A Trip to CERN (Geneva)
This is a nice piece of work by one of our Indian Friends who had worked at SM18 in CERN. All the associated people may find it enjoyable reading....I will not divulge the name!!!. Enjoy. ( the brown words are the edited part to keep the original writers identity secret)
This is a nice piece of work by one of our Indian Friends who had worked at SM18 in CERN. All the associated people may find it enjoyable reading....I will not divulge the name!!!. Enjoy. ( the brown words are the edited part to keep the original writers identity secret)
I still remember, it was around 6.30PM or so, day one was really very much chilled. Somebody had come to pick us up. For me, it was the first international trip. I had read in novels etc about Frankfurt airport. But never thought I would land up there. We landed in Geneva on 30th Jan this year. Deputation to CERN, Geneva for a year.
Every thing was found perfect except the temperature, as it was something like sub zero. We were the only ones to wear monkey caps. People were staring at us wondering why these donkeys wear a monkey cap. I started wondering, what the hell this cap has to do with a monkey. Cursing monkeys, I slowly tried to take it out, but had to put it back much faster.
I heard our escort telling the cab driver something, he told that it was French, but looked like Greek to me. He told us that we need to learn French, other vice it would be life threatening. I thought he was joking, but later, I understood that he was presenting it lightly. He said even though CERN is in Swiss side, we are going to live in a hostel in French side. Passports were stamped, Jacob again told the nice lady officer something. She said Mercy, I told our escort I could have talked to Mercy, had I known French. He laughed & told me that I need to learn a lot. I said for Mercy's sake, I can start it right away. We reached in Rober Schuman hostel. Rooms were already reserved; thanks to Nick, we had separate rooms even though bath & toilets were common.
Our escort told me to take rest for sometime, & dinner is being prepared for us in C wing. Suddenly corridor lights went off. I told him that it reminds me of my native village where power failure was so common. He said, relax, go to toilet, & he would wait in my room.
Toilets had no mug, no water taps even. Jacob told to use paper but I thought better to resort to Mankhurd technology. I have seen people sitting on rails in line, facing us relieving themselves. Take a bottle of water but don’t spill around, he yelled.
It was chilling outside the room. Jacob took us to C wing. A welcome session had been organised. Rice, Dal, omlet & roti. There were four of us. The Roti was a bit odd, sort of made from wheat husk, rather than from flour, I thought French roti will be like this. It was a great deal, & at the end, a parcel was given to us.
It was Gupta, I remember. He said 346 franks & u can give me later. We had only 50 bucks with us. The parcel contained a bread, butter, dal, rice, salt, milk & sugar. He said from tomorrow onwards, you are of your own, & asked us to report at 8.25 sharp for a shuttle, to go to office.
Gupta was there at sharp 8.25. I skipped my bath etc, since I got up at eightish. Other vice also, I dint dare to take bath, you need to take off your cloths, it is a pre requisite, which was unthinkable for me. For the first time in my life, I ate bread with taste. I realized it is basically hunger which adds tastes to any damn thing. We boarded a shuttle, came to SM18. I was just wondering what magnet testing was all about.
Every thing was found perfect except the temperature, as it was something like sub zero. We were the only ones to wear monkey caps. People were staring at us wondering why these donkeys wear a monkey cap. I started wondering, what the hell this cap has to do with a monkey. Cursing monkeys, I slowly tried to take it out, but had to put it back much faster.
I heard our escort telling the cab driver something, he told that it was French, but looked like Greek to me. He told us that we need to learn French, other vice it would be life threatening. I thought he was joking, but later, I understood that he was presenting it lightly. He said even though CERN is in Swiss side, we are going to live in a hostel in French side. Passports were stamped, Jacob again told the nice lady officer something. She said Mercy, I told our escort I could have talked to Mercy, had I known French. He laughed & told me that I need to learn a lot. I said for Mercy's sake, I can start it right away. We reached in Rober Schuman hostel. Rooms were already reserved; thanks to Nick, we had separate rooms even though bath & toilets were common.
Our escort told me to take rest for sometime, & dinner is being prepared for us in C wing. Suddenly corridor lights went off. I told him that it reminds me of my native village where power failure was so common. He said, relax, go to toilet, & he would wait in my room.
Toilets had no mug, no water taps even. Jacob told to use paper but I thought better to resort to Mankhurd technology. I have seen people sitting on rails in line, facing us relieving themselves. Take a bottle of water but don’t spill around, he yelled.
It was chilling outside the room. Jacob took us to C wing. A welcome session had been organised. Rice, Dal, omlet & roti. There were four of us. The Roti was a bit odd, sort of made from wheat husk, rather than from flour, I thought French roti will be like this. It was a great deal, & at the end, a parcel was given to us.
It was Gupta, I remember. He said 346 franks & u can give me later. We had only 50 bucks with us. The parcel contained a bread, butter, dal, rice, salt, milk & sugar. He said from tomorrow onwards, you are of your own, & asked us to report at 8.25 sharp for a shuttle, to go to office.
Gupta was there at sharp 8.25. I skipped my bath etc, since I got up at eightish. Other vice also, I dint dare to take bath, you need to take off your cloths, it is a pre requisite, which was unthinkable for me. For the first time in my life, I ate bread with taste. I realized it is basically hunger which adds tastes to any damn thing. We boarded a shuttle, came to SM18. I was just wondering what magnet testing was all about.
Somebody told that these are magnets, but I could see only huge blue & grey pipes. I peeped through the pipe hole to see a magnet. Somebody called me, & we all went up, familiar faces were there. We went to a conference room where we waited for the Boss. Nick came, we had an introductory session & he just briefed us what it is all about. I could not understand anything, but he said we need to do some user office formalities like I card etc.
We were declared as new members of tea club after having a cup of tea, & were asked to pay a few franks & euros, which we did immediately. Somebody asked what if one doesn’t take tea. It was clarified by Ambasta (tea club coordinator) that the membership only is compulsory (we all have already paid) and you still have the freedom not to take tea or coffee.
We went to user office in “boshu shuttle”. I was pretty impressed with user office & the shuttle. We were asked to fill up some forms, Swiss card, French card etc. I had trouble when the old lady asked me about my prenom etc. I said right from beginning I had only one name, and no pre names. Unfortunately, for south Indians, we don’t have sur names even. I still don’t understand why a sur name is required, when all you need is to identify a person. We have something called initial, which typically is father's name. It was probably originated to avoid duplicate names such as Ramesh, Suresh etc, which are very common.
