OK enough partying, now time for some Academics

yeah
you guys were thinking that going on an exchange program to europe, that too with a scholarship of the DAAD, is like some paid vacation?

Then you guys are wrong.
After all the Tauschie Tuesday parties, team building, free dinners and free alcohol, visit to Oktoberfest,

yeah time for finally some academics.

Here i took a course "Seminar on Asset Pricing"

and damn myself i took it. Though Prof Kieber is a great teacher, the 5 hour classes are killing.

Today we derived the "Intertemporal Capital Asset Pricing Model"
(Robert MERTON got a NOBEL PRIZE for this, and after going through the derivation I am sure he really deserves it)

and yeah if you think it was all fun and games take a look at the pis here. Clicked from my note boook.

Dont get too scared. more gruesome stuff and complex mathematics have not been shown.
(These are only the 4 pages out of 10 which are used to derive the ICAPM)

WHU Freshers Party

Yesterday night was the WHU welcome party for the new batch. I just was passing by the street and some one called me ( an exchange student) as well. The party was nice, especially due to free beer. The Germans have the "Hooka" (water pipe through which u smoke tobacco, but they smoke flavoured tobacco and call it "Sheesha"

Yeah the hooka was being passed around amongst the people. (not sure whether there with a bit of weed mixed in as well)

Otherwise it was jsut a regular party at some guys apartment. And WHU is similar to IIMA, that the male to female ratio is horribly skewed (women are 15-20% of the batch) So each time a new batch comes, the seniors make their first moves, to grab the first movers advantage, and the freshers dont wanna lose out in the race, so they to are active in this hunt.

So even here you have the "Fachhi Fighters" and the most popular fachhi concept.

Can any one spot who would be the most popular fachhi??
And would some of the juniors at IIMA pray that she comes on exchange ot Ahmedabad?

Trip to Cologne

Yeah finally some travel plan materialised. Yesterday on September 24th, off we (the not so Famous Five being Jatin from IIMA, Akshay from IIMB and Amod and Nancy both from IIMC) went to Cologne. (or Ko:ln as germans call it)

The weekend ticket for 30 Euros allowed us to travel in all of the country in the RE (slow trains)

Coming out of the Koln Aubahnoff (Main station), one sees the magnificent Cathedral, one of the tallest buildings in Europe. (Completed in 1880, it was the tallest building in the world till the Eiffel Tower was built, though the records have been broken many times since) It is also the largest cathedral in Europe. Enough of history, but inside there were magnificent Stained Glass Paintings, some sculptures and one could climb up the tower (509 steps, some climbing for a lazy bum like me) and view the city of Cologne. In the way there was also a level where theres a bell weighing 24 tonnes.

The view from the top is simply amazing. Actually this trip got me thinking if the not so famous (ok i dunno much bout Europe) cathedral was so good, how would i feel in Paris, Rome or Athens? After the cathedral we went to a chocolate museum and saw the process of making a chocolate. Also it was fun roaming around in the city in trains and trams. Went through the shopping area and all i bought was Original "Eau De Cologne"

Not Much else done, though the SLOW SPEED of our sightseeng frustrated me at times, making my resolve ot ravel alone even stronger. Or may be just 2s company and 3 is crowd. As more number of people always slow down the entire group. (Ok a big group is fun, but should be like minded, may be i myself am not very sociable, have scant interest in window shopping, can walk faster and not loiter around "soaking in the experience"
Anyways my plan to tour europe holds. Nezt week is pretty empty and so travel to copenhagen stockholm and oslo.

Hope these trips can go on where we can see much more and not waste time in thinking what would be better, BurgerKing or KFC (goddamn wiht a vegetarian like me in the group)

Indian Cricket in Shambles

Well i dont understand, why politicians dont mind their business and ruin the country but leave he sports aside. (i guess there is big money there as well)

With the recent fiasco over the BCCI (Board of Conrol of Cricket in India) Elections to elect hte head was adjourned with Sharad Pawar (Ex defense minister) filing court cases in 2 high courts against Jagmohan Dlamiya.

