and that was the best train trip of my life....

Travelling in a train which crosses the Swiss alps mostly in open air , gaining and then loosing 2000mtrs in the process and letting you travel through majestic glaciers, glacier mills and deep blue lakes. This is Bernina express experience!

Bernina express is one of the best panaromic trains in Switzerland and making a trip on it was once in a lifetime kind of experience. The train starts in Chur and crosses the Swiss alps and finally even crosses the Swiss border :P last halt for the train is Tirano in Italy. Borders in Europe are quite porous now with border controls removed (much like Indo-Nepal border). One recommendation, on board this train don't keep glued to yous seats, the best spot on the train is the slide-down window (sadly for which there is no reservation) but the cool breeze you can feel with the window down is what will give you real alps experience. Also pics come better with nothing in between your camera and its view ;-) .
On it's path the train crosses 55 bridges and 100+ tunnels. On board the public announcement system also keeps describing each place of interest as you pass it.
By crossing into Italian border I added one more country to my visited list (though don't know if its really counted :P). On the way back we took St. Moritz route. St.Moritz is a popular vacation spot in Swiss alps but not for people like me, it's ONLY FOR RICH PEOPLE and by rich I mean REALLY RICH. Otherwise it's not too exciting to see 5* hotels with ferraris and bentleys parked outside them :D

Last when I visited st moritz in 2006 it was in summers and we all enjoyed the beautiful lake. This time there was no lake, it was all frozen the place gets a total different look during winters, personally I liked the summer visit to St. Moritz(pic below is at St. Moritz during summer of 2006).

Finally again all the way upto zurich and then olten. A day where i spent 12 hrs in train but experience,one of the best of my life! Huge recommendation for anyone travelling to Switzerland. If u have only 1 day go on this train, u will see the type of Swiss u always wanted to see.

Tips for people planning traveling on  Bernina express:
(a)All your Eurail passes, Swiss rail passes are valid. You just need to pay reservation fees of Fr. 9.- per person.
(b)Tickets can be purchased online or from Swiss tourism sites
(c) From a tour manager on board i heard there is heavy rush during summers so make sure you make reservations well in advance during summers.

Reaching St. Moritz:
Train connections from Chur and Tirano.

Basel - tale of three countries

Basel is a Swiss city located at the point where Swiss border meets with French and Germany borders. Infact there are suburbs of Basel which are German and French hence its a city where just by walking down the lane you may end up reaching another country :-)

Situated on the bank of Rhine, Basel is a highly cosmopolitan city. City with a lot of lights, b'full fountains, hustling streets and splendid churches. City is a melting pot of different nationalities as the larger metropolitan area shares parts with three countries.



Quick fact for Tennis lovers: Basel is the home of Roger Fedrer (one of my fav Tennis players)

The Rhine river flows right through the city and is really b'full place to sit and relax on a summer evening. Other places of interest would be bahnof (train station), churches in the down-town or you may just wana spend few hours walking through the down-town or enjoying a drink at one of the restaurants.

Few lines about Basel train-station. Its self-proclaimed as "First international railway station of the world" i don't know how true that statement is but is definitely an impressive building.

So next time if you are curious how can one city have its suburbs spread over three countries and with almost no border controls may be you should visit Basel.


 How to Reach:
Air: air connection from all major airports of the world
Train: Frequent trains from Germany, France, Austria and Italy

"So why are you a vegetarian?"

"So why are you a vegetarian? because of your religion?"
When I am traveling outside India this is a question I often get from friends and colleagues in cafeteria queues as we wait to get the lunch. I think over years I have an coined an answer for this which is exactly the reason why I choose to be a vegetarian.
My response these days is "To start with yes, but now I choose to be a vegetarian because I view it to be a  better choice to make".

Before I describe briefly why I think its a better choice let me mention a surprising fact I came to know about countries in Europe. Increasingly there are more and more veggies here, I just quickly checked over the internet and found around 9% of Swiss population is veggie[1]. Definitely that can't be only because of "just the religion" because there are hardly any hindus here. So there are definitely some benefits of being a veggie because of which more and more people are interested in following this way of life.

I was born and brought up in a a veggie family and when I look back today I feel really lucky for that. However my up-bringing also ensured that I don't anything just because "its ought to be that way" and be dogmatic but was always encouraged to be able to reason out what is right and what is wrong. This later helped me re-assert is this really the right choice? and the answer was an over-whelming yes, for reasons as below:

(a) Being vegetarian has enormous health benefits. To point out just one "large-scale studies have shown that 'Mortality from ischemic heart disease was 24% lower in vegetarians than in nonvegetarians'" [2]
(b) To extend the basic moral rights to live to all living creatures and to not be the reason of animal deaths each morning you get up.
(c) Staying away from non-veg food helps my mind stay calm and negative energies like high-BP and anger under control (I know this is purely a personal thing but I feel it this way and a lot of experiences of people I have talked to/read about have been similar).


