On Islamic Terrorists

This is a great topic - global, impersonal and deep....

As all of us reasonable people know, most of us are above being partisan; least of all based on religion. Terrorism or violence of any kind has been there as long as humans have been. Its specific linkage to Islam is a rather new phenomenon since the birth of Islam; Christianity has also used terrorism from its birth to seize control over the world from Judaism. I remember having great muslim friends in my village with whom I studied and grew up; we went to the mosque and temple together. Many of you would have had similar experiences. It was even more harmonious during the immediately previous generation. But following events in my opinion have had large bearing in getting us to where we are now:
1. Polarisation of the world from the WWs,
2. Brewing of anti-colonial spirit therefrom,
3. Emergence of muslim leaders who successfully took advantage of nuances in Islam to propagate religion based politics,
4. Formation of Pakistan due to shrewd politicians both Muslim and other wise,
5. Rise of religion based politics in other countries (like Egypt, Turkey),
6. Rise of fundamentalist clerics backed by parties in all these countries,
7. Exploitation of cold war opportunities by these countries and these clerics,
8. Creation of Frankenstein monsters like Al Quaida (a.k.a Mekhtab el Khidmat which had direct funding from US congress prior to re-christening), Taliban (part of the same funds indirectly flowed here too),
9. Learning by example from these groups by other terrorist groups like ISIS (further morphing channelizing the same funds)
10. Continued scheming politics by the above mentioned political and religious entities,
11. Continued funding by the leading rich nations in the world,
12. Mushrooming growth of such terrorist organisations
..... and here we are.

Some of it may sound too simplistic and life is not, I agree. And, I am limited by my individual knowledge/information. However, by and large, we have come to be here pretty much because of the age old principle - 'Counted few decide the destiny of millions; the latter are lucky if the former are good.' In this case there may have not been very many good people amongst the one who shaped the destiny of billions in the last 1500 years. Just a matter of probability, and time and place.

And as regards religion, I would like to share a nice analogy I read somewhere. Sikhhism is in infancy/childhood (700 years plus). Islam is about 1300 years plus or minus (?) which is the tumultous youth years (from 1000 to 1500years) for religions. Christianity is about 2000 years plus and that signifies mature adulthood (1700 onwards). Judaism (>2200), Buddhism (>2500) and Sanatan dharm or Hinduism (>5000/10,000/20,000/...) in that order (later is older) have aged gracefully to wise old ages. Similar templates can be applied to other known faiths/religions.

Its a dynamic world; stuff happens and will continue to happen. We are a sum total of how we were conceived, where/to whom we were born and what all we have been through and what all we have taken ourselves through in life. In many of these we do not have much choices, just like bulk of the terrorists who end up blowing themselves and others, and the boy in 'Slumdog Millionaire' movie who was force-blinded by the beggar gang owner.

From the time time we get cognition, life may present us opportunities to make a difference to our lives and the world, but only to those of us who want to - like the black american youth who says no to drugs and bad company and chooses to dream being the president of the United States (and millions of such examples). What we make of those opportunities matters to ourselves first, and then to the world. So do our individual religions, faiths and beliefs.

Earth 2070

As regards damages to its eco-system, we are certainly passing through the worst times the earth has had in documented history (for a run down it would be great to browse through a fantastically breezy run of the history of the earth so far by Bill Bryson called 'A Short History of Nearly Everything').

It emerges, however, that the earth is a tough nut to crack even though man is a very potently dangerous species. The nature has a way of counter balancing almost everything that man has been able to come up with. Forces like even nuclear are dwarfed severely as compared to the energy that earth can spew though its natural forces. But slow and lethal poisons like lead, plastic and CO2 seem to be capable of quite a bit of damage. Whether the earth can withstand all this would be a tough call from a neutral perspective. The ones in power (Bush and cronies, Putin and gang, and the like) will play it down as every industry or service lobby has a huge signature in one or the above devils. And the ones out of power (Al Gore and Co) will predict dooms day half out of concern and half to get the ones in power down.

Personally, I beleive, we can outlive our stupidities and nature will be able to handle even a powerful species like humans. Of course, we will all be there to see 2050 and may be, with some luck, 2070. Dig out this blog then (Google will persist) and lets have a chat, if I am proven wrong.

Long Planned Trip to Europe... with booboo - Sep 2009

When we left home at 2 AM on 16 Sep 09, it was raining pretty calmly; not like the night before when it had poured like hell and flodded our Santro through the little gap in one of the rear windows which could not be closed because of a worn out window pane channel. Our neighbour had kindly offered to get us dropped at the airport by their driver in their Indica. When our two fairly big sized bags weighing 20 kg each, our daughter's foldable but large pram and two medium sized back packs fitted in neatly yet leaving adequate space for three of us and the driver, I got to appreciate the spaciousness of the Indica better. And the journey to the airport was smooth despite the heavy rain and the odd speed breaker that driver Bhanu could not discern and took us mildly flying over.

After taking a brief nap, Ira remained excited all throughout the drive, at the airport and thereafter in the airport as well. Sreshta's best efforts to make her sleep succeeded only when it was time to board the aircraft. But once inside the aircraft, she was awake again and eased herself before even the takeoff at about 7 AM. We washed her and got her into fresh diapers. But she continued being mostly cranky and noisy as she was sleep deprived. She did not sleep or eat anything and spilled juice over her jacket.

As we landed at Colombo she became better. She watched the entire touchdown and then at the airport remained playful but easy to handle for most parts, but that may be because of the open space at the airport. We had to do another diaper change. Then within quarter of an hour once again. But thereafter, she ate some dry cake pieces and a little poha followed by some milk. By then we had found a quiet and somewhat clean baby care room where we could make her sleep. There was a baby dressing platform where I took a nap while Sreshta tried to lie down elongated on the flat chairs outside in the transit lounge. After about an hour's rest, I was disturbed by some airport person's enquiry about what we were doing in the child care room. Though we could handle her queries, I lost my sleep thereafter and asked Sreshta to take a nap in the baby room instead. Another lady with a child wanted to use the baby room and Ira got disturbed and woke up. It was time to move to the boarding gated for our flight to London at 2 PM.

In the aircraft we exchanged our 32 A and C to same seats in row 50 by requesting the occupants of the latter. Despite that being an emergency exit, we could sit there for the entire 11 plus hours by trading off with the in-flight crew that we will sit elsewhere only for landing and takeoff. Flight was by and large fine but for Ira being uncomfortable sometimes. Food was ok, tried liquer and apperetifs (won't try again), had lots of juice/water thereafter.

