... pre-"Mo": middle-aged maniac-on-wheels & "Boudi" to the rescue!

There was a green-man at the other end of the street.
We were all crossing from one end to the other...
I had gone on a little further ahead of the others,
Too far ahead to have seen exactly what had happened.
But, then... in quick succession:
a. the sound of brakes...

b. Bang!
c. Thud!

"Shu-mone!"...
[Car accident!]
My brother was on the ground...

With his head right next to one of the front-wheels of the car!
I took me a little longer than I would've liked

To actually assess exactly what had happened.
In fact, I think all of us were kind of 'frozen' with horror at that point...
All except Minha ("Boudi") [For the uninitiated: Boudi=Bhabi; in case of any further queries, please revert back to me].

By mixing and matching what I had seen

With what had actually happened,
We get:
The car hadn't stopped completely at the red-light and rolled along past the dotted white line...
All the way onto the striped white lines!
And that is where the brakes came in.
'Bang!' was when my brother was hit on the knee, and
The 'Thud!' soon after was when he fell -
Elbow hits car-bonnet, body follows suite! :-(

Now,

If this was good ol' Kolkata, right or wrong, the driver would've been dragged out of his car, collar-first, and given a proper 'dholai' he wouldn't forget as long as he lived...

(If he lived!).
But, of course,

We were still in London...

Fortunately, it was Minha to the rescue!
By this time, my brother had made a semi-recovery from the accident; it was a lucky 'escape' for him!

The good thing was that Boudi was in 'Durga'-esque form and gave the 'not-so-gentle'-man more than just a piece of her mind!

The man, apparently in his fifties,

did not think it wise to stick around and face the consequences - :-(

As soon as the lights turned green,
He was no longer to be seen!
But, Boudi noted down his number (car/plate),
Before he left the scene... :-)

Police.
Statements.
Unfortunately, we couldn't file an official complaint because of

The 'lack of any visible physical wounds or gashes'

(Thank goodness for that!).

However, the cops did reassure us that they would definitely take action.

We would like to think that the man behind the wheel was at least stopped and warned.

------------------------------------------------------------------
Therefore, boys and girls,

... (on a lighter note) We can conclude by saying that...
One must 'always' look both ways before crossing the road :-)

pigeons, horses & "Mo"...

[Photo: Thames by night]

"My trip to London was a blast!," is what I told Abhishek when we got talking...
And, in response, he said, "Oh, that's nothing... During my trip to London, there was a blast!"
[Prolonged silence...]

No, but seriously - I had fun! :-)
Met almost everyone who was on my list (yes, :-( ... I actually had one), ate plenty of good food (burp!) and watched a 3D-movie ("The Polar Express") at the I-MAX just outside Waterloo station! And I even managed to pull one over the British Government - I travelled without a ticket from Zone 4 to Zone 1!! :-) [International "Khiladi"!]

Did any of you know that the pigeons have completely disappeared from Trafalgar Square? I was a little disappointed but, the way I heard it was that: some important people (after receiving complaints from many other important people) thought that they should 'relocate' these 'rats' of Central London so that they could blah-blah the blah the blah-blah. Apparently, the daily clean-up effort after the pigeons 'did-their-thing' was getting way too expensive...

I suddenly had this image of all the "Trafalgar-pigeons" being put into this high-security facility; they would have to get through a mandatory, intensive 'toilet-training' programme, which would end in a certification exam of some sort (in order to benchmark their new-found skills) before they could make their way back into the open... something like the Java training we had in Chennai when we joined the company ;-)

But, I did see one though - maybe it was 'the-one-that-got-away'! :-)

On Saturday night, we had walked down to China Town from Leicester Square, for an advanced "Mothers' Day"- dinner-celebration. But Mo, our waitress at the Golden Dragon was in no mood to 'celebrate'. Something had ticked her off severely earlier in the evening; I tried to analyse the possible causes... but then, the food was so good that I dropped the idea soon after :-)

Returning to Holland on Sunday was... heartbreaking, in a way. I guess, if I'm still here for a while, I might make another trip to the UK [If I can afford it!].