Anyway, she saw my passport & filled up the forms herself, might have thought that it may be less energy consuming than talking & retrieving information from me. I also was not keen in spending time with her, as she was pretty old. Panda, probably got a better deal as he got a nice young lady as adviser.
Within 10 minutes, she gave the I-card. My photo looked like a terrorist, thanks to the winter ware. So I have become a CERN fellow for 1 year. So far so good….
All the four of us were given bicycles. We were to go back to hostel, as for the first day, this much was sufficient. Trouble started there. The guide was missing. But we had some idea to go back. So Panda & I pedaled back to hostel. Half way through, I realized that Panda is missing. I too got confused. On the road, in chilling cold, I felt lost. I just took a right turn & landed up in 3152 building, from where we had started. I heard some one running past asking for Panda. I said I lost him on the way. He asked me to get into a CERN car. I was looking for a back door handle, which was missing. Somebody got down from behind through front door & guided me inside. Panda hunt was initiated. Finally we got him near reception. He was a bit scared. Chilling cold outside, first day itself getting lost. He was standing in the middle of the road, not to miss the car, which was supposed to pick him up. A couple of cars were stopped on both the side of the road thinking that the pedestrian wanted to cross the road. So when Panda looked at one side, the driver would give an indication for him to cross. Obviously, he dint want to cross. So he looks casually to the other side of the road & another driver on the other side would stop. Frustrated, he started looking up. Finally we were dropped at hostel.
...........will be continued
We were declared as new members of tea club after having a cup of tea, & were asked to pay a few franks & euros, which we did immediately. Somebody asked what if one doesn’t take tea. It was clarified by Ambasta (tea club coordinator) that the membership only is compulsory (we all have already paid) and you still have the freedom not to take tea or coffee.
We went to user office in “boshu shuttle”. I was pretty impressed with user office & the shuttle. We were asked to fill up some forms, Swiss card, French card etc. I had trouble when the old lady asked me about my prenom etc. I said right from beginning I had only one name, and no pre names. Unfortunately, for south Indians, we don’t have sur names even. I still don’t understand why a sur name is required, when all you need is to identify a person. We have something called initial, which typically is father's name. It was probably originated to avoid duplicate names such as Ramesh, Suresh etc, which are very common.
Anyway, she saw my passport & filled up the forms herself, might have thought that it may be less energy consuming than talking & retrieving information from me. I also was not keen in spending time with her, as she was pretty old. Panda, probably got a better deal as he got a nice young lady as adviser.
Within 10 minutes, she gave the I-card. My photo looked like a terrorist, thanks to the winter ware. So I have become a CERN fellow for 1 year. So far so good….
All the four of us were given bicycles. We were to go back to hostel, as for the first day, this much was sufficient. Trouble started there. The guide was missing. But we had some idea to go back. So Panda & I pedaled back to hostel. Half way through, I realized that Panda is missing. I too got confused. On the road, in chilling cold, I felt lost. I just took a right turn & landed up in 3152 building, from where we had started. I heard some one running past asking for Panda. I said I lost him on the way. He asked me to get into a CERN car. I was looking for a back door handle, which was missing. Somebody got down from behind through front door & guided me inside. Panda hunt was initiated. Finally we got him near reception. He was a bit scared. Chilling cold outside, first day itself getting lost. He was standing in the middle of the road, not to miss the car, which was supposed to pick him up. A couple of cars were stopped on both the side of the road thinking that the pedestrian wanted to cross the road. So when Panda looked at one side, the driver would give an indication for him to cross. Obviously, he dint want to cross. So he looks casually to the other side of the road & another driver on the other side would stop. Frustrated, he started looking up. Finally we were dropped at hostel.
...........will be continued
Bread for breakfast, for lunch & for dinner. It reminded me of the limca ad. Limca before piss, limca after piss. Anyway, Jor ka chadka, dheere se lage.
We started to report to office by the boshu shuttle, which used to come to our hostel at 8.25. Well, I need to mention a little about the “boshu shuttle”. It is a nice internal shuttle service. We were told that all you need to do is call up a number & say, boshu. I initially thought boshu is the driver’s name. Then say from where to where you need the shuttle. We were taught how to say numbers & main places, like SM disvi for SM18 & batima main for main building etc so that the driver gets an interface. The driver would then tell you the wait time.
I compared this service with what we get, back home. You need to go to the drivers’ cabin & request one by one. There will be either no drivers around or all of them present, both conditions equally bad. The chance of getting a drop in time is inversely proportional to the urgency of your work. Many times, I had walked kilometers inside & still could make it than loitering near & inside driver’s room with optimism.
This “boshu” service was used left & right & the driver sometimes was visibly seen frustrated as we ourselves could hear another request “boshu, sm disvi to batima main” just two minutes after our start from sm18. The driver used to say,”45 minutes” & throw his handset away. Life started rolling with a bit of inertia.
I again caught hold of Jacob, for a breakthrough. He gave me cooker & some essential stuff for cooking. I had some previous cooking experience during my bachelor life. So I started my cooking experiments. I went to Champio store for some vegetables etc. I was relieved to see some familiar vegetables & wondered how on Earth these things grow in parallel like civilization. I picked up some, but then got stuck, how to weigh & pay. Unfortunately, I could not make out the names of that stuff, as all the damn boards were in French. So I just kept them back, got out of the store, & waited for some familiar faces for my rescue.
Soon, I met Charu, & helped me to understand the system. He said, items marked (1) were cheap in a specific category & can choose them shutting your eyes. As an addendum, he told me to say mercy any number of times to anybody you meet. He also told me to say “boshu” to all the people you meet. I initially told this as a whisper, not knowing what the response would be. Later, my confidence level shot up with a couple of French words added to my vocabulary. Boswa, merci bukku, bon appetite, ve, ve etc etc. I started feeling good. Mercy bukku, Vala !! I thought & said to myself.
Meanwhile, somebody told us that we need to move to B or C wing at the earliest. It was told with emphasis that the rental was much less in these wings compared to A wing where we stayed. Painfully, we waited for somebody to vacate or die in B or C wing so that we could get in. After a month’s time, somebody’s family came & we got into B wing.
