A slice of America in Berlin

  Switzerland is not Germany, and Germany is not the US. Why I am making the progression is basically because of a culture shift that happens. Of course, culturally Switzerland and Germany are more similar than they compare with the US. When I say that the US is perhaps the most friendly among the three, it becomes clear what am I referring to.

 Of course, any of these regions are pretty big, and the level of friendliness is different depending on where you are. Even then, Berlin is traditionally supposed to be very open among all the cities: it is a different Germany, as is often called. As I have been living in the city for some time now, I am a little qualified to speak about it, always being careful as not to generalize too much.

 While Berlin is supposed to be very open, at the same time, people outside and inside Berlin have sometimes called the people to be very direct, even arrogant at times. That is how some of my (German) friends described Berlin to me. Personally, even though I have several German friends, very few of them have actually grown up in Berlin. Those who have, perhaps don't really make a good statistical ensemble. Anyway, too many perhaps, lets get on to the business with the Pizza Slices?

  One fine day we planned to get together at my place for a pizza and a movie. An innocent plan soon gave way in my head to a house-warming party which I'd been wanting for half-a-year now. But, that was more of a surprise, so I had go and get the pizza (and uh, we needed food; I wasn't really planning for cooking for 10 people). Then, I found this place in Kreuzberg which made pizzas the American style (at the New York style), and a huge ones --- the ones that would cover three or four usual ones.

 Huh, I ordered this online, and was unfortunately the only one as well going to pick it up. And with those two absolutely huge pizzas with me, it was an effort and also a thing to come back home. I can safely say that on the way back home, I did get the most attention, perhaps ever, in a long looong time. Remember that I was using the party metro (the U12) and the party tram (M10) and passing through the party capital, Warschauer Str. And there were a huge number of young people around. There was a guy at the Warschauer Str. station, who just shouted out "Pizza", the moment he set his eyes on the pizzas! :) And I could make out people remarking about pizzas all around me. What fun! Finally, close back home, there were a group of three, who even remarked on how big the pizza was, and how much they cost.

 The incident was not big, or long, but it does tell a lot about the Berliners. Seemingly reserved, they can be open minded, they are willing to make an effort to make conversation. I don't know exactly why, but I was sweetly reminded of the over-friendly people from the US after this incident. I think it was quite sweet!

Birthday and Bridges

Given that tomorrow will be my birthday, and I have decided to be rather quiet about this one, I decided to celebrate this one alone. Tomorrow is a working day, and I will be rather busy, and today was such a glorious day that I decided to take a walk by the Aare.

The Sun was bright and sunny, which is the object of this picture. Nevertheless, it was a slight chill in the air enough perhaps to keep a very light jacket on if you were wearing half-sleeved shirt (like I was -- and a new one too, given that it's going to be my birthday tomorrow!). In any case, this is a section of railing just by the Aare (I'll leave you guess in case you know Bern intimately!).

Bern is not a low-lying city, its close to 500m high; and most of the city looks down onto the Aare. And if you are walking by the Aare, like me, most of the time you'll be looking up. This gives a wonderful way to study the bridges.
People like bridges --- at least I do. They are a wonderful feat of engineering, and sometimes standing on them can give you quite a view below. There are quite a few bridges in Bern joining the parts of the city cut deep into two parts by the fast flowing Aare. While in the medieval ages it had served as a natural defense against invading enemies, now-a-days they have been stitched by these bridges. Take a look at some of them.

In the backdrop of the river and the small houses, the bright sunny sky, the cool weather, I was having a very pleasant time. It reminded me of the last birthday, spend in the Austrian Alps and in Innsbruck attending a conference. Incidentally, that was a Sunday, we had a wonderful conference lunch and followed by a nice walk down the mountain into the city of Innsbruck, and then an intense physics discussion with Uwe and Mike Creutz in a quaint bar.


Well, anyway coming back to the present, you really can't help noting certain things by the river. One was the certain stale smell of fish coming from the river -- this was a bit strange, I had never quite experienced that before in this part of the Aare. Certainly there were quite a few people fishing, though, which probably meant quite a fishes were around. At some point there was lots of gushing in the water, which made me look closely as if some big fish was sneaking up on me; but to my disappointment it turned out be some water outlet in the side of the river that was pumping out water. Another was this tower. Apart from the graphiti, this was a piece right from the Middle Ages.




