of months. Time to buy some Pampers stock as I seem to be losing money on tech stock anyway.

Mistress of Spice

Munich has an international film festival on and it is screening many foreign/english movies including some of the classics like Rainman, Wag the Dog, Tinmen etc.. Of course the euphoria not is not as electric as the buzz with footall but certainly adds a touch to the city's cultural life. So when I told Priya that I will be back on saturday, she went ahead booked one more ticket for the screening of 'Mistress of Spices'. The screenplay of the movie is done by Gurinder Chadha (Bend it like Beckham fame), directed by Paul Bergess (married to Gurinder) and the lead roles are by Aishwarya and Dylan McDermmot. Not expecting much, the movie was pleasantly deep but sort lost its nerve towards the end. Perhaps my indian prejudice did me in but somehow became predictable towards the end. Anyway the highlight was not really the movie but the fact that the director was at hand for a discussion with the audience at the end of movie. Never been to one of these things so I was quite amused throughout the discourse. He did give some insights into the travesties of movie making and details about why they find it exciting to make movies about reactions of Indians when flung into western cultures, perhaps a confusion that rings true in their lives also. We went to Alps last Sunday, its about an hour by train from Munich. After a gluttunous lunch and apfelschorle to wash it down with, we started on our hiking expedition which lasted all of 3 hours!! . The best part was trudging through a gorge gushing with water, the deafening sound of the river was mellowed by the brilliance of nature. Very picturesque and certainly a good reason to visit the alps. I have started playing tennis again (twice), I can confirm that I still suck at playing tennis. I am back in Singapore, still jetlagged and blurry eyed. Will be catching up with some of the boys tonight.

France lose, Italy celebrates..(Been updated again )

I am convinced that I cannot pick winners! Never have any luck with stocks, lotteries and now with world cup winners. Started with Ghana, then moved to Germany and finally France. Even with a 50:50 chance, I still could not pick the right one. As for the game, very befitting final albeit the drama in the end with ZiZoo. With Macbethian finish, Zizzo walks by the Cup that he will not be taking home this time and descends into the locker room not be seen for rest of the game. It was as if the fate of France was already decided. Priya still has not recovered from the shock. If you have not recovered from it either, try this link http://widelec.org/zidane.html Thrid place is better than no place, Germany save face with the 3 goals they pumped in to the Portugese net. After the loss to Italy, things went back to preworld cup days. The shopkeepers took posters down, cafes removed big screen TVs, no more world cup menus, mentioning football was taboo, and anything Italian was shunned. Basically we returned to pre-world cup days and believe me life without the ball to entertain is no fun. We are suddenly going to have all this time in the evenings, should think of something to do to keep us gainly occupied. Priya thinks swimming is a good idea? I am going back onto the road for a few days, another trip to Malaysia. More when I am back.