The Skellefteå days

I have been Skellefteå for over two weeks now and in the short duration I have already witnessed the good and bad of its weather. Good being 20C, sunny, cool breeze coming from Skellefteå river and bad being overcast, rainy and damp. It is a small city with city-center, picturesque landscapes and woods all in close vicinity. When you come from India, a place buzzing with gazillions of people, lot of garbage dumped everywhere and to click a photo with beautiful surrounding most of the times one would need to travel few miles at least but the western world with its cleanliness, neatness and planned roads overwhelms you, at times so much so that you open the door and it makes you wanna click photos.
We have been put up in a place called Stiftsgården in a shared accommodation, can't be called a lavish arrangement but we have adjusted well. The place has some history associated with it, one of its buildings is the oldest construction in city and it is in middle of complex belonging to city's biggest church and graveyard. It is not far from my work-place and city center, makes it easy to cycle to both places every day. The conditions have been suiting well to me with cycling adding the zing to daily routine. We are in all a group of eleven people here and all of same age-group so helped in connecting well. In the two weeks, we have been to a beach, a lake and hiked to a rocky mountain top apart from daily explorations on the bike.
This is end of summer here in North Sweden, so people are in general celebration mood, they have had their vacations, been to beaches and charged themselves enough under the Sun. Pretty soon they have to prepare themselves for the ugly side of weather, the harsh winter. All summer there have been various events held in and around city making it a worthwhile tourist destination this time around the year. For past four days there was a food festival on. It is mainly showcasing the food from this part of world specialty being Reindeer meat and Solomon fish. A special note should be made for couple of Thai food vendors; sadly they were too selling non-veg food. Though I am a big foodie, being vegetarian my options had been really limited, out of fifty odd shops I could try only couple of things. Still the whole experience has been quite good also as it helped me check out Swedish girls. In the nights there was a band performing which used to get the whole neighborhood alive. Young hearts of all ages thronged the place in dead nights and danced under the tents and at times sing with the band.
Five more weeks to go and many things around Skellefteå, I hope to have more enriching experiences.
Few tips if you are travelling to Skellefteå:
* If travelling in Aug-Oct, carry an umbrella and a rain-coat.
* It would be handy to carry a cap to cover your ears and hand-gloves.
* For vegetarians, Max burgers offers veggie-burger, also you could get Falafels and veg burgers at other local vendors and of course there is subway with couple of pure veg products.
* Bikes are probably the best ways to move around in Skellefteå, you should be able to rent it for around 50SEK/day.

Different Worlds

Vow, a lot of big events have happened in my life in last couple of months than last two years, I got possession of my house in Pune, I switched job, left Coriolis to work with Tieto and now I am visiting Sweden for seven weeks on official assignment. Though I had booked the flat for quite some time now, but getting the possession has changed lot of parameters, full EMI payments are being deducted from my account, a lot of money just vanishes in fixing little things in house and yeah this flat has made me a land-lord as well :-).
Tieto has been a quite a different experience, I spent four and half years at Coriolis, a twelve people strong company, but Tieto has offices possibly in each continent with more than seventeen thousand employees all over the world. The challenges for both the companies are quite different creating very different cultures and processes. Both of these things have caused subtle changes in my life but being in Sweden has had a direct impact on my lifestyle although for a short while only.
I am currently in Skellefteå, a small city even compared to Swedish standards with a population around 32k, and it is a very quiet place. But, like the whole of western world, it is well equipped with most luxuries of life. I have stayed in USA for few months and though back home when we might feel whole of western world is same, within a week I could spot lot of distinctions between the two places. US is more multi-cultured, it is very easy to spot Indians, Chinese, Koreans, Mexicans, Africans and of course Whites and natives. You can find Indian grocery shop and Indian restaurants on each corner and if you are (un)lucky you can catch Himesh Reshammiya performing live in concert. On the other hand, I did not find as many different races or colored people here in Sweden. Also, Indian food is kind of alien here. There are some products available in super-market offering Indian taste but they are all made in Britain and I am quite sure they must be lowered a lot in spices to comfort the western-stomachs so the purist that I am, I don't buy them instead preferring to settle for the native falafel :-)
Other big difference is language, it is not guaranteed here that everybody here would be fluent in English actually it is easy to bump in to people who know hardly any English. All the signboards are in Swedish though the script is Roman but the words are very different; their length and heavy usage of umlauts make them difficult to read and remember. In general I found people very friendly, relaxed and at leisure. In US, I used to see more cars and hardly any people. Definitely cars were shinier in US and you needed to get on freeways more often. Here bike-lanes are very well developed and highways are not as big. I must admit, I found US more political there is some charge, stress about US that is missing here. Of course being Europe and that too countryside, this place is more picturesque. I am not sure if this phenomenon is all over Sweden or it is limited to Skelleftea but lot of people here move around on cycles and even I am given one.
Alright folks this is it for now, I am hoping to check out more of Skellefteå and Sweden and possible other parts of Europe during next six weeks if things fall in place. bfn.

LSD: Life, Success and Desires

You want tons of things in life, probably everything that you see around or ever dreamed off. But, what you want and what you get is rarely in sync, the happy case would be to get what you want or get more than that; sadly for most of us this does not happen often and even in the happy case we eventually get over it and in a while something else catches attention. Thus, life keeps on moving and we are almost always running after something. Also, all things come in packaged deals, you see benefit in something but overlooked the side-effects of it. So, first you struggle to achieve something and at times after getting what you want, you struggle with the unwanted features you got.

But, do people really attain Nirvana and move out from this rat-race (is it a rat-race??), ofcourse I have heard such people exist but not really met anyone in person, a person who has grown over all his desires, all the beautiful things life has to offer. I have seen many people who have been defeated by the pressures of pursuits and stopped going after what they want or some be afraid of failures, don't strive to achieve their wishes.

