“What if we die and it turns out God is a big chicken”

A moment later, just a hundredth or thousandth fraction of second later, I saw light again. It was bright. I couldn’t open my eyes completely at first. But when I did, I realized I was lying on my back and staring at the sky. Smooth and serene sky. Cloudless.

Wind was rushing by.. but it was wrong! It was blowing from behind my back. Upwards. Isn’t that against the laws of physics? I can’t remember the specific law guiding the air movement. I am pretty sure I have read something about that. But that is trivial right now. What exactly was happening? Wait a second! Am I falling? Am I? I am! How…?

I was falling. I didn’t even realize it. It didn’t feel like falling. Nothing like I imagined falling would be like – fast, world going bizzare, and once gravity was done with me I would hit the ground and everything would go absolutely still.. all over within a few seconds. But it was nothing like that. It was slow. And peaceful. I still waited to feel the ground. Ten seconds.. Twenty.. A minute.. Nothing. I couldn’t feel even a light thud. And its been a while like this.

How long have I been falling for? I stopped trying to keep track of time after around an hour.. But it must have been a few hours at least. Whats wrong?! I tried standing on my feet. But I could not keep my feet anywhere. Gravity was weird. I tried looking around. It was just vast expanse of spotless white sky. There was no ground anywhere in sight either.

Its been ages. Literally. Why am I not reaching the ground. Has Earth disappeared? Am I in space? But that should be dark.. not like the white sky I was looking at.

Am I dreaming? Doesn’t feel like dreaming. And I hardly dream when I sleep. Or.. I can be in coma.. But I don’t remember meeting an accident or anything. Actually I don’t remember exactly what I was doing before I started falling. I have been falling for a really long time.

Am I… dead?

Is this what being dead feels like? I feel no pain. I can feel nothing. Just a slight touch of cool wind passing by. But not chilly cold. Pleasantly cool.

How did I die? I don’t remember.. Infact.. who am I? What was my name?! I have no memory of anything! I do know how nature works. I remember I know about many things of this world. But I do not know any thing specific about myself. I can’t even remember how I looked like!

I was finally feeling something. Panic.

This is no hell or heaven. Where are the other people who have been dead? I never gave much thought to what would after-life be like. But from all that I heard in my short (or was it long?) life time I never imagined it would be like this. No one to judge your life deeds. No gates of heaven or hell. No angels. No burning fires. No God..

All you had to do was to keep falling in a bottomless abyss and stare at bright white sky. Cluelessly.

And the panic went away. I am just glad there is no pain now.

What a waste of life I lived..

Anecdotes that I never forget.

As I went through the chapter describing Kushwant Singh’s experiences during the partition of India and Pakistan, in his autobiography Truth, Love and a little Malice, I recalled my mother once telling her families’ experiences. Though she was born after her family had moved to India after partition, she still knew the stories of those times as told by her elder brothers and sisters. It was the time when we were watching the opening scenes of the movie Gadar, when she told us a few of those.

In days preceding partition, violence had broken out in parts of western Punjab, which now belong to Pakistan, where my maternal grandfather had his big house. They, along with hundreds of Hindu and Sikh families, decided to move out of the village with whatever they could carry. The houses with lots of family gold buried under the floors and in the walls (those times, this was considered the safest method of storing the treasures) were left unprotected. My grandfather along with his wife, a few young children and a newly born boy boarded the train for the new-India. The trains were stopped in between for days, the Hindus and Sikhs dragged out of the trains and killed in cold blood. But not before hurting them where it hurt the most. The young daughters and sisters were raped in front of their fathers and brothers. The Sikhs were punished by cutting off their sacred hair. And much more.. The hatred was never one sided. The same was done with the Muslims crossing the border from the other side.

My grandfather and his family escaped all this by bolting the doors of the train compartment and not opening them until they reached the destination. The boarders of the train had to relieve themselves in the compartment. The children got sick. And sicker of living in the smell of vomit and shit for days at stretch. My grandfathers’ elder children even suggested literally throwing out their youngest brother, still feeding on breast milk and suffering from extreme diarrhea, as he was too much trouble for all of them. Still, my grandmother did not abandon her child. I was appalled to hear this. How could my masijis and mamajis even think about such a thing! But then, that was the atrocities of partition saying that, not them.