16 Sep 09
Reached London, could easily take our luggage, go to the tube, take one to Holborn and another to St Paul's. We found the YHA pretty easily, very centrally located. Checked in and crashed.

17 Sep 09
Hop-on-hop-off on the Big Bus from St Paul's all the way to Hamleys, there Ira spent 2 hours plus playing with toys. Then we came to Trafalgar Sq, walked it to Big Ben, missed the last bus back home and walked the more than 2 miles back along North bank of Thames. Very tiring but not bad at all for the sights.

18 Sep 09
Next day it was the Big Bus to Tower bridge ferry point, ferry to Westminster, walk through Westminster, Buckingham palace, Green park, Harrods, Science Museum, then tube to British Museum, walk on Oxford Street, met telugu guy in grocery store and got a brief of his MBA and life thereafter in London, rode cycle rickshaw of Bangladeshi from there to Soho via Chinatown and all the good sights in and around Soho with him giving a brief of his life experience in London after another MBA, tried Satsuma and then another restaurant but did not find them convenient for Ira, then took tram to St Paul's reflecting on fate of brown skins in white land. I did laundry late night (very decent facility for very little price) and slept may be at 1 or so.

19 Sep 09
Packed all our stuff and were ready to leave by 10 AM. We also met up with our neighbours in the hostel Ben, his wife and three children. The youngest one Jack was particularly interesting and Ira wanted to play with him; so I took her to their room, chatted and interacted for a while. Later Sreshta changed places with me.

We left our luggage in the luggage room and went out with Ira in the pram. We had breakfast at Ossis express very close to YHA St Paul's; cost us 12 £ plus; we had been paying only 9 £ for both of us at YHA and gettting twice the quantity with as much quality. Then we briefly saw St Paul's Cathedral after which we walked and walked; first to millenium bridge, then along the south bank to Borough Market, then to Museum of London, and back to YHA. Great morning walking in London.

We then took our luggage, went down to the metro station at St Paul's but once there were not sure how to go to Baker's Street because there's no direct metro to there. So I waited with the luggage below while Sreshta went up to ask. She found out that we need to change at Oxford Circus; we did exactly that and reached the bus stop for easy bus at the junction of Marylebone and Gloucester. But we missed our bus of 3:48 PM by a few minutes. However there was no problem as the next bus took us without a problem to Luton airport.

The close to hour long journey was challenging with Ira not wanting to sit down. However, the drive along the excellent highways and neatly forested and fielded country side was pleasant. At the airport, we checked in and once again had problem with managing Ira. She finally slept inside the aircraft once it took off.

The 55 min flight got over soon and we reached Charles de Gaul airport in France by 9:30 PM. Our pram was broken at one place; so we did the formalities to lodge a request with the Easy Jet baggage counter at some other arrival (as baggage fellows attending to our flight had left) and moved to the RER station after buying tickets for 17 €. There we boarded a RER train for Chatelet les Halles which took about 30 mins. From this station to our hotel was a short 5 min walk which took us 10 mins because we came round about asking directions but what was difficult was coming up the endless number of escalators and stairs from the station platform to the road above as also getting our luggage through the very narrow entry gates. We discovered the lifts and the broad passages for the invalid (which are there adjacent to most escalators, be it in airports or metro stations) towards the later part of our sojourn in Europe.

Anyway, at the hotel we checked in and retired for the day by about 1 AM. Hotel Tiquitonne is quaint but comfortable; the best part is it is located very centrally so that we can do all the sights by walk.

20 Sep 09
I went out early morning to get some bread, milk, eggs and fruit for breakfast because our hotel would not give breakfast even on payment (for 6€) unless we intimated the previous night. I bought these stuff in a street market nearby but realised that it was Sunday as many shops were closed. Also, I started realising the difficulty of conversing with people in France as most of them do not know how to speak in English and bulk of the others are adamant not to speak English. All of us sat on the bed and had our breakfast in the room. But we had to call for hot water and get the eggs boiled. The hotel fellows gave semi-boiled eggs and boiling hot water (in our water bottle and shrunk it in half- they had no vessel in which to give the hot water). Our difficulties in France were slowly growing more apparent. Ira slept after a lot of play, easing herself a few times, bathing and a few morsels of food; that too Sreshta had to rock her for long. Finally we got ready to step out to see Paris by 10:30; that city which I have been reading about since 1990 and wanting to have a look and feel.

We walked from the hotel first to the Bureau de Poste (Post Office) to exchange some Travelers' Cheques for Euros. Although it was Sunday, we were told by the hotel staff that it will be open. Open it was but it would exchange currency only on weekdays. We used the opportunity to post a complaint letter to Easy Jet to seek compensation against the broken part of the pram and broken leg of luggage bag. Before that we had passed by a old and pretty church outside which was some curious stone sculpture - a bust with full hands lying by its side on ground. From the post office we walked by the commerce center to a nice park on the way to Notre Dame; we realised that this park was adjacent to the same stone sculpture, with the church to the other side. But we had reached it in a very circuitous manner because we were looking for a grocery supermarket called Franprix (we found it but it was closed as it operated for shorter hours on Sunday).

At the park we met some Vietnamese students who appreciated Ira and gave us tips about decent Asian food in Paris. Then we reached Notre Dame, saw it from the outside, walked along the Seine river, crossed to the other bank on Pont Neuf where Irs lounged on one of the side sittings, picked up a souvenir and walked back to Notre Dame. Ira played in a sand park on the way. At the information booth near Notre Dame, we wanted to buy hop on hop off bus tickets to see the sights but their credit card machine was not working and they wanted a few minutes to reboot their computer. As credit card transaction would invite 3.5% charge and we were out of Euro cash having paid close to full to our hotel for all the 3 nights of stay with them, we went looking for a travelers cheque exchange which the information booth people said was close by on the other bank of Seine. But on going there we found that they will charge 5 to 8% commission and American Express whose travelers' cheques we were carrying does not have an office there. So we exchanged 100€ for 95 and then looked for an eating joint; we even sat in one but Ira was uncomfortable to sit so we had to leave.

We went back, bought the hop on hop off tickets at about 6 PM using credit cards and headed for the green circuit which covers the main sights. The plan was to do the main route on 20th and do all the four green, blue, yellow and orange on 21st. But green and blue had the same stop and we boarded a blue thinking it was green. So we ended up unsatisfied; to top it up we finished the day with some authentic but utterly distasteful dinner in a river side restaurant recommended by Lonely Plant. Ira was very cranky because of lack of rest and slept in our arms on the way back. It was a long walk via the Pompidour and we picked up some fruits and milk at a grocery shop too.

