In Quest of Zero !

Yesterday on the train to Amsterdam (before it was cancelled..uggghhh...cant get over it yet) me and A happenned to meet a Portuguese gentleman on the train. He is a professor in Hamburg university and naturally knew a lot more about Goa, India and indian IT success story than a average German. While chatting he "demonstrated" his knowledge about Indian culture by telling me that Sanskrit was the first known langugae in world with advanced structured grammer and he also had read about ancient Indian literary great- Panini. To add to his knowledge and maybe little gloated with his flattery I boasted that Panini gave the world the numeral Zero. I was not sure if Panini or Arybhatta invented it, but knew that he would lap it up as a fact:-) I know Panini had something to do with sanskrit grammer and not math, but its such a old story..who cares...I was not even born then! But today I wanted to really check with Dr Google about invetor of zero and I was amazed to read that it is a debated issue amongst scholars and its NOT conclusive that India gave this world nothing - the zero! Zero was invented independetly thrice, the third time in India, which is debated. After reading many websites, I reached this website and found it really interesting. Read - http://www.mediatinker.com/blog/archives/008821.html I am still trying to search more on Google and will try to post when I find out the real history of Zero. Let me know if you do!

Not been there and not done that!

There's some cross between me and Amsterdam. Thrice in last 4 years I went almost through that city but for some or other reason could not see it. This time me and A were prepared, with tickets, hotel reservation, backpacks and we also embarked on the trip but...as fate would have it, could not reach Amsterdam. The first snow of the season here was so heavy and un-expected that it put the entire Deustche Bahn(DB) railyway system out of gear. It was a crazy blizzard going all over north Germany yesteday night and our train got cancelled in Osnabruck. The service point redirected us to Munster and the service point their adviced us to go back home as there was no way rails would run and so we reached a city called Hamm. But their, I was really impressed with DB serivce, they not only arranged a 3 start hotel for our overnight stay and arranged for a return train back home today morning but they also refunded the entire journey tickets !!! Now Laloo, Indian Railways and even the airlines have a long way to go before they catch up with this kind of service...anyway, we returned back safe and sound today afternoon, it was nice free trip to 3 bundesland cities and a free overnight stay at cost of DB:-) "A" was also very happy since this was her first experience of a snowfall and that too so heavy! She is always lucky...I remember my first experience of snowfall in Italy 4 years back was quite a damp squib as compared to this.
But I have not given away the hopes, will keep a watch on weather and will catch the next possible train to visit Amsterdam, the happenning place know for its nightlife (probably next only to Vegas). Could not go there as a bachelor, but so be it:-)

Life in Deutschland

For those who do not know, I am in Deutschland/Germany these days along with dear A. Contrary to my expectations,settling down here was not too difficult, thanks to my earlier visit to this same place. Some stark differences as compared to settling here and in US or India are worth noting. Things are REALLY very expensive in Europe, be it clothes, furniture, electronics et all. Only daily and basic needs are maybe affordable. This observation quickly brings my train of thoughts to halt at a discussion which I had with a friend few days back and a article which our sales lead in Europe forwarded to me recently. "Socialist Capitalism" of Germany as I call it, is the exxagerated form of democracy and symbol of protectionist government of this country. In a developed nation with 11% un-employment it is really difficult to belive that people work only for 7 to 8 hours and practically the whole nation is holidaying on Sundays. Its mandated by law. I am sometimes at loggerheads with a German colleague (who works for same company as mine but being German has to work for just 8 hours and has almost 45 paid casual leaves!!) who keeps asking me why I work so hard and for such long hours (10 hours min which btw, is below average by Indian IT standards:-) ) I always end up explaning him that it is competition (read china) and inherently hard working (ass like) attitude of Indians which drives me, but I also do not fail to point out that working 8 hours a day, 5 days a week is a luxury which this country cannot afford for long. Everything here is govt controlled, house rents, working hours, minimum wages and unions meddling with company affairs is very normal. No wonder German workers are known to be most expensive.Slowly but steadily jobs are shifting to cheapers destinations. The US like anti-outsourcing backlash across Europe is just waiting to happen...the only way out for Europeans is to rise and face the realities and work harder, 10 hours minimum and OPEN all shops on Sundays too(thats a personal request)!
Btw, amongst all this talk of capitalism I saw a very cute and appreciable gesture which argues in favour of protectionism. While standing in a queue at the bank I saw a very young kid (hardly 10 yrs old) holding his piggy bank (so small that it cannot hold more than 10 Euro) and bank pass book!! He promptly gave them to the cashier who counted the coins and deposited to his account! Dont know what really drived that kid to save his pocket money in Bank instead of spending it on candy, did he foresee capitalism over shadowing his future?
~Amit