On other hand, my grandfather’s brother decided to take a lorry(truck sort of thing) to move to India. The lorry being overloaded with people and luggage overturned in its way. Only a few survived. The brother had to be operated upon to be saved. But he never came out alive out of the operation. It is believed that the doctors turned corrupt seeing all the gold he carrying tied to his body. This conclusion is not baseless because his dead body later showed signs of poison.

Sometimes I wonder, what causes people to turn so evil. What inculcates so much hatred in them that they are ready to kill masses of innocent people.  And it is not that its all history. All this still happens. Iraq. Afghanistan. How many more such chapters? How many more such anecdotes?

Of swings and smells..

It has always been my hobby to just sit in the park near my house and enjoy the sunsets. There is something really beautiful about dusks that nobody else seems to notice. As for me, I can sense the sunsets, or maybe my biological clock is tuned to alarm me at that time. My sister is always surprised that I ask her at almost the same time daily to accompany me to the park without knowing the time. Ofcourse she does not understand that whatever I do is not affected by the way the tiny hands are oriented in the clock on the wall. I can hear it’s ticks when its utterly silent but I never look at it. I simply dont need to.

Today was something different. Something was about to happen. I could sense it. As I was trying to think about the possiblities of what might happen today, my sister came to me to wake me up in the evening herself and offered to take me to the park, very unlike her. Told you so! – I told my self. I prinked my self up as much I could manage and left my house for the park. Take the street to the left of the house, walk for about a minute, take a right turn and the park is right there. Its entrance has the revolving swing, where the little kids play all the time. I was in sixth class when I was hurt badly while playing with this. I never rode the swing ever since.

The park seemed the usual way. Nothing different. Nothing life changing. The aunts were gossiping in hushed tones, the kids were shouting, playing hide and seek, chasing each other, innocently challenging each other at every other turn. I smiled to myself. Sigh! I wish I could be like them. I sat at my usual place and inhaled the fresh air, enjoying the sounds around me. The birds chirped in the vast sky while flying back to their nests, working hard for the day. The air was still somewhat warm. The sun had not set completely till now.

As time went by, the coolness of night was overtaking the warmth of the day. The nights are no different for me than the day, I can sit here indefinitely but it is not the case for the people around me. They started returning to their homes and so I also prepared my self to return. Again as I was passing the swing at the entrance, I again thought of the accident which changed my life. I was disappointed, the reminiscence of the accident and the disappointment of nothing different happening mingled together as the day came to almost an end. Still gloomy, I left the swing, which was making creaking noise behind me, while revolving slowly. I suddenly bumped into a person. I came back to my senses. He was a boy, little taller than me. There was something about his aura, something different, finally! We exchanged sorries. I can surely tell that he has recently started coming to the park, and was somewhat of my age. I have, many a times, heard his voice among all other commotion in the park.

I was simply walking back to home, along with my sister, still trying to recognize what was about that boy that made him so distinct. Ah! It stuck to me as sudden as the impact with the boy. It was the way he smelt. It was unusual, pleasant-unusual.

I was happy, so full  of joy that I actually saw a dream that night. I usually do not dream. But that day, I could even tell the different colours in the dream, actually make out the contours of lively things, even distinguish the scent of the boy from other smells. I have heard that you do not really see colourful dreams, its all in shades of gray, and can not even smell during the dream. Now I wonder if its really true. It obviously is not true, because I just had the amazing dream!

From the next day onwards, I followed the same routine. But I was not same anymore. As the boy passed me everyday in the park, I used to catch the scent of him lingering behind him. Soon, I found myself waiting to go to the park, wanting to smell him, more than to be there just to enjoy the sunset. I tried to figure out his voice among all the blurred voices around me. Tried to guess what he looks like. I had started to smile to myself, without any reason, just smile.

Life went on as usual. Why would it be different? My mum still cooks delicious food. My father still cracks stupid jokes at which we just cant help laughing a lot. My sister still cries everyday when I ask her to accompany me to the park. The small kids still play in the streets in the evening. But no one noticed that something in me had changed. I was happier than usual these days. Unusually happy.

It is Tuesday. My mum had given me the meethi boondi prasad just as I left for the park, which I simply love and always ask for more. Again I am sitting at my usual place in the park. For the past three days, the boy has not come to the park. I know because I have not caught his smell, neither his voice. I missed his smell. Time passed as I waited for that smell. It never came. Dejected, I with my sister headed back to home. While returning, my sister asked me to take a different route back to the house. “Why?” – I inquired. She told me that a truck was standing in the street which we take usually. “Oh!”