One day we were going out just to get some veg stuff. Our CERN car just stopped nearby. Peeping out, Ambasta, told me that my father expired. I was just lost for a moment. I got into the car & we went to control room. Nick was there to help me. I made a couple of phone calls to get details. It was hardly 15 days that I came here.
We went to Carlson travels to find the possibility of a ticket back home. Fortunately I got one for the very next day & called up home. They decided to arrange the funeral after 2 days so that I could attend. I am the only son & all my relatives were keen in my attending the last rites.
He was a chronic diabetic patient. I was in Mumbai & I could not do much for him. I had invited him to Mumbai to stay with me, but he refused. So it was my sister who took care of him at the fag end of his life, which was very painful. I lost my mother when I was in 8th standard. So my father lived just for us & I felt guilty in not nursing him properly. He never complained.
My mind goes a bit haywire; I don’t intend to bother you much, bear with me.
So after the funeral & the main functions, I came back to office in 10 days time.
I got a B wing room to my surprise.
Day one went well, till midnight.
Just opposite to my room was an old man, we had already named him Daddu. Another fellow was roaming around in undies, we called him Nangu. Nangu was just by the side of my room. After a day, I realized with a jolt that he had the habit of laughing aloud in the wee hours of morning. Vee villie vinky…Initially, I thought that it might be a way to vent his frustration, being a bachelor, like donkeys do. Later, it became a pain to me as I used to wake up at odd hours in morning when he laughs & I felt like crying.
We were put in training directly in shifts along with experienced colleagues. The first step was to learn the tests & then to understand what that was supposed to do. The test names initially looked funny to me, like lyra, iap,pt1, prep3, etc etc. I started asking details about them to one of my friend. He handed over a 300 page write up to me, saying that every thing is well explained here & I need only to read that. I understood his hidden directive & decided, I can always see it later. So within a week’s time, at least all the tests got familiarized.
LYRA
Lyra was the easiest rest. We need to put some current in the magnet & call the ICS fellow (an agency to connect, disconnect & transport magnets). I was asked by the shift leader to do that test on a magnet. I made the preparation & called ICS fellow. Boshu, he said. I was not scared, I already knew that he is my well wisher, I also offered him the same. Then he caught hold of a steering like thing & started to turn it towards one side. I carefully stepped away from the magnet, thinking that this would turn the magnet by some degrees. I didn’t notice anything. He then immediately started to turn in opposite direction. After a couple of turns he asked me, “Vala ?” I said, no, LYRA. Fortunately the shift leader came & handled him.
The most interesting test was training. It was simple, just need to launch it & keep watching in control room till a sound like, ’phewwww’ comes. People initially told me that the magnet is quenched. I thought of some problem, as such a sound in any electrical appliance would definitely call for a repair.
One fellow in each shift would be the shift leader. By definition, he is supposed to co ordinate the overall activities in shift. But I started noticing that it was used as a license to fool around & get work done by others. Not all, but at least some of them fall in this category. We had European colleagues also.
Shift life was an interesting one. Night shifts were a bit tough, as we had 9 hours to spend. We had the tea club, where all topics under the sun were discussed. How India can improve, what is missing in our system, what the hell US is doing with Saddam, why we go ahead with nuke power, socio economic issues, Swiss culture, why the European has to kiss when they meet a lady, why they don’t do the same with us, slum rehabilitation, culture etc etc. Sometimes, a tea break would last as long as 2 hours, as we need to conclude our discussions and can’t hang it half way through.
When there is absolutely no work, one could just put the head down, on the kitchen table or on conference table. We had a Tuesday meeting at 9.00AM to discuss the progress & problems encountered, & solutions proposed. One Monday night, there was no much of job & one fellow took a bit of nap on conference hall table. Unfortunately his colleagues forgot to wake him up during next day shift transfer. He was woken up by one of our members who came a bit early for Tuesday meeting. He just got up & sat on a chair & attended the Tuesday meeting.
MM
Stretch wire measurements were one of the tests, rather a bit cumbersome one. Putting the wire through a series of inaccessible grew was a tough task, which reminded me of an old tailor, trying to put the thread through his machine. The wire always used to break at the last moment after having declared “successfully installed”. Finally somehow we all learned the trick.
Errors committed during tests were another hot topic. Although the system was well protected, & there was no room for any damage, sometimes due to repetitive job, some casual attitude would creep in resulting in errors. It used to surface up through mails & there used to be mail wars. Hot exchange of allegations, etc etc. Later we discovered that all these mails are read & enjoyed by our boss too, & decided to modify the recipients’ list so as to block him from reading. Still he used to get precise information regarding all these & wondered how he managed to do so and who the informers were.
Net surfing was a time killing activity. Too much to surf, keep track of foreign exchange rates, personal items to be purchased through net, planning family visit, preparing official documents for them, planning tours (local & Europe) etc.
How to win franks & influence people was a competitive activity in hostel. I was told how to carefully book tickets to Paris & Rome. If you can make it much in advance, you can make a trip to Paris as low as 20€ per head. Leuvre museum entry is free for the first Monday of every month. You can take a carte orange ticket from Monday to Friday. So lot of permutations and combinations would be tried to optimize the expenditure for family trips. So I have seen people enjoying having executed all these booking exercise & offering a wine to his selected friends. Finally, another wine would be served to come out of grief, originated from cancellation of the trip, as the kid would fall sick exactly the day of departure.
Somehow, months passed by & it was time for my family to come. All the 4 CERN apartments were full, so for initial one week, I had to reserve a room for them in a hotel in French side. I shifted to Suites home the day my family was to arrive. 60€ per day was a bit taxing indeed, but had no other easier options.
After a long wait, finally my family arrived. They came via Vienna since Austrian air was lot cheaper. With lot of struggle, I could convey the local cab driver where I want to go, of course with the help of a map, which I had carried as a pre emptive measure.
They were surprised to experience foreign life for the first time & they seemed enjoying. I felt a bit proud & more than that started feeling my bank balance nose dive. Once in a life time, I tried to console to myself. There were others in my group who could not bring their family due to their own problems. I shifted to a CERN apartment in Meyrin. It was good change. In French side, sometimes we waited for a Y bus wondering why this bloody bus is not coming. My daughter never walks for more than a km, but she was forced to walk. I told taxi is not available in Saint Genis, & she said the place should have been better named as saint frustrated or so.
