learning swiss italian culture!!

visa power

2009-05-02T10:11:00.000-07:00

It used to be the caption of the Visa credit card advertising in India "I've got the visa power". With the credit crunch, I am not very certain of this, but the other visa allowing one to travel is indeed a power. Life had been kind to me, as I got my visas very easily so far, and I mean until recently. From India to go to the US, and from US, to come to Switzerland.

Of course, I belong to a generation which started experiencing the most changes in the US visa policy. Firstly, following the unfortunate events in 2001, the drop-box policy changed to visa interview policy. Then the visa interview format changed from a simple "get it or get away" approach to that of maintaining a long drawn soap opera suspense. People with advanced scientific degrees may need an additional screening which may take months at a time. Some of my Indian friends had this trouble when they went to renew their visa in the middle of PhD. Poor them, firstly the fact that they needed a visa renewal is not pleasant, because this means their PhD needed more than 5 years. And on top of it, they were put on hold for over 2 months. What could they do, they were exactly on the other side of the planet earth, with a small lead of 12 hours in the time zone, but a long wait nevertheless. They waited, waited, and finally when they felt they may not have such a long break again, they got married. Nice ha?? I hope this is not a racket between the visa officers in Chennai and the local marriage bureaus in India.

When it was my turn for extending my sweet PhD period, I was at an interview as well. When I heard of interview, I went very well dressed, with polished shoes even. Well, I stopped there. Some others were so scared of the US interview that they were crying in front of the officer, at which point the officer was suggesting that they should practice yoga, breathing and all that .. .. ! Well, to my surprise the officer could only see upto my waist from the glass window she was behind. "What's your work useful for?", she asked. "Nothing", I replied sharply without any hesitation. "No, it must be useful for some science, some application?" "not really", I said. She asked me one more time and this time I replied "look at this point you almost make me feel bad that my work is not really useful for anything, but that's the sad truth". She was convinced and I got my visa, (or missed my window of opportunity for getting married??).

Recently, after moving to Switzerland, I had to apply for a US visa again. This time I decided to give the same answers, but unfortunately the questions were different, with even a special application form just for men. I was a little concerned about the privacy content of the questions until I read them all :). And finally the officer said we put your visa on a casual hold which may take up to months. That was 2 months ago and I still have not heard from them. hmm.

Now compare it to the Swiss visa. I had to give all my information to my university after accepting my job. After 2 months of processing at the Swiss consulate, the papers finally reached Mumbai. I had to go there to pick up my visa. Upon entering the country, I had to obtain a work permit, which again took 2 months of processing. At least I could stay in the country and work while I waited for it. I thought all of these delays in the Swiss work permit were for security reasons. A friend of mine who also applied for a work permit with me did not get it even after 2 months of wait. When he enquired, they said "look, we do not have it. Either we sent it to you and it was lost in the mail or we sent it to the printing office where it is processed". "Either, OR?" for such an important document. He asked if he could get the phone number of this printing office. And their response was that there is no phone in the printing office. Really? I do not understand what's happening. They were not even sure whether they sent it or not, and they mention this strange printing office which probably does not even exist. Now I know the delays are not due to security, but more due to a laid back life style in Switzerland.

Thankfully, as an Indian citizen, I do not need a visa for going back home. Otherwise I wonder how much of delays I can expect from my sweet very well relaxed home country. Anyway, although the hold on my US visa application was a disappointment, I had my fun counting the number of Indians, to be specific south Indians outside the consulate. After I saw 6 of us south Indians among the 25-30 people lined up outside the consulate in Bern, I was pretty sure that if I am really desparate for finding a south Indian person, I just have to look for them outside the local US consulate, whichever part of the world I am in.

open sesame !

2009-03-06T05:05:00.000-08:00

Coming late in the evening from a long day's work, the last thing I want to think is mathematics, however simple it might be. "If I have two keys on my key bunch, what is the chance that I pick the wrong key?", I struggle with the dim intellect left at the odd hour of the day. Common sense tells me that I have a respectable fifty percent chance of getting right, although things never worked this way, when I have to pick my key for opening the door. As one of my Professors used to comment, common sense is not so common. So, I end up struggling with keys. Life did not appreciate much even though I added a marker on one of the keys recently, as I do not remember if the marker was for the home key or not.

In the US, and in India I used keys with multiple levers carved on them (picture to the right). More the levers, better the security of your lock. While in Switzerland, the keys are more trendy with laser engravings (picture to the left). (Do not rush to duplicate the Swiss key image, I got it from the web, it's not my key). An observation which took me a while is that in the US, no one can get locked inside a house. This is probably a feature with that owes its origin to the way the US judicial system works, which under appropriate conditions endows any individual, even a thief, the right to sue the landlord for security reasons. On the other hand, in Switzerland, the door is closed from inside with the key, which means one can get locked inside the apartment as well. I still remember the first night of my stay in Switzerland. By mistake, I was given the key to a room that was already occupied by someone. And the reception was closed before I realized this! The gentleman occupying the room with was kind enough to offer some space in his room, but I had to hold on to my key all night just for my own security in the new country. And in India, where most doors still use the latch system with a pad-lock on it, the door can be locked from both the sides. That's right, if someone locks you inside a room, you could express your protest by locking yourself from the inside. I really do not know if it helps, but sometimes it soothes the ego.