21 Sep 09
We got breakfast as we had ordered the previous night but it was only bread, butter, jam and coffee. We really lost all respect for the French thereafter. We managed to make the most of that breakfast and whatever else we had with us; fed Ira whatever she would eat and started early as we had already bought the tickets and they would expire on 21st.

We walked to Louvre, saw it from outside, boarded the green circuit and got down at the open tour office to get the correct date stamped in our ticket as the driver the previous evening had written 20th on the ticket (unknown to me may be when I showed him on boarding) erroneously. We did that and next went in search of a grocery shop to buy milk for Ira. We found a restaurant where the attendant offered a bottle of free milk and pointed us to a Franprix nearby. There Sreshta bought a lot of supplies to last us for the next few days as we were going to stay in a hotel near Disneyland in the middle of nowhere. With all of some 20 kgs supplies loaded and no pram today, we did the yellow circuit, used green to go from yellow to orange, did the orange to a point from where we could walk to Eiffel tower. Long walk with loads but Ira got to play in a park enroute and at the sand park near Eiffel. We did not find Eiffel great or romantic but a huge pile of metal made to stand using good engineering skills. We boarded the last green bus and thought it would take us to Notre Dame from where we could walk to our hotel but it stopped for the day at Opera near the Open Tour office and we had to buy a metro ticket to reach home; on hind sight we realised we could have walked it. Sreshta and Ira slept; I packed everything so that we could leave without much work the next morning.

22 Sep 09
We left the hotel by 9 and took a metro to the station at Disney Land. We left the pram outside our starting station as its wheels had started coming out and Ira was not using it much; it was one more piece of luggage. From the station, we took the free shuttle service of the hotel to reach our 4 star hotel Magic Circus. We found it real cozy and nice; also high quality and spacious. We realised the previous one was rather cramped and very minimal; although very centrally located. We quickly checked in, took one bag already packed with essentials required for the day and took the free shuttle to Disneyland.

The Disneyland complex comprises of the studio which has rides and shows with the theme of Disney characters and movies/TV programs, the park which has bigger rides and other Disney shows and the village which has shops and restaurants. There are plenty of shops and restaurants in both the studio and the park as well; both centrally located as also shops with ride/show specific themes located strategically next to the ride/show. The concept it to make you spend; basically.

We did most of the rides and shows of studio and some of the park on 22nd. While returning, we had a look into the village and found some boys from Punjab selling Jallandhar/Ludhianna manufactured fiber Eiffel and other souvenirs in the open are outside the Disneyland complex. One of them gifted a key chain with a small metallic Eiffel to Ira which she promptly lost with in the next 5 or 10 minutes.

23 Sep 09
We did rest of the park and watched the parades on both sides. We managed to do twice each on the two best rides for adults as well as on the one for children which Ira liked. We missed out a few rides and many shows but they were not very compelling and in two days one can only do as much.

After returning, we celebrated my birthday with wine (the same bottle running from the last few days) and all the food that has been accumulating from here and there. Ira ate well and slept after playing in the ball room of the hotel. We used the nice tub in the hotel room and called it a day; tomorrow is another day in another country, Belgium.

24 Sep 09
For a change we woke up much in advance, at 6 AM, to get prepared to board our train at 10:25; and that saved the day for us. We managed to get in to the Thalys superfast train from Paris to Brussels just a minute or so prior to its departure. First we took time to pack our bags at the Magic Circus hotel near Disneyland and were down for breakfast only close to 8 AM. By the time we finished breakfast and took the free shuttle bus to the train station near Disney, it was close to 9 AM. The train from Disneyland to Chatelet les Halles made us wait for close to quarter of an hour during which we chatted up a local black man working in Disney's accounting services department; he opened our eyes to how trains in France also ran late, although in minutes than hours. The journey of 40 minutes, change of train and journey to Gare du North for 10 more minutes made it 1015 and we sought directions and ran to Thalys, and made it JIT.

Thalys is a little too much of hype; it's a decently designed train with bus like and comfortable sitting arrangements, thats all. We saw the beautiful country side and reached Belgium at 11:30. The walk to our Brugel youth hostel was almost close to half hour and gave us the opportunity to see the not so interesting city scape of Brussels. Cluttered and sometimes stinky neighbourhoods; tram lines making things more clumsy and roads cobbled and thus rough.

After reaching the youth hostel at Brugel, we could not check in till 2 PM as per their rules. Dead tired though we were, we had to while away an hour or so looking around nearby areas and with our full luggage (we had the choice of keeping the luggage in their cloak room for 2 € per piece). We saw the old church nearby, ate potato fries (that's one of the most common things folks there eat) and successfully kept Ira busy although she was also very tired and so cranky.

Once we checked in to our room with double decker bunk beds, we just crashed for close to two hours trying Ira also to sleep but the changes were just too much for her so she could not sleep, as a result we also could not but at least we could stretched our backs. Four onwards we saw the sights in the city on walk and Ira decided to go to sleep exactly a few minutes after we started walking. We had left her pram at Paris, so we saw Brussels on the walk with Ira on the shoulder. By about 5:30 we reached the Central Place where we bought some Chinese fried rice for 10€ to feed Ira. We also saw the famous Mannekin Pis (little boy pissing); it's literally a little boy (2-3 ft) perched on a platform in a non-descript square 2 blocks from the main square. We walked back to the hostel to refer to the Lonely Planet on the recommended places to eat and buy chocolates. Leaving Sreshta and Ira at the hostel, I had to run to a grocery supermarket to buy fruits and milk before it closed at 8 and made it in time; I also found some Belgian chocolates there and bought them as well besides a large quantity of fruits, some milk and a bottle of wine (for the last I consulted a local gentleman but later on tasting I realised I should have gone by my gut feeling).

We headed back to the main square by 9 PM, found the recommended food joint not serving anything vegetarian/eatable and discarded that and went in for an ice cream cone elsewhere. Back in the room we crashed by midnight or so with an alarm at 5:30 next morning.

25 Sep 09
Woke up 05:30, packed everything and got ready by 0700 to take breakfast items from the pantry and rush to catch 07:20 bus from nearby stop to Central Station so that we can be on time for our 7:52 Thalys to Amsterdam. I did not have change more than some 3 odd € and the driver did not have change for 50€; so we had a free ride to station, the only one in our entire trip. (Earlier I had found 30€ falling from a European woman's purse and picked it up to handover to her while she did not notice that her money had fallen; had I not given that would have been free 30€ ...)