We enjoyed the Meyrin stay & it was well connected with city, buses every now and then. I had shifts & not every day we could afford to go out. My wife started saying that there was no much difference in staying here except that you get only French channels in TV. She missed her 6000th Ekta Kapoor “Kahani infinity” soap. I somehow convinced her that we can’t move out everyday because of various techno-economic reasons. There was no option for her; somehow my arguments were taken, to my surprise.
The first Swiss trip was with Sampath’s family, we went to Bern, & Rheinfalls. I got used to the rail system, perfect timings, posh second class coaches, no rush, good information system, maps, docs etc etc. Sampath had a handicapped pram which he used to kick every time when it was to be locked. I initially thought it had something to do with starting like my scooter ( n^n kicks for a start, n is the nth attempt in a day) as I had never used a pram in my life. My wife told me that it is required for locking the damn pram. Frankly speaking, it was too energy consuming & he used to collapse after it gets click locked. His younger daughter would watch innocently why papa is kicking it mercilessly. Sampath had a reason not to invest in a new pram, as it was absolutely not required back home, a matter of few months, so a few kicks a day keeps the doctor also away…
We had prepared some breakfast & we shared it in train. Sampath’s mom was also there, she was a hard core vegetarian, & suffered a lot as she can’t take any bought out items. In general, Sampath’s family is veg, & mine is hardcore non veg. There were problem originated from this. My wife wanted to taste all non veg stuff available around; I somehow prevented her not to hurt Sampath’s feelings.
We got down at Bern & walked to Bern bear pit. There was only the pit; the bears were not to be seen. We took some snaps of empty bear pit & around. Sampath mimicked the sound of bear & I heard a sound coming from inside. ”Kooooooo”.
We boarded another train & went to Rheinfall. It was very cold. But the waterfall was fantastic. We got into a boat & went very near to the falls. To be honest, I am not at all romantic. Sampath used to do some poses with his wife, which made my wife go crazy. She used to tell me that I need to learn lots of lessons from them. I said, she may not agree. That night I had a severe pain in my left hand, with some nail bruises. The net positive benefit for the first day trip, I started wearing full sleeve shirt.
Anyway, the trip was excellent in general, & we had already planned the second one.
We did many trips together. My daughter & his elder one were, sort of freaks locking horns frequently. Somehow we managed that & life went on. We went to Europa park, Basel zoo, Morges Tulip garden, Pilatus, Italy ( Rome, Florance, Venice) and Amsterdam. I could have written more, but you may get bored. So I am planning to write in case I get some feedback.
Of course, I can share some experience which my friends had. One of my friends had gone to Amsterdam and visited Ma’m Tussad’ wax museum. He had a small kid, & all the family members can’t go together since the kid would start kidding. So he sent his wife to museum & thought he can take rest under a tree, doing a bit of baby sitting. “Cling”, he heard a sound & a 50 cent coin was found beside him. More sounds started coming & he found more & more coins around him. Suddenly a police vehicle came & asked him to stop begging. He tried his level best to convince the police fellow that he was just baby sitting & not begging. The police fellow saw his passport & said you seem to be educated & should know that it is a non begging area, you have an official passport & why you had to beg etc. Finally they got convinced and asked him to sit inside the police vehicle. The funniest thing was, the next day his wife also had exactly the same problem when they visited a wind mill & she was baby sitting.
I went to Paris alone with family, of course. Sampath had already gone there. So I had to do it myself. It was also an excellent experience. We got guidance from Vasu’s document; & had taken a printout.
Paris has an underground network, criss crossing metro line with excellent frequency. I just wondered in case power goes, there may be chaos. I just thought if such a system materializes in Mumbai, it would never move. Closing all the doors is an essential interlock for the rake to start. Ok, with doors open defeating the interlock, it might work. But getting in through the wicket gate also can lead to chaos. Ok, let Mumbai be as it is, I thought. We have a rail system as old as British times and the world’s largest reservation network. Do we owe them a lot? I think yes.
The basic infrastructure almost remains the same. A computerized ticket can’t remove the stink of train toilets & make the train run in time.
Driver of Mankhrd train report to Engine side. I still remember this announcement, train was halted at Kurla & it was there for almost 10 minutes, jam packed. The announcement repeated a couple of times. I just got down & wondered. I was just in the back side of engine coach, in the luggage cabin, to be precise. I was declared unfit to board any other normal coaches, as I miserably failed to get in. Anyway, the train is not moving, so I just walked to the engine side & didn’t see the driver. Afterwards, I saw the rear side guard, shaking somebody trying to wake him up, from a bench nearby & asking him to start the train.
After Paris visit, which was the last scheduled, I started packing up family. They were here for almost 3 months. Every good thing has to come to an end, I thought. With lots of chocolates and good memory, they bid by to me. I felt a big vacuum for a couple of days. I was back to hostel.
Fortunately, Shimjith was around. We started to cook together. It was a good experience, we used to experiment our Kerala recipes & beat each others’ back. Wine was introduced in our menu, beer also found its prominent place more frequently. Life became brighter. Sometimes, we tried single malt whiskey & it was incredibly superior to any kind of stuff we had tasted earlier.
Combined cooking had terrific benefits, as we need not bother about the food after a night shift etc. We thanked the fellow who already discovered pressure cooker. We used to cut all types of vegetables & cook together. After having a wine, we used to spend time to name the all time new dish, like, “rice cucumber menengitis cum plum pulav with lentil soup”. If the name doesn’t fit well, we used to have one more wine & a perfect name used to churn out.
We thanked the wine so much. We learned that the wine was not to be disregarded as any simple stuff, but it was to be treated as divine. We redefined the name so.
The effort for cooking for one or two is the same. Our cooking & moving together raised many eye brows. Many people had tried combined cooking & had miserably failed except one or two. Comments such as “Shlini, Ambika pair” etc were heard. Let them bark, we thought. The poor caravan has to walk only, or cycle at the most.
We used to have parties very often. It was really a fun. Probably the only fun. We just
looked for opportunities to celebrate. Food, wine & whisky. Vineet enjoyed whisky a lot. He is an entertainer. He used to recite shairees & shares. I did not understand every bit of it, but his gesture made me believe that some terrific joke is buried deep underneath. Sinha used to translate this, making it funnier. Particularly, Beer me he Brahma, wisky me Vishnu, rum me base Ram etc etc. He was explaining the helplessness of common man who can’t afford to discard any bottle, having God residing in all types of bottles. In Swiss, at least, I thought.