I returned home and asked my mum why was the truck there. She informed me that the family that had moved in a month ago was moving some where else. Something struck me. With a heavy feeling in my heart, I further inquired – “Is it the family with a boy of almost my age?” “Yes, why?” – she replied with a tone of surprise. “Nothing. Just asked.” My heart contracted, and then everything went blur. The food was tasteless. The jokes were not funny. The dreams that night were black and white, shades of gray, with a sorrow in them. Next day, as I passed the swing at the entrance of the park, the ghost of past again struck me. At this very swing, once I had lost my sight in an unfortunate accident, and again at this very swing, I had got a reason to live, a hope, a dream, and again, at this very swing, I have lost it even before I could get hold of it. The only thing I remember now is that pleasant smell..

(Suggest)

Oh dear, I dread the day

when your shadow might fade away

As I amble into the future

Often I imagine

that sleepless night

under the starry skies

all of us above the rest

watching the dawn break

wishing the sun shall not rise today

For one day,

please let the time stay

for this moment shall never return

Oh truly, I wished!

If present is the gift,

why do I have to let go of it?

But the sun did rise

stealing away the serene night

And we moved on

Oh, moved apart..

Beginning of an end

or ending of another beginning

I do not care.

But I still dread the day

when your shadow might fade away.

What not to do in Lisboa!

1. Do not think that you can find a cheap place to live in the center of the city very easily, especially when the city’s most famous festival is going on the day. You might end up looking for 2 hours and finding some really awful places at nothing less than 35€.
2. Do not go looking for a hotel leaving a really good spot along the road where the celebrations parade is about to start. You might end up finding no hotel to suit you and also loosing your perfect spot.
3. Never think that an Indian, specially a Sardarji-in-hurry on a metro station, can guide you properly. He might tell you all the ticketing procedures and ways to save money but you might end up in a situation where you might have actually shed some extra bucks than would have sufficed.
4. Also, make sure you know the complete path to the Gurudwara, the Sardarji told you about (where you can stay and eat for free ). And even if you are lost, it is better to call up the Sardarji (ofcourse, you took his number right?), rather than asking for directions to “some Indian Temple nearby” from the locals, who by the way hardly know any English. (How else would you explain a Gurudwara?!) You might end up in a Hindu Temple.
   Better, what is google for! Search for gurudwaras beforehand on google maps. Yeah, you can try bing.com/maps too. It won’t give you good results but it has a really cool feature, try Bird’s eye view of the map, you’ll know what I am talking about. So, be an intelligent consumer, search on google for the place and use bing for directions.
5. Do not think that you can cover multiple sight seeing places in a day, when you have included a gigantic Zoo in your destinations list. You might end up covering just the Zoo, as everything else closes before 6pm!
6. Do not think that 1 Gigabyte will be enough memory for three days of pictures. You might run out of memory just at some amazing capture-it! moments.

*( Replace all the might-s, with what actually we did )

Murphy was not a fool to state the Murphy’s Law. Do not believe me? Here, have a look :

• The battery of your digicam will be discharged just when the best exhibits of the parade will begin, and much better ones will come when your cell phone’s battery has discharged too.
• In the hunt to find a Gurudwara, you will end up in a Mandir far away from the city center. And if by pure luck, you do discover that the Mandir also has some accommodation facility, they will charge you the same amount as the hostels in the center of the city, which you would have left in hope of finding the Gurudwara.
• You would be shooting the pictures of tigers when they are far away from you, but just when they come really really close to you, you will run out of memory on your digicam! And by the time you will delete some pictures to make some space, the tigers would have realised that you are not there to feed them and then they will walk away ignoring you.
• You will not wake up by the alarm on that very day when you had planned to go sightseeing early as you have to catch a bus to return the same day. And when you do wake up, it will rain on that very day!

• While looking for tram no. 28 (the best route to do some sightseeing, as described by wikitravel), you will miss severals of tram no. 28E. And when failing to find tram no. 28, you finally decide to hop on the tram no. 28E only, you will not find its stop for atleast half an hour (which were earlier so abundant, when you were not looking for them!). And then you will wait another half an hour for the tram to arrive. And when you lose all hope and start retracing your path back, a tram no. 28E will just pass by the corner towards that very stop which you just left! And thats not all. Because when you will see the next tram no. 28E approaching a stop, you will run to catch it, but it will not stop because it will be too crowdy already!