Thalys to Amsterdam was more than 2 hours, Ira was even more difficult than the previous Thalys with big jobs in the train etc but we managed somehow. At Amsterdam, we took two 24 hour open tram/bus ticket for 7€ each and used it first to take a tram to Leidsplein to go to our hotel Flying Pig located at Zandpad nearby. Hotel folks said we could not stay as we had a small baby (it would get noisy/dirty etc and guests smoke heavy weed which is harmful) and refunded our 5% advance which we had paid on the net to do the reservation. Luckily we had an alternate booking for a family room at the adjacent Vondelpark youth hostel, so we had no problem going there and claiming our room. There too we were not supposed to check in till 2 PM but folks relented to our request of feeding the baby and permitted us to occupy from before 1 PM.

We rested till beyond 3 PM and then took the tram to explore the city. We saw the Reijk Museum nearby (from outside) and the park adjacent to it with I Amsterdam icon there, Ira played in the baby park and got real dirty. Then we went to Dam Square and saw some street artists performing nice stunts. Ira ate nicely sitting at Dam Sq and then we went looking for the famous Red Light district. Found it after some asking for directions and once again realised that it was over hyped. Had noodles and rice in a value for money Chinese restaurant near there and returned to the hostel after doing a round on tram no 10 in the not so well lit city. We had some wine and slept again by 1 AM or so. I woke up at 7:30 AM and took a hungry Ira for the buffet breakfast in the youth hostel. She ate well and did not trouble me while I ate my breakfast. Back to the room and now we all got ready. Then Sreshta went to have breakfast and I packed our stuff with Ira helping.

We checked out at 11:00 plus, Sreshta got a wooden shoe fridge magnet as souvenir on the way and we headed by tram to flower market. Had a look and went to Central Station, took another train to Schipol airport. At Schipol we shopped for chocolates for all, some perfumes for Sreshta and a pair of polaroid sun glasses for me.

We then boarded our Easy Jet flight to Gatwick airport in the London suburbs and Ira eased herself just before boarding but slept soon after being cleaned. At Gatwick, we had to buy 39£ bus tickets to Heathrow terminal no 5 near where we had reserved in Hotel Travelodge for a planned night halt so that we can board our return flight from Heathrow to Colombo to Bangalore the next day morning. Bus journey was good with beautiful British country side in passing view. There was surprise at Terminal 5; we had to pay another 8£ for the shuttle bus from there to our hotel; it was the only way to reach the hotel and the service was once in 30 minutes. But the good part was Ira enjoyed a lot at the magic fountains at Terminal 5.

At Travelodge, we had nothing to do because it is in the middle of nowhere. So after two cups of coffee machine tea/coffee, I was lying in the tub for long recapitulating the past few days. Sreshta has given Ira a bath along with herself and made her sleep. We went down with Ira sleeping on my shoulder to find out the bus schedule for next morning's trip to airport (Travelodge does not provide phones in the rooms), had dinner of the lots of eatable things we were carrying and called it a day.

That was the Europe trip as far as events are concerned. Sreshta has a lot to say about what it meant and what all we learnt from the entire experience of booking our trip by ourselves, doing the visas, travelling through the airlines, trains, buses and getting to know about the places, their people and practices. She will write a subsequent travelogue to cover these aspects. Here are a few off the cuff recommendations:

1. It's not recommended to choose an international flight before 9 AM because one has to wake up before 4 to make it. Our's was at 4:45 and we had to leave home at 1 AM; so could sleep only for 90 mins.

2. Taking direct flights may be a little expensive but it evens out if you consider the time wasted taking a detour. Our Srilankan airlines flight would make us spend almost 8 hours extra because of the 2 hours from Blr to Colombo and 6 hours wait there.

3. Return flights may be cheaper compared to single way open jaw tickets but they force you to come back to the same place even if you have no need to do that. We fly Blr-Colombo-London and same route back. That was 48k. But it makes us take a flight to London from Amsterdam, take local transport from and to airport as also stay overnight at a highway hotel. Thats some 220 GBP or 20K. With that added to 48k and may be a little more, we could have done Blr-Lon and Ams-Blr on BA and Lufthansa.

Bon Voyage et bonne chance!

7 Tips to Quit Smoking

There have been many such tips and most do not work. I have seen one trick work.. but it's not a trick actually. It's the basic story of life, humans work when kicked hard:)

A stroke usually leads to people quitting smoking and drinking; although a few play peek-a-boo as far as alcohol is concerned, consuming wine etc in small quantities. Few, if any, are fortunate to quit the smokey way without being kicked very hard...

I would know because I did learn the hard way... I never touched a bad thing till I learnt it the macho way at National Defence Academy (NDA) when I was all but 18. But I could not give it up for 15 years despite a hard fought struggle. Rather, the issue got compounded with alcohol about which I was always in denial. At my peak performance, I was doing 20 sticks of puff and 360 ml of spirits on a good day (very macho, eh!).

One fine day, I got kicked hard in the form of sustaining a severe spinal injury from impact at the sports field (I am forever grateful to nature that it happened). I was diagnosed with multiple PIVD (with disc herniation at L4-5 & C6-7 and nerve root compression at both places leading to severe chest pains, shooting pains in left hand & leg, and wasting of left calf muscles and much more), I was admitted for spinal surgery but escaped by a hair's breadth when I had a chance encounter the midnight before surgery with a cardio-thoracic surgeon who came in as my room mate in the military hospital from a freak eye injury while driving a scooter while he was on leave. The surgeon, despite his own misery, took interest in my case and checked me up thoroughly at mid-night and advised that spinal surgery may ruin my life further. He advised me to try conservative cures. I absconded from the hospital and ultimately found refuge in National Institute of Naturopathy (NIN), Pune where I underwent a month of Yoga while receiving naturopathy treatment (mud bath, steam treatment, oil treatment, magnetic therapy etc). The yoga package cost me Rs 100/- along with a free subscription of NIN's monthly magazine "Nisargopchar'; the best 100 bucks I would ever spend in this life and beyond, inflation adjusted. The down to earth un-hep young Yoga teacher at NIN (trained for years at the Govt Yoga Institute in Lonavla) advised me that Yoga was not a set of exercises but an eight fold way of life where cleansing one's system of toxic substances was the first step; so my smoking & drinking had to be left if I wanted the Yoga sessions to be of any use. Kicked badly as I was, I was primed for trying any advice and this sounded very logical...