Now some miss-conceptions, veg diet lacks in certain ingredients which prevents brain development, ok but Albert Einstein was a veggie. Veg diet prevents you from being able to make your body strong, ok but several sports-persons and wrestlers are veggies, just 2 names Martina Navratilova (Tennis player), Sushil Kumar (2008-Olympic medal winner in wrestling). How to survive in west just on veggie diets? OK but as the link below shows some of the European countries have around 10% population vegetarian(and definitely not due to religious reasons) and trust me they survive really well :-)

There can be excuses for everything but what excuse can there be to be the reason for someone's death every-time you feel hungry? No excuse ever worked here for me.

Few famous veggies, who have been significantly successful in their profession  :-

          

The list is endless[3] and these are just few people whom I like personally. Definitely not alone right?

Being veggie is a choice I make because of these reasons and not because I am dogmatic.

And thats why I am a vegetarian :-)

1. http://www.euroveg.eu/lang/en/info/howmany.php
2. http://eatright.org/ada/files/veg.pdf
3. http://www.ivu.org/people/

An Education

Watched a b'ful movie "An Education" last evening. Really a well-made movie with a a simple storyline but which brought with it a breath of fresh air. Picturesque Britain of the 60s, a young school girl's struggle with options of the kind of life she wants to lead and then her self-discovery that life has no short-cuts. I recommend watching it for all of these...

International Women's day - What does it means for India....

March 8th, this is the day which is celebrated as the International Women's day(IWD) by some 66 countries every year. The intent behind celebrating this day has been to recognize and applaud women's economic, social and political achievements. This recognition and celebration is warranted urgently in a country like India, where women are yet to find an equal footing and level playing ground and to emerge as equals in a male chauvinist society. However what an irony this same day was marked today by new lows in Indian parliament culture where vulgar scenes were created on the floor of the house to high-jack the much awaited "Women's reservation bill". A day of celebration had turned into a day of shame for India.

Let me try to analyze few points here, firstly intent of the political parties who have been supporting this bill. Officially UPA, NDA and Left front all support this bill in its current form. Together this group forms well above 2/3rd majority in both the houses of parliament (which is required to make a constitutional amendment). However less than 10 MPs were able to prevent this huge majority from passing this immensely important bill. I am sorry but I don't think so. The intent of these parties are questionable, otherwise just compare, voting on motion of confidence (where the Lok Sabha is split into two) is managed remarkably, but a bill on which almost the whole parliament agrees doesn't gets through. I regret to say but clearly the intent is not honest.

There is a section of women in India who are of the opinion that they don't want this type of reservation which is given as a charity to them. This is the new face of modern Indian women, who are confident of their own abilities and want to get their rightful place but through their own efforts and not on a platter of reservation. These are also the women who know about IWD and celebrate it. However there are millions of others who face the trauma of domestic violence everyday, who at times are denied even the basic human rights.

In a country where women have to struggle even for the right to be born and where female foeticide is rampant, where some religious panchayat issues a fatwa ordering a rape victim to accept the rapist father-in-law as her husband and to treat her original husband as her son, where panchayats in Haryana pass draconian judgements everyday in their Khap panchayats the dream of gaining a rightful place looks like a distant mirage. Empowerment of women should happen and reservation for them in legislative bodies is the only way to do it.

We look westwards on a lot of things, but I feel how to give equal place in society is something which we should learn from western society. An ultra-conservative and male dominant society of early nineteen hundreds today gives their women an equal footing in every sphere of life and maintains social equilibrium. Such a shame that in our country instead of hailing the success of female icons like Sania Mirza, people make issue of her skirt on tennis court.

Imagine the economy of a country as a horse cart where men form wheel-1 of the cart and women form wheel no-2. Now suppose I tie wheel no-2 to an iron pole with chains, while wheel-1 is free and horse is ordered to start pulling the cart. What do you think will happen? the cart will keep going in circles around the pole without being able to make any progress. Now imagine I untie wheel-2 but lock it at the axle such that it  can't rotate, what do u think will happen now? Though it would appear while the horse is pulling the cart that both the wheels are moving with it but actually wheel-2 would be experiencing severe tension at the axle and will finally come-off after few miles of journey, thereby bringing the whole cart to a grinding halt. This is the condition of Women rights in India, where rights given are a mere facade without honest intent.