Although the mechanism of their functioning is slightly different, the fact still remains that keys are a menace. One trouble, as I mentioned is the recognition of the right key. The other problem, which is even worse is that people tend to forget their keys. Some smart people have devised their own strategies to deal with this: some have the key bunch in a tight-band around the neck, making others wonder if they were on a leash; some others have their key bunch tagged to a heavy metal safety-pin, which almost looks like a weapon. And these days, with heightened security one may not go past the parking area of the airports with this huge weapon. One of my friends came up with a clever solution, which is to hook his key bunch to the pants. His logic is that he is less likely to forget his pants than his keys. It worked at least for as long as I shared office space with him, and I am really really happy about it.

With so much troubles attached to it, sometimes I wish I could open the door by just uttering, `open sesame`. For the rent I pay for my apartment, I frankly do not think finger printing combined a retinal scan is an economically viable solution for opening the doors!!

Chef's speciality !

2009-02-08T12:00:00.000-08:00

While food for survival has to be modestly content at the bottom of the Maslow's hierarchy of needs, the enriched quality of the experience of eating definitely shoots for the highest level. I have never been a fast-food person, but equally less are my experiences with eating at really fancy restaurants. When I am invited to one of these, I definitely need an invitation as I would never go to such a place all alone, I usually end up getting lost in confusion. The confusion starts with "what's good to wear?" This is not for so much for myself, as much it is with the consideration of not embarrassing my host. Once in the restaurant, the mannerisms of the waiters bowl me over. First thing is the warm reception leading up to the dining table, full of a knifes and forks of all sizes, enough of weapons to rob a person. I never know which one to use for what. Then following this warm reception is the kindling of the romance on the table by lighting a candle. Ok, ok, just in case one got lost in the ambience and the dinner this romance resurfaces at the end as an additional 3 to 5 euros at the end of the bill for the table cloth and the candle.

But none of this really disturbs me much. I am a bold man, or at least until I see the menu card. The names of the dishes can be get really exotic to the point of hiding about their true identity. And then, on top of it, given the extraordinary culinary skills of the Chefs, the menu card might flaunt them by add what is called "Chef's speciality" to the list.

"If you really want the most authentic experience of this restaurant, you better pick this one", so thought a very wise friend of mine when he was at a fancy Italian restaurant in town not too far from Venice.

He had to pick between "polenta e manzo (polenta and beef)" or "mi sorprende (surprise me)". He decided to be a little adventurous and chose the "surprise me" option. From a pan of sauce with a huge fire under it delivered hot at the table to a plant brought all the way with its roots and, even better with the pot - nothing would have surprised him as much as the delivered dish "polenta e manzo" did. That's right the surprise was that there was no surprise. Clever ha??

Then there was a time when I went for an interview in New York. With the process going the whole day, this corporate was generous enough to offer me a lunch, with one of their team members who would show me the local experience. Although the thought that I could possibly be judged at the time of eating was a little disconcerting, I decided to shed my inhibitions at lunch, and eat to last for the rest of the day. Great. I was taken to the fancy restaurant which was recently opened by one of the famous Chefs in New York. Excellent. But after ordering two main courses - one a 100 ml of soup barely enough to wet your mouth, and the other a salad with 4 small cabbage leaves, one beetroot of the size of an egg, two walnuts and a cashew, I really wondered if quality was that much more important than quantity. I did not know the answer for it, but with the gut feeling that felt pride was over rated, I finished up all the crumbs of bread given to my interviewer.

The most recent one in my list of experiences is a dinner at an Italian Zen restaurant in Milano. "Italian Zen? Well, let's give it a shot." I was optimistic. The names of the dishes sounded like poetry, even better like ancient eastern wisdom. As one of my friends usually remarks, the distribution of the Chef's creativity between cooking and naming might be a little unbalanced in such cases. The usual suspects "Reaching equilibrium, natural state, tranquility, awakening, enlightenment .. " took the names of about 29 out of the 30 dishes, while the special spot was reserved for the dish called "waiting for Obama". He might be the Messiah with the power to change the current socio-economic situation, but does that entitle him for that one spot in the 30 dishes? May be yes. But I decided to put an end not just to the economic crisis, but to all the problems of humanity in general, and gave a greedy shot at the dish called "enlightenment". It was a very delicious soup of polenta, zucca, with fried artichokes, and the unlisted ingredient "a little bit of magic." Then I recalled the waiter and asked for the menu to check again what all went into it. In fact, "magic" was mentioned, not in words but in numbers, as the price of this high quality, very small sized dish which managed to whet my apetite for a real meal ! And then I also happened to notice the comment on the last page of the menu " .. the most important part of dining experience is the feeling the food leaves you with after you finish eating."

Anyways, finally I began to see the Zen aspect of the restaurant. I am not enlightened I am still my stupid old self, but they definitely filled me with nothingness.

vend it out

2009-02-01T07:26:00.000-08:00

Life gets busier by the day, not because I do a lot of things, but I think of doing a lot of things and never work towards them. Leaving the reasons for this alone, any advancement in technology, that generously accommodates my laziness fits-in snugly into my life. One of them is refrigerator, which allows me to cook once every black moon (or new moon as some may call it) and the other is its companion, microwave owen. I used to worship these until I found at my university in California, a machine that vends burritos at any time of the day! I was so happy with the discovery that I could get the burritos even past midnight! That was nice. My awareness of vending machines extended from 'B'urritos. My loyalty to the family of vending machines grew with time as I saw different kinds of machines selling daily essentials, the names of most of them starting with C - chips, chocolates, cigarettes among other things like .. (recollecting ..) .. coffee, coke .. and it does not take a big stretch of imagination to extend the list alphabetically ..

When I drank successfully a cup of coffee from a vending machine, my Italian friend said I was ready for a space travel. I was not surprised to hear that - in case of space travel with a noble cause, which involves getting sealed inside a capsule which is barely bigger than a luxury car, away from any human contact and even one's own weight because of the gravity for over a month, one thing Italians would miss is a nice handmade coffee. Anyways, I am no connoisseur, just lazy and looking for practical solutions.