I could feel the result almost instantaneously - my severe chest pain vanished in 3-4 days, the shooting pains in my left hand and leg subsided soon thereafter. My wasted left calf muscles came back to shape after a year. And for about 2 years I continued having Homeopathy sweet capsules from late Dr. Merchant to manage my pain at a sublime level. Of course, my military colleagues became upset with me for not being social enough without smoking and drinking, but by then I was beyond care from social acceptance and peer pressure. I started indulging in things that I loved to do like painting and singing. Life has been different ever since; positive and defining changes have become the norm.. and I am loving it.

Here's wishing that the deserving ones gets kicked like me and the smarter ones get it even without the kicks:)

Just two on the road..

I first learnt to ride a two wheeler at a fauji friend's place in Orissa when I went on leave after my Young Officer's course in Jun 1993. I was only into four wheelers till then.

The first four wheeler whose steering wheel I touched was the 1 ton truck in driving classes at Indian Military Academy, and it was only two periods of driving each of 40 minutes. With that little training, I was faced with driving a fauji jeep at Leh during my first posting to Ladakh Scouts (LS) - no luxury of learning or trials. Just few days after my joining LS, me and Maj Naik were detailed for a rafting expedition on the Nubra River to commemorate the 60th raising day of LS to be celebrated in Sep 92. Ajeet Bajaj from Snow Leopard Adventures (who conducts rafting camps near Rishikesh) was called to train us in the Indus River. Maj Naik, me, Bajaj, two of his trainers and few nunus (LS troops); all of us went to the mechanical transport (MT) area (essentially the vehicle yard) to board our transport. Maj Naik took the steering of the big Jonga and Bajaj climbed in with him. I am not much for back seats and I promptly went to the second vehicle - the fauji jeep. Narender, one of Bajaj's trainers took the passenger seat as he was closest and now I had to choose between the back seat and the driver's. I took all of half a second to decide to take the wheel. I started the engine, and rolled off the jeep remembering my brief IMA driving lessons. After a few seconds of little shaky steering control, I was quite fine all the way to the rafting point on River Indus. On the way back after the rafting practice, the driving was even better.

There were many government vehicles thereafter driving which I became a perfect driver... When it came to personal vehicles, I never owned a vehicle for a very long time. I only had a small black trunk and a few thousand rupees when I got married in 1997. Dowry was shameful and unthinkable for asking from an old friend - my wife was a pen friend from the time I was in grade 10th. It was a hard grind start for us. And our first vehicle in 1998 was the great Indian scooter - not 'Hamara Bajaj', but the 'Italian Vespa'. Mind you, a new Maruti car was only a little over 1 lakh then and few years used Maruti cars were as low as 50k. And the Army Group Insurance Fund (AGIF) gave loans for old cars too. But I aimed low, and bought for us a scooter. My poor wife was forced to work to supplement my small salary and no savings. To go to work every day of our one year plus at Chennai, she had to drive the Vespa scooter. She is 5'2" and with that tall-ish Vespa, it's a miracle that she did not have a major accident while driving the treacherous roads of Chennai for that long. 

The first car we bought was a second hand fiat in Chennai for 28,000 rupees. Water came leaking from its floor boards during the monsoons; but for that little inconvenience, it was a great car with hand gears and bucket seats - the best part was that I was after all driving a car. After driving it for over a year, we managed to sell it for 18,000 rupees when we left Chennai. I went on posting to J&K on 1999, and my wife lived in Army Separated Family (SF) quarters at Bangalore as she could not join me permanently at the forward area I was posted to. At Bangalore, we bought a second hand Maruti car in 1999 using AGIF loan. We sold it a few years later when we left Bangalore once I finished my J&K posting. We then went together to Pune, and there after a year of not having a car (I continued to own the Vespa scooter), we purchased a Hyundai Santro car at Pune in 2003. It was our first new car, and we did not find a reason to change for very long. I remember we used to take photographs of just the car...

I am not one for the largest, most glitzy or latest model; but one definitely needs a car on the great Indian roads, just for safety reasons. When I bought that first scooter, I could very well have taken a loan and bought a car instead .... but I could not think big enough.

Mind Stride - Eternal

A verse I wrote around 1991...

Struggling out, off the beaten track of life;
my mind, unable to ponder over nothing
anymore than ever (for saturation is inevitable),
is unable not continue to wonder -
about if there is an answer!!!

The dilemma of life and death alike and the like;
conception, production, growth et all -
with all the details small.
Give the impression of continuity without limit,
death and decay ends it all -
and thus goes on the life cycle.
Could any soul sensible do but ponder -
about if there is an answer!

Questions regarding self;
me, you and our kind.
Crawling on a piece of cosmos
unimportant as any other,
may be indestructible - of infinite faculty as to Hamlet,
or chemicals put together - say the chemist and astronomer.
Whatever it is, I want the answer -
if at all there is an answer.

Sun, Sand, and Sri Lanka - April 2010

With the air miles that we had accumulated from our Bangalore-Colombo-London-Colombo-Bangalore trip in Sep 2009, we found ourselves eligible for a free Bangalore-Colombo-Bangalore ticket each. So taking advantage of a long weekend and some essential office work for which I had to visit Bangalore and Cochin, we could plan for a six day trip to Sri Lanka by taking just 3 days leave.

We all left Delhi on 24 Mar morning and spent that day at Bangalore in my Mother-in-law's house as it was a holiday. The next day while I attended to some office work, Sreshta and Ira visited Celebrity Paradise at Electronic City (where we used to stay while we were in Bangalore) and met up all Ira's earlier friends and their families.

In the evening, the three of us left for the airport to board our late evening flight to Colombo. It was almost like déjà-vu of our Europe trip beginning but the difference was this flight was earlier and reached Colombo by 1030 PM. By the time we cleared immigration and were ready to board a taxi to Goldi Sands Hotel, Negombo; where we were scheduled to stay two days; it was past 11 PM.

In the immigration queue we happened to meet Bob Steiner and his wife who were also heading for a beach guest house at Negombo. They needed a taxi as well; so I suggested that we share and save half the cost and Bob was in agreement.

On this trip, we surprisingly did not cater for any local currency whatsoever; I was somehow sure that we can use our credit cards for everything and exchange Indian currency for Sri Lankan (even that I had very little) when we had exigencies. Little did I foresee that in Sri Lanka like many other developing countries one had no alternative to cash to pay for services like using a taxi.