In case you are not familiar with the Murphy’s Law, here it is in the crudest form :

“If anything can go wrong, it will go wrong.”

24th to 30th – experience the other side of the city

24th – Sunday. I was in a mood to explore the older part, what these people call the “center” of the city. But when I got out, the weather was rainy and chilly winds were blowing. So I ended up taking shelter in my department that day. After I went back, I was in mood for cooking something. I picked up the cooking oil bottle which I had got from the supermarket the other day. I was just reading the label. Then reading a word, something just struck my mind. The label said “Vinagre”. I opened up the bottle to smell it. And Bingo! It was Vinegar! Laughed on myself. Cannot blame me! I picked up the smallest looking bottle from the section which had cooking oils! How was I supposed to know that it was vinegar?!

25th – Monday. I could not concentrate on my work in the lab. Although its usual everyday, but that day was I was really bored. Got out of there early and came back to room to get the bottle of vinegar to try to return. At the mall, I tried explaining to the girl at the desk, but she could not got anything (the same old only Portuguese problem!). Then she called up someone, I guess some colleague of hers to talk to me. I explained the girl over phone the whole story, how I mistook Vinegar for Cooking oil because I do not know Portuguese and now I want to return it. After I completed, her reply was this -”I am getting what you are trying to say, but can you please repeat slowly coz its hard to grasp”!! Duh! Then I again explained all that very… sloowwlly… Finally she understood me and I was returned my 27 cents. So much for 27 cents. But then I had nothing to do, so I entered the supermarket again and ended up spending some 4+ €. Got some some vegetables too. That night had fried alu and onion with yoghurt. It was good, change from the dal chawal I was having daily.

26th – Tuesday. It was a good day except the fact that a bhondu friend of mine told me my probable result of the semester. That was bad! Its my rule that I never inquire about my grades in my holidays. That made me sad. Anyways I got the news that Nitin, my classmate, has finally got his visa approved and would soon be joining me here at the department. That night, I made some Rotis along with tomato and onion sabzi.. yummy!

27th – Wednesday. Nothing really happened that day except that my professor mailed me my workplan and I am till now ahead of schedule! yey!

28th – Thursday. Went for lunch in a restaurant near my workplace with two guys. Salad, Dessert and Coke.. thats the only what I could find vegetarian in the whole menu. Even the salad had to be ordered specifically without the meat! And yeah, after many phone calls being exchanged with Nitin’s family members, his prof and me worrying the whole day, Nitin finally arrived at around 9pm when he was supposed to be here by 1pm! He had missed his connecting flight at Paris.

29th – Friday. Got a new laptop today! Toshiba. Connected to the wireless network here. Now I can watch movies, soaps and be online from the room!

30th – Saturday! Weekend! The day began with a lazy morning, with laziness continuing in the afternoon too. Then finally me and Nitin went out to roam about the city. First, we visited the Museum of Wool inside our university campus. We were the only visitors at that time. The guy (more appropriately Uncle) at the reception first made us sit and watch a short documentary which described the long association of Covilhã with wool making. History says that the university is built in place where there used to be a Royal Textile Factory. The two big chimneys standing along with the building, are reminiscent of the factory. Also, it described the procedure of wool production. After the documentary we were left on our own to see the museum. So, the two of us went around looking at the ancient structures which resembled wells with walls made out of really solid stones, which we guessed, were used for dying wool. “Guessed” coz everything out there was written in Portuguese, which according to the Uncle was because “they wanted to promote the use of Portuguese language!”. Duh!! Why?! The people here do not speak any other language man! He asked us to “Read the information written there once, twice, again and again, and try to understand it!” Try this – Wool in Portuguese is “lã” and Sheep is “ovinos”. Now estimate how abstruse Portuguese can be.. Hehe. So we just roamed around, not even looking at the descriptions given about the tools, structures and other stuff. If kept together, the antiquities would not even fill a small room. Still, they were spread in around 3 halls, along with a lot of modern paintings made by using different colored wool beneath shaded glass. The art was the only thing that interested me there, but unfortunately we were not allowed to take photographs. And for Nitin, as far as I can say, the only thing that interested him there were the motion detectors in the washroom. He went in there to check if they are ancient too.

