An Evening in Madrid

As we entered Madrid, the one thing that struck me was the amount of traffic in the city. Roads are massive here, a number of four lane motorways leading to the capital city. Once we managed to get off the highway and into the streets of the city centre, there were loads of cars everywhere. We were booked in a hostel very close to Gran via, which is the main central lane of Madrid. Finding our hostel and a place to park were both a nightmare. As we maneuvered our car in the wee streets trying to find a spot, we encountered a hilarious incident. A woman on a huge BMW trying to squeeze her car into a small place, in which even our Golf had problems squeezing into. Her car had scratches everywhere, evident from the way she was trying to park the car. Matchbox parking is not for everyone, and she was bumping again and again into the Mini cooper parked behind. There was some scaffolding in front and the only thing that she was successful in doing was constantly bump both the front and the back of her car. It was a one way small lane, and we were right behind her and there were like a long queue behind us. We were in no hurry to miss this life time oppurtunity of a woman trying out her parking skills. The cars behind were honking like crazy and we were holding our stomachs. I dont mean to be sexist, but women can be great on the road sometimes.

Later in the evening after settling down at our hostel, we headed to get some food in our belly and met a Bangladeshi bloke making Kebap's in Numret, a Turkish food chain in Madrid. He made some nice middle eastern tea for us, a special one served in small glasses. Appetite satisfied, we headed to get some cane juice inside us and entered a rustic looking bar. Some guys were leaving a table and as we headed towards it, a guy smiled and blew a kiss at me. Not sure at first, it occured to me that he was either being nice (in a strange way) or was gay. Soon we were sitting next a bunch of nice looking people but acting in a weird way. There were two girls in the group that started kissing and feeling each other up. They were ofcourse lesbians. Never mind, there can always be different people in a crowd. Then there came three guys who sat in front of me. Two of them were holding hands and started kissing. This was the first time i was seeing two guys kiss. Soon looking at the rest of the crowd we realized that we were the different ones in the crowd. We got chatty with this group of comprising of the two girls and were talking about the night life around in the area. We only heard of gay clubs around, they had no idea about straight ones. Then I realized that they were under the impression that we were a couple. LOLZ. (Yes.. AB... I wanto see ur expression now). They invited us to join them for the evening to a club called 'Heaven' Before things got out of hand, we put our coats on and headed out. A bloke there gave us a couple of passes to a night club near by and we decided to try it. On entering the bartender seemed to move in a different way. There were girls dancing in one group and guys in another. We had ended up in the wrong place again. This was enough and our idea of a few peaceful beers before hitting the bed vanished. Stepping out as quickly as we had entered, we decided it best to head to the security of our hostel.

Alicante to Madrid - 450 Kms

As usual a lazy morning, this time though the church bells in the vicinity started breaking our dreams early in the morning. Abhi was slumbering in the bed and I was constantly trying to get him to go and take a shower. I cannot understand why I would not do the same instead. It is better to push the other person to get to do things and then follow suit.

Had our favourite holiday food, Kebab, which in Spanish is ‘Kebap’. To be followed by an English style tea with milk and sugar. Though the fella behind the counter did not understand what milk was, so in a friendly fashion made us put the words in his mouth ‘You don’t have milk’. He happily agreed, though my Indian friend who only likes his tea the English style, made him open cupboards and find a huge jug of milk sitting pretty. This made him jump to ‘leche’ (milk for spanish) and reminded me from my trip to Barcelona earlier this year about café con leche, which as you would have already guessed is coffee with milk.

The weather in Alicante was chilly with a dominant cloud cover in the sky. Took some photographs and bought myself some shades off the road from an African Spanish bloke who spoke decent English but did not know his numbers and had to tell me the price by typing it on his mobile. Luckily the shades I liked had a small insignificant scratch on one corner and I managed to pull his selling price down to 9 Euros instead of 15. According to him they are originals nicked off from some weird warehouse and to be sold at the streets of Spain. Not plausible, but then you can take these stories on their face value and enjoy them. Most of these street vendors are illegal and are often chased by the police. To counter, these guys have their merchandise displayed on a big piece of cloth with diagonal ropes tied at the four ends. This way if the cops come they can pull everything together in a matter of seconds and run. As is always the story with immigration, the local authorities cannot do without a certain number of people who are willing to do odd jobs. So all these Africans are an integral part of Spain doing their bit.

The beach in Alicante reminds me of a plan that a girl once had. She wanted to go the beach in the night with her boyfriend and have a quiet relaxing time under the moon with the waves of the sea in the foreground. They were in Alicante at the festival time and after walking around for sometime they decided to head to the beach at about 11 in the evening. As they headed to the beach, they found the place full of people, everyone partying like crazy. The novel idea that she had was already taken up by loads of other people and possibly they do it all the time. The expression on her face was remarkable.