Recently also we had a party in hostel. It was around 3.30 or so & party was planned at 7.00. Cooking was going in full swing and an old fellow, who came to meet Daddu, peeped into kitchen. He started appreciating the cooking smell & was obviously hungry. He was offered some food & drinks. After a while, he became completely out & embraced one of our friends. He started kissing him telling that he is missing his wife a lot. With great difficulty, they were separated he went back crying.
Another time, we were returning from Nick’s home after a late night party. One of our friends had a couple of extra large pegs & he was a bit uncomfortable. We boarded the “9” no bus to come back to hostel. He found a place near the door to sit & another friend helped him stay vertical by holding him in his arms, sitting next to him. “Good night, enjoy & have a nice time”, an old lady told them while alighting from the bus.
IAP
Once I had a serious problem after such a party. I got a dream. I had called one of the equipment support fellow, Fredrico, since I had a problem with one of our routine magnet tests called iap. He came & asked me whether I had calibrated myself. I was shocked; I never had & didn’t know how to do so. He said, we’ll do that first. He took two probes and asked me to keep one in my mouth. He took the longer one & asked me to reverse. He inserted the other one into my back, piercing through my pant & winter ware. He applied 15 vots, 2 ampere for 5 seconds. I felt like some electrolysis in my stomach. Then he said, look! There is no LF data. Only HF data is there. I told him I dint have any food & had only a couple of drinks, so only HF is expected. Fortunately I got up, or else he would have made a training attempt in me.
Life goes on. Lot of problems, personal & official propped up. Car related, test related, hostel related. Some times, some tests were skipped by mistake, some were recorded as if being done, but not actually done. There were some interesting aspects. Some people do the work very seriously, some lightly. Anyway, the system was sort of fool proof, as there were no threat to the magnet test, only it would slow down the whole process.
Prep5
We had been to Matterhorn. A beautiful place to trek. We decided to trek upto Furi & then take the cable car from there. We had taken few cans of beer & a French bread to eat on the way. The walk was really fantastic. We were not aware of the bread quality. It was a big loaf, & had tough time in swallowing that but with beer we succeeded. The beer was not sufficient to keep us warm, we thought. We had stocked a wine from the base station. So we took a bit of wine. Now things were in control. We reached cable car station.
We went to clean Matterhorn. It was supposed to be the highest peak in Europe. There was a statue of crucified Christ. Some snaps were taken, & we went to an ice cave. There were many ice sculptures. I had a crazy idea. I sat on one of the polar bear (like we do on a horse) ice sculpture & took a photo. I had tough time to get out from that. I started wondering, if I can’t get up, I also might end up as a modified sculpture. Somebody else also has started taking my photo. I called shimjith to my rescue to get out from the bloody bear.
By the time we came out the cave, all the energy had been drained. How to charge the battery? Fortunately, there was a restaurant up there. We got in & ordered for a
rum punch. Hot rum in mild black tea. It was fantastic. The warmth of rum, as it went down rejuvenated our nervous system & the numb organs sprang to life.
It was time to return. I already had noticed Europeans using colourful sticks to walk in snow. We saw a couple throwing off their stick, on their return. I asked Shimjith whether we can pick it up. Why not? We both took those sticks & decided to keep it as a memento. We walked down from Furi, with our sticks tapping the rocks. I dint understand why people were looking at us & trying to suppress their laugh. Then we realized that the normal walking sticks & those used in the snow are different. Why they can’t use the same for both the purpose, we wondered. Anyway, we decided to take it all the way to hostel.
We had been to a snow walk to La Givrine. It was organized by Nick. We boarded the train from Gare & reached there at about 1.00PM. It was slightly drizzling. We had planned to walk for 1 hour in snow & take a break for a coffee or hot wine. It was a fantastic experience & we walked & walked & walked. I thought Nick lost the way & is not telling the hard fact. My shoes got completely wet & socks too. I felt my feet numb & wondered when this walk would conclude. He declared that we are in time & will take a break. We got into a coffee shop & some of us had hot chocolate drink & others hot wine. I have had chocolate drinks when I was a kid & obviously wanted to taste hot wine. It was a fantastic experience & the aroma of that stuff was great. I got my shoes & socks dry again.
Then we walked again to do a snow slide. Some of us took a short cut through a straight path through snow, but to my horror, it was almost hip level deep & we were already half way through. Somehow, we made it & now not only the shoes, but the pants also got wet. We did snow sliding for some time, first time in life. Some of my trials were off shoot, I found myself, uncontrollably sliding head down. But that was again great.
We again walked for another 20 minutes or so after alighting from the toy train to have fondue Dinch (Dinner cum lunch). Bread slices to be dipped in hot molten cheese with a ling fork. We added a bit of pepper & pickles before eating & the taste was good. We had a couple of white wine and cresh to finish. The cresh was exellent and we tried several verity of it. I tried my level best to make Sonnis & Panda to taste wine, but miserably failed. All tactics were tried, but they wanted to remain virgin. Nick had already threatened them not to take water at all for 6 hours after a fondue, as it would form a hard substance inside. It was really messy inside the small cozy restaurant and the lady who served would have developed a hearing loss.
Let me conclude for the time being. I might extend after feedback
We started to report to office by the boshu shuttle, which used to come to our hostel at 8.25. Well, I need to mention a little about the “boshu shuttle”. It is a nice internal shuttle service. We were told that all you need to do is call up a number & say, boshu. I initially thought boshu is the driver’s name. Then say from where to where you need the shuttle. We were taught how to say numbers & main places, like SM disvi for SM18 & batima main for main building etc so that the driver gets an interface. The driver would then tell you the wait time.
I compared this service with what we get, back home. You need to go to the drivers’ cabin & request one by one. There will be either no drivers around or all of them present, both conditions equally bad. The chance of getting a drop in time is inversely proportional to the urgency of your work. Many times, I had walked kilometers inside & still could make it than loitering near & inside driver’s room with optimism.
This “boshu” service was used left & right & the driver sometimes was visibly seen frustrated as we ourselves could hear another request “boshu, sm disvi to batima main” just two minutes after our start from sm18. The driver used to say,”45 minutes” & throw his handset away. Life started rolling with a bit of inertia.