Next, we proceeded towards the center of the city. Near the Praça da Município (translation: Square of the Municipality), there were a few makeshift shops, selling some traditional things and foods of Covilhã. We figured out later that some sort of local fair is going on here. We could not really buy anything because everything seemed non-vegetarian. Along with the shops, there was a marching band playing drums and flutes. The music was good to ears. The whole area had an ambiance of a traditional European village, bright sunny day, people lazily roaming here and there, traditionally dressed shop keepers, the streets made of stone bricks..

There was a auditorium/theatre at one end of the square. A poster was displayed there announcing a concert of Orchestra at 9:30pm that day. Since we had nothing to do that day, so decided to give it a try. But the ticket counter was closed and people around there had no idea about when it was to open. Dejected, we moved onwards.

Just round the street was the Indian Restaurant, Taj Mahal. Seeing an Asian, and talking in Hindi is really a relief here. We conversed with the owner for about an hour, talking mostly about his experiences from Pakistan (yeah, he is a Pakistani!) to Holland to London to France to Spain to Portugal. He was a free ka guide!

We came back to our residence hall, stopping for food-shopping in between. Baked a frozen pizza and had dinner while watching a movie. At around 10:30pm, Cheema (the restaurant owner, pronounced as Cheema as in Chai, not as Keema ), called me up to tell me that some traditional music concert is going on in the theatre, and its for free! Damn! No wonder there was no one to sell the tickets! If only we knew this earlier! Anyways, we rushed out of our rooms as we were (I had just finished oiling my hair!) By the time we were almost approaching the theatre area, we saw people going in opposite direction as ours. So doubts started cropping in our heads, which were confirmed as soon as the theatre came in our view. The area outside it was crowded with people. The artists coming out in formals with their instruments, everyone cheerful, congratulating each other. I swear, approximating by the number of very very few people I see everyday, I had not thought that the city was even this much populated! Nitin sat on a chair there, tired. Me.. I was a bit more excited than him to see so many people around me that I refused sit down. But with him sitting there stubbornly, I could not really go around. Still I was enjoying the energy in the air.

At around 11:45pm, Cheema met us. He then led us to a street just behind the building there, the Câmara Municipal da Covilhã (translation: Municipality of Covilhã), there was a bar named “Buffel”, the most famous bar over here. It was really small one. But the street and the back parking of the building was full of people. They would buy drinks from the bar and sit outside drinking them. He explained the reason behind the popularity of this bar was that it was the most cheapest and the most accessible one. Then he took us to another bar, it had some open area to sit with a nice view of whole of the town. But obviously people there were more involved in getting drunk than to enjoy the view. We sat there, me having a Coke, Nitin having a mango drink, and Cheema having beer after beer along with smoking cigarette after cigarette. He kept on talking about everything, including places he wanted to visit in India, political situation of Pakistan, Chinese markets, his friends, his experiences in different countries, poverty of Portugal, trends at nights here, et al. Then after some time, we went again to the Buffel bar. It must have been 2 or 3am. But the scene there had changed in 2 hours! The whole street was full, the whole parking lot was full, we had to make our way through the street and find ourselves some space to stand. Cheema explained that it gets even crowdier on Tuesday and Thursday nights! After some time, when he had had a few more glasses of beer, he took us to a nearby Discotheque. The system here is that you have to pay some amount as a fee for entering the disco, and for that much amount you can have any drink for free at the bar inside. So, we had to take something to not to let waste Cheema’s money. (He was paying for us that day, everywhere ) So we again took coke, the only option for us there. Hehe. The place was really small, but good as it seemed crowded with even less people. After some time (that is after some beers of Cheema ), he took us to another disco. It was a bit far, I enjoyed walking though. The fresh air was pleasing to my nose, when I had been only in smoke all this time. This disco was costlier that the previous one, and more spacious. I really could not take any more cokes with empty stomach, so I offered Cheema to have beers from my ticket. I did not feel like dancing with the drunk strangers, without any friend, so just sat on the chairs, watching the rest of the people enjoy. The discos were awesome.. I noticed that the people are the same, as in I was seeing the same few people everywhere we went, the bars, the discos, and that too sequentially. I remember Cheema explaining this also. He said that every night has a trend, people decide over phone calls where they wanna meet today, then they reach there and then they decide where to go next, and this way the message gets propagated through the different groups and quite a number of people end up going in the same order of bars and discos.

After a few hours, we finally got out of there. Cheema offered us to have something to eat with him at his restaurant but we refused. We just wanted to sleep! It was 6 in the morning! The dawn had started breaking. We came back to our rooms. I was all smelling of cigarette smoke and beer smell. Smelling all that from distance was okay, but I could not bear it on myself! Also I had oiled my hair, so I took a complete bath first. Then had some milk to calm down my empty stomach with only coke gas gurgling around in there all night. Then, relaxed and all cleaned up, I finally went to sleep..

