Veggie King, King Pommes, Tomato Ketchup and Coke at Zurich Airport

...sounds pretty mundane to everyone who is reading this post? Well...not so soon. There is a story in this title too. So I am at Zurich airport and see my first Burger King in Switzerland. I am pretty sure there would be nothing veggie there but I decide to try my luck...so I go through the menu and to my delight, I find something called a Veggie King. I make sure with the guy at the counter and he confirms...so quick questions from him...you want fries? Yes...Tomato Ketchup or Mayonnaise? Tomato Ketchup...Coke? Yes....very good. I am all set for 13 Swiss Franks. By the way, I am kind of surprised by the preciseness of the questioning...are they trying to save money from people who waste Ketchup by taking tonnes of sachettes???? You never know what solution a consulting company might have puked out!!

The big surprise comes when I take a bite into the burger. I was expecting a soy patty like the one you get in US in the name of veggie burger. Not here...this one is a crisp mix veggie( potatoes, peas, kidney beans and carrot) burger and I am reminded of the wonderful veggie burger you can have in India in McDonald's. To the grief of all vegetarians, McDonald does not have anything veggie in their menu outside India. I am beginning to wonder how long it would be before they introduce at least a couple of items from their menu in India around the world. I have come across enough veggies especially in big cities in US and I am sure it is just a matter of time...

Valerio, Varun Matta and Brutal Defeats

Squash used to be one game I thought I was good at. I actually was captain of our hostel squash team in 3rd year and a member in 4th year and we won Bronze both the years. By the way, Bronze reminds me of a pretty pussy performance from Varun Matta against a pretty pussy player called Shirshanka Das. Our whole strategy against a hostel depended on giving 2 games to their best players and winning the remaining three. That would have taken us to the finals where we would have a decent chance. Didn't happen that way courtesy a very bad game from Matta.

Times moved on from those good days of 1999, 2000. My game went completely downhill and I stopped playing altogether. In last three years, I started getting the opportunity to play again and at three crucial times, my game has let me down.. First I lost to a Berkeley guy at C4C tournament in 2006 at Stanford in 15 minutes before my friends in Bay Area could even arrive for cheering. I promised that I would quit smoking, practise hard and build up my stamina for next year. Same result in 2007 but this time I got many more points. I won the first game, was leading 5-2 in the second and ended up losing in three games to another guy from Berkeley. Definitely my hard work was not enough. I should have used some "Maa-Behen ki gaali" against this guy who was also from IIT Delhi and was now doing his MBA from Berkeley. I decided not to despite encouragement from Jasbeer who was cheering me from outside. So I decided to have my sleep( haar ki neend in words of Ashish Bhatia) and forgot about it.

Then came La Chaux-de-fonds and a guy at my client site about whom people told me that he was pretty good. They did not tell me more and I did not shy away from throwing a challenge at him. Soon the information started trickling in. This guy Valerio was a regular in tournaments near French border of Switzerland and was very very good....but the die was cast and I had to play him. The result was again a crushing defeat...9-0, 9-0 in swift 10 minutes even though he definitely was not playing at competitive level to give me some chance.

I guess time to do something about this recurring problem....these nights after defeats are pretty dreary..

My French Is Old...

So airports in general are interesting places. You have so many people around you and you are still all alone. Interestingly I feel the same about marriages too!!! So I am at Frankfurt airport walking towards my gate to catch a United flight to San Francisco. Now this airport is crazy for the amount of walking you might have to do to reach from one place to other.

So I start walking and the gate for my flight has not been decided. I just know that it is going to be C something. So I sit down near C1 waiting for the exact allocation of the gate. There is this old female security person who is trying to explain something to this old guy. She waves some directions and he goes along. She looks at me, throws a smile and starts a conversation. I have absolutely nothing to do and I don't want to waste money on any duty free shopping as well. So I grab my chance and shower my attention on her. I guess she is sick of answering to so many people but really not talking to anyone.

First thing she says:" You know, my French is old"!!! I immediately ask her, " You mean, your French is bad". No, No...comes the reply. I used to know French when I was a teenager( and she promptly adds that people don't realize how old she is. You know, I am 50. I feel like shouting, I definitely knew you were not less than 50!!). So she tells me that she learnt French and Spanish in her teens but now can only understand it. So this guy to whom she was telling directions, he was French and she was having difficulty answering his questions in French.