It was a cold day and definitely not the most conducive one for a dip. So after some clicking it was time to head back to the Golf and start our penultimate journey, this time to the capital, Madrid. Sometimes these motorways can be boring, they are smooth and clean and have nothing but fast moving vehicles on them. The scenery around is more or less the same with greenery at places and buildings at others. When speed cameras come everyone tends to slow down and other times people hit the gas without respecting the speed limits too much. I touched 195 today, which is possibly a personal best and a million miles over the allowed speed of 120. We are about 200 kms from Madrid now and can see lots of windmills around, generating energy using ever present resource of wind and helping us get a bit away from oil. The most interesting part of the trip is when we make a stop over a the gas station for a cigarette and a café. Stopping at a Respol Service station, gave the Golf a face uplift, I.e. a car wash. There was no tea available and Abhi was almost convinced to go on to the next gas station, but something changed his mind and he settled for café con leche.

One of my favourite hindi movies is ‘Bollywood Calling’. Om Puri has done a genuinely masterpiece of a role in that flick. I am reminded when they are shooting a song in some park, and ‘Manu Ji’ is dressed up in a colourful dress with a blue ribbon tied around his massive waist. He is 60 years old and acting as a hero, with a 25 year old chick playing the actress and dancing around the trees with him. Om Puri is the director and is shouting ‘Balls, Balls, I want more balls’. ‘That bastard on the third tree is not shaking the flag… arre baba shake shake’. It is absolutely hilarious and a must see.

I am getting a bit tired now of sitting here and typing away my weird thoughts. Abi seems to be in a mood to talk (as usual), in all possibility we are going to talk about the Germans again. Adios amigos!

Road Trip from Granada to Alicante

Wrapped in a Polythene,
Tucked away safe in my mind
A little goodbye maybe or just a passing smile….

I was up early today, to take some pictures of the sunrise in Granada. Sylvain, the guy managing the hostel, told me that the sunrise is at about 8 these days. I had the alarm for everything from 6 - 7, but as expected I slept through them all. Rather kept switching off the alarms. At 8 15 sharp my consciousness forced me to open my eyes and end the lethargy. Hurried out of the bed and put my jeans on top of my pyjamas to fight the morning cold. Put on the first jumper I could lay my hands on and rushed out of the room. Hurrying down and then up the stone path there was only one thought in my mind, missed shooting my first sunrise, how can I be so daft. We were to leave Granada later in the day and head to Alicante, so there was going to be no second chance unless I came back (Which is very much possible).
Daft yes, because I could not see the sun anywhere as yet and could not put two and two together. As I went up the hill, the realization sank in that the sun has not risen as yet. It was almost 8 30 and it was easily another 30 minutes before it would show its face.

I busied myself with capturing other things. There were strange looking caves all over the upper face of the hill. Sylvain later told me that these are like the slums of Granada and people live in those caves. I dared to walk into one of them, which seemed abandoned. Smell of faeces greeted me, with a heap of toilet paper lying in one corner. It was too dark and unappealing to take any meaningful photographs, instead I headed to another one of these cave shacks. This one had a door (yes, the modern cave man was here to stay) and it was closed. Possibly there were people sleeping inside. On the outside there seemed something that could be called a kitchen, though there were no stoves to light a fire. But strewn around were some utensils that indicated someone had been gratifying their appetite in the recent past there. Wishing that whoever had been subjected to eat and drink in such filth gets to see better days, I shot some pictures and got out of there before someone came out of that door to club me to a painful visit to the local pharmacy. Considering that my Spanish is as good as my Martian, I would not get an opportunity to explain what I was doing here. In all possibility my camera would have been mugged in return for a black eye.

Soon I could see the sun popping out of the mountain in front and that gave me a reason to make a quick exit. Trying different configurations with my new toy, I tried to take as many pictures of the rising sun. The first rays of the sun hitting the mountain on this side created a beautiful effect and those images ended up trapped in my memory chip too. The main difference between the rising and the setting sun is that the former is very bright and does not create a great effect, while the latter is very simmered down (after a hard days work of brightening this world). It is easier to capture good effects of the setting sun, especially considering that it makes the sky a combination of wonderful colours.

After spending more than an hour clicking various interesting object in and around the Granada Slums, I headed back to the ‘Rambutan’, the hostel with a difference. Abhi was still fast asleep and seeing him tempted me to hop on to the top of the bunk bed and get back to my slumber.