What a day! Infact, a day and a half! Phew!

17th to 23rd – The Explorations begin..

17th – Woke up after a long  sleep.. Got ready, went to “Serra” Shopping Mall, which was not exactly nearby as described by my professor. It wasn’t a big one as compared to ones found in Delhi, but okay types. Looked around, found a vodafone shop there. Fortunately one of the girls at the desk there knew English. Bought a sim. Man.. international calls are costly! 1 call = 1.32€ = some 85 INR!! There was nothing else for me there, so came back. Had maggie for dinner. And to bed again. I heard some voices outside my place, guessed that someone has come in the nearby rooms, did not care enough to get up from my sleep, so slept.

18th – Heard the main door of what I call my block, open and close, I was too late in getting out to catch whoever was living near me. Anyways, went to the department at around 9:30 am to find the department completely closed! The professor came at 10. Showed me around, assigned me a computer in the lab. And the operating system is in Portuguese! Ahh! Had lunch with two guys introduced by my professor, in a place called “Engineer’s Canteen” here. But the only main food available there was fish, another type of fish, meat blah blah. When I asked the serving lady to give me just the rice with boiled potatoes, she was looking at me with a surprised expression and saying something in portuguese which I understood to be this – “Just this? No fish?”  I just shook my head and took my plate. So for my lunch on the first day, I had some leafy boiled-tasting vegetable soup, some rice, boiled potatoes, a banana, a pear and water!

Then my professor introduced me to another colleague of his, a nepali professor! Thats the closest to India I’ve got in here. He was nice, asked me if I need him to show some market places around. I obviously agreed. Then he took me to Serra Mall again. I did not interrupt him in the way, thinking that it would not be polite. I pretended as if I had been there for the first time. But, to my surprise, this big shop, a supermarket sorta, was now open there which was not the previous day! I attributed that to fact that previous day was Sunday! I got some bread, milk, cheese etc etc. Came back and Oh man! I was hungry! For the first time in my life, I cooked some Dal and Rice (first time as in independently, hehe! ) That was satisfying!

18th to 21st – Starting to settle down, cooking my own meals, talking with my neighbour – Phillip who is pursuing a degree in Medicine, his fifth and last year here. He reminds me of Donald Duck . When I was using the pressure cooker for the first time, he got scared at the whistle and came out of his room running to check if everything was alright. Hehe.

Got my card, so I can access the department anytime. Work goes by fine, knowing people who are in my department, asking them about the places to visit in the city, figured out that there is nothing here worth mentioning except the university! Yeah, some bars and a few discotheques too. Also, people party here on Thursday nights, not much on weekends! In general people here do not know any English, but fortunately the university people know some English. But even with them, you have to talk really slow so that they can translate each word in their mind, otherwise everything just passes from above their heads! There aint any girls in my department, but loads in Arts type departments. Of what I have observed, the girls are extremely girly sorta, wearing the startling pinks and purples, and wont take any jackets even in the chilliest of winds, but yeah hot! The boys, I would say are not far behind either. Heha.

22nd – I went to have lunch with some guys in my department who invited me, in the Engineer’s canteen nearby, although I already had had my lunch (the usual bread, cheese, jam). There again the serving lady was surprised to see just yoghurt and juice in my large plate. Again replying to her weird looks, I assured her (in sign language!) that I want only this much. Sitting with those guys, I explained them that I am a vegetarian and answering their usual queries like what we have as food, fish is not included in vegetarian, and etc. Then we went to the cafe nearby and for the first time I tried The Expresso, on suggestion of the fellows. What was given to me was a really tiny cup (which I can use as a showpiece!), which contained, I guess about 50 ml of black coffee. I tasted it without adding sugar. It was awfully bitter. So I added the whole of sugar, which increased the level of coffee by about 20% of whatever already was there. It even then was bitter, but was a real eye-opener! I felt all my laziness really go away. Over the coffee, I got to know that two of the guys were actually Professors here (Ouch! ), and the third guy, from Brazil, was about to complete his Phd. Ahem! Well, I never thought any Professor over the world could be this friendly with the students. They were telling their tales, about funny things that happen with them after they get drunk, or about their dating times with their present wives, etc!