Luckily for us Sreshta was carrying the left over cash from her solo trip to London in Jan 10 (shopping special; on shoe string though...) and that was some 135 Pounds. She also had her travel card with her which had some more balance cash left in it.

When we exchanged 80 pounds @ 164 SLR per pound and were loaded with more than 13000 SLR; it made us realise the value of a strong currency firsthand. I arranged a taxi to Negombo for SLR 1100 (that's a very well negotiated price I believe) and the taxi was big enough to accommodate all five of us and our considerable luggage. While the taxi counter had said that it would be a non a/c taxi due to my well negotiated price, the driver had no issues switching on the a/c and even at 11:30 PM it was warm and sultry enough for us to appreciate the need for the a/c.

We had a nice chat about Bob and his wife's work lives as well as ours. In less than half an hour we reached their guest house and Bob promptly gave me SLR 550 making all efforts to dig into his affairs to get the exact change than settle for giving even SLR 20 less. We wished them well, exchanged email id/phone number, asked them to visit us at Delhi/Gurgaon when they come north and moved on to Goldi Sands Hotel.

Hotel Goldi sands offered me one of their two newly renovated rooms @ 60$ a day, which was the corner most room on the second floor. Part of the view from the spacious balcony overlooked the neighbouring houses; in one of the houses, one evenings I could see crowds gathered on the adjacent road to watch afar some cricket match on the colour TV in the house. Some view was covered by thick coconut foliage as the room was at tree-top height. But in the balance of the view we could see the decent lawns separating the hotel building from the sane and beyond it the sea about 100 mtrs away. It was the first time we were staying in a beach side property and we were pretty happy; with those thoughts we called it a day somewhere past midnight on our day of arrival.

On waking the next morning we were all eager to hit the sea. But we had woken up late and being on half-board plan (breakfast and dinner included in room rate), we wanted to tank up properly on the breakfast. By the time we got ready in our swimming gear and with sun tan on it was close to 9:30. We went down for breakfast and sat there trying everything out from the fairly elaborate menu till it was time to close the breakfast at 10:30. It was too sunny to go to the water anymore. So we hung around the beach chairs under the shady coconut grove; Ira played in the sand while we tried to read some books we had with us. We also joined her in making sand piles and pits with her new plastic beach set (a bucket, a shovel and a forked sand comb).

It was pretty warm; rather hot and I was wondering if we were too late in visiting Sri Lanka in end March. Soon Ira spotted the blue water (the hotel swimming pool) nearby and wanted to jump in there. We joined her under the hot sun in the cool water of the pool. Ira continued to be the great water fan she had demonstrated she was; we had introduced her to water in the RSI Bangalore pool when she was about ten months old. When all of had had our fill of the pool, we retired to our room.

Being the top floor the room was radiating warmth from the roof and the AC was not very effective. It became somewhat better the next day after Sreshta reported the problem. We were indoors till evening and went down at 5 to check out the sea. We did that but realised that the sea had become very rough by then. So we spent some time doing more sand activity and returned to the pool. From there we moved for dinner and were ready for an early evening retirement.

The second day at Goldi sands was short because we had to move by road 3-4 hours to go to a place called Hikkaduwa towards the south of Sri Lanka on the west coast (Negombo is somewhere in the centre of the same coast line). We spent some time at the sea picking shells for Ira and making a fortified sand castle which she loved stamping on. We also had a good time in the pool with she doing a lot of tic-toe (tip-toe) along the shallower sidewalk of the children's pool. The taxi that was organised for may not have been the best in terms of AC effectiveness but the driver was certainly very amenable to all our requests although we had a challenging time communicating given his lack of English understanding (Tamil as well).

On the way we stopped at Kalutara to check a property called Tangerine with a view to spend our last two days for which the venue was not decided yet. Tangerine, although sprawling and elaborate, was also very old world and dingy. We did not take long to decide that we will give it a pass. We stopped by a local goods shop to pick up a wooden animal puzzle set for Ira and continued down south.

Coral sands is a nice property located bang on the most popular stretch of the Hikkaduwa beach and it is spread along the beach front. Thus, all rooms have a great view of the beach. The beach itself is of pure white sand and crystal clear water. The glass bottom boats which people use for seeing corals are all lined up in this part of the beach and the corals themselves are closest to the beach at this place (just about 15-20 mtrs into the water). As a result Coral Sands is a happening place to stay at, although it is unreasonably expensive (comparatively) @ 105$ a day (half board).

We quickly settled into our room and were out on the beach very quickly to exploit whatever little remained of the day after our long 4 hours plus drive from Negombo (which cost us about 55$). After playing a little in the clear water, we hit the pool as Ira was once again fascinated by 'blue water'. The water in the kids' pool was barely up to her chest (unlike the one at Goldi Sands where it only had a shallow side walk but much deeper center) and Ira was much more thrilled with this pool. She quickly went beyond 'tic-toe'ing to flapping her hands in the water vigorously, trying to float taking support of her arms on the side and then later sitting with one foot folded on another talking about numerous things including stories. And we took turns to swim in the adjacent adults' pool which was separated by a few feet wide and sufficiently long platform with shallow water (about 6 inches on which Ira could roll).

Dinner was uninteresting food wise but the setting was nice and comfortable. There was a live local band here as well playing ethnic music with ethnic instruments and going from one part of the restaurant to another. The night was beautiful and brightly moonlit; the view from our window was that of a picture post-card.

The next day we walked on the beach front taking turns with Ira taking in the scenic beauty and enjoying walking on the white sands with bare feet. We saw a turtle couple hanging around one end of this stretch of the beach; we learnt that they were fixtures there. We also had another round of play in the pool during which Ira walked the shallow platform from the kids' pool and jumped into the adult pool while I was inattentive for a few seconds. I quickly got her out before she could drink more than a gulp of water; but from this episode onwards she understood that water is not always a fun thing. Sreshta and Ira retired to the rooms to rest away from the hot sun while I pitched our portable small tent on the beach partly under a small casuarinas tree and braved the heat inside the comfortable tent. I moved in when the heat became unbearable by 11 PM or so.

Unlike the previous hotel, the AC in the room was effective at Coral sands. We rested a bit waiting for my friend Birdy to pay us a visit. He came with a colleague and after chatting a lot on myriads of subjects, we went to a nearby restaurant to have lunch. This restaurant was located about a couple of miles further south on another stretch of the Hikkaduwa beach. The food was nice and the setting comfortable. Ira was fatigued and sleepy but continued to humour us with not being very difficult to handle.