At about two in the afternoon we hit the road again, to head to Alicante, this time a long distance trip of 350 Kms. Our desire to see as much as possible in eight days was still going strong and we were meeting the time table nicely. Abhi looked a bit happy as he had received a text from a certain German friend of his from Quito, Ecquador. Yes, these Germans are everywhere. I took the car out of the super narrow lanes of Granda heading toward A-92, the motorway to Alicante. Abhi took over once we hit the main roads and here I am whiling my time on the keyboard. It is very foggy here as we have come up on the mountains and there is snow around. Does not seem very cold though, especially not from in here. These roads are long, empty and kind of give one a feeling that you are here to have a good time and we have made the best arrangements for that. Thank you Spain!

250 Kilometres for a Dinner

Woke up thinking we will head to Gibraltar and see the strait and photograph some visiting ships. Instead while having tea laziness set in and the plan was narrowed down to being in Malaga for the day. After a quick shower and a meal at Burger king, the body came out of the sluggishness and was raring to head for a road trip again. So the plan changed accordingly, this time though the ambition was to visit Cadiz, recommended by a guy we had met in the hostel. Being Christmas day everything everywhere was closed. So we were left with the main option of travelling around and do some sight seeing. It was a long drive, though the road was smooth. The motorway made the drive quick though interesting. All the while listening to Adele’s recent grammy nomination of ‘Chasing Pavements’. Every now and then Abhi wanted to switch to some Indian music which I personally find icky sticky and full of only one thing ‘love’. The word reminds me of the continuous texts that I was receiving which kept my mind at things other than the road.

Touched Algiceras at 6 PM and stopped at a booth for a coffee and a cigarette. The booth was full of old Spanish folk spending their Christmas evening at cards. As expected none of them had a clue about the existence of any word that we spoke in English. But were more than willing to give us an ear and see if they could give us something we needed. Unfortunately the only drink they had in the small shop was some beer, and our driver’s instinct and the long drive ahead made us keep our mouths dry. The road ahead was not a motorway and it was already getting dark. Abhi insisted on taking the wheel and his limited exposure to night driving kept me on the toes. At every curve the brake lights went strong red suggesting to the guys behind that there is an intoxicated tourist on the road. The next 60 kilometres were a roller coaster ride in which the only thing I could do was to keep my fingers crossed. I took over at the motorway again and realizing that we would have to do the 250 kms back that night itself, I stepped on the gas touching speeds of 180 kms, which on any speed camera would have entitled me to losing me my driving license. Why don’t these countries learn something from their german counterparts. Autobahn anyone?

At about 9 we were in Cadiz, which like other Spanish cities we had seen so far was decorated for Christmas. Cobbled streets in the old town, were beautified with shimmering lights in the shape of a tree or leaves. The city looked so beautiful that I spent almost an hour taking photographs. The wish was to head to a pub/club to get a hang of the local people. Regrettably most of the businesses were closed. Headed to an open cafeteria, manned by an old man who seemed to be sulking for having to work on the Christmas day. Or it could have just been an argument with the wife last night. Ate a typical Spanish meal of tapas, with some British chips thrown in for a tourist. Yea sure, an Indian living in Britain, visiting spain and missing british chips! The food was good and the conversation over the cup of tea was even more interesting. Revolving around our German friends and the strange attitude that one of them has subjected my dear Indian friend to. A conflict of cultures or just a misunderstanding? Hard to say but possibly this mystery can be solved only when one them throws in the white flag and decides to move to our shitty city of Glasgow.

At about half ten, the desire to head back to our warm beds started creeping in and after an inexpensive meal and some photographs of Cadiz, we were on the road again. Possibly one of the longest distances I have driven for a meal. Abhi as usual was very eager to take over the wheels. I cautious on the other hand told him gently to ‘SOD OFF’. Surprisingly he listened. Again back on the motorway, our biggest concern was that we had only two cigarettes left. We decided to not smoke for an hour. Things got a bit worse when I noticed that the fuel meter did not look very encouraging. It was late in the night and being a holiday, the respite centres may not be open. There was of course again a small feud about the music and this time I had to relent. With sounds of ‘pyar’ (love) I drove with my ears partially closed. After driving for about a 100 kilometres found a petrol station open and tanked up the Golf. Not very surprisingly we were on a German car too. These Germans are everywhere.

Though now I had to let Abhi drive the remaining distance and also had to subject myself to the melodies of bollywood music, which sounded like fun at one in the morning. Tried to take some pictures of the road by trying out a variable shutter speed and came up with some amazing results. My first stint at trying out photography of moving objects in the night time. I would not say that the pictures are jaw dropping, but the effects that the camera is capable of producing are definitely noteworthy.
At about 2 in the morning we hit our beds to wake up to another bright sunny day.