Meanwhile, back in Breda, my problems at the Amgen-canteen continued. After 3 weeks in The Netherlands (the 'low-lying' lands), I have realized that the Dutch eat most things that move... after they've stopped moving that is. And the tags next to each item are always in Dutch! So... one has to be particularly careful during lunch-hour... :-(

Just thought you should know - horse-meat is a little tough, but very tasty nevertheless! :-))

... conversation with a cabbie/ en route to Rotterdam airport

Another day, another cab-driver; this guy was Czech but he was born in Poland (or was it the other way round?) from where he migrated some years ago to the Netherlands. Net result? Well, to start with, he can't speak English... and apparently he doesn't even know any Dutch! We communicated via animated hand-movements and through the use of certain "key"-words. Here are excerpts from our 'cave-men-like' conversation, five minutes into our trip:

Cabbie: ... Mama-Papa... Czech.... I Poland... you? (inquisitive expresson)
Me (taking a leaf out of his book): Me? India... Mama-Papa... India also... (smiling/beaming in fact!)
Cabbie: [He's trying to ask me what on Earth I'm doing here]
Me: (trying to tell him that I'm here on a short-term onsite assignment is not a good idea at this point, so...) I... (pointing at myself)... Holland (pointing out the window)... holiday... then, back (hand-movement)... India ("Comprende?")
Cabbie: [He got it...] (smiles)

We seemed to have a couple of things in common - we were both working a fair distance away from home, and neither of us knew Dutch... :-)

Our (rather painful, yet challenging) conversation continued in the same vein for a while, until I finally reached. Thankfully, he had understood the first thing that I told him when we met - "Rotterdam Airport".

Before we left, we exchanged the names of our villages and promised to send each other smoke-signals from time to time...
[Ok, I admit... bad joke. :-( ]
---- ---- ----- ----
I was travelling to London, to spend the weekend with family and friends. :-)

from Bangla to Breda...

Friday, 10th March, 2006 (wasn't home for my parents' anniversary) :-(
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Jack was waiting in front of Burger King at Sciphol Airport, even before my KLM flight from Paris had touched down on Dutch soil. Amsterdam wasn’t exactly welcoming me with open arms – it was freezing cold and overcast; it had rained all morning and even my luggage wasn’t spared. Things were taking longer than expected – by the time my soggy suitcase made its way towards me on the conveyor belt, a good 45 minutes had already passed; Jack called Saby and Saby kept trying my number… but my SIM card was safely tucked away in a small compartment in my wallet. Meanwhile, My parents were worrying (as expected) back in ‘Incredible India’ (http://www.indiatourism.org/) [:-)]. Finally, all the finger-nail chewing and confusion was put to rest after I bought a calling card and made a few phone calls. By the time I hung up the receiver, a plump, middle aged Dutchman had stationed himself behind me.
“Are you Soo-rav?”
“Jack?”
He smiled.

According to Jack it was “rather warm right now” – the temperature had risen to around 4 degrees Celsius. Not that it made much difference to me… I was sh-sh-shivering as soon as we were out of the airport. In a few minutes, we were cruising down the highway towards Breda. Jack has a whopping 2,569 (?) CDs and DVDs at home – arguably one of the largest collections on the planet? Some of them are also in English (such as the “Ring of the Lords”!).

Kolkata to Mumbai.
Mumbai - Paris.
Paris - Amsterdam
And then...

Breda. My final destination. I learnt later that this town was named after the river that once flowed through it. However, when the folks here started building the place, they decided that it should flow along its outer periphery. So they did some digging and stuff… and soon enough, the river was re-routed and everyone here was happy. They celebrated this by wearing weird, colourful clothes and drowning themselves in gallons of beer (hic!). Then… many many years later (read: now), perhaps out of sheer boredom, they decided that the river should once again flow right through the town, or rather, across it. So… they did some digging and stuff… and… well, they’re still digging…

Picked up Saby and Antara from Amgen’s Lego-building (my workplace for the present) and had lunch at the 'main-building'. Jack dropped us off at Veemarkstrat and Antara showed me the way to our apartment. It’s a fairly big place, although the design is rather peculiar to say the least. After a while, I was on my own, left to ‘settle down’ during the rest of the day. The gentleman who had last occupied what was now my room was… a pig! Maintenance would not be here till the weekend ended and that was simply too late. The rest of the afternoon was spent fishing out underwear, socks, cigarette packets and a variety of other garbage from the various corners of the room. Eventually, I found the vacuum cleaner. By the time the room was ‘somewhat inhabitable’, I was dead-tired.
Bath.
Nap…

As I tucked myself in, several thoughts crossed my mind simultaneously; I was homesick and relieved at the same time. This trip was really a bit of a surprise. The week that had just gone by was one of the busiest in recent times. The weeks ahead would be full of new challenges. I thanked Mom, Dad and my stars... 'cos everything had gone smoothly thus far... and dozed off soon after…

Oh and by the way... Happy Holi!

[Pic: 'Cognizant in Breda' - Suvendra, Saby, Sourav and Antara]