This brings me to think how to be happy? Does happiness has a relationship with success? In that case, how do you define success?

Clearly, by abjecting your desires, you leave less complicated life but that is not happy life. The path to happiness goes through fulfilling your desires. But, of-course when I say desires, I find it foolish to include desires that could be anti-social or for that matter which could be harmful to you in the long run, like the habit of excessive alcohol consumption or smoking. Most of us have heard success is a journey and not a destination but few mis-interpret it and think success is all about the fun along the ride without caring for the destination. Those people would be surprised by the destination they reach. But, it also does not mean that you just keep on running from one achievment to other. I intentionally changed the word to achievement in last sentence because success for me is not one journey to some destination, it is the amalgamation of all the desires and journeys along them. So, success for me would be, you dream for something and you put efforts to achieve it, did you enjoy pushing yourself and finally did you end up where you wanted to be? After which, the cycle completes and you move on to the next level in life.

Pelican Brief

Long time back, I had read John Grisham's The Firm and was really impressed by his story telling, then I got to know his books are always centered around law. Mukul recommended me Pelican Brief which is also a thriller on the similar lines but fairly different story. The start might appear a bit slow but it quickly grips a fair pace. There are enough twists and turns to keep one engaged with couple of incidents that stun you in disbelief.
The protoganist is a a twenty four year old female law student who prepares a report charging a powerful individual with the murder of two Supreme Court judges and this report sends jitters in White House and all across America which causes the girl to run for her life while seeing dead bodies falling all around her. Author has also given interesting inside accounts of how things work in power-houses and in press-rooms. The climax is a bit elaborate and though in final 15 odd pages there are no more surprises in this suspense thriller but each paragraph is thoroughly enjoyed and relieves the mind of all the tension built up all along. Certainly, a highly recommended read.
The book has been adapted in a movie with the same name starring Julia Roberts and Danzel Washington but I am not very optimistic with the movie because movies seldom do justice to the original story.

Godfather

Last weekend, I licked up the novel whose story has been one of the most famous stories in our times, re-told over and over again in several languages and via different mediums, well I am talking about The Godfather. Over the years, many of us might have seen its movies adaptations as in The Godfather, Velu Nayankan, Dharmatma, Sarkar or even Rajniti. I haven't yet seen Godfather the film but of all the other's I reckon only Sarkar could exhibit a higher level of terror. But, one should read the original novel to believe me when I say that nobody could match the ferociousness of novel. Mario Puzo has put in few sequences quite explicitly which could be disturbing at times. But, one should not mistake it for some psycho details, the whole of book is high class writing.
The central character of the book is Don Corolene who is king of New York underworld, more respected than feared. His journey from a simple, smart family man to a shrewed, cold-blooded gangster. Equally important is his son, Michale, a college professor who although being miles away from mafia world gets involved with it under extra-ordinary circumstances. There few other characters and their transformation in behaviour and values have been beautifully worded. All in all a must read novel very engaging and a classic.

Dead Poets Society

Starring Robin Williams Dead Poets Society is a story of an un-orthodox teacher trying to revive the consiousness of students which is long crushed under the age old schooling methodology. When the movie started it gave me impressions if it is going to be on the lines of Mohabbatein but with Robin Williams' entry I thought it's going to be like Taare Zameen Par, well that's me trying to look beyond the picture. I immidieatly gathered myself back and continued with the movie, somwhere it felt like Three Idiots and ending in Munnabhai style.
All said and done, the story does not have drastically new to offer but having seen enough movies and world in general somewhere emphasis is less on story than the way it is told and on that account DPS scores full marks.
The crux of the story is about a new teacher on the block trying to challange the established norms, creating a reformed group of followers, consequences of young, restless mind and prejudice of society. The interesting aspect of movie is its theme revolves around poetry. The teacher helps students to come out of own imagined fears and think beyond which is how poetry should be treated. It has to be fantacy, it should make you fly and not be prisoned by the practicality or the physics laws. On the whole a very good movie, a must watch.

Jaane bhi do yaaro

As the curtains are drawn on the year's biggest entertainment extravaganza, the action does not seem to stop any time soon. IPL's growth has been phenomenal not only it has attracted the best talent from all quarters but also conjured the best possible resources. But, a rise which could be any organization's envy has been coupled with some or the other controversy right from the start. In the first year it was dressing up of cheer-leaders, the second IPL being played in foreign country to guard against any untoward incident but could not escape the wrath of a certain self-claimed impersonator. But, third edition of tournament has beaten all the previous records, started with upsetting our beloved neighbour but towards the end brought large chunks of Indian high-flyer to ground.
If there is one person who is to be credited with IPL's success it can only be Lalit Modi, IPL has been in totality is his baby with him making more appearance than even Sachin Tendulkar. In my view, what Steve Jobs is to Apple likewise Modi is to IPL.
It is now amply clear that IPL's behind the scenes deals are as murkier as it could get. The latest controversy which has been on for over three weeks now has engulfed Shashi Tharoor, a decent but naive politician, Lalit Modi, N Shreenivasan, owner of CSK, Prafulla Patel and scores of other businessmen and politicians where each one swearing in the name truth to be on the right side of law but all of us have fair idea about everyone's position.
Seeing all this drama, what immediately comes to my mind is Jaane bhi do Yaaro, a dark comedy about the Indian political scenario. What we are witnessing now must be climax of film where a suitable deal is being worked out that takes care of all the deal-makers interest abjuring to any type of ethics. I wonder among all this falling off how difficult it is to build large organizations without any serious allegations around it. I think it is a herculean of a task of creating something like Tatas anyways that would be a completely separate topic.