After lunch Birdie and friend dropped us back and we took a little rest till the heat subsided. He had got for us a pair of flippers and snorkelling gear which we put to good use and took turns to snorkel while one of us engaged Ira making her float in the clear water on her turtle float. We again fell back to the pool for more 'blue water', more flapping and sitting on kids' pool steps listening to stories. We met an American couple with four kids in tow; a eight year old son, another son of five years or so and boy and girl twins barely a year old each. They were doing a great job managing the kids but the kids were hurting all around- the second boy banged his head and chest on the pool wall while he was trying to run on the side, both the twins were uncomfortable; one was falling down from her sitting position on the shallow platform every now and then and drinking water. We met some British Sri Lankan families whose children, girls ages from 5 to 10 years, became very fond of Ira very quickly.

At the dinner table, we got a candle and a muffin; and made the musicians to sing 'Happy Birthday' for Ira; although her big day was actually a few weeks away. We also decided that for the next two days of our trip (for which we had not decided/booked where to stay) we would go to Bentota which was somewhere in between Negombo and Hikkaduwa. Taking Birdy's help we got ourselves booked for a room in Taj Exotica there @ 135$ a day. It was a tad expensive but we expected it to be that much superior as well.

After breakfast the next day and some more of everything in the sea and in the pool, we checked out from our hotel and took off for Bentota in a small sized Maruti Zen type local taxi. Earlier in the morning while going on a beach walk, I had arranged for a local taxi to report to us at the hotel by 12 and settled the fare for SLR 2500 (about 25$).

Taj Exotica at Bentota was a letdown for an expensive beach resort; it is an ancient looking property which actually is ancient , it is a long walk from the beach, and there is no reason beyond snob value why anyone who is visiting Sri Lanka and Bentota should stay there. By the time we were escorted to our rooms we were making up our minds and the quality of our rooms for 135$ a day and the view of the balcony sealed our decision. We quickly decided to go back to Goldi Sands which we thought was a value-for-money-property. I made a quick call to Birdie about the same and he could confirm availability of room at Goldi Sands. After having the welcome drink and leaving Sreshta & Ira to rest in the room, I took off on lightening speed to arrange a taxi and covered the half kilometre walk from the property to the road junction in hot sun to find a very good taxi for a good price - 35 British pounds. Luckily for me, that's all the balance cash I had with me in all currencies; not even a single Sri Lankan rupee more.

We spent the next two days at Goldi Sands in leisure. I discovered some 500 plus Indian Rupees in my possessions and converted them to Sri Lankan currency @ 1:2. Armed with that and her credit card Sreshta did some shopping around in Negombo market while I and Ira explored the local roads near the hotel; in the real hot sun we happily walked to the children's beach park to one end of the Negombo beach and during the return looked into all nice looking beach properties to check out whether they were any better value for money than Goldi or not - they were not.

After two nights at Goldi Sands, it was our day of departure from Sri Lanka. We had tied up with a local taxi from the taxi stand at the hotel to take us on a sightseeing trip of Colombo and then drop us at the airport for Sri Lankan Rupees 4000. We paid Goldi Sands @ 57$ per day; I could extract 3$ more discount from General Manager Mr Lal citing second stay in same trip - loyalty bonus..:). Lal also made it possible for us to swipe our credit card with the hotel for SLR 5000/- more taking a 3% commission 150/-. I paid 4000/- out of it to the taxi and kept the rest to make any purchases, if necessary. We loafed through Colombo with the driver talking incessantly; not about sights but about how he had seen most of Europe, how we could set up a mutually benefitting tourist business with him - we sending tourists to Sri Lanka and he sending to India, how we could get very badly stuck in Colombo traffic etc etc. We saw the famous Buddha temple by grudgingly paying SLR 100/- per person (God we thought was free for all..Alas not for the tourist in a foreign country!). We looked into a supermarket for any different goods but found the same kind of stuff that one finds elsewhere; however Ira liked a Winnie the Pooh which I was happy to buy so that we could spend something out of the balance Sri Lankan currency. Outside this place, we handed over the snorkelling gear and flippers to Birdy's boys and then headed for the Airport.

By the time we reached home at Bangalore, it was midnight and we had had enough of the sun, sand and Sri Lanka.

Oslo via London - Jan 2010

Being part of a global telecom, I went on a induction visit to Oslo where my group Telenor is headquartered. Here's a brief recap of how the visit was...

The Club World business class ticket in the upper deck of British Airways was a good start. I had a rather quick flight; comfortable flights must be appearing quicker I guess and also I spent good amount of time discovering the various controls of the cool fully flat-able seat and accompanyng controls as well as consuming the refreshments and drinks I was offered. On reaching Heathrow terminal 5, I went to the BA arrival lounge for club world class and had nice breakfast; I also collected some chocolates, brownies etc for the day ahead, took shower in nice hot water in modular showers (there are some 50 of them in the lounge) and stepped out. I had planned some 10 hours halt to look around and see if I find anything of value; January being the sale season at London.

I went by tube to the Westfield Shopping Center area. There are lots of old buildings around in London as I discovered on my tube journey (while it went over ground). There were no leaves being peak winter but I could see a few perennially leafy trees. It was fully cloudy though not very bleak.

With woolen inners, a shirt, sweater, coat and a over coat, I was a tad too warm. I had no lower inners, yet legs felt very comfortable. I wore a pair of Woodland shoes which were comforting and warm. Several lines were closed that day due to blockages caused by snow (it was a good winter after decades with good snowfall reported) and I could see few inches of snow whereever the tube went over ground. Tiled roofs were barely covered with an inch or two of snow, but mostly in patches .

I had to wrap up my shopping just when I had started enjoying it as I had found some so called value buys in Marks&Spencers - women's lingerie and sun glasses... I rummaged through the mens and kids sections but could not find anything worthwhile for the price. Same was the story so far in all stores till I found these few good buys in M&S.

I walked out of West Field Shopping Center and walked back to White City tube station. The route from Heathrow to White City was Heathrow to Eaton on red line, Eaton to Earl on district (green) line and Earl White City on blue line. So changing 3 trains again I returned to Heathrow terminal 5, the same one where Ira had danced to the water fountains' rhythm when we had come to London earlier.

At terminal 5, there are two lounges for the Club World class passegners and the first one I hit, the North Lounge, did not have the Spa facility. Before reaching North lounge, I had walked upto another lounge which was for the first class and which I was not authorised to use with my club world ticket. While I was looking for these lounges, I asked a british official about where the lounges were and he said there's one just right there but it's for First Class and as I thanked him and started walking in that direction he asked incredulously are you travelling first class and I replied yes, keeping it as low key as possible. The look on his face was very enjoyable for me till I was politely asked by the woman manning the reception of the first class lounge to go to the other two lounges, north and South, to which Club World was authorised.