Ideal solution for the cart of country's growth and economy to move forward is to have both the wheels free to rotate. Since wheel-2 has remained tied for centuries it requires some oiling before it can rotate at its best and the reservation bill is that oil. However what a pity political parties have locked the oil in a locker, have deliberately hidden the key and now all of them are pretending to search for it. Its time women of this country break open the locker.

I sincerely hope by the 101st IWD next year this bill is passed and the 14-year-long "vanvaas" is ended. There is no way a country can prosper and have high welfare index with 50% of its population not having political, social and economic empowerment.

Free person in a Free country

Today's three headlines, though geographically separated but they are connected:
(a) Amazon.cn censoring the offerings on its China retail website in order to comply with Chinese laws.
(b) MF Hussain still un-willing to return to India, considering Qatar citizenship. Indian govt said full security to be given if he decid...es to return.
(b) Riots in various cities of Karnataka after Taslima Nasreen's article about burqa appears in a local daily.

Freedom of thought and speech should not be negotiable at any cost. I am sure every Indian wants to live as a free person in a free country and not in a country like China where govt or some organization decides what you can read and what you can't. Its personal choice and logical debate is the way out if there are any differences in opinion.
This is how our founding fathers dreamt our country to be:


"Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high;
Where knowledge is free;
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments
by narrow domestic walls;
Where the words come out from the depth of truth;
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection;
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way
into the dreary desert sand of dead habit;
Where the mind is led forward by Thee into ever-widening
thought and action--
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father,
let my country awake." - Guru Rabindranath Tagore

short day trip to Zurich

Date: 27/Feb/2010


Olten(on-board train to Zurich) 11:25am

Nice bright and sunny day in Olten. Had planned to leave for Zurich at 9:00am but ended up leaving only at 11:15am (slept last night at 03:45am).
Would reach Zurich in about 30 mins, looking forward to such nice weather in Zurich too.


Zurich 12:25am 

What an awesome weather!
B'full city of Zurich, quickly collected the tourist maps from the tourist center at the train station. Decided to see ETH first, then walk through the old town and finally be at Lake Zurich.
Heading to ETH now.
 
Lake Zurich 2:00 pm

Walked upto ETH, its quite a walk(as ETH is located at a considerable height) but is worth it. The view of the city from the view-point at ETH is just spectacular.

 

After that thought of taking a tram to the lake, but got into the wrong tram(it was going towards the Zoo instead). Got back and instead stuck to the original plan of walking through the old city upto the lake.

I have seen most of the churches, gardens and buildings during my previous trips to the city, so didn't go there again. However if you are in the city for the first time, it makes sense to see all of them, they are fabulous.

The weather is b'full today (I know I am saying it for the third time now :P ). There is quite a crowd at the lake. so now I would have my sandwich and relax for sometime here.



Train(on the way back to Olten) 4:00pm

Sat near the Zurich lake for close to one hour. Its a really relaxing place to sit. Its quite crowded during a sunny weekend afternoon but the crowd doesn't feels like a crowd. It appears everyone is just looking at the lake and the b'full ice-caped mountains and beyond. Quite a get-away from daily work life.

 My camera ran out of battery so I decided to head back may be an hour earlier than what I had originally planned. Afterall what is the use of sight-seeing, if you can't capture the moments to share them later with your friends and yourself, right? And anyways I have one month pass so would visit Zurich again soon.

 Zurich HB(the main train station) is one of the busiest railway station I have seen. the whole complex has close to 70 platforms apart from connection with city tram and buses.

 At Zurich station you are most certain to come accross a lot of strangely dressed rebel teenages. Like this gentleman and his g/f who are sitting opposite me in the train. He is dressed like a devil, with long black leather jacket, black hood, and lost of metal all over. The scariest are his metal nails... :P. His g/f is also dressed similarly, black dress, umpteen number of peircings and metal all over the body. And what are they doing now?
 Drinking beer in their special raw ivory cups, which seems they have travelled on a time machine and have got from stone age :D

Oops I think the lady figured out I am talking about her, she just came across and is now sitting right opposite me. Those metal nails look really nasty, I better shut-up now....


 How to Reach Zurich?
By Air: Connections from most of the countries across the world.
By Train: Zurich is centrally located in Europe and has connections from most of the major cities in Germany, France, Austria and Italy.

Places to visit:

ETH
The three famous churches in downtown
Downtown
Opera house
Bahnhofstrasse (paradise for shoppers)
Lake
Zurich Zoo
Chinese Garden
Botanical Garden