Just to sound a little bit more educated, I can name that even newspapers are vended by these machines. When I saw a vending machine in the Repubblica train station in Milan, I was taken by surprise. This wonderful machine vends books !! It is a nice way to encourage reading. Staying away from printed media is very high on the list of my lazy habits. If these books were in english in stead of in Italian, I would have nevertheless bought one of them irrespective of whether I liked it, just to boost the morale of the machine. Until I saw this machine, looks like I subconsciously believed that there were limits to the applicability of these omnipotent machines, but not any more .. !

what you see is what you pay !

2009-02-01T05:57:00.000-08:00

As soon as I see something that might qualify for a partially interesting buy, I reach for the price tag. I had been a student all my life and it is a very natural instinct that I developed for self preservation. But it took me a while, a very long while, to realize that what you see is not what you pay !!

In the beginning I used to think that in the US, what you see is what you pay, up to the accuracy of the last penny. This might over load your pocket with lots of copper coins that you carry around, but I did not consider that a problem. Then I discovered the time of a "sale" which is like the harvesting time for a consumer - time to reap all the goodies. "up to 75% off", advertise some of the stores. The "up to" is in font size 5, while the 75% is at size 20?? Which generally means they may have one useless piece in the store which qualifies for a huge discount to the point of being free, but most others that a sane person would buy will be up to 25-30 % off. Not a bad deal nevertheless, ha? And there is a wonderful policy in the US - mail-in-rebate. Mail-in-rebate is a cunning cousin of the "sale" option. If you thought that with the careful choice of the fonts, the advertising for the sale is already deceitful, mail in rebate is worse. You buy the product today, for the full price, and if you can mail the rebate form in a 2 week window exactly 6 months after the purchase, you get back a decent fraction of the amount you paid. There are no catches in this offer. But the sellers count on one of the most unfailing faculties of humans - the inability to remember the exact date of purchase and the potential savings of $20 for 6 months. And usually the trick works!

In India, there are at least two kinds of places where one can buy the goods. One is in a street side shop, where you can lay hands on the dreams of a noted designer materialized as a wrist watch, a handbag or whatever else it may be, for just a couple of dollars equivalent. It may not work as the original should, but as long as it does, you can flaunt off your fancy replicas of imported products. In this market of fair trade, the marked prices mean nothing. With the indicated prices going up to ten times what you could buy them for, the prices are meant more for confusing the customer than for suggesting its worth. The rule of the game - haggle. This is a tricky game of psychology. After hearing the outrageous value attached to the goods, let's say you quote a price which is 50% more than its worth. The vendor immediately hands the item to you with a smirk that indicates his success. To be on the safer side, if you quote a price that is possibly lower than its worth, you will be embarrassed by the eyes of the seller which ask you, "are you sure you want to buy this, or just wasting my time?" in the best case and "may be you can not afford it, get away" in most other cases. I can not afford the designer brands, but the replicas, sure I can. So, to be a winner in this game, one needs to master the art of haggling by achieving the delicate balance between the price you end up paying and the worth of ones own self esteem.

The other places for shopping are luxury goods, could even be imported goods from other countries. (I just recreated a famous Bushism involuntarily: "most of our imports are from other countries". I decided not to correct my sentence as a tribute to the ex-Prez). The game of haggling here is a little bit more subtle, or respectable if one would prefer to describe it so. These places are usually small businesses, where one would deal directly with the owner of the store. When you reach the point of billing, ready to pay cash to the owner, you would ask him "is there a discount?. I heard the New year sale was still going on here in your store" (if its after february, you would appropriately use the name of the holiday which happened either in the past one month, or is approaching in another month). The owners are usually sympathetic, and they would offer you some discount usually, 5%, 10% or whatever makes them leaves them at ease. They might also say, "if you do not ask for a receipt, you could save 5% more)." It's certainly a gentleman's agreement. He sells and you buy, why bring the middle man, called the government in between to take the taxes?

Talking of taxes, Switzerland is a tax paradise. Everything is fair here. No need to haggle. And on top of it, there is no sales tax. In the first month of my stay in this wonderful country, I went shopping and had a bill for a perfect 100 Franks. I was so happy to see the exact number, without an adulteration by the 8.25% sales tax. I even wanted to preserve the receipt. But with a host of items in the bill, that were not-so-respectable for a public display, I trashed it immediately. But wait a minute, if there is no sales tax on the food at restaurants, how would one tip in the restaurants. That was a big puzzle for me after my first restaurant meal in Switzerland. This usually an unspoken tax, or tip as some may call it, is 16-20% (the generosity of the customer depends upon whose honored company our host is in). If it is 16%, the usual trick in California is to double the tax in the bill given to you, unless one wants to use the fancy "tip calculator" built in their cell phones. With this confusion about the tip, I was a little worried about the manner of the delivery of food, next time I went to the same restaurant. But as the code in Europe goes, it is just enough to drop in a couple of euros as a thanks. It need not be associated to a significant percentage of the amount on the bill. Although food is higly-over-priced in Switzerland (as are most other items), I still appreciate their sense of tipping which does not leave your experience at the restaurant with an unpleasant aftertaste.

Caro Babbo Natale !!

2009-01-08T12:05:00.000-08:00

.. the killer words that won me a grand gift. As I mentioned in my previous entry on x-mas, Babbo Natale is the Italian version of the american Santa Claus. I was talking to my friends at lunch today and mentioned that I got a gift from the Santa Claus. My friend started telling me that her son also got one. I was so excited to compare the gifts. Apparently the one he got was a fancy microscope, while mine was some kind of a poor man's version of it.