She goes on to tell me how even if someone asks any questions in Japanese, she understands it a lot of times...why? because most of the time, people are asking for toilets which majority of the times are inside the gates and very few in general terminal area. So she has to keep reminding everyone to not go out otherwise they would have to go through security check again. People keep wondering how many languages she knows. I call this the language of experience. If you are a security guard at the airport and people keep stumbling upon you with questions, how many different type of questions they would have? Where are the toilets? What gate is my flight on? How can I reach terminal 2? When would the gate number be announced? So pretty much, you can have a list of 10 questions which would cover pretty much all the cases. Now this person has answered these same 10 questions for last 20 years and no wonder, she can answer anything asked in any language.

How long would it take to train someone to this level if you decide to lay off folks and then hire them again? I guess a lot of people struggle with this question these days...

The problem of too much proximity

I got some time from my stay in Switzerland to visit Jungraujoch and the highest point in Europe. The trip was fantastic. I started at 7:00 in the morning and after my changes...La Chaux-de-fonds, Biel, Bern, Interlaken OST, Kleinn Scheddig, I reached Jungfraujoch...the final leg of the trip is all in a tunnel dug into a mighty mountain called Eiger. This tunnel is a wonderful example of the no-holds-bar engineering that you see in these parts of the world. You also wonder how much lead time people have in Europe with respect to engineering knowledge. I guess right from the time of Renaissance following the medieval ages, they have been at one thing or the other...Did someone whisper in my ear that Da Vinci had the design of an airplane??? Well, making Da Vinci part of any discussion is making sure that you really cannot discuss any other thing at all.

So 5 hours later, I am at the top of Europe...I walk around...see the glacier and all....and I am done in 10 minutes!!! Is there something wrong?? Did I have the same feeling at some other place as well? Yes...last year...Toronto...Niagra Falls...Prateek drove me down to Niagra...there was the huge Victoria Lake in between and I kept asking Prateek when will the falls come....I had assumed that there would be some buildup in terms of difficulty of terrain and all to get to such a big fall....Not at all...we drive all the way up to the fall...Ahhhhh...it was such a disappointment. To some extent, I feel the same at Jungfrajoch. The difference this time around probably was a wonderful train ride at a pretty steep terrain but it takes you right there...right there and that probably is my problem.

I like this big things at some distance...too much proximity kills my interest. I remember watching the mighty Nanda Devi from Auli more than 10 years back and the sight of that mighty mountain at a distance is still pretty vivid....not so much for either Niagra or Eiger...I went right there, felt them happen in front of me and the myth was washed away!!! Nanda Devi still remains at quite some distance...a 7000 meter plus mountain and when people decide to track it, they have to cross a ferocious Alaknanda on a rope...at times, an unlucky one even gets washed away....

Iron Problem in La Chaux-de-Fonds

La Chaux-de-Fonds is 100 miles from Zeurich and it took us a full 3 hour train ride to reach here. The whole country is prettier than I expected..so I am going to have a section called 12 Swiss days where I would share my blurbs.

I have been awake for 2 hours now and it is 6:00a.m. Spanish fans shouted all night. Finally, a team that promises so much every year came through....if back in US, you want to compare Spain, then you would have to think of Duke in college hoops in past years....very strong in the early rounds and knocked out in the all important Round of 16 or 8. It doesn't happen this time and the singing went on till around an hour back!! After all, this is the first major win in last 44 years for a country which hosts one of the most competitive football leagues around the world and has had its fair share of superstars.

So I get up at 4:00a.m. and I don't feel any effects of the journey but I quickly figure out that there is one problem. There is no iron and there is no one at the reception. I am wondering if I know something that someone did at some point of time
...a guy on Shanghai trip(KC Blake was his name!!)...this was his solution:

Find the least wrinkled clothes out of the bunch you have, turn on the hot shower and let the bathroom have a lot of mist and hang your clothes in that mist for 10 minutes...take them out and quickly wife them off!!!

Voila...it works and I get a day to fix this problem...after all, business school did have something useful to offer!!!