The strong current of the river is often harnessed for power, I suppose -- you get to see these small embankments across the river, like this one.
Very soon the path turned a bit rocky, going over to the northern part of the city where the river twists and turns a lot. To my surprise, the road led to quite a dense wooded region -- this was already beyond Felsenau and going towards Tiefenau. It is indeed surprising that I have been here in Bern for almost two years now, and I hadn't come
along this path even once. Well, so much for that! Here is a view from in between the dense trees, looking into the river -- which you can make out by the strong reflection.

Initially, I had decided that I will walk all the way to Bremgarten, where the river turns and flows to the west, and then come to a place from where I can cross the Bremgarten forest into Bumpliz Nord and then finally to my house in Bumpliz Sud. But shortly beyond this point (as shown in the picture to the right), I decided that it was a bit too much.

                             

This is one of the fleeting decisions that I sometimes make. I promised myself that  the next time I would start from the other direction and make all the way to this point. On the way back, it was a simple matter to find the station Tiefenau and take the train back. In fact, the superb train/bus connections in Switzerland make these kind of trips really worth making.

Anyway, if you travel a bit onward, you quickly come to Worblaufen which is the kind of the north-eastern border of Bern. This is where Albert used to live. To the left is a picture taken the Friday before last, when I was visiting their place. This is one of the high bridges connecting the parts of the city to the neighborhoods dissected by the river. This is an inverted perspective from the rest of the pictures before.



Whatever happens, this is one of the birthdays I will never ever forget now! This year has been very nice to me, life has been nice to me in some ways, for which I am grateful; and not nice in certain very cruel ways, but I cannot complain about that. Certain things are too heavy to be changed, they are better accepted as they are. Well, Happy Birthday to myself!

Note added a week later: The reason for editing

is like of the  most amazing co-incidence that has
ever happened. The very next day after I finished
writing the blog was going to be my birthday. I had
ordered this, what you see to the right, several weeks
back, but it was delivered on the 23rd of September.
It was a like giving myself a birthday gift; though
I could hardly have known that it was going to be
delivered that day. :)

Yes, the picture, however was taken a week later,
to be precise yesterday: me watching the latest
South Park on my latop!

More trysts with Visas

The last time I wrote such a blog was when I was applying for the Schengen visa to Italy. It was 2010 and I was aiming to attend the Lattice 2010 conference in Sardinia.
It is 2013 now, and I am trying to fly to the US, to visit MIT and Duke. I live in Switzerland now. You'd have thought (or rather no: maybe you're smarter, and I am still dumb; so let's say, I'd have thought) that things would be much easier. The official wait times for processing the US visa from the Embassy at Bern at time of the year is 3-days. In the website, in the FAQ section they say that at peak periods it is about ~2 weeks.
I had my visa interview at the Embassy on the 31st Jan. The US consular officer who took my interview was quite optimistic that I would get the visa in 2-3 weeks time. This is my second visit to the US. (Never mind that last time I got issued a one-year visa, which expired at the beginning of this month, forcing me to apply once again. In the meantime the visa fees went up from CHF 125 to CHF 160).
It is the fourth week now, and I am anxiously counting my days. I am supposed to fly at the beginning of next week, and if things don't work out, I stand to lose hundreds of dollars (or even thousand the whole transatlantic flight has to be cancelled as well). Not to mention a most wonderful academic and research opportunity.
All the same, it seems that there is nothing I can do. Calls do not reveal any information, their emails replies are most unhelpful, ending in wishing me to have a lovely day, when in reality, I'm biting my nails off my fingers. Out of sheer desperation I am writing this blog. To have my feelings written down somewhere so that I can recall them later.

From the mountains to the lakes via the valleys

It almost sounds like the title out of fairytale, but believe me: it's true; at least whatever the modern version of the tale might be. Yes, it's in Switzerland. As a last ditch effort to do something useful today, I will try to write a bit about my adventures in Switzerland.