I asked her "so how did he get it?"

"well, upon my son's reminder I left a note outside my door for Babbo Natale, and next morning we found the gift in the balcony.."

"really?? You get a gift just by leaving a note outiside?? And so quick?? For me it was a longer procedure .. .. " I continued with all the excitement that revealed my childishness, innocence, naivety, stupidity, immaturity, or whatever one may call it depending on how much they like me.

"yeah, but the kid was slightly disappointed that while Babbo Natale did his duty, Santa Claus failed on him .. (Babbo and Santa are essentially two names from the same person)" she continued with a pause "I can only buy so much .."

At this point I could not hide my smile, which after filling my heart with the happiness that "I, and O-N-L-Y--I, was the proud recipient of the gift from the R-E-A-L Santa", narrowly escaped from my lips in a focused beam (I tried reading some poetry lately, x-mas break was a bit boring). Without further ado I told them about the gift I got, a little magnifying glass with several embedded lenses, which gives it the look of a kaleidoscope. And also told them about the letter I received from him. As is the problem that many great people face, no one was willing to believe me. I had to show them the gift and the letter before I could silence them in a wide gape.

Subconsciously drawing some inspiration from Calvin and his dear friend Hobbes who always write to Santa Claus with a big wish list, I sent a letter written to Santa Claus "Caro Babbo Natale (Dear Santa Claus) .. ". With a friend's help, I wrote this letter in Italian. What I did not realize then was that I could get a much longer reply in Italian (any way, that's a trouble for later). I mentioned that I was a good boy in 2008 and expected my reward. Sealed the envelope tightly, wrote my complete address at the back, and at the front wrote "To, Babbo Natale". I was a little too shy to show this letter in the postoffice for asking for the stamps.

"Can I please get stamps for 3 Franks please?" I added two 'please's in the sentence so that they would not bother me.

"What would you need it for, Sir" the lady at the postoffice counter asked me picking up the uncertainty in my voice over the stamps I would need. I should not have used those 2 'please's, she knew I was upto something.

Being a little secretive about my plans, I carried another envelope as a decoy. I showed it to her and asked for the right amount of stamps that I would need to send a letter similar to this ..

".. but to where? I mean which country?" the cashier in the counter asked me. Couldn't she just S T O P asking me these SILLY questions? Come on, but I can not get angry. After all,this is probably going to be the last recorded event for the year before Santa makes his decision. I took a deep breath and calmed myself down. I couldn't say north pole. Could I?? I stammered and said "S w i t z e r l a n d". Before uttering every syllable, I was thinking may be I should tell her the true destination. Finally I took twice the number of stamps needed for sending it within Switzerland. Stuck the stamps on my envelope with no address but the recipient's name, and dropped it in the mailbox. In US, over paid stamps and lack of complete address usually raises suspicions about the security of handling the letter. At least that is what a note sent out in our university said ".. in you case you see such a letter, be warned that it could be an attack on the university".

The second day after it I looked up my mailbox to see if the letter would be returned back to me for want of complete address. Third day .. Fourth day .. I did not get any letter. One day I saw a lot of Russian candies keeping a hand written note safe in place on my desk. The note, allegedly from Santa, mentioned my work in science, my good deeds, and then finally when I was about to believe it it said " .. but you did not buy a X-mas gift to your Russian friend". I knew it who the 'Santa' here was. You see I am a little grown up to be fooled this way. It was kind of him anyway, but it's not the same thrill as hearing from Santa. X-mas and even the new year's day went by. Finally the work week started and I forgot about all that happened. But to my surprise, I found a colorful envelope with a card and a magnifying kaleidoscope!! Hurray .. !! But was it an act of mischief by one of my friends?? Could not be. The card had a very long letter (in Italian, now I wish I sent my letter in english) about Gesu Bambino and was signed off by Babbo Natale.

The letter was from Bern. So, now I am glad I did not send my letter to the north pole. I know Santa does not live there, or at least in winter he prefers being on the ski slopes of Switzerland, or is it from the UN head quarters in Geneva that he operates normally?? As it is clear, after I received my very well deserved gift I had more questions than answers .. but these questions are satisfying in their own way.

(thanks to the Swiss postal department for the gift. If they had not put their big fat logo on the back of the card inside the envelope, I would have definitely thought it was by one of my friends. Once again thanks for making my day !!)

merry x-mas

2009-01-01T03:43:00.000-08:00

Usually busy little streets in the city center becoming even busier with the Christmas markets with lots of local businessmen selling overpriced goods from small tents .. Beautifully lit streets coming to life, grand Christmas trees with all the wonderful ornaments in most of the busy crossings, little 2 foot stuffed Santa Claus hanging outside the chimneys of houses trying to sneak their way in .. you know what I am talking about .. Christmas. You know it is around the corner without even looking up your calendar. The day of dead calm in the city following these days of storm is the day of Christmas. And sprinkle a little bit of snow in the early hours of the X-mas day and the romantic description of the day reaches its pinnacle with it.

The family aspect of Christmas is great. A nice occasion for reunion with friends and families. I wish all the people met with their folks on this marvelous occasion ..