If only these people running the cricket board would channel their energy and money in building up the sport from the grass roots level. If only was good infrastructure provided for schools cricket. If only were zonal selection procedures removed.

Yes India would not have lost the last world cup final.

To make matters worse, the current Indian Captain (Saurav Ganguly) and the Coach (Australian Greg Chappell) dont see eye to eye. Greg Chappell doesnt want Ganguly in the team, and Ganguly doesnt think Chappel deserves to be the coach. The team is divided into factions, and no one is bothered about the sport its just the policitcs within.

Its a sorry state even the sports pages of the newspapers carry these political feuds. I am sure this is definitely bigger than the Alex Fergusson and David Beckham spat at Manchester united.
Really makes me sick.

Meanwhile had been to Cologne today, but am dead tired, and would post a detailed blog tommorow.

Mumbai Rains

this year it has been raining hard in Mumbai with lots of problems to the citizens.
Both the times I have been away from my home town. On the Black Tuesday 26 July i was busy studing in ahmedabad and right now as it pours im an exchange student in Germany.

Missing the Mumbai Monsoons. Take a look at this graphic

To all ye Bike Lovers

Yeah, as in IIMA, my friend Gandhi has started a nice club (i guess i also qualify as a co-founder, not sure though) "Free Riders: Bike and Travelling Fraternity"

Saggy has just posted a nice link on our NB.

Check out the Pics of the 2006 Suber Bike models.

http://www.bikepics.com/members/2006models/

Hope some of you would be lucky enough to buy one of those this year itself.

Frankfurt station

When the hell would i be able to buy this ??

I know the date is wrong, but this was during the Taushie Rally on September 10 2005 in Koblenz

Nice Harley Ehh

India whitewashes Zimbabwe

After the historical Ashes between Australia and England, the world of cricket saw some pathetic cricket after that. Last week India defeated Zimbabwe 2-0 and similarly Sri lanka licked Banladesh. I dont understand the reason why these matches are held.

Zimbabwe and Bangladesh are not at the same level as the ther test cricketing nations, they must have a program to introduce them into the test arena.

Have them play againgst the "A" sides. Let them play the English county league one summer, the Indian Ranji Trophy and the Aussie Pura cup. This would enable the 2nd rung teams like Zimbabwe, Bangladesh, Kenya, Namibia Canada move up.

Else it is just the slaughtering of the lambs, and the statics crazy cricketers improving their stats.

International Cricket council (ICC) are u listening?

Tauschie Hike: Wine Tasting at Boppard

I am a little late in posting this, but i thought would put pics as well, which were on Amods comp.
Anyways on 17th September the international office had arranged a Tuaschie Hike. It is an annual event with them taking us out, one more interaction event for all the tauschies.

This year it was a boat ride up the Rhine to Boppard. This is a nice 2 hour journey and then we went up the hills to the Bopparder Wine yard.

Mr Boppard (junior most of the family which makes wine there since 1762) a part of the family took us around the 4 hectare vineyard. (ok we only skimmed the outskirts i guess) and he told us about the type of wine they made, 80% white wine and 20% red. He said in all they had 12-15 types of wine at any point of time. Also spoke on issues of wines being natural (i.e. no sugar added to aid fermenting or developing a taste) and different qualities of wine, the regulations and whether the wine is dry or sweet.

They were offering us to taste 30-40 ml wine (in a 100 ml glass). I did some simple math in my head, 30 ml x 12 types just 360 ml. Thats not good enough. Let me have 2-3 glasses of each. That completes one entire bottle, which would leave me in nice spirits (hic!!!). (By now u are thinking i am some greedy, free riding pig, and a drunkard who has no sense of dignity. Yes you are absolutely right). But as fate would have it they only made us taste 5 types. Out of which the last 2 were just t osweet. Kinda sugary syrup. The cheap "Rasna" (ok indian soft drink brand) kinda thing. All hopes dashed.

Never the less the wineyard is a beautiful place. Will upload pics of the grapes, the hillside slope where the grapes grow and the beautiful meanering river rhine, once i ge hold of amod and get my pics back.