I again caught hold of Jacob, for a breakthrough. He gave me cooker & some essential stuff for cooking. I had some previous cooking experience during my bachelor life. So I started my cooking experiments. I went to Champio store for some vegetables etc. I was relieved to see some familiar vegetables & wondered how on Earth these things grow in parallel like civilization. I picked up some, but then got stuck, how to weigh & pay. Unfortunately, I could not make out the names of that stuff, as all the damn boards were in French. So I just kept them back, got out of the store, & waited for some familiar faces for my rescue.
Soon, I met Charu, & helped me to understand the system. He said, items marked (1) were cheap in a specific category & can choose them shutting your eyes. As an addendum, he told me to say mercy any number of times to anybody you meet. He also told me to say “boshu” to all the people you meet. I initially told this as a whisper, not knowing what the response would be. Later, my confidence level shot up with a couple of French words added to my vocabulary. Boswa, merci bukku, bon appetite, ve, ve etc etc. I started feeling good. Mercy bukku, Vala !! I thought & said to myself.
Meanwhile, somebody told us that we need to move to B or C wing at the earliest. It was told with emphasis that the rental was much less in these wings compared to A wing where we stayed. Painfully, we waited for somebody to vacate or die in B or C wing so that we could get in. After a month’s time, somebody’s family came & we got into B wing.
One day we were going out just to get some veg stuff. Our CERN car just stopped nearby. Peeping out, Ambasta, told me that my father expired. I was just lost for a moment. I got into the car & we went to control room. Nick was there to help me. I made a couple of phone calls to get details. It was hardly 15 days that I came here.
We went to Carlson travels to find the possibility of a ticket back home. Fortunately I got one for the very next day & called up home. They decided to arrange the funeral after 2 days so that I could attend. I am the only son & all my relatives were keen in my attending the last rites.
He was a chronic diabetic patient. I was in Mumbai & I could not do much for him. I had invited him to Mumbai to stay with me, but he refused. So it was my sister who took care of him at the fag end of his life, which was very painful. I lost my mother when I was in 8th standard. So my father lived just for us & I felt guilty in not nursing him properly. He never complained.
My mind goes a bit haywire; I don’t intend to bother you much, bear with me.
So after the funeral & the main functions, I came back to office in 10 days time.
I got a B wing room to my surprise.
Day one went well, till midnight.
Just opposite to my room was an old man, we had already named him Daddu. Another fellow was roaming around in undies, we called him Nangu. Nangu was just by the side of my room. After a day, I realized with a jolt that he had the habit of laughing aloud in the wee hours of morning. Vee villie vinky…Initially, I thought that it might be a way to vent his frustration, being a bachelor, like donkeys do. Later, it became a pain to me as I used to wake up at odd hours in morning when he laughs & I felt like crying.
We were put in training directly in shifts along with experienced colleagues. The first step was to learn the tests & then to understand what that was supposed to do. The test names initially looked funny to me, like lyra, iap,pt1, prep3, etc etc. I started asking details about them to one of my friend. He handed over a 300 page write up to me, saying that every thing is well explained here & I need only to read that. I understood his hidden directive & decided, I can always see it later. So within a week’s time, at least all the tests got familiarized.
LYRA
Lyra was the easiest rest. We need to put some current in the magnet & call the ICS fellow (an agency to connect, disconnect & transport magnets). I was asked by the shift leader to do that test on a magnet. I made the preparation & called ICS fellow. Boshu, he said. I was not scared, I already knew that he is my well wisher, I also offered him the same. Then he caught hold of a steering like thing & started to turn it towards one side. I carefully stepped away from the magnet, thinking that this would turn the magnet by some degrees. I didn’t notice anything. He then immediately started to turn in opposite direction. After a couple of turns he asked me, “Vala ?” I said, no, LYRA. Fortunately the shift leader came & handled him.
The most interesting test was training. It was simple, just need to launch it & keep watching in control room till a sound like, ’phewwww’ comes. People initially told me that the magnet is quenched. I thought of some problem, as such a sound in any electrical appliance would definitely call for a repair.
One fellow in each shift would be the shift leader. By definition, he is supposed to co ordinate the overall activities in shift. But I started noticing that it was used as a license to fool around & get work done by others. Not all, but at least some of them fall in this category. We had European colleagues also.
Shift life was an interesting one. Night shifts were a bit tough, as we had 9 hours to spend. We had the tea club, where all topics under the sun were discussed. How India can improve, what is missing in our system, what the hell US is doing with Saddam, why we go ahead with nuke power, socio economic issues, Swiss culture, why the European has to kiss when they meet a lady, why they don’t do the same with us, slum rehabilitation, culture etc etc. Sometimes, a tea break would last as long as 2 hours, as we need to conclude our discussions and can’t hang it half way through.
When there is absolutely no work, one could just put the head down, on the kitchen table or on conference table. We had a Tuesday meeting at 9.00AM to discuss the progress & problems encountered, & solutions proposed. One Monday night, there was no much of job & one fellow took a bit of nap on conference hall table. Unfortunately his colleagues forgot to wake him up during next day shift transfer. He was woken up by one of our members who came a bit early for Tuesday meeting. He just got up & sat on a chair & attended the Tuesday meeting.
MM
Stretch wire measurements were one of the tests, rather a bit cumbersome one. Putting the wire through a series of inaccessible grew was a tough task, which reminded me of an old tailor, trying to put the thread through his machine. The wire always used to break at the last moment after having declared “successfully installed”. Finally somehow we all learned the trick.
Errors committed during tests were another hot topic. Although the system was well protected, & there was no room for any damage, sometimes due to repetitive job, some casual attitude would creep in resulting in errors. It used to surface up through mails & there used to be mail wars. Hot exchange of allegations, etc etc. Later we discovered that all these mails are read & enjoyed by our boss too, & decided to modify the recipients’ list so as to block him from reading. Still he used to get precise information regarding all these & wondered how he managed to do so and who the informers were.
Net surfing was a time killing activity. Too much to surf, keep track of foreign exchange rates, personal items to be purchased through net, planning family visit, preparing official documents for them, planning tours (local & Europe) etc.
How to win franks & influence people was a competitive activity in hostel. I was told how to carefully book tickets to Paris & Rome. If you can make it much in advance, you can make a trip to Paris as low as 20€ per head. Leuvre museum entry is free for the first Monday of every month. You can take a carte orange ticket from Monday to Friday. So lot of permutations and combinations would be tried to optimize the expenditure for family trips. So I have seen people enjoying having executed all these booking exercise & offering a wine to his selected friends. Finally, another wine would be served to come out of grief, originated from cancellation of the trip, as the kid would fall sick exactly the day of departure.