And then the religious aspect. India, where I come from, is a secular country according to the constitution despite the fact that religions other than Hinduism are in a minority ( do not get me wrong that will still be a few hundreds of millions each for these, which is more than the population of many of the European countries). In my opinion the government of India decided to impose this secularism by removing the restrictions on the loudness of prayers a temple or a church or a mosque can utter. After hearing the prayers of Hindus all year round, it's finally the turn of the Christians to ramp up their amplifiers so that in case you have not reached your salvation by the year end, this is your final chance to take refuge in their faith. The prayers are a bit more modest in the west, confining themselves to a quiet mass inside a church. Walk into a church in the US, and they will ask you all sorts of questions on what your religious background is and whether you have been attending some of the other churches in the town (in US, with a little bit of an exaggeration, almost every street corner has a church which in some sense differs from the other ones in their beliefs .. besides the Catholics, there are the Methodists, Presbyterians, .. and the list goes on). And of course there is the beautiful worship singing. If you attend a church on a Christmas day more out of curiosity, you might want to attend the candle light service on the Christmas eve. It is one of the most beautiful services I have seen in the US. It's a different story that I lost my bicycle when I went in for this service. First I thought it was the work of some needy person, but soon I realized it was the act of Hindu Gods. All the 3 million Hindu Gods, it is an open confession in a blog, I am still loyal to you. I was just curious .. ..

Here in Ticino, the more important the area of the city is the bigger is the Christmas tree. The tallest ones in the city center going up to 40 feet. These are so tall that in the early days of december you can see helicopters, something tells me the military ones, are used to chug these tall trees to the destination. This roughly like the statues of Ganesha during august in India. The statues of cute Ganesha with a big dessert in his hand, can be as tall as 150 feet if you are in the big corner of the city. And then the trouble is in moving out of the place when the festivities are finished. They do not use a helicopter, as the real fun, and the religious meaning grow by moving the statue through in a procession through the streets .. ..

Last but not the least, the gifts. How much to spend, what to buy, where to buy, what might be the best way of achieving the price-satisfaction balance .. all these .. when you are young, the answer is easy. Santa comes all the way from the north pole to drop off your gifts late in the night. My friend tells me that his parents never encouraged the notion of Santa bringing the gifts, as they thought their hard earned money should not be accredited to "some looney who sneaks up the window in a creepy way". But for most kids, Santa is the hero. In the US, as I understand, it is Coca-cola which popularized Santa with his red-white uniform. While here in the Europe, it is Babbo Natale who does the job, some times replaced by Gesu bambino (baby Jesus). The most interesting observation for me is that in Europe babbo natale is literally the Christmas father, while in India and as I gather, even in Russia it is Christmas grandpa. Any way, by noting that this was the most interesting observation I already put my credibility at risk and my wisdom lies in stopping at this point with no more interesting this to note.

"Jesus saves .." as the Bible preaches. That hope, faith makes a lot of people happy during Christmas. For those whose faith still needs to be rooted a little bit more, Jesus definitely saves them from the last week of work in the year. That should be a reason enough to be happy !!!

Basta pasta

2008-08-23T02:30:00.000-07:00

I knew pasta forms the base of the food pyramid in the Italian cuisine, but apparently my knowledge was not complete. If you leave out pizza and the rice dish risotto which do make it for a couple of entries in the menu card, the rest is all - with no exaggeration - some kind of pasta or the other. Take out your favorite text book on geometry and pick out all the regular shapes - tubes, cones, helices, toroids, thin sphagetti shaped objects (he he .. I like this description of the shape), flat sheets; and all that you imagine all have room in the generous world of pasta. And then the raviolis and the tortellinis with stuffing in them. I did not know that the flat sheets that make the lasagna are also called pasta, which is a quite a generic word. Anyways, the trouble about the accounting was slightly easy with the help of wikipedia which says there are 350 types of pasta. I wonder if the Italians have to be content with risotto/pizza for the remaining two weeks of the year !! Although I find the long sphagetti unmanageable, I have a new found interest and respect for it, thanks to the interesting commercials with spaghetti like the one below !!

I went on a holiday to Rome a few weeks ago. Its an 8 hour drive from Lugano to Rome, passing through several regions of Italy - Lombardy, Tuscany, Abruzzo among others. Stopped for a meal in the restaurants or sometimes went a bit fancy with the wish to experience the local touch by going for one of the trattorias, which is home-made food served in a small restaurant. Each of these places advertises a 'regional speciality'. Given my dietary preferences for a vegetarian meal, I innocently asked them 'do you have any vegetarian regional specialities?' "Yeah, sure we would get one for you" and after 20 minutes of delicious wait for the food, they come out with a 'pasta pomodori', which is essentially pasta with tomato. Being completely unaware of Italian cuisine, I would wonder what's so regional about this food that I eat at every stop. But it took me a while to figure out, with guidance obviously, that the speciality is in one of the intricate shapes of the pasta. With the long helices from one region, the shorter ones from another. The long sphagetti, the Italian counterpart of the Chinese rice noodles, with square cross section from the North of the countr
, and the oval, ciruclar cross sections from the others (now honestly I do not even remember which is from where, but you get the idea).

Two days into the trip, with the 'regional speciality' of pasta with tomato everywhere, I was ready to yell out "basta (enough) pasta". But then I was in a trattoria in one of these villages just after a long 12 km tunnel to Rome. They had the amazing dish 'pasta con funghi e tartufo (with mushroom and tartufo)'. It is probably the most delicious pasta that I ever had. This tartufo is supposed to be more expensive than gold and is one of the very special treats to the tongue ! So, if you find yourself with an offer to have pasta with tartufo, relish it !!! It's worth a shot, although you might later realize that it's an acquired taste !!!

piazza grande .. !