Going tommorow to cologne. should write about that in detail as well.

My Experiments as a Cook Part III

Aha
Viola, now im on my way to be sanjeev kapoor(the cooking show host of Khana Khazaana for my readers outside India). I have already made Rajma, Alu mutter, Spaghetti and Pasta. And even the europeans liked my food. (ok i am not the only cook, its 3 of us, and may be the europeans didnt want to hurt our feelings) Indian food is becoming popular at Bundeheim dormitory, with Eyal from israel and Ian from Canada always wanting to taste a bit and joinign us for meals.

Anyways now for all my readers who were concerned about the survival abilities of a vegetarian surviving in this pork and potatoes country, im just doing fine. (yeah that is only my mom i guess)

And again to u mommy, u saying i was no good in the kitchen, u are proved wrong. Wait till i get home and cook a good meal for u. Im sure then u will miss your sons cooking for the entire 6th term.

Ok i know that no knows the real taste of indian food in europe, so im fine. My mom is still a great cook, (cant offend her, as per rumours even she reads this space) but I am doing fine. I guess so ;)

Gone are the Road trip plans, Boo hoo :-(

Yeah all my car and bike travel plans have gone kaput.
Bike travel becasue of exhorbitant rentals, (100-150 euros per day) and no cars because peoples clashing itinery, no one else being crazy bout travel, and general lethargy. So booked the exhorbitantly priced Eurail pass. (my biggest single purchase in my short life)

So Im gonna miss these german autobahns with no spped limits. Gone is the dream to cruise at 200 kph. No more dreams of gawking at women on the streets of rome and naples while driving.

No more remebering that i have to drive on the right not left.

Now i have to tour europe by train. Might meet more locals, flirt a little more with the women. Learn a wee bit more german/french/italian.

Lets see my big travel plans commence from next week.

Oktoberfest 2005

Yeah, the WHU students had planned a trip for all of u exchange students to the "Oktober fest". For those who think i have forgotten to spell, or this was just one of the many typographical errors on my blog, no you are mistaken, i am absolutely correct, thats the way he germans call their most popular festival. (Also mistakenly called Oktobeer fest) And yeah i went to this fest in september. It is called Oktober fest as it ends on the first sunday of october and starts 2 weeks before that. This year it is from 17th Sept to 3rd Oct. And we went on sunday 18th Sept

This is held in Munich (Mu:nchen in Deutsch) and here all the bavarian breweries have their gigantic tents put up, serve their beer (1 litre mugs only, nothing less). Also there are other rides like roller coasters and free fall (the regular kinda stuff one would find from disneyland to Bombays Fantasyland or EsselWorld.)


But i guess it is not so much bout the beer but bout the festie atmosphere. Many people are dressed in traditional Bavarian dresses, there is a live band, lots of music and general atmosphere of fun and frolic. The tents are full of people at 10 AM in the morning itself.

We left at 3 AM form Vallendar and reached Munich by us (nice double decker bus, the dahs board looked straight out of a cokpit or some 80s Sci Fi (Indian Movie, with flashing buttons and GPS and other electronic Gadgetary)

Else not much. I was busy drinkign and dancing away visiting different tents.
The women are really nice, no one objects to dancing wiht complete strangers (or is it that i am too handsome ot refuse? unlikely, seems that they might find a skinny ugly south asian guy utterly harmless)

Yeah though the beer was expensive (At 7.50 Euro a liter it sure is) the atmosphere is simply electric.
I went on the Roller coaster, no other rides (again way to expensive)

we simply left at midnight and reached Vallendar before 6 AM (hey dude 550 Km in 6 ours with a 40 minute pit stop, tht is some travelling)

Now all i can say is

Ein Prosit, ein Prosit, Der Gemutlichkeit; ein Prosit, ein Prosit, Der Gemutlichkeit

(That was the main drinking anthem, go figure out what it means)

I leave this blog with a few pictures of the Oktober fest.
(More pic will be uploaded elsewhere might post the link)
I reccomend that who ever has an opportunity should visit it.

