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Fire and Ice 15

This entry was posted in holiday nostalgia personal photography travel on by (updated 3192 days ago)
On 19th of August was the Finnish fireworks championship. The 1855 bombardment of Sveaborg (Soumenlinna Fireworks with the moon in the backgroundIsland) barely touched Helsinki (but for a couple overshot shells), and the population even gathered on hills to watch the dramatic ‘fireworks’. This event refers to the bombing of Viapori, when the English and French navies bombed Suomenlinna (Viapori) while Finns watched on from the hills of Kaivopuisto Park. The best places for watching the Finnish Fireworks Championships are along the coasts of Kaivopuisto and Katajanokka, as well as the end of Hernesaari Island. The fireworks this year started at 10:30 pm, strategically timed with a full moon night. As I prepared to reach the venue I was ‘shell-shocked’ to see the crowd accumulated at the tram stop. For a place like Helsinki, that’s quite a sight. Suddenly there were too many ppl, more than the tram stop could accumulate, forget the tram itself. I realised just how much out of touch I had been with jostling arouThe full moon nightnd in crowds. As the feeling of inadequacy started creeping in, it got overpowered by my natural skills honed particularly by travelling in DTC buses. Out came an arm clutching my handbag under it, the zipped side firmly against my person, my unduly long plait in front of me rather than behind as it has a tendency of getting stuck in zippers (of bags all ye perverts) in the most painful manner. At long last the tram made its way through crowds in its way, to the stop itself. I could see people packed in like sardines. As luck would have it, the tram stopped with its doors right in front of me and I felt like I was drowning in a sea of scurrying (make that jostling) mice. I somehow made it into the tram, well versed with situations like this and held onto the first handrest I could get my hands on. I couldnt fathom just where all these ppl were going. It was unusually crA lit up islandowded even for a weekend, and then I realised that they were all headed to watch the fireworks near the harbour. Unfortunately I had the daunting task of getting off somewhere in between and not at the destination, where I would have just flowed out with the rest of the human mass. Experience has taught me to start making my way much before the stop arrives and that’s what I did. After getting together with some of my colleagues, we all started walking in the direction that we saw the crowds going in.
 
The harbour looked beautiful, bathed in the full moon light. The water of the Baltic sea gleamed and the *huge* moon peered down. I had heard that the moon is supposed to be as big as a thaali in these parts of our planet compared to the katori in our parts, and I saw it too. Swarms of people crowded around, drinking beer and generally picnicking (something they do a lot, anytime, anywhere). In sometime, the population explosion was replaced by thBathed in the full moon lighte fireworks explosion. The crowd gasped collectively. “Poor mites”, I thought as I remembered the diwali crackers back home and concentrated more on the huge thaali sized full moon, not so readily available back home. After enjoying the fireworks display, we enjoyed the huge moon and the glistening ocean, by sitting atop a hill in Kaivopuisto Park, far away from streetlights. No photography can justify the beauty of that moment.
Getting back was an adventure in itself. After waiting for about half an hour for a tram which was already more than half an hour late, I decided to walk till the station from where I got my connecting bus at 12:45am, back to my apartment. Anything to get away from that place which reeked so much of beer that I felt giddy myself. I felt as if I had had two cans of beer by just inhaling the fumes all around. Walking ahead, I witnessed a traffic jam at midnight probably because the majority of the population was concentrated at the harbour. I madTraffic jam at midnighte it to the station, just in time to catch the 12:45am bus. There was a long queue for the bus, full of people acting stupid and drunk. I stood a little distance away from the queue, also wondering how I would ever secure a seat for myself for a 45 minute journey when everyone seemed to be going in that very bus. The bus arrived shortly and for the second time that day, it stopped right where I was standing and the doors opened right infront of me. Amused to the core, I stepped in, before another jostling session would have pushed me in.
After I got home, I reflected back on the full moon glory. The beauty of that black and white moment – the dark water and the bright full moon would remain a memory for all times to come.