After I came back, my professor asked one of his students to show me the Indian restaurant here. So, he took me to this place up the hill. It is called The Taj Mahal. Unfortunately, it was closed. The guy (whose name I always forget! Its really weird.. Well, my excuse- even he forgets mine! ) kept talking all the way up and down, telling me things about culture here, politics, architecture etc.

Interesting day, it was.

23rd – So one week already gone! 10 weeks to go.. Woke up by sound of some sort of Church Choir singing some where near to my room. When I got out of my room, past one door, to my surprise, I discovered that the always locked rooms about which I used to wonder what they were for, were actually used for some religious service. A few people were there, singing prayers (in Portuguese!), in the room which looked to me like a really small prayer area though I could not see The Crucifix in the front. I did not explore much, fearing that I might be kicked out.

For the rest of the day, I wondered in the city, again went to the mall to refill my refrigerator. Just made to my room in time to avoid getting soaked in the rain! For the first time, I tried the MTR Ready to Eat Mixed Vegetable Curry (with bread, sob.. ). It tasted horrible! Gosh! I miss good food. Even mess food would be great now!

9th to 16th – The week filled with GoodByes..

9th – Goodbye to the worst semester till now for me, the 4th sem, the cruelsome hardware laboratory, the heavy Algorithms course, the fraud Software Engineering course

Early morning Sonam n me ran for the bus for airport to get my tickets preponed. So, now I was leaving on 12th instead of 14th, so that I get more time at home before leaving for Portugal on 15th night. That felt good. Two extra days of Home made food! Hehe

Then what was supposed to be city-tour for my shopping turned out to be a better one for Harshal, Surbhi and Adi (who in 2 minutes got a bright Purple colored Shirt costing 1300 bucks, courtesy Anvita and Sonam!). Whatever I liked was not available in my size (the guwahati effect..), so Surbhi n Harshal got those for themselves. I ended up buying nothing and again felt good that I was going home early so that I could do some good shopping

That night it rained heavily, and with very few people remaining in the hostel from our batch, we pulled everyone out and danced in the rain. The rain was so heavy that the drops struck against us like little pebbles. But we were not deferred by it. We danced, sang rain songs, and went crazy. The rain continued for an hour or so, no idea about the time, who cared anyway, afterall the exams were gone! Finally, the end-of-semester feeling settled within us!

10th- I woke up with a bodyache, courtesy the craziness of last night. After bidding Goodbye to Neha, came a message from my friends that we are going to Accoland (a small fun park in guwahati), no excuses accepted. And so, we were on our way to the park. The day went on with WWE stunts in water, the lost-and-found-sunglasses sessions in the wave pool, the who-does-the-drowning-act-best games, the my fair lady adventure, et al. As we reached the campus, we had no plans to get into the hostel before 12 midnight. And the rain Gods helped us. It again started raining heavily. But the amusing part was one that followed. The bus stop we chose to pass our time was soon crowded with around 5-6 people (apart from 6 of us) who came there to protect them from the rain, courtesy Bohagi (some Assamese festival!) celebrations going on in nearby community hall, that had just ended. So we were jam packed in this small bus stop with some strangers, staring at each other and smiling with an expression that might have resembled this ->

So when the rain slowed down a bit, somehow we managed to empty the bus stop. Only the people who were present there know what decietful plots we conjured to scare the rest away (wink wink!). It was hilarious, my eyes had started watering by the end.

Since, we had had enough of water and rains, we finally went back to the hostel.

11th- More Goodbyes. Then was time for some free pizzas and some free haircuts. (Grr… I’ll never trust the Loreal people with my hair again!) On our way back, our rusty old bike got punctured. Even just now, I laughed out loud recalling the way Lekhra was driving that bike! Imagine this, Lekhra sitting on the petrol tank driving the bike, with his usual Lekhra-sorta expression, Ricky sitting where the driver is supposed to be, carrying an utterly relaxed expression, singing songs or trying to tease us (we on the other bike) with some stupid roadside romeo remarks. Oh God! That was a scene!

The night was spent packing the room up. I was to leave next morning.

12th- More Goodbyes to some really dear ones, including some 4th yearites. Ah thats really a pain! Left Guwahati for home.