Aha Coalition Government here as well.

Yeah this Sunday were the elections for the German parliaent, and though this was supposed to be a close election, this is a pefect hung parliament. The top 2 parties have 35% (CDU) and 34% (SPD) and other 2 parties having 8% each.

Now i guess lots of horse trading would go on and small regional parties extracting their pound of flesh. Very similar to the situation in India.

I guess gone are the days of one party government.
Even in the US the elcetions between Kerry and Bush and Al Gore and bush were so close.

The world is believ is moving towards a more centrist policy.

Anyways this is enough politics for me this term.

Will soon upload pics of wine tasting and the Oktoberfest. (Really had one of the best weekends of my life)

Now lemme grapple with academic matter for a change.

The Korova Bar

yeah thats the favourite hang out. It turned a year old now. (Dunno how WHU ers survived before the Korova) We had free cakes with any drink we ordered that night.

Heres celebrating its first year.

Also Thats the place where we have "Tauschie Tuesdays"

Nice fun filled place. All Exchange students drop in there for sometime

The Running Dinner

THe WHU has a very nice concept of a running dinner. Here a group of 4 is formed who have the starters, main course and the dessert at 3 different houses (of local WHU students apartments) and thus we get to meet more people.

My group had me and 3 women (hey really am i lucky or what? I havent bribed any one but i am always lucky with the ratio)

and to top tht luck ouyr first destination was a place were the hosts were 4 girls. This was the maximum my luck could stretch to. You can see whom I had dinner with here.

Yeah i know date is wrong, but i need to change my camera settings.

The funda was really nice, u get to know many more people.

All we had to do was get wine (or other alcoholic drinks) and the dessert. Our group over did it (especially because of that dumb swedish girl, who has brains a size of a hydrogen atom)

here what we got. obviously the chocolates werent over and lots of wine was left. I took one bottle back with me though

Also we had wonderful dinner, courtesy Thomas (who cooked Pasta with olives and mozerella cheese and olives for a veggie like me, and for the others he had steak, ham and beans with potatoes.) He is a really good cook, and enjoyed the food and his good humour, though the painful swedish girl was really dumb.

The conversation went like this

Swede Dodo: Hey Tomaaas, what did you do with the martini (holding a half empty bottle of martini)

Me: He Flushed it down the toilet

Swede Dodo (mouth open aghast): but it costs 32 Euros

Thomas (cant control his laughter) : Yeah it keeps it clean and kills the germs

The Swede Dodo still didnt understand, had to be explained in detail. Made some snide remark about Rude ugly Indian men. (And i respond by character assassination on the world wide web !!!)

Yeah and after that we went for dessert at Mathias's place. There was Siechi, the turkish DJ as well. So had some nice white wine, with cake and chocolates, listened to some music, especially some german punk and rap.

And then i walked down the cute french girl (whose name i can neither spell nor pronounce ... as yet) to her apartment, and the swede dodo (actually she is not like the scandinivian woman i had imagined she would never make it to the D16 Top 5. Rather than being tall, thin hour glass figure with blue eyes, shes just 5 feet nothing, plump, with puffy face and brains which are way worse than her looks.) , yeah the swede dodo went with her friends to party in Logo the Club in Koblenz 8 km away.

Yeah some more pictures shall be regularly updated now on this blog.

Hope all my non existent readers respond as well with some comments as well

My Experiments as a Cook Part II

Today it was raining hard, and thus i thought let me bunk that 4 hour class, so just relaxed.

The Picture on the left shows my state there now.

By the way by staying in during the rain I cooked tradititonal indina meal for hte first time.

It was simple, rice (boiled in the rice cooker) and to spice it up stir fried it with jeera. And simple potatoes, tomatoes and onions as the vegetables.

All this was done by using Shashu and VJ's simple formula for cooking.