2008-08-15T02:10:00.000-07:00

Piazza is literally a square. It's a very unique concept in the Italian/Swiss parts that I have seen, probably it can be seen every where in the europe. Other parts of the world have also piazzas like the union-square of San Francisco, but not as many as in the europe. Many a times it's an area in the heart of the town, where people lounge around, look at some of the nice architecture of the various buildings surrounding it at least one of which is likely to be a church or may be throw blank stares into the sky while enjoying their coffee in of the outdoor restaurants in the piazza. Usually in a city, unless you want to be in a building or a museum or a restuarant, there is no place where one can rest for a while, enjoy the sun or feed the hungry pigeons. Piazza is the home for all those who refuse to be bound by the walls, but still want to stay in the civilization unlike going into the woods. Come summer, these piazzas become the stage for a host of exciting outdoor events - from live performances of jazz to plays to movies.

Last week I was in the Swiss Italian town Locarno for the opening ceremony of the Locarno international film festival in the piazza grande. As the name suggests, it's a magnificent square with a seating capacity of 8,000. The shape enclosed by the piazza grande is not a regular geometric one and that adds a little bit of character and taste to the place. About a month ago, this square hosted the likes of Santana, Alicia Keys for their music concerts; and was the arena for the screening of the Euro football matches live. The opening ceremony of the film festival took off with a fine drizzle from the thick clouds engulfing the whole town. As I could not find a place selling umbrellas or ponchos, I went into a pizza place and was asking for a large pizza box to cover myself and my friends. They were not very welcoming for my request for a 'solo carta per pizza grande' (in MY Italian asking for just the box of a large pizza). Rain, a perfect beginning for a movie that was set in England - "Brideshead revisited". Then as the story started unfolding, so did the clouds, giving way to the stars and making the setting even more romantic for a story based partly on love (the other part being orthodox religious traditions).

The director of the film mentioned in his opening remarks that there is nothing like a bad weather, it's just wrong clothing. Whichever way he would describe it, we watched the movie with the clothes a little wet. Well, if that is the price you pay for enjoying a movie while being in nature, it's well worth it!

The closest experience I had to this while in India was in the 5000 person capacity open air 70mm theater we had in our college in Madras. With a film every week, in all the seasons of the year, it was definitely a great time. Not knowing its true worth, I missed many movies in that OAT. Then the next experience was the half-oval amphitheater in the Caltech, laid in three rings of grass around a small 16mm screen. So small, so cozy, with a room for just 100 people. And the jasmines that lined the separation between these rings would set the ambiance for a romantic summer evening under the stars !! With my interest for the movies and the open skies, open air theaters are a heaven for me !!

got cafe?

2008-08-01T07:46:00.001-07:00

I picked up the coffee from the vending machine. Although a few machines are OK, a few others make an inhomogeneous preparation, with the sugar settling down at the bottom and no stirrer to mix it up. As I sat down to have this machine coffee and my taste buds started reaching a 'happy ending' with the sugar, I wondered what a good coffee tastes like.

Although neither Christianity nor coffee originated in Italy, these folks have become a considerable authority on both. So, I asked my Italian friend "What's a good coffee?". "A good coffee .. " he started off, but then paused with a deep breath as if the description was beyond words. He looked at the vending machine coffee and with a smile he said " .. definitely not this".

There are several kinds of coffees around here, some with two teaspoons full coffee served in a very tiny cup that can be barely held - the espresso or the licho: something you can sniff out of the cup. Add a drop of milk to this to create a machhiato. Half a glass of milk more makes it latte macchiato. Capuccino with the froth on top of it. And the story goes on. To feel like a real Italian, one should drink a macchiato for the breakfast and a licho without even a single drop of milk as a dessert after lunch. A capuccino is acceptable for a breakfast, but definitely not after lunch. There are so many ways of preparing a capuccino: if you get a capuccino with a chocolate topping - Switzerland, cinnamon topping - US, no topping - south of Italy. If you ask for a capuccino and get a latte machiato, you are in the north-east of Italy where the names, as I heard from my friends, are interchanged. A capuccino thus serves as a kind of a coarse grained GPS for identifying your position!! At the risk of sounding like a sexist, I should point out this hilarious video on macchiatto from "Italian Spiderman !!".

Well, starbucks definitely is responsible for the coffee revolution in the US. One of the mistakes new comers in US do is to use starbucks as a landmark before they realize there is a shop every street corner. As can be guessed, the most popular coffees in the US are about 300 ml to 400 ml compared to the 30ml espresso. And they are usually loaded with sugar, and many times ice. I only had the 'brain freeze' drink once. I caught a bad cold for one week after that and I decided to give up on iced coffee. Coffee is definitely very popular there as you can get a mug full of coffee and finish of your work as the person attending to you refills it regular intervals. And one thing an americanized person will miss in the Italian side is the luxury of taking your coffee to go with you!

In India, at least when I was growing up there a few years ago, coffee is a very unique and not many variations exist. Ask for coffee, you will have a cup-full of wonderful drink on your table in a minute. The closest american and Italian counterparts to this drink are cafe latte/latte macchiato. You will not be grilled with questions such as - hot or cold; ice or no ice; sugar or no sugar; tall or grande; without milk or with milk (whole milk/skim milk) or with soymilk; for here or to take it go and finally are you paying with a starbucks card today?? Without those questions, that's definitely a more enjoyable experience. Slowly the americanized coffee shops are mushrooming in the big metros.

Espresso machine at work place seems to be one of the basic amenities in the Italian region. People help themselves liberally with it. I stayed late at work one evening and saw my Italian friend drink a coffee at 10pm. I asked him "dont you have trouble falling asleep??" "nope" he replied. I laughed and said "I forgot, coffee and s*x are good at any time of the day." "Well, I am not really sure about the second one, though !" he replied instinctively !!