Freedom of thought 1

This entry was posted in holiday personal poetry on by (updated 2335 days ago)
Independence day was spent at an alien office this year for a change. It was odd, not having a holiday since I am not in India. For me, Independence day has meant roaming around the deserted streets of Delhi, along with psycho, both of us in our Khaadi kurtas, enjoying the extended time and the extended space, that’s so rare to come by in our daily rat race. It was unanimously decided this year that we (my colleagues and I) would all go to the Indian embassy here in Finland (where a lot of other desis were getting together). The flag hoisting ceremony was to start at 9:30am. The distance between my place and the embassy, made me cringe at the thought of getting up ultra early. But then soon, (if I may say), ‘patriotism’ took over and I ignored my body’s pleas the next morning to let it make up for the accumulated sleep deficit. I got ready much ahead of time and set out with a lot of buffer. As luck would have it, I encountered a traffic jam (the first I encountered here so far) and there was absolutely nothing I could do about it. I reached the venue at 10:15am. With the hoisting over, the national anthem already sung, the crowds dispersed … all that was left was the Indian flag, fluttering slowly, looking quite forlorn. Then I noticed something quite exquisite. The blood red and silky looking fresh petals of rose, were all around me on the street and on the pavement. Somehow it all looked so wrong. What was that *royal* flower doing down there on the street? It didn’t deserve getting trampled by mere passersby. And then came a moment when one answers one’s own questions. The following lines suddenly fluttered in my mind from nowhere.

Mujhe tod lena ban-mali,
uss path par dena tum phenk
Matra-bhoomi par sheesh chadhane,
jis path jayen veer anek.

Pluck me, O keeper of the garden,
And onto that path throw
To lay their lives for the motherland
On which several heroes go

– from ‘Pushp Kee Abhilasha’ (A flower’s wish) by Pt. Makhanlal Chaturvedi

And then I realised, I was the one who was diminishing their true worth, not the mere pasersby.


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For me, language education was more about the interesting stories that were part of the curriculum rather than the language itself. That’s the case with both English and Hindi. There are certain stories and certain lines in those stories that I still remember and relate to. I remember the Hindi textbook in CBSE (at least in classes VII, VIII and IX) used to be quite a bore really as most stories were more of ‘Jeevanis’ (biographies of authors/poets, mainly consisting of mundane professional facts) rather than being anecdotal in nature. Maybe that’s why the few anecdotal ones really stuck in my memory. A really funny story in the Hindi textbook of CBSE class VIII (I think) was (loosely translated to bicycle ride). It had the main character (written in first person) rather scared of riding a bicycle if I remember correctly. One fine day, he did muster enough courage to get on with it and his fears became reality. He fell down and broke his spectacles (without which he was almost blind) along with probably some other parts of his body. I may be mixing it up with another story. I don’t remember much of it except that it struck as pretty funny and well written then and full of rather wry humour. I remember his apprehension and his admission that it was unfounded and his still not being able to do anything about it and the amused style in which the narrator saw things. The term ‘cykil kee sawaari’ became synonymous with that feeling.

One may wonder what I am really arriving at. It so happens that I really and desperately wanted to try out cycling in this beautiful country where it is not a hazard unlike in India. There was just one hitch. I hadn’t ridden a bicycle since about 12-13 years now. The apprehension that crowded my mind now was much more than I had ever experienced earlier when as a beginner I had learnt it in about 2 days. But along with the apprehension was my powerful desire to experience a ‘cykil kee sawaari’ once again and get nostalgic about the days gone by when I used to rather flaunt my ‘slow cycling’ (being able to balance a bicycle with the minimum possible speed) skills. To add to it, the only bicycle I had access to was the one that my landlord owns and I can use, by virtue of using his fully furnished apartment. The fact that it is a gent’s cycle and has its handle like a racing bike at that, only made it worse. In my desperation, I tried getting onto it one night and checking whether I managed some success at least as far as getting onto it is concerned. I miserably failed. My feet weren’t reaching the ground even with the seat at the lowest possible level. I had to tilt the cycle a lot in order to feel the ground under me i.e. with my feet. Each time I tried standing and straightening the cycle, the damned ‘top tube’ was getting err.. rather uncomfortable to handle. More important issues like maintaining balance had not even been addressed yet. So once I had tried it, I let it be. I never could fathom the reason for the top tube being there in a gents cycle. It would have perhaps had good practical reasons to be there in the 60’s and 70’s when men would take their beloveds with them on a bicycle, seat them on the handle bar (ouch) and utter sweet nothings into their ears. But now? Zilch.

