Art?

An artist in New York is having an exhibition of photos that'd remind us all of bio lab in school. Its called "Product Dissections", and is basically photos of toothpaste tubes cut up, and pinned...

The logic behind it? According to the artist, "Toothpaste lent itself to be a perfect starting point, because the extremity of its marketing these days has gone into bizarre realms of colors and flavors to attract the new consumer with the bright and shiny and the new and improved. The tubes are also quite anatomical."

Good to see someone trying something different, and trying to make statement against over-hypey 'product innovations' that mean nought, but if this is art then I am Michaelangelo and Monet put together :)

Img (c) Erik Boker.

Khuda Jaane...

... ke yeh locations kahaan hain!

Saw a Hindi film, Bachna Ae Haseeno.

Film borders on the bearable. But mainly because of the excellent locations. All I wanted to know at the end was the list of locations. Especially ones within Italy, and therefore a 4-8 hour train ride from me :), where the songs were shot.

Switzerland's GoldenPass Panoramic train, I've been on. Rome (the entire Pantheon, Piazza Navona bit) of course. Venice (Piazza San Marco and the canals) , really obvious too. What about all the rest?

This film makes me realise I haven't seen so much in this country yet!

Question

Q: What connects a person from coastal Karnataka (India) and a person from Haute-Savoie (France)?

A: The way they say 'Yes'. Vay Vay*

:)

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* Oui is almost pronounced as 'Vay' , or 'why' up in the Alps :)

A year ago...

... (by the Hindu calendar) on this day, Ganesh Chaturthi, I was in Bombay. Like every year, last year too, I visited different relatives who had installed a Ganpati in their houses. But unlike any other year, I was hurrying from place to place. Because my bags were packed for my first ever step out of India.

As a pukka Bombaywalla, I probably love Ganpati more than any other festival... probably because of all the family and friends you get to meet over the 9 days. (Last year especially, that was a big plus. Being able to say goodbye to a bunch of people at one go, as opposed to having to go to each one's house indivudually is a huge blessing -- in Bombay, atleast!)

352 days, and counting... this is the longest I have been away. Ganpati Bappa Morya! ( whatever happened to my pudhchya varshi laukar ya? )

Chamonix, and the UTMB

Just got back from Chamonix last evening.

On a single trip lasting 4 days, I:

1. Volunteered at Europe's toughest marathon -- 2300 people running a 166 kms, with over 9000 mtrs of elevation changes ! The line between dedication and madness is certainly thin :)
2. Saw this unique corner of the world where people of three nationalities (Italian, French, Swiss) share the same mountains. -- A 'Frenchman' from Chamonix is likely to feel closer to an 'Italian' from Courmayeur (25 kms away), than to a Parisian, for instance. Truly awesome experience.*
3. Ate tons of awesome food -- the croissants at the Patisserie Richard are to die for, and the less one drools over all the cheeses the better.
4. Trekked to a glacier -- the Mer de Glace. Other nimbler, alpine-shoe-equipped people took an hour and a half; I took 2 hrs 45 mins with my Bubblegummers!
5. Took a cable car to a point 3864 metres above sea level -- and experienced snowfall for the first time. Some demented souls took off from that point with their skis and alpine equipment. I wisely took the cable car back down!
6. Had long chats with Kevin, a British writer, who once interviewed Lord Mountbatten.
7. Walked through a pitch dark forest -- and ended up befriending Pete, a sailor from England who'd spent the previous 12 days trekking all the way from Zermatt in Switzerland to Chamonix.
8. Met more British people than I've ever met before - and was told on atleast three occasions, by various surprised Englishmen, that " You speak English so well!". I'm still wondering why it surprises them that the natives now speak the Queen's English better than they do :)

All in all, to say that it was a wonderful experience would be the height of understatement. The pictures, both from the UTMB, and my own wanderings, are up here.

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* For instance, as soon as you enter the northernmost region (state) of Italy, called Valle d' Aosta, all road signs are in both French and Italian. Roads are called Via- Rue XYZ. Towns have names like Pont St. Martin.

Europe on a shoestring? Try dental floss!

Last week, as I was packing bags for Chamonix, my classmates decided to head to Switzerland on an impulse (my wicked influence at work???). Which is all very good, except that Switzerland is expensive to begin with, and last minute bookings = no savings.

A ticket for a 3 hour train journey from Milan to Geneva (19 EUR each way if you book a couple of weeks in advance) costs 45 EUR if you book a day before leaving. And, not being price-watching Sindhis, my friends went ahead and booked too!

Add to this a Swiss Pass (EUR 141 for 4 days unlimited travel by train, boat, and bus), and food and stay, and these guys were all set for atleast a 300 Euro phatka.

Enter yours truly.

I love picking up anything in print, and end up saving it like a pack-rat, so I had a zillion SBB brochures from the May trip.

Hidden deep in a corner of a map was a funny bit of info. SBB has two panoramic trains (covered in the Swiss Pass) that don't quite end in Switzerland. The Glacier Express that ends in Chamonix Mont Blanc (France), and the William Tell Express that ends in Chiasso, Italy.

As it happens, Chiasso is an hour (and a mere 4.2 Euros) away by regional train from Milan. So, if you're buying a Swiss Pass anyway, it technically kicks in from Chiasso.

It sounds too good to be true, but my friends tried it (and saved 90% on tickets!).

Now I'm thinking... I saved 240 ( 3 * 2 * 40) Euros by reading a brochure... I would do well in the travel business, what say?

Am I still a vegetarian?

Serves me right for not reading ingredient lists more closely.

Today, I just felt like having a Piadina Romagnola ( a roti-like bread from the Emilia Romagna region in Italy), so I went off to the supermarket to buy some.

I've never bought any in the past, though I certainly have eaten the odd piadina at friends' homes (my friends eat these every day -- simpler than making rotis, certainly). Anyway. One of the brands in the supermarket had ingredients listed in English too, and one of the ingredients was -- lard (called 'strutto', or 'strutto di suino' -- swine's lard -- in Italian).

Swine. i.e. pig. Sheesh!

While I'm not exactly throwing up (what's done, is done after all), it makes me wonder how many other times I have consumed something non-vegetarian unknowingly. And whether I am technically a vegetarian any more.

Must certainly read ingredient lists more carefully from now on!

Chrome

Just got back from Mont Blanc, to some rather unexpected news. Google launched a browser called Chrome. (Thanks for the update, U).

Well, till they don't release an Ubuntu version, that's the last you'll hear about it from me!

(Seriously G, what's with releasing only Windows versions of everything at first?)