By the time I reached South lounge it was 4 and the boarding time for my flight to Oslo was at 4:25, so I thought I could avail the 15 minutes face massage that was complementary with my Club World ticket. The spa happened to be one floor below the lounge and when I finally reached there, they told me that of course I could not simply walk into the massage room and the earliest appointment slot was at 4:40.

So with no prospect of free massage and close to half hour in hand, I went back to south lounge, looked around the facilities, took photographs, had two drinks of scotch and some tid-bits enjoying the nice view from the lounge. I also had a bite of the menu but only the hot rice and curries and not the cold salads etc. When the display board showed that my flight was boarding, I left the lounge.

I was in 2F with no one in D and E; so I spread myself all over. Seconds after take off the aircraft entered the clouds and remained in cloud for long. There was no in-flight entertainment, so I read up the papers that I had brought from the lounge. The clouds thinned as we came over scandinavia. And as we came above Norway I could see very well lit cities/towns connected by very well lit roads looking like golden necklaces. The snow cover was not well visible as it had become night and it was no moon that day but I could make out huge swathes of faint whiteness below. We landed at Oslo and I could then see few feet of snow besides the runway.

At the luggage belt, I had to wait 40 minutes to get my one piece of bag, I was not alone, there were several passengers who had to wait this long. I could not know why it took so long and asking did not prove fruitful.

I took a map of Oslo from the information booth, withdrew a couple of hundred Norwegian Kroners from an ATM and went to the train station. A train was about to move in a minute or so to my destination, National Opera station. These trains are like the Thalys in France, may be bigger in height and very comfortable seating.

At Opera station, the side I came out was a little farther from my hotel 'Continental' than the side I should have come out from. It was a 200 meters walk by the end of which my exposed hands were completely frozen and my open head had started to sting; but otherwise I was well clothed. The temperature in my estimate would be minus 20 or so at that time.

The hotel staff upgraded me to a bigger room without asking and I liked the room when I saw it. The hotel itself is very old and of only 8 stories; but they had modified it to very modern and very neat standards. There were some hassled with my credit card; the Deutsche Bank card did not have enough credit to cover my entire stay of 6 nights at 1240 NOK per night (1NOK is approx 8 Rupees). The office provided HDFC debit card did not work but finally my ICICI credit card worked and it had sufficient credit. I tried getting my changed to one with a better view but realised that being at the city center with tall buildings all around and it being only a 8 story building, there was no view possible. Came back to the original room and slept by midnight.
 
I woke up with the alarm I had set for 8 after a good night's sleep; that was very necessary as I had been awake for most of the previous 36 hours and had not had my full sleep for the preceeding few days as well.

I was the last guest to slip into the buffet breakfast at 9:55 before they closed at 10. And my colleague Arne called to inform that he had reached the lobby even before I had a bite. So I called him up to join me on the breakfast table with a coffee. After the exchange of greetings, I grabbed my breakfast while he had a couple of cups of coffee.

We went to office in a taxi from my hotel. It was a pakistani taxi driver, by the look of him. We reached Fornebu, where Telenor head office is located, within about 25 minutes. The office campus is exactly where the Oslo airport was located earlier. So it's very spacious with great view all around and bang besides the fjord. It has two parallel running wings separated by space of 30 to 50 metres in between and connected by an insulated sky bridge. The construction is modern with good and modern art work all around.

Inside the office, I met Johnny who had been instrumental in hiring me at Delhi. I also met several others from Group Risk, this is the group under which Information Security as a function is organised in Telenor. The first meeting we had was with Per Pundsen who heads the group and Ann Reinsen, the Security Director. From then on, it was a lot of meetings, discussions, debates and deliberations with several people in the group office - Heinrich and Gunhill for Awareness, someone for Crisis Management, Olav for Risk Assessment, Sonja for SOX, etc.

At office, I would arrive everyday at about 9:15, have meetings from 10:00 to lunch time, go for lunch with Arne/Johnny/Ann, more meetings till 3 or 4 PM and break off. The first day Arne brought me back to hotel in a cab; the next day onwards I used the bus to go to office and return. Taking 31E from just outside Continental to bus stop just outside Telenor office was most convenient and inexpensive at 39 NOK.

The first day evening, I explored the entire main street in the biting cold and ended up having dinner in an Indian Restaurant called Mister India. I even walked to Radisson Scandinavia nearby to check it out and compare with Continental. Tuesday evening, I took a short walk to the Nobel Peace Prize center and the dock area but retired early as I was a little down under the weather. Wednesday went by tram to the north east side and had food in a Spanish restaurant; returned by cab. Thursday evening was dinner hosted by Johnny and Ann by a nice restaurant by the dock side with a great view of the sea front; the bill of 2100 NOK for 3 of us having a bottle of wine and four course dinner was somewhat stunning but not quite a shock. Thursday morning Johnny had taken me out in his private car to show the Vigeland sculpture garden which was snow covered but very nice with some good sculpture.

It was a friday morning and I was in the bath tub for the second time that week; this time with lots of bubbles of Euclyptus bath liquid. I had been using the hotel gym too; that day was the third time. It was about time to wind up; I had to be in office by 9:45, to visit Network Operations Center and the Data Center and wind up by lunch time. I then had the second half free for myself. In the evening I met Eric and Lina, our long lost friends from my US Army training in 2002. Eric and I had a few drinks at the Hard Rock Cafe before Lina joined and they both went for some onward engagement.

I did some specialised packing of bags to accomodate my enhanced baggage in the same bags that I had taken and to board a 7:30 AM return flight from Oslo to London, I left from the hotel at 5:00. Reached the airport well in time, had breakfast in the Oslo lounge, took snaps of snow all around and boarded my flight. There I was exposed for the first time to giant machines which sprayed water on aircrafts wings to thaw the strong ice formed on them due to the very low temperarures outside.

At London, I had another entire day time to roam around and find value buys. This time I went off the airport in time, headed for central London. I spent the whole day walking on Oxford street going from shop to shop. By evening I had seen almost all big shops that Oxford Street is known for and found a lot of good things that I had been given a list for. So I returned to Heathrow, encashed my Oyster card at the terminal 5 tube station and settled in the lounge for a last drink and food before I board the long haul flight on BA back home.

And back to work...