This small, but very unique country in the whole of Europe, is to a large extent occupied by the Alps. That is, most of the southern part. Covered by some of the highest mountains in the Alps, fairytalish valleys and breath-taking views, it offers unique hiking opportunities. The northern part of the country is among the most densely populated regions in Europe with a very high development and production index. I could write a lot about this unique place, but probably it's best understood by reading the book "Swiss Watching" by Diccon Bewes, an Englishman who lives in Bern. The book is written with a strong flavour of typical British humour, which I must admit honestly, I enjoyed very much. Anyway, to have a nice introduction to the country, I'll leave you to read that. Let me however just stress an aspect that I really like about Switzerland. It's the only country in Europe where you'll find the cohabitation of two of Europe's biggest cultural traditions: the Germans and the French. While the traditions can be typically French or German, this doesn't mean at all they identify with each of the big neighbours. They're all Swiss, and that's what sets them apart.

Let's just start out by saying I live in Bern, which is in the plain lands, or should I say flatland? That makes me a flatlander, huh? A couple of weeks back, some friends of mine from Dresden visited me (ah yes, the Dresden visit, I should write about that wonderful city in another post, but let's just go on here). It was with them that I saw Basel, the cultural capital of Switzerland. Many people just think of Zurich to be the cultural capital, and that's it. But no, its true and yet its not true. Zurich is probably the cultural capital if you all want to be hip and happening, go to rock concerts, nightclubs, meet all the people of the people of the world and so on; but if you want to go to museums, and act cultural that way, then Basel is definitely the place for you. In fact, this week Basel had the world art exhibition.
Basel is also the pharmaceutical capital, with a home for the pharmaceutical companies. It's also the head office of Coop, the second biggest supermarket chain of Switzerland.

Now, now: I am supposed to just talk about my experiences, not go about making general statements, but I do feel a little bit of background is in order. So that was about Basel. About Bern now. Bern is the fourth biggest city of Switzerland (after Zurich, Geneva and Basel). It is the political capital, and a very wonderful and lively city. Especially on Saturdays if you go and visit the old town! The old town in Bern is a lot bigger than that in Basel, and looks really oldish. Compared to that, I found Basel old town to be modern! The trams in Basel are also the oldish ones, like the ones that you get to see in Wein. We walked about quite a bit in and around Basel to start with. The museum we went to see was the Kunstmuseum -- they were having a Renoir exhibition as well at that time. The museum was nice with lots of paintings from different areas, that took us about two hours to navigate. It was a Friday on the end of May, and the weather was the hottest we've had till then, with the sun absolutely burning down. Then after a light lunch in the old town, we went to Munster and the Rathaus. Our visit ended by taking a stroll down the banks of the Rhine, after we crossed across the MittleBrucke. It was a warm day, as I remarked before, and not a single sitting bench beneath the shadows were free.

By the time we had battled the rush hour on the train and reached Bern it was already cool: and the Eiger, the Monach and the Jungfrau were staring us on the face! Interestingly enough, the building of the Albert Einstein Centre, where I work, is on top of the Grosse Schanze, and it offers an unrestricted view of the mountains, and the city. This warm day, however, attracted some pretty dark clouds overnight, and from early next day it was raining: quite a disappointment for me, since I was expecting to show the lively city to my friends! It was not that bad, though: the rains and the sun in the month of May had spawn green all over the city, and, the view from the backyard of the Munster across the Aare on to the rising slopes of Gurten, our local mountain here in Bern, is indeed remarkable. Now, here comes a twist in the tale: you'd have thought that with the rains pouring down, the usual tourist would be confined to the hotel, or a cafe. Nuh, thats the what Bern is really good at. The whole old town is covered in arcades, and you can move under them while window-shopping all the time. C'mon now, how many of you really don't want to look at something nice? Lots of watches out there, in case that interests you. In fact, we got to see some designer clocks, which are so simple conceptually, but I really haven't seen the likes of those anywhere. So, even though it was all rainy and cold, we managed to have a decent time.