Somehow, months passed by & it was time for my family to come. All the 4 CERN apartments were full, so for initial one week, I had to reserve a room for them in a hotel in French side. I shifted to Suites home the day my family was to arrive. 60€ per day was a bit taxing indeed, but had no other easier options.
After a long wait, finally my family arrived. They came via Vienna since Austrian air was lot cheaper. With lot of struggle, I could convey the local cab driver where I want to go, of course with the help of a map, which I had carried as a pre emptive measure.
They were surprised to experience foreign life for the first time & they seemed enjoying. I felt a bit proud & more than that started feeling my bank balance nose dive. Once in a life time, I tried to console to myself. There were others in my group who could not bring their family due to their own problems. I shifted to a CERN apartment in Meyrin. It was good change. In French side, sometimes we waited for a Y bus wondering why this bloody bus is not coming. My daughter never walks for more than a km, but she was forced to walk. I told taxi is not available in Saint Genis, & she said the place should have been better named as saint frustrated or so.
We enjoyed the Meyrin stay & it was well connected with city, buses every now and then. I had shifts & not every day we could afford to go out. My wife started saying that there was no much difference in staying here except that you get only French channels in TV. She missed her 6000th Ekta Kapoor “Kahani infinity” soap. I somehow convinced her that we can’t move out everyday because of various techno-economic reasons. There was no option for her; somehow my arguments were taken, to my surprise.
The first Swiss trip was with Sampath’s family, we went to Bern, & Rheinfalls. I got used to the rail system, perfect timings, posh second class coaches, no rush, good information system, maps, docs etc etc. Sampath had a handicapped pram which he used to kick every time when it was to be locked. I initially thought it had something to do with starting like my scooter ( n^n kicks for a start, n is the nth attempt in a day) as I had never used a pram in my life. My wife told me that it is required for locking the damn pram. Frankly speaking, it was too energy consuming & he used to collapse after it gets click locked. His younger daughter would watch innocently why papa is kicking it mercilessly. Sampath had a reason not to invest in a new pram, as it was absolutely not required back home, a matter of few months, so a few kicks a day keeps the doctor also away…
We had prepared some breakfast & we shared it in train. Sampath’s mom was also there, she was a hard core vegetarian, & suffered a lot as she can’t take any bought out items. In general, Sampath’s family is veg, & mine is hardcore non veg. There were problem originated from this. My wife wanted to taste all non veg stuff available around; I somehow prevented her not to hurt Sampath’s feelings.
We got down at Bern & walked to Bern bear pit. There was only the pit; the bears were not to be seen. We took some snaps of empty bear pit & around. Sampath mimicked the sound of bear & I heard a sound coming from inside. ”Kooooooo”.
We boarded another train & went to Rheinfall. It was very cold. But the waterfall was fantastic. We got into a boat & went very near to the falls. To be honest, I am not at all romantic. Sampath used to do some poses with his wife, which made my wife go crazy. She used to tell me that I need to learn lots of lessons from them. I said, she may not agree. That night I had a severe pain in my left hand, with some nail bruises. The net positive benefit for the first day trip, I started wearing full sleeve shirt.
Anyway, the trip was excellent in general, & we had already planned the second one.
We did many trips together. My daughter & his elder one were, sort of freaks locking horns frequently. Somehow we managed that & life went on. We went to Europa park, Basel zoo, Morges Tulip garden, Pilatus, Italy ( Rome, Florance, Venice) and Amsterdam. I could have written more, but you may get bored. So I am planning to write in case I get some feedback.
Of course, I can share some experience which my friends had. One of my friends had gone to Amsterdam and visited Ma’m Tussad’ wax museum. He had a small kid, & all the family members can’t go together since the kid would start kidding. So he sent his wife to museum & thought he can take rest under a tree, doing a bit of baby sitting. “Cling”, he heard a sound & a 50 cent coin was found beside him. More sounds started coming & he found more & more coins around him. Suddenly a police vehicle came & asked him to stop begging. He tried his level best to convince the police fellow that he was just baby sitting & not begging. The police fellow saw his passport & said you seem to be educated & should know that it is a non begging area, you have an official passport & why you had to beg etc. Finally they got convinced and asked him to sit inside the police vehicle. The funniest thing was, the next day his wife also had exactly the same problem when they visited a wind mill & she was baby sitting.
I went to Paris alone with family, of course. Sampath had already gone there. So I had to do it myself. It was also an excellent experience. We got guidance from Vasu’s document; & had taken a printout.
Paris has an underground network, criss crossing metro line with excellent frequency. I just wondered in case power goes, there may be chaos. I just thought if such a system materializes in Mumbai, it would never move. Closing all the doors is an essential interlock for the rake to start. Ok, with doors open defeating the interlock, it might work. But getting in through the wicket gate also can lead to chaos. Ok, let Mumbai be as it is, I thought. We have a rail system as old as British times and the world’s largest reservation network. Do we owe them a lot? I think yes.
The basic infrastructure almost remains the same. A computerized ticket can’t remove the stink of train toilets & make the train run in time.
Driver of Mankhrd train report to Engine side. I still remember this announcement, train was halted at Kurla & it was there for almost 10 minutes, jam packed. The announcement repeated a couple of times. I just got down & wondered. I was just in the back side of engine coach, in the luggage cabin, to be precise. I was declared unfit to board any other normal coaches, as I miserably failed to get in. Anyway, the train is not moving, so I just walked to the engine side & didn’t see the driver. Afterwards, I saw the rear side guard, shaking somebody trying to wake him up, from a bench nearby & asking him to start the train.
After Paris visit, which was the last scheduled, I started packing up family. They were here for almost 3 months. Every good thing has to come to an end, I thought. With lots of chocolates and good memory, they bid by to me. I felt a big vacuum for a couple of days. I was back to hostel.
Fortunately, Shimjith was around. We started to cook together. It was a good experience, we used to experiment our Kerala recipes & beat each others’ back. Wine was introduced in our menu, beer also found its prominent place more frequently. Life became brighter. Sometimes, we tried single malt whiskey & it was incredibly superior to any kind of stuff we had tasted earlier.
