Summer times

As we come to the end of the summer (as people here in Germany know it), the mood in Berlin remains the same; youthful and care-free. The past few months have been the best in my life and I am looking forward to next week when my best friend will visit me. Krishnan "Kitha" Swaminathan is definitely eclectic; a man of many words and principles. In a week, sobriety will take backstage as the demons governing a couple of the seven deadly sins come to dine with us. In other words, kiss me, I am shitfaced. Immer getrunken. Ha. Of course it is up to the good people who know us (and those who dont can just try all eh?) to guess which sins I am talking about.

I am pleased to have reunited with one of my of primary loves in Cricket. Cliched as it may be, spending a day under the sun hitting the ball about and having a bowl is way better than a picnic in my opinion. Undoubtedly, playing in a cricket club in Berlin is as crazy as it gets. To some, its a summer thing, to others its about team-building, shape-shifting, serious bullshit as they are probably gonna live there forever. So, eitherways, the Berlin Cricket Club is better off without me but it has been one 'hella' summer. Hope the boys do well in the semis (and, hopefully, the final) and see you guys on the India Tour of '09.

Yoshan, Siva,Mihai, Kat and Dimitris will be missed. Go well and enjoy everyday like your life depended on it. All the big onions on the girls here will be sorely missed as well; its the least the buxome girls from Berlin (as well as everywhere else) deserve.

Best Quotes while in Berlin :

Yoshan: Its like trying to find your wife in OranienBurger Strasse!!! ( Well, this is the Red Light District of Berlin)

East Berlin Blues

My time in Berlin has been as eventful as ever. Coming here on the pretence of earning a living by headhunting, my dreams were quashed on the first day of work. Trust companies not to give you a decent salary, let alone a work permit but I will get to the misgivings of the work permit later. So, on paper the company I worked for is the 'number one hiring agency in all of Europe'. Until I typed the same sentence in Google, I actually believed that load of lard before I started playing house in Prenzlauer Berg, at a big apartment I happened to rent for a month. While things seemed bleak in general, some waste of life out there stole the bike I was given. Come end of Feb, I had to move once again; not before I had to 'compensate' my landlady for the bike. Moving stuff to nearby Schonhauser Allee was convenient but, the apartment was not. I know what your thinking; Why did you move to a place you didnt like?? The apartment is a 'Wohnung-Zimmer' (your not the only one in the house) owned by a cretinaceous, insane, megalomaniac called Michaela Ristau. The complex dichotomy of her existence really astounds me; She barely eats anything all day, doesnt do anything purposeful in life, and is generally lackadaisical as all hell. Yet, she says she works as a acupuncturist to most outsiders, feeds her dog (Bastard Bertie is a Rotweiler) beside the pots and pans in the house (Yech!) and bitches about everybody else in the house. Far from this depressing hell-hole in which I have been trying to formulate my existence, I have met many interesting people from far and wide that makes up for just about everything else. Just about. Finding people to play cricket with in Berlin definitely takes the cake. An avid fan of good beats, Berlin tingles every little hair down my back and keeps those goosebumps up all night with its voracious mix of Techno, Drum n Bass, Trance, House and Minimalist Belters. The only club that has caught my eye uptil now is the Watergate, by the Oberbaumbruecke in Warschauer Strasse but I have heard that Panorama is even better. Wednesday nights at the Boat party close by are good for the mid-week crisis tension to dissipate; time to chill with good friends over a beer or two. Lager and the FiFa World Cup 2006 brought me to Deutschland more than 3 years back and now I seem to be at a very interesting, reflective inflection point in my life, but time waits for no one eh? I take solace in the fact that my good friend Dimitris found a great place to stay in Mitte, a studio apartment with the works. Ok, off to look for another interesting job to get me all the moolah I need as a young blood in Berlin.