At the very end of the old town we went and looked at the bears. Thankfully, it was only drizzling now, and the bears were still out! What I was completely taken aback by was that on that very Saturday, Bern was holding its Grand Prix, the 16km marathon. Too bad it was raining all day, it must have been a bad day for the runners. I was taken aback because I hadn't realized that this event was coming up, -- and normally I am not totally shut-up from whats happening around me. With all this done, and having had a late lunch of rosti (and believe me the day was cold enough to warrant it!), we decided that we might as well go up to the Gurten. This however turned out to be quite a different experience from what I have had before: see the last two times I went up, it had been pretty clear: this day was completely different. First of all, since we didn't have time, we took the funicular all the way up (th Gurten Bahn). Once up there, it was completely covered by fog, you couldn't even see things 5 metres away, and it was completely deserted. So there we spend time in the foggy hill, all by ourselves, went up on the viewing tower, again all by ourselves, shivered in the cold, and came down. It was a different experience, to be sure, but I was keeping my fingers crossed for the day after -- since it was to be the great trip to the mountains.

Once back from Gurten, and on the way home, I was really happy to see a bright western sky: the clouds were lifting. The morrow would be safe! Thats all folks, for today: I have talked about the plains. Watch out for the mountains and the lakes in the next post!

Goodbye Seattle

I am bad at saying good-byes; meaning I say them well in front of people maybe without so much of emotion as I mean them. Today was no different. Initially, when I landed in Seattle, I had decided that I was not going to like the place as much as I do Switzerland. The weather was bad; -- it was raining, public transportation wasn't as good...Many of the places we went to for food (specially the first night) was exorbitantly expensive. Even I tried to argue that the coffee was better in Bern.
But it's only that much. It was my initial hesitation in accepting change that was saying all that. As time went on, I am glad to say that I could see beyond all this, feel the culture of the city, the culture of America; and why you should never compare beer with wine! I already wrote about all that in my last post.
Well, anyway. I just have to add a couple of things before I finally say goodnight and go to sleep (.... I have to wake up at 5 AM tomorrow morning). The first one is the Columbia Center, also serving as the Bank of America building. The tallest building in the Seattle skyline, (about twice as tall as the Space Needle), you would see it's huge, but you would not really realize it's SO HUGE until you go all the way up and then look down. I have heard so many arguments of my sophisticated friends against the skyline of the US cities rendered ugly by the skyscrapers; but today, all these arguments really turned to water when I was up on top of the building and looked down at the cityscape, the landscape around it, the lakes and then finally the mountains beyond. There is something in beauty that defies all arguments...
The second thing is the University of Washington campus. A sprawling one, I've often wondered what it would be like to play Treasure Hunt in there. Again, it is here, that I have had the chance to observe the American University students life, albeit from a distance. It is something I have seen so many movies about, wondered so much about; but this is the closest to which I have experienced it. It would have been fun if I was here as a student: going out with friends to the University street on a Friday night for a cheap dinner of Thai food followed by a couple of beers in a local alehouse. Fun, eh? The campus has it's own charms, old buildings shrouded in tall trees, grassy lawns, cherry trees in full blossom in spring, the vitality of youth everywhere,...

...anyway, Goodbye Seattle. Hope to see you again soon!