Combined cooking had terrific benefits, as we need not bother about the food after a night shift etc. We thanked the fellow who already discovered pressure cooker. We used to cut all types of vegetables & cook together. After having a wine, we used to spend time to name the all time new dish, like, “rice cucumber menengitis cum plum pulav with lentil soup”. If the name doesn’t fit well, we used to have one more wine & a perfect name used to churn out.
We thanked the wine so much. We learned that the wine was not to be disregarded as any simple stuff, but it was to be treated as divine. We redefined the name so.
The effort for cooking for one or two is the same. Our cooking & moving together raised many eye brows. Many people had tried combined cooking & had miserably failed except one or two. Comments such as “Shlini, Ambika pair” etc were heard. Let them bark, we thought. The poor caravan has to walk only, or cycle at the most.
We used to have parties very often. It was really a fun. Probably the only fun. We just
looked for opportunities to celebrate. Food, wine & whisky. Vineet enjoyed whisky a lot. He is an entertainer. He used to recite shairees & shares. I did not understand every bit of it, but his gesture made me believe that some terrific joke is buried deep underneath. Sinha used to translate this, making it funnier. Particularly, Beer me he Brahma, wisky me Vishnu, rum me base Ram etc etc. He was explaining the helplessness of common man who can’t afford to discard any bottle, having God residing in all types of bottles. In Swiss, at least, I thought.
Recently also we had a party in hostel. It was around 3.30 or so & party was planned at 7.00. Cooking was going in full swing and an old fellow, who came to meet Daddu, peeped into kitchen. He started appreciating the cooking smell & was obviously hungry. He was offered some food & drinks. After a while, he became completely out & embraced one of our friends. He started kissing him telling that he is missing his wife a lot. With great difficulty, they were separated he went back crying.
Another time, we were returning from Nick’s home after a late night party. One of our friends had a couple of extra large pegs & he was a bit uncomfortable. We boarded the “9” no bus to come back to hostel. He found a place near the door to sit & another friend helped him stay vertical by holding him in his arms, sitting next to him. “Good night, enjoy & have a nice time”, an old lady told them while alighting from the bus.
IAP
Once I had a serious problem after such a party. I got a dream. I had called one of the equipment support fellow, Fredrico, since I had a problem with one of our routine magnet tests called iap. He came & asked me whether I had calibrated myself. I was shocked; I never had & didn’t know how to do so. He said, we’ll do that first. He took two probes and asked me to keep one in my mouth. He took the longer one & asked me to reverse. He inserted the other one into my back, piercing through my pant & winter ware. He applied 15 vots, 2 ampere for 5 seconds. I felt like some electrolysis in my stomach. Then he said, look! There is no LF data. Only HF data is there. I told him I dint have any food & had only a couple of drinks, so only HF is expected. Fortunately I got up, or else he would have made a training attempt in me.
Life goes on. Lot of problems, personal & official propped up. Car related, test related, hostel related. Some times, some tests were skipped by mistake, some were recorded as if being done, but not actually done. There were some interesting aspects. Some people do the work very seriously, some lightly. Anyway, the system was sort of fool proof, as there were no threat to the magnet test, only it would slow down the whole process.
Prep5
We had been to Matterhorn. A beautiful place to trek. We decided to trek upto Furi & then take the cable car from there. We had taken few cans of beer & a French bread to eat on the way. The walk was really fantastic. We were not aware of the bread quality. It was a big loaf, & had tough time in swallowing that but with beer we succeeded. The beer was not sufficient to keep us warm, we thought. We had stocked a wine from the base station. So we took a bit of wine. Now things were in control. We reached cable car station.
We went to clean Matterhorn. It was supposed to be the highest peak in Europe. There was a statue of crucified Christ. Some snaps were taken, & we went to an ice cave. There were many ice sculptures. I had a crazy idea. I sat on one of the polar bear (like we do on a horse) ice sculpture & took a photo. I had tough time to get out from that. I started wondering, if I can’t get up, I also might end up as a modified sculpture. Somebody else also has started taking my photo. I called shimjith to my rescue to get out from the bloody bear.
By the time we came out the cave, all the energy had been drained. How to charge the battery? Fortunately, there was a restaurant up there. We got in & ordered for a
rum punch. Hot rum in mild black tea. It was fantastic. The warmth of rum, as it went down rejuvenated our nervous system & the numb organs sprang to life.
It was time to return. I already had noticed Europeans using colourful sticks to walk in snow. We saw a couple throwing off their stick, on their return. I asked Shimjith whether we can pick it up. Why not? We both took those sticks & decided to keep it as a memento. We walked down from Furi, with our sticks tapping the rocks. I dint understand why people were looking at us & trying to suppress their laugh. Then we realized that the normal walking sticks & those used in the snow are different. Why they can’t use the same for both the purpose, we wondered. Anyway, we decided to take it all the way to hostel.
We had been to a snow walk to La Givrine. It was organized by Nick. We boarded the train from Gare & reached there at about 1.00PM. It was slightly drizzling. We had planned to walk for 1 hour in snow & take a break for a coffee or hot wine. It was a fantastic experience & we walked & walked & walked. I thought Nick lost the way & is not telling the hard fact. My shoes got completely wet & socks too. I felt my feet numb & wondered when this walk would conclude. He declared that we are in time & will take a break. We got into a coffee shop & some of us had hot chocolate drink & others hot wine. I have had chocolate drinks when I was a kid & obviously wanted to taste hot wine. It was a fantastic experience & the aroma of that stuff was great. I got my shoes & socks dry again.
Then we walked again to do a snow slide. Some of us took a short cut through a straight path through snow, but to my horror, it was almost hip level deep & we were already half way through. Somehow, we made it & now not only the shoes, but the pants also got wet. We did snow sliding for some time, first time in life. Some of my trials were off shoot, I found myself, uncontrollably sliding head down. But that was again great.
We again walked for another 20 minutes or so after alighting from the toy train to have fondue Dinch (Dinner cum lunch). Bread slices to be dipped in hot molten cheese with a ling fork. We added a bit of pepper & pickles before eating & the taste was good. We had a couple of white wine and cresh to finish. The cresh was exellent and we tried several verity of it. I tried my level best to make Sonnis & Panda to taste wine, but miserably failed. All tactics were tried, but they wanted to remain virgin. Nick had already threatened them not to take water at all for 6 hours after a fondue, as it would form a hard substance inside. It was really messy inside the small cozy restaurant and the lady who served would have developed a hearing loss.
Let me conclude for the time being. I might extend after feedback
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