After some time again, desperation and nostalgic memories of thrill, wafted to the ‘controlling’ section in my brain. So I thought I would give it a try again. This time I finally gathered the courage to take it out on the road and try it. So far I had tried the getting-onto-it bit, in the bicycle shed which had very less space. I decided to try it in the dark, for avoiding embarassment and also potential victims into whom I might collide. Ultimately I went out at 11:40pm which was still quite early. I took out the cycle, and voila!!!! I couldn’t believe it. I could actually balance it again after some about-to-fall-off-badly sessions. Theoretically it’s true that one doesn’t forget cycling/swimming but I wasn’t so sure, esp with this cycle which was a gent’s and had those race bike handles and what not. I succeeded in not only getting onto the bicycle but also in not falling off and maintaining my balance. But I was unable to control the handle very well. It just kept going in any randonm direction and felt rather sensitively calibrated! After some time I got the hang of it but my wrists were paining badly because suddenly the pressure of maintaining balance and direction was on them. Even for applying the brakes I had to make weird angles and it was quite difficult. I noticed a ‘thing’ on the front handle, which had 3 settings. I wondered what that was, but didn’t fiddle with it as I suspected that to be something to do with gears (I had never seen a bicycle with gears so far). In some time, I got a little confidence boost by riding in my own colony and then I decided to take the risk of taking it on the road, since it was already midnight and I didn’t expect traffic (there isn’t any, anyway). So out on the road I went. The ride was smooth and exhilerating! It was great, esp when the incline wasn’t much. I realised that when the incline wasn’t much or it was downhill, the cycle went *too* fast for me to handle as if it didn’t have any brakes and when even slight uphill came, I was TOTALLY unable to pedal it up. No it’s not because I wasn’t able to. It’s due to tubeless tires which have much more friction. Suddenly the friction was *too* much when going even slightly uphill. At least my own cycle back home wasn’t like this. So I wondered whether it was something to do with the ‘thing’ with the 3 settings. I switched it to a different position and then tried the cycle again. When uphill came, I couldn’t do anything again. So I got off and changed the setting back to normal. This time when I tried it again during normal incline, I suddenly realised that the pedals were totally ‘free’ or disengaged and then gradually realised that that was because the chain had come off! The pathetic cycle doesnt even have a stand (am thankful it has brakes, most cycles here don’t even have those and you are supposed to pedal backwards to stop!!) So I trudged back home along with the cycle. I got it into the shed, so that i could lean it against a wall, get good light at that unearthly hour and then try to fix it. I struggled with the chain for quite some time, realised that the chain wasn’t coming on at all and that all this was because of that ‘things’ setting that I had changed that somehow increased/decreased the diameter of the chain wheel (rear) and that tightened or loosened the chain. (Later I was to learn that it was indeed the gear mechanism I had fiddled with). So I got the setting to minimum, to lessen the diameter, and finally managed to get the damn chain onto the damn thing somehow, with my hands all grease filled and utterly black, and then changed the setting to the max diameter again. I have tackled grease ealier but never in my life had I had my hands so full of grease like this even after having owned and used a bicycle for such a long time. But as they say, all’s well that ends well and the main highlight of the day had been the fact that I was able to have my adventure without a precarious fall.




Peripatetic 10

This entry was posted in holiday personal travel on by (updated 3198 days ago)
The public transport system in Finland is quite good. One has trains, buses, trams and the metro to commute. Finland or rather Helsinki is a tourist’s paradise in the sense of travelling around the place. Maps, public transport timetables and a whole lot of information is easily available in tourist information offices, railway stations etc. Maps with the details upto the house numbers are commonly available in most kiosks, information points, hotels, restaurants etc. Getting to a place provided you know the address, was never that simple before. To add to this, there’s a great Finnish website which takes the source and destination and tells you the mode of transport, where to get down, change the transport etc. according to any date and time. It also provides multiple ways in which you can reach that place at that point of time, subject to the transportation facilities available then. It also provides links to detailed maps of the source, destination and the change points. Along with this are the routes (drawn graphically in the map) and the timetable of the transport involved. This works for one major reason. Transport more or less follows a timetable. Comparing this with India, err..timetable? Does such a thing even exist in the first place? Only in schools.
 