Sleepless in Seattle

This wasn't exactly a title that I thought would have ever applied to me: but nine hours of jet-lag have made this possible. It worked its black magic on me this whole week, making me get up at the middle of the night all the time!
So, ... Seattle is the first American city I had a chance to witness ever since I went to see the Downtown today. The culture is quintessentially American, with people being jolly and friendly with perfect strangers, waitresses cheerfully calling out over the distance if the food is all right, or if you want something more. It's been quite a pleasure to have been here. Since I don't have anything specific to say, maybe I'll just summarize stuff like a travelogue.
First, the food. Sea food seems to be a specialty of Seattle. Not surprising. In addition, there are numerous places in the University street offering various kinds of food, starting from a very delicious veg buffet to spicy Indian food. While you can get yourself decently fed within $12; things can easily go up to $25 with Indian food, $40 with specialty Sushi or sea-food.
Downtown Seattle was also fascinating. I would never even dream of comparing it with any of the European cities -- Seattle (and indeed probably most American cities) have their own culture, very unique and very distinct from anything the world has ever produced. You will start by noticing people from all the corners of the world, followed by all the kinds of cuisines possible (and indeed, I had the honor of eating piroshky from a Russian bakery shop -- traditionally I think it's called Pirozhki --- which seemed extremely popular with a long queue of people, and drinking coffee from the first Starbucks shop). Then of couse, the usual blend of Indian -- Chinese -- Sushi -- going all the way to Arabian and African. But then that is expected too. And it is America, so there has to huge tall skyscrapers, nobody beats them at it. Skyscrapers have their own charm -- I have lived in Mumbai for 6 years, and am no stranger to them; but of course, they were nowhere like the ones in the US. Their magic worked on me...
And yes, chocolates ... Americans are sometimes strangely innovative, that other people would have never thought of. I have lived for some time now in Switzerland, the land of chocolate, but I have never seen marshmallows dipped in chocolate,  bretzels in chocolate, whole apples dipped in chocolate and with mouth-watering outer chocolate layers. That was really something -- a quick taste of marshmallow coated chocolate and a marzipan dipped in chocolate to break my fast!
The Seattle Art Museum was also nice in its own way, but nothing really striking --- there was a painting of Puget Sound bay that completely swept me off. It was an invitation to the American settlers to come West. And there was another one of Nigara falls aimed at proclaiming the power and the beauty of the newest continent. There was a collection of paintings exploring how remarkable the effects of focusing light on a paining can point out the theme of a painting -- there was a picture of Nurse Irene tending a wounded St Sebastian, and there was another nurse showing light on the wound; and the very act brings out the tenderness of the action of tending a wounded.
I suppose that is it for tonight --- I don't think I can think of anything more to say!

Catching up

Hi, ---Long time no see. Was busy in quite a few things. There was the trip to Rajasthan to attend the DAE- conference. What was most interesting was the three day holiday we took after the conference got over, in which time we visited Jaisalmer, the Desert and Jodhpur. Why I write "the Desert" separately, is because while at Jaisalmer we took a desert safari, in which we had a camel ride to see the sunset, and were able to spend the night in a hut in a camp in the middle of the desert; and could get up very early in the morning and go and watch the sunrise in the biting cold! This place was about 50 km from Jaisalmer, and it was a very memorable experience. Want to have a look at the pictures? Here is the link:
http://picasaweb.google.com/cygnus2/LandOfTheGoldenFort#
The last day of our stay in Jaisalmer was mainly spend in visiting the Golden Fort, about which there is a very famous film in bengali. Why its called the Golden Fort is a mystery I'll leave you to figure out! The visit to the fort, though short, was exotic. Once again, you should be able to see the pictures from the web-site.
The next place of visit was Jodhpur. The most remarkable thing about Jodhpur is the Mehrangarh fort. Even in this second visit to the place, I could not help but be awed by the royalty so deeply ingrained in the fort. Simply majestic; and superb! This time though I had a audio guide with me that helped to appreciate the fort and the things displayed in it much more. To satisfy your curiosity, without much trouble you can find out where the pictures are.
Then was the trip back to Jaipur and in the half of a day we had there, before catching our plane to Mumbai, we visited the Jaigarh fort and the Amber palace. Both very good, but seen before: the last time I had come there was in Quark Matter 2008; nearly 3 years ago.
The trip to these places in Rajasthan was extremely memorable. It was a short tour, very hectic but very enjoyable. All those days we were travelling in bus on the every other day. In retrospect, even the Jaipur stay during the conference was cool. Our hotel was in a very happening place in the town and we used to eat out nearly every day. In particular, there was this very nice kabab place, which we simply adored!

Back in TIFR was a time to complete applications and keep waiting. A very frustrating phase, punctuated only by the arrival of Arnab-da: the week in which I had great fun. Among other things, we would go out every day! The last day on which he left, he gave us a treat in Cafe Moshe; which had just amazing food. Kabir, Kusum and I went and it was a whole lot of fun! There was also one day spent at the WichLatte and one at ZafferBhai + Mocha, which was equally good.

All in all every thing has turned out well. I will finally be joining Bern as a post-doctoral associate. The group there is pretty good and I am looking forward to join there. In the meanwhile however, a herculean task awaits me: write the synopsis and the thesis and get the degree! And then in the months it takes to get me a work permit there in Switzerland, finish the remaining projects and maybe start new collaborations here.