The famous mathematician Godel used to say that mathematicians are machines that convert coffee to theorems. Seeing so many smart people at my work place get a regular coffee every few hours, I am not only convinced of it but am also thinking of trying it out in greater proportions myself .. !! Let me try my luck with a boost of caffeine.

credit credit ..

2008-07-30T09:48:00.000-07:00

Today my friend showed me a news article on a new flying coat released in New Zealand. Just for 100,000 USD, you can fly to your work everyday, escaping all the traffic. Instinctively I wondered if they sell it on credit. Imagine holding your girl friend with your left hand, punching up your right fist into the air and flying right into the air (well, after somehow managing to switch the coat on). The fact that you have a credit card bill stops you and your dreams from reaching high into the skies?? :). May be yes, atleast in this part of the world I am in.

When I opened my first Swiss bank account in January, they asked me if I wanted a credit card. "Sure", I said very positively. "OK, based on your salary, you are eligible for a credit limit of 4000 CHF. We will freeze that amount in your savings account. You can not with draw that amount. And do you also want to set me up for an automatic pay so that all of the balance gets deducted from the savings at the end of the month?". Confused, I said, "hold on. I did not even follow your first sentence. You give a credit card and freeze all the money in the limit? That makes the available balance less than in using a debit card." "That,s how credit card works, Sir".
Having stayed in the US for 6 years, I considered myself a self appointed authority on credit and wanted to enlighten him. I could not do it for want of time. I hope this blog reaches him.

When I went to the US 7 years ago, I did not have a credit card. I did not even find a need for it. Slowly as I find out how cheap it was to make purchases online, on amazon and other places, I realized I need a credit card. The only bank that was ready to offer it to me was the university bank with a 1000 USD limit. I used to use it for online purchases - books, phone cards, flight tickets .. and used to pay all the amount due at the end of the month. As more months passed by, I was too lazy to carry money all the time. And especially US was not a safe place to carry bigger denominations in your pocket. So, started using the card for purchases in supermarket. As I used to pay off the bills completely and regularly, it become a convenience card. I used to walk out of my house without a single dollar in a pocket for months together. As I used the card more, I started receiving letters from the bank saying they increased my credit limit. They started believing me. Other banks also started sending me offer letters for new credit cards. In less than 3 years of my stay in the US, I had 8 credit cards, with a total limit of about 25000 to 30000 USD. Nice. Now the problem was to safe guard the cards. Because losing them, I lose tens of thousands. So, most of them remained home.

In the last 3-4 months of my stay in the US, I was not sure of when I was leaving the country and to where. Without having any idea that I would be finishing my degree and going out of salary in 2 months, I froze my money in somekinds of investments. I had the last month to live on, the previous months bills to pay, and on top of these there were moving expenses, purchase of laptop. America, I finally decide to use the lessons I learnt. I applied for a new credit with 10,000 USD limit and no interest for one complete year. Used it fully for all the expenses above and still had some usable limit. That was the time I was prowling to see what all I can buy using a credit card. In fact, I thought I would buy the Taj Mahal if they sold it on credit. Some one asked me "why would you want to buy it?", "Why not if its available on credit?" I asked in return. The question is not about need, its about the availability of the object on credit. One of my friends was ready to sell it to me for 2,300 USD, but he said he only accepts cash. Too bad I had to pass on a genuinely good offer.

In India, the concept of credit has started lately. Since the chance of default is very likely, the rate of interest can go upto 50% a year ??? And since it's still a society where everyone is worried about what the neighbor thinks of them, these bankers do not mind making a big fuss outside your home or even seizing the object bought on credit if the timely payments are defaulted.

Coming back to the main story, I moved to Switzerland and finished up the limit on the card in a few days with the furniture I bought. That solved one problem, began many others. While I was waiting for my first salary, I was in a bad condition financially and the banks in the US in a worse condition to offer me a new credit card. So, I had to change my ways. Anyways, slowly life changed a little day after day with me starting to use the debit card for a few months. And now like most of the Swiss, I take a bagful of coins and a pocket full of bank notes to pay everything. .. That's a big change. Whether I want credit or not is different, but will still not mind arguing with the banker on the definition of credit...

seven minutes from you ..

2008-07-27T06:03:00.000-07:00

"I am pretty close to you. I should be reaching there in 7 minutes" "four minutes walk from the university .. " .. these are expressions I never heard before coming to Swiss Italian part. Being from India I picked up the local sense of Indian punctuality. Back in India, a modest error bar on the given time is on the order of 30 minutes. Most of the times the excuse for someone not showing up on time is that there will be no one else on time !! Nice all great minds think alike. Coming to the US, things were pretty punctual. Every thing is within couple of minutes from you. When I first arrived in the US, I naively believed that couple of minutes is 2 minutes. But anything upto 10 minutes can easily be considered couple of minutes. But, here in Switzerland, the land that sets the time with its precision watches, people are precise to the very minute. Of course, needless to say trains/public transport everything runs exactly on time. Such a perfect society !! In every street corner where there is a city-bus stop, there is a big clock just on the other side of the street displaying the exact time. These clocks do not have a seconds hand, but as far as I can see with my cell phone clock, all of the time are exact to the Central European Time.

In that sense the Italians are more open minded. They think more than just about themselves. You probably would have walked into one of the banks/courier services/hotel or infact any business that cares about time in other parts of the world. They have these wonderful array of clocks displaying time in N.Y., Tokyo, New Delhi .. .. I was in Rome last week and each of the bus stops in the city had a time of its own. For a moment I was even confused that they Romans were trying to make the tourists feel at home by displaying their time. Apparently these clocks are all out of order.