13th- My Day out with the kids! In the afternoon, when one of my neices, Aditi, came back from her school, discovering that I was home, she came running to me and gave me a tight hug. Pulled me to her bag, showed me her notebooks, art books etc etc. Then we went to my uncles house, met my grandma, and then my little 5 months old nephew, Krishna. I saw him for the first time! He is a really cute one. Starts laughing if people around him are laughing! Played with him for hours. Then I came back to home, and guess what! I found a note from my other neice, Ananya (elder sister of Aditi) saying “Bhua, jaldi ghar aayo” in her kiddish writing. Well, just to clarify, am not that old to be called Bhua already!!

14th – Preparations and Packings..

Met Ananya finally. Played with the two neices. Enjoyed home food and lots of mangoes..

15th- Packings and more Goodbyes. Left for Portugal. Met Shalabh and Divyanshu at the airport, so passing time was easy.

16th – My flight took off. Passenger next to me was an Aunty (atleast seemed so ) Spent the night watching Happy Feet on the small screen and otherwise sleeping. Reached Zurich airport, explored the airport, bought some duty-free chocolates (on special demand of my sis, who lent me the digicam only if I got her lots of chocolates!) Met an old friend, senior exactly. Almost missed my connecting flight to Lisbon. Those people are very punctual, why is that my mistake?

Reached Lisbon. And another amazing incident. While, waiting for my baggage to arrive, this Indian guy who was in the same flight, came up to me to ask whether I am an Indian too or not. And as it turns out, he was a Biotech Professor in IIT Kharagpur. Mera dimaag thanak gaya, I was like “yaha bhi IIT waale peecha nahi chodte!!”  ggrrr…

I had to wait 4 hours at the coach station for my coach, I could not go anywhere because of my heavy luggage. That was a looooonnnng wait. Finally the clock sruck 4:30 and I was on the coach. I had the frontmost place in it. It was the best Bus ride, I have had in my life! It was awesomely comfortable. Because of the frontmost seat, I had a great view through the windshield. The roads were smooth, not even a single Traffic Jam! I noticed the gear system of the bus was in form of a nob, not the big handle types. The kind we have for AC level control in our cars. The 3 hours journey was nice, the landscapes were beautiful, the cities seemed peaceful, every round about had a fountain or had interesting structures. Finally, reached Covilha, where my Professor was waiting for me at the coach station. He seemed sweet and yeah! he is old!

He took me to my accomodation. My room is a bit secluded from the rest of the hostel. I have to go past one door, where there are many locked doors, I donno what for, then past another door to what I call my block, has 4 rooms with shared kitchen with a microwave, hot-plate, refigerator; one of those rooms is mine. The room is almost the size of my IIT room, but with a bath. The professor asked me if I wanted to have dinner, but I was so tired because of my more than a day long journey that I told him that I just want to sleep right now..

Phew! I was finally in Portugal!

So now you know, what I did this summer!

On special request of some people, (more because i have a lot of free time here, wink! ), I am starting weekly journal of my adventures of this summer..

So here it goes..

My unspectacular quirks!

I have been tagged by Sadhwi

1. I have a  compulsive obsession with my  hair. I can play with my hair indefinitely without getting bored. Also, I get bored with my hairstyles within 6 months, after that a new hairstyle seems a necessity. I like experimenting with my hair.
2. Sometimes (more often than not) I take long hours bathing when I am at home (not in the matchbox baths here in hostel). I keep playing with water, blowing bubbles, singing, playing around, dancing in the shower!
3. I am immensely fascinated by the myriad genres of books. Whenever I enter a bookstore or a library, generally I scan the whole of it, reading titles and catching glimpses of them. Albeit my extreme desire to buy all the books, I always end up buying not even one! I am always confused about what to buy considering my limited resources (namely, money honey!)
4. I have these periodic sudden bursts of enthusiasm at times to stay in my computer lab. I stay there after classes till midnight for days and then I start hating the lab. Then, I do not visit my lab comp for weeks. And after 2 weeks, I am back to the lab for days.
5. I have this huge wall clock (not too huge as such, but still big for a hostel room) which I got from my home, only because I like the seconds hand. It does not go around in steps of seconds, rather makes continuous smooth circular rounds. No other reason (like not being late for exams or anything), just that. When no one here gets even a table clock, this wall clock of mine is like the grandfather’s clock.
6. When I am eating out with friends, I always have to do something stupid. I spill water, or food, or the salt, or the spoon or any combination or permutations of these. I swear, all of them are pure accidents. I do not ask for the attention!!

So, here are my unspectacular quirks (Finally, I completed! Phew!)

What do you have to say then?