Well, lets hope for the best!

the weekend like no other

I seem to have developed a penchant for declaring topics with the word weekend in them, but I am largely forced to do so by the content of such blogs, not mere exhibition. Anyway, the last weekend of November was --- a weekend like no other!
By and large, the plan was that we would be going to Ajanta-Ellora. Yes, after so many deserted thoughts, and discarded attempts, here was a reality! All through the middle of the week, I was busy applying and feeling cozy that the renormalization issues for the diffusion project had worked out. Thursday morning I didn't check the arXiv. I didn't come to know until Saumen-da told me. Our work was already out. Or so we thought! It wasn't long before we realized that whatever form the work had come out, wasn't the one we were aiming for. Thus, our analysis is still more or less, in the clear! But it is imperative that we complete it soon; other people are working on it.
And about Ellora and Ajanta--they were majestic and mystic; forlorn and extragavagant, but none more awe-inspiring than the Kailash Temple, an architectural feat to compete the best in the world. Built from top-down, it is carved from a single rock. So much genius, so much labour, and so much faith involved--it makes me shudder for a moment when I think about it.
It took us about a whole afternoon to cover the Kailash Temple, then after a lunch, we saw Aurangzeb's tomb and Bibi-ki-maqbara in the evening. The former was a very simple affair, with the Emperor having declared at some time that he would want to be buried like a common man, under the starry sky. The Bibi-ka-maqbara was hardly fascinating. An imitation of Taj Mahal, of course; but the designs and the carvings on it were also pretty mundane.
Next day was the time for the majestic Ajanta. All of them are carved on a horse-shoe shaped mountain flanking a deep gorge. They are mostly Buddhist, in contrast to Ellora which is mostly Hindu. Ajanta was bulit in the heyday of Buddhism in India. The colors and the paintings made in the caves are again, to say the least, finest of their kind in the world. I regret to see that they have deteriorated so. What they must have looked like when they were made, I cannot dare to dream about! We managed to cover all the caves, excepting cave 2, leaving time in the end to go up a sharp, steep cliff which offered a beautiful view of the caves on the other side from above.
The morning of the third day was spend in looking around the more important caves of Ellora. Some of the sculptures were so majestic and huge that it made me pause and wonder at the conception of beauty. You are invited to see my pictures in Picasa.
The afternoon was devoted to the Daulatabad fort, before the long ride home. The Fort is pretty big, and was famous for being impregnable. It was initially constructed by the rulers of Devgiri, and until treacherously taken by Ala-ud-din Khilji, stood proudly looking around. It was also the site that Mohammed-bin-Tughlaq tried to shift his capital to from Delhi. He was the one who called it Daulatabad. We took a guide to show us around the maze that was constructed to confound enemies who would have broken the last lines of defence through the moat into the heart of the fort. Totally rocking! What extreme defenses, what clever scheming to get rid of the enemies. In the pitch darkness of the maze, air would be blown to lure the armies to some spot, where hot oil would be poured on them.
The effectiveness of the trip was enhanced by the fact that we stayed in the Hotel Kailash, where the shooting of the film Kailashe Kelenkari took place. A Satyajit Ray book was shot by his son, Sandip Roy. The hotel is situated about 5 minutes walking distance from the entrance of the Kailash Temple; and from the lawn in front of our rooms one could see some of the far flung caves of Ellora. Being so far away from town the place was calm and quiet, free of noise and more importantly, light pollution!
I was also acquainted with the Lonely Planet series, since we went by the caves with proper references making a note of what was the interesting features to see. This is one value that I had not appreciated so much earlier--you see a place not only as a building but also as a symbol of what is represented there and its history. The light and sound show of Golconda fort was one such memorable experience 4 years back.
And yes, about long driving. I had never appreciated that before at all, since I had never done it before. No, I didn't drive. But since I sat beside the driver for quite a long time, I was instrumental to some extent in ensuring that he didn't feel sleepy by making small conversation, and much more importantly not falling asleep myself.
Together with the fact that our work was safe, this was a very nice trip!