Vision can show us only up till the horizon...

It is the eyes of the mind that take us beyond..

Before I go, before u go, its time to think about where we are going and what we are going to do. if there is anything more important than what is already there. To think and think and think ever more will get us in the world of philosophy cause that is what philosophers do. And I am not one. I am a regular bloke with regular desires and regular problems. But sometimes i stop to think and the more i think the more i think it is possible, On the surface things seem full of issues and problems, that will probably need a number of experts to sit down and conclude that there is no solution. That is where hope walks in and shows a way. To some it comes from far away, to others from closeby, to still some others it takes even more time to come. Sadly though, sometimes it forgets to come. Even sadder when it comes and then leaves if you dont respect it.

Some one once told me that hope is a four lettered word... like 'F***' and then another person told me that it is a four lettered word like 'Love'. i figured out that hope is something that can be used and abused by different people, for some it is a blessing in disguise, for some others it is way of procrastinating the inevitable. For me though, hope is what we take it for. Used wisely and respected, it comes back again and again, showing us the way to life.

A morning in glasgow, could bring to your doorstep surprises that you get used to only after living here for 6 months or so. Yesterday morning, i opened my eyes and stepped out to my living room to find a bright and sunny day outside. Today on the other hand it is partially cloudy, not as bright, not dark though and neither gloomy. Trees have shed their leaves and the only greenry is that of the grass and some small plants that can survive the widy glaswegian cold. It is the kind of wet day that attracts you to step out and take in the freshness of the wet soil into your lungs. Walk by the river and take pictures of the construction work on the new bridge. But before that have a good breakfast, comprising of cereals from Tesco, that have been given to you by someone who cares.

Tesco - the Cereals Advertisement.

Development of Religion...

Recently I was pondering over the use of religion in our short lived existence. If it does provide any positives to the life of a human being or does it add to the complexities of life. Are we better off with or without it? Is it possible to answer all the riddles of life with religion or is it is it just a guideline to how to live your life?

With the amount of chaos that some people have caused in the name of religion in this world, many of us especially in the western world would think that religion is a waste of time and the world can do best without it. At the same time there are many more that possibly feel that this is the time to get closer to God.

I perceive that there was a method through which the neanderthal man must have come up with the idea of God (Presuming that God did not tell him). Man's life has always been an inquest to reach the end, the achieve something. Sometimes when we cannot get to the end, our imagination helps our mind get there before we realistically can. During the olden days, man did not have any answers for a variety of things. One of these was natural phenomenon, another one was the differences between various kinds of living beings and why were some wild animals much stronger than the man. The mere fact that man could not control a number of things in and around his life, made him look up to something/someone that could. Some people started praying monsters while some indulged in praying natural forces like the sun, rain etc. This lead to the formation of a very crude idea of what 'GOD' is. Around the world at different times, people had different kinds of gods. I have heard of people that treat snakes, forests, land, food, fellow humans etc as gods. So in all there was a very stiff competetion with who was the right god. As time unfolded, the concept of god became smooth and people with power started using it as a tool to control people. This was one entity that most people would bow their heads to without asking too many (infact any) questions. As this pleased the rulers and people in powerful positions, soon GOD was the way forward. He was the protector and the saviour of our souls. It was through this imaginative concept that people unknowingly stumbled on the power of belief. The power remained unknown and to this day, belief is a concept practised by many, but used as a powerful tool only by a few.

As religion made the people bow their heads to the unknown, people in position of power had to treat GOD as the epitome of all beings. Kings were supposed to be directly accountable to the supreme power. At some point both power hungry and honest kings, used and utilised the belief in god for the development of their own reign and their society. Kings would have special people (who came to be known as priests), who would perform rituals and ceremonies. Other than physical and material strength, religion was another tool of keeping people under control. Most typical example here is the development of christianity spurred by the Romans to control the people and expand the horizons of their kingdom.

Humans around the world developed their belief in different kinds of god and when they met they talked about their own specific supreme power. This was a cause of conflict, not because the gods were different but because we had spent all our lives believing in our god being supreme and the most powerful and there came a human being claiming that there is another supreme power. Noteworthy here is the fact that God was only a result of our imagination and belief. Majority and possibly all of us have never encountered God in its real self. We talk of god through prophets and miraculous experiences and faith and hope. But we fail to see the god in ourself and in our fellow beings.

There are a number of questions that religion can possibly answer and loads others that religion can possibly not even think of as questions. It is not the end, neither is it the means.