Buses here are sleek and big with pneumatic doors (like in Japan). Sleek busOnly a driver is there (no conductor to come asking for tickets – which is perhaps something that happens in the entire world except India). It’s one’s own responsibility to buy a ticket. Checking is rarely ever done. I never came across any ticket checking in Japan. But then that is because one has to swipe ones ticket/travel card through a terminal and only then would one be allowed. Anyone trying anything else, would face a hit from some baricades jutting out the moment you try to crossover. Mostly there’s a policeman stationed at these points too. In Finland, though there are terminals for swiping cards, there is no restriction to access. In other words, one can go anywhere, anytime and you can get caught only if manual checking is done. So far, with me checking has happened only once in a train in Helsinki. Special tram with a pub in it.The only major difference between buses (and trams) in Finland and those in Japan is the way to indicate that you have to get down/get in. In Japan, one had to go and stand next to the driver, a substantial time before ones stop came, else he would not stop the bus (trams aren’t there in Japan). To get in, there was no particular ‘rule’. The bus stopped at the stop, and one got in if one had to. In Finland, there are buttons provided right next to each seat (in both buses and trams), so that if one wishes to get down, one may press the button in advance. To indicate that one wants to get in a bus/tram, one has to wave one’s hand properly (so that it’s visible) else the bus/tram wouldn’t stop! Experience is the best teacher, but its fees is very high. All desis are so unused to this waving-for-a-bus-thing, that they have had to learn by experience. Everyone of us has had instances where we waited half an hour for a bus, it came, it saw and it went on without stopping simply because we forgot to flag it down! If one is not *at* the bus/tram stop (which is clearly marked) when the bus/tram comes, there’s no use running, shouting, waving or any other thing to make it stop. Once the pneumatic doors close, they are harder than Alladin’s caves to re-open. The driver (usually wearing a Mogambo-esque expression and goggles) will not even acknowledge your mere presence and will move on.
 
The roads in Finland (and probably the rest of europe) are great. They are smooth and well tarred and of course, things like potholes don’t exist in the dictionary of the roads here. Not only that, they dont even have speed breakers. They have speed limits marked on signboards and each and every person respects them. The thing closest to a speeButton to press, if you want to stop a busd breaker is at times a section of the road, more like a zebra crossing (it’s that wide) and hardly elevated from the road. I call it a speed breaker because vehicles do slow down when they come to that rare thing, but it’s nothing like the ^ shaped speed breakers we have in India, which not only break your speed, but also your head, neck, back, vehicle and everything possible. Pedestrians and cyclists have separate roads for them which are actually the footpaths which are well tarred out of which half a clearly demarcated section is for pedestrians and half for cyclists. In Japan also cyclists used the pavements but there were no demarcations. One of the secrets for smooth roads is that these ppl pull out the old stuff and then put on fresh tar. The level of the road doesnt change. In India, the elevation of the road changes (mostly increases) with the years it sees in its life. The potholes get left behind unfortunately.
 
Somehow I noticed something lacking on the roads, when I got here. After a couple of days, I realised it was the absence of motorbikes! Finally after the first week I saw one. They are rare, quite rare. But the ones that do get seen also make sure they get heard. They appear to be almost as fast as the bike used in the sci-fi TV serial StreetHawk. Rather than other modes of transport, most ppl use bicycles to commute. But a lot of bicycles here have no brakes! Neither do they have stands. To stop a bicycle, you are supposed to reverse pedal or at least stop peddling and it would stop. They also have tubeless tyres, which means you need to apply more force and pedal continuously for any movement. Thankfully there are some bicycles which are ‘normal’. Personal cars are quite expensive and so are cabs (like Japan). The place is scenic and beautiful. At least in the summers, the weather is great. All is perfect for a good ride and a good exercise. But nothing can beat the best way to see a place – peripatetic.
 
* – the tram in the picture is a special one. It’s a pub inside a tram and of course you need to buy a drink to get onto it. The public transport tram is just different in colour.