Heat Oil in the pan, add mustard, heat till is sizzles, add other masala (haldi et al) thne add onions, stir till they are cooked, add chopped tomatoes, and then add boiled potatoes. Add some water to create the gravy. Viola its done

And yep the food was nice. The IIMB guys with me liked it as well (ok yeah Akhsay Sardesai was my co-cook, but now im confident tht i too can do it all)

So tonight its some italian food.

Lets see how bad is it

Herren and Damen

In Germany men are called Herr and women are Dame or Frau

Usually the loo sign has a picture of a man or a women so it isnt a problem, but after a company presentation and dinner with free beer and wine. So after the dinner besides being tipsy, my bladder was alsos full, and then when i go to the loo in the basement, no pictures this time, but only whats written is "Herren" and "Damen" . And the innocent illiterate person that i am, I think Herren is for her and Damen is for Da - Men.
Well so i went inside the door marked Damen and ... Rest they say is history.
;)

From Ashes to Ashes, Dust to Dust

England have won the ashes, and boy they deserved it. After 18 years of humilitation and the aussies being big bullies from 1999 onwards.

But england have been on road to greatness, right from beating wimdies in windies, Pakis in Pakistan, nearly drawing series in india nad srilanka (under nasser hussain) and then beating Kiwis, South Africans, so they have got a good nucleus built over the years.
Their pace attack is as good as any. 4 quicks but al lwith different styles. Concern is their middle order with Ian bell making a pair, and i think they are a basman short. but nevertheless, I havent even supported India so much, or followed a series so keenly. ( I have been thinking bout ashes from april, and was waiting for July 21 for the first day till sept 12 the last day)

This is a new chapter in world criket.
Waiting now for further humiliation of the aussies in the Super series (6 day ests world XI vs Aussies)

though on selection i disagree with gavaskar (Akhtar does deserve to be in any team)

My World XI for tests

1 Graeme Smith
2 Marcus Trescothick
3 Rahul Dravid (his cuurent form doesnt merit inclusion though might be replaced by vaughan)
4 Brian Lara
5 Sachin Tendulkar (yeah below his favourite position)
6 Kumar Sangakara
7 Freddie Flintoff
8 Shaun Pollock
9 Muralitharan
10 Shane Bond
11 could be for an allrounder Heath Streak or jaques Kallis (obviously batting at 7 or Steve Harmison)

yeah the result of super series is a forgone conclusion
if the world XI plays like a unit

anyways

lets see how it works out

TGV (Tauschie Government Elections)

We have been having a lot of events lately.
one was the team building event in the woods, towards the hillside, (appropriately called town HillSchiede)
Lots of nice events where you have to as a team performance tasks, like climbing over an electric fence, and what not ...

Yup and now coming back to the topic the TGV "Tauschie Government Elections"

No prizes for guessing who won the post of the president, was non other than the "Italian Idiot" After listening to his speech i doubt anyone would have thought otherwise

"Foraa moraa paardies, foraa moraa beir, foraa moraa saax,
vote foraa Annn JeLLL O"
yeah listening to this all opposing candidates withdrew.

And yes his Drinking Paardy won the elections hands down, with French Tempress being the vice president (TGV believes in equal opportunity, so women are well represented)
And the Whacky brit desi (NRI) being the treasury incharge.

With our Bundesheim Dormitory having one most of the posts there is surely gonna be another of the Legendary French Party, all organised by the French Temptress.
These French parties are some thing like the Fight Club

Rule 1 There are no French Parties
Rule 2 No one outside knows what happens inside the french parties
Rule 3 No Cameras allowed in the french parties

Yeah the rest is very simple, people passing around a hooka (yep another french f*!$%r got one) smoke apple and/or mint flavoured tobacco, (sometimes with flavour o weed),
drink beer or vodka, dance to trance music, all of this in a kitchen, which is obviously cramped.

Then we play the drinking game.
Named Ein, Zwei, Drei, Fuhr, funf (ok simple 1-5 in german)
on tht count each person takes out there fist and shows a number from 1-5. then find the sum and go from the first person till the count ends. That person has to chug a beer bottoms up. Then he is the next person.
Last person standing wins.

Nice game eh, hic!!!!