The trains are so much on time in Switzerland, that recently someone wrote a program to show the predicted position of the train in the country at a given point in time. And unless there is a natural disaster, which I do not wish for Switzerland, is the same as tracking the train positions in real time !!! Nice standards .. setting the time for itself and for the rest of the world .. !!

and as I understand from others, this punctuality in the Swiss Italian side is nothing compared to that in the Swiss German side !!

some boxes are more idiotic than others

2008-07-12T02:19:00.000-07:00

"idiot box" - a perfect companion for people like me. but unfortunately I fall in the category that's too lazy to watch a TV. In the 15-20 min of cathode ray exposure I get every fortnight, I did manage to see some differences in the media here in Switzerland.

First thing is the language. Every time I punch a random number on the remote control of the TV, the first challenge is the number of seconds I need to figure out the language they are speaking. Right now it's 2 seconds for me from the time they start speaking very slowly. I do watch the news once in a while in Italian and English. There are some programs with quality, but I don't watch them, because they require some proficiency at the local languages. I somehow end up catching a glimpse of dubbed versions of flashy american programs - from Dr.House to Numbers to Gilmore girls to Desperate housewives .. and finally feel disgusted at myself.

The next thing is that the number of advertisements is limited. That's very refreshing compared to the US where there used to be a considerable amount of commercial air time breaking the continuity of the show exactly when you can not afford to miss the next few seconds of action (unless you dont mind wasting your money on a subscription to the ad-free HBO). Although I still do not know the exact pattern of the ads here, I see that there are not as many ads for cars and definitely know Switzerland is a happy country as there are not as many ads about anti-depressants as in the US. The number of tv commericals are really high in India. Imagine watching a 2:30 hour movie over 5 hours !! It's not an exaggeration if it's a very popular and recent movie. To reduce the distractions from studies, my friend as a kid was given a choice either to watch the TV show or the commericals in between and he chose the commericals. His strategy of wasting more time always worked !! And just in case you are not sure cows flying in the skies of Switzerland and then yielding great tasty milk is a fact or fiction, look at the bottom of the TV screen for the note 'publicita' which tells you that it's an advertisement, much to your relief .. !!

Here a few samples, selected with a great bias:
milk commerical (Swiss)
http://youtube.com/watch?v=vVRivrXBO5Q
lottery commerical (US)
http://youtube.com/watch?v=FhcEp6PJJnc
mobile phone commercial (India)
http://youtube.com/watch?v=uNSF0WIZw2s

somehow I still like that advertisements made in India. Well, at the end, advertisements are not meant just to be pieces of art, but to touch the local sensibilities. My liking the Indian ads only shows that I am still desi at heart .. although am beginning to like the Swiss commercials as well !!

sorry hooters, but life seems to be better .. !!

2008-06-23T13:42:00.001-07:00

Today is my birthday .. when I used to live in the US, one of the few accepted ways of celebrating a birthday was to go for a drink at the hooters bar. Once the staff there know its your birthday they convince you that you are a prince from Saudi and they are your harem, at least for a few minutes (was I convinced .. ?? :) ). deep down - in my heart - I knew there could be better things but I was not sure what .. well, I had them all today ..

well, there were the most awesome wishes on the phone/email from family and friends .. thanks to you all !!

But a few things made the day really special .. in the order of occurrence they are -

1. I had plans of going to Italy between 12-17 of July, and was trying to set up an appointment with the embassy hoping that I can renew my existing visa. The Italian embassy was kind enough to give me an appointment for 10th and the soonest I would get the visa in that case is the 17th. Cancelled my plans! Then looked at my existing visa, and then this time read the text in english, rather in Italian as I did previously, and it said my current visa is valid until september - hurrah ..

2. we applied for a project time allocation on swiss national computer center 2 months ago, and got the good news today - sweet

3. I had the wonderful company a few of my friends from work, even at a short notice, for a drink at Lanchetta bar .. of course, the card/gift were very special - awesome ..

4. my friends' 10 year old son baked a cake for me. This made my birthday very special compared to anything I had so far. It was just unbelievable that he was so thoughtful and sweet to bake it for me - touched .. !!

In summary, it was a great birthday. The icing will be continuing celebrations which I will have with a few friends that could not make it today .. !!

egg fried rice, beta version

2008-06-22T13:25:00.000-07:00

I have lived alone, away from my family, for 11 years now, and never never had the desire the cook until recently. I used to eat all sorts of easy to eat foods from salads to eggs under the name of health, and the true reason is laziness. Anyways, for some reasons (I can tell you soon) I started cooking recently.

a new experiment .. egg fried rice .. beta version .. tried it on a friend .. the actual release is scheduled for next week .. :) I started with the recipe of the Indian egg fried rice and ended up with Chinese egg fried rice. nevertheless as long as the original motives are kept a secret, it should be fine, I guess. I think the end product is anyway restaurant quality .. so, the release is going to be at the scheduled time ..

and the Italian touch to the egg fried rice is the use of olive oil ..

time to go back to Italy/Spain quarter finals .. go Italy !!

Italy reaches quarter finals

2008-06-18T13:44:00.000-07:00

Last night Italy made it to the quarter finals, after defeating its arch-rival the French team 2-0. It was a much awaited victory in the euro, at least on the Swiss Italian side. I knew about this game, not by watching it on television, not by reading news .. !! I was kept awake for more than 1.5 hours after the game by the enthusiastic team supporters going aroud the streets of Lugano and honking their cars to glory. Lugano is sucha small town, I strongly believe its only a few cars that managed to loop around the city and publicise the victory .. !