Lingual Tangle 9

This entry was posted in personal travel on by (updated 3192 days ago)
In Finland there are two official languages and no, English is not one of them. These are Finnish and Swedish. Finnish, supposedly, is derived from English, German and Swedish. (Now I wish I had taken at least some German classes before coming here). At some point of time in history, Swedish used to be the official language here. Now, Finland is a bilingual country where 6 % of the population are Swedish speaking. Swedish lessons are still compulsory in comprehensive schools. English, however, has become a “second mother tongue” for young people. Most (not all) people here can speak English though a lot of them have to think and speak slowly, processing it in their mind perhaps. Anyway this is much better than Japan where well educated people can not even speak English for their business needs. The chances of getting any kind of language help (in Japan) in a public place are really bleak. Your best bet would be a good practice of dumb charades*#. As far as written language is concerned, at least one can *read* the script of Finnish/Swedish and try to say something when referring to a place or anything else. Japanese renders one totally helpless.
Thanks to the Swedish speaking population, Finland’s connections to Sweden and other Nordic countries are close. Swedish TV and other programs in Swedish are broadcasted out here. Sweden has Finnish as its minority official language.
People like us are faced with the bilingual situation in Helsinki when it comes to street signs and advertisements. We did not know earlier that everything was written once in Finnish and then in Swedish. So what was really two names of the same thing, was thought by us to be a two word name of something. Leppavara Alberga wasn’t really a long name of the district where my office is. Rather Leppavara is the Finnish name and Alberga, the Swedish one. At times the Swedish names seem to be quite similar to the Finnish ones, at least phonetically for eg. Espoo is Esbo in Swedish. Now that we know everything has two names of the same place, we might get confused easily when there are two words for a single thing.
Most products here in the convenience stores have markings in Finnish and Swedish. If not these two, then an additional one would be in German (or maybe any other Nordic language). If you are really in luck, you might find some products with ingredients/contents marked in English as well, but that’s something very rare. Even products from India do not have their contents in English. It’s my hunch that some words in Finnish are also derived from Hindi. For eg. Pineapple is ananas! and Moong dal is Mung/Moong! Or maybe these products were ‘brought’ from India to begin with and hence the names stuck. Some words in Finnish are quite easy intuitively but one can’t always rely on the assumption that they mean what they seem to mean. For eg. maisi is maize, paprika is obviously pepper, kakku is cake. But porkanna is not pork but carrot! And appelsini is not apple but orange! (this is the most common assumption most desi’s make – urs truly not included). Apple is instead omena. For survival, we have tried to learn the words for chicken, egg, pork, beef, ham, duck etc so that we can at least make out some contents.

Finnish (and other nordic languages) has more vowels than English. These are ä, ö and y (apart from a, e, i, o, u) which are counterparts of a, o, u. I have already mentioned the usage of ‘j’ in Finnish. ‘y’ is also not pronounced as ‘y’ as in year but rather with a ‘u’ sound. So Yksi (means one) is pronounced as ‘ooksi’ and not ‘eeksi’ or ‘yikesi’ (cutesie equivalents of eeks and yikes). Out here ppl say ‘Yau’ (Yes), which is somewhere in the middle of Ya (yes) and Yo (‘cool’ way of saying yes). There are (a lot of) words differing only in the length of a sound and incorrect length can easily confuse anyone here. Like the Japanese, Finnish are also quite sing-song when it comes to talking but less than the Japanese anyway. Voice modulation keeps changing a whole lot. The ‘r’s are rrrrrrolled off their tongue and the ‘t’s are much much softer than normal ‘t’. It’s more dental (sound is made by the tongue touching the teeth) rather than the usual ‘t’. The Japanese way of speaking is very squeaky and nasal. They like to mull over a word (and in that process stretch it a whole lot and make it sing song too) or say it very quickly (rapid fire). Either of the two can happen. The Finnish, don’t stretch their words as long. When they get stuck (during translation to English that happens), they repeat the syllable again and again (the-the-the-the-the), whereas the Japanese, stretch it and make it sing song (thhhhhhhhhhhhhheeeeeee). The Finnish are also very fond of saying ‘Aha-aa’ and with modulation that could varyingly make it sound like a surprise, a realisation, a magic trick or whatever. ‘Ok’ is said with a whole lot of force into the ‘kay’. It makes one feel as if one is watching theatre. They also say ‘buh-bye’ or ‘bye-bye’ instead of ‘Bye’. It’s not considered childish or anything. Everyone says it and so do I.I think my English is going to be “t’ot’ally” distorted by the time I get back.

* – acting out words without speaking
# – I searched for a suitable hyperlink for ‘dumb charades’ and one of the sites churned out is of my employer, where they write about the cultural events!