ExprezziO

As the days passed I adjusted myself to the Japanese way of life, the life that was counting each and every second, the life which consisted workaholic weekdays and sometimes weekends too. For first few days I was struggling with my jet lag, I was not used to sleep till 1:30 in the night but very soon I was out of that state. I became confident to go out on my own, to get the monthly pass for my train route from ticket vending machine, to change the trains as per route, to order in the restaurants and to communicate with people in Japanese. I learnt to eat with chopsticks without demanding a spoon or a fork and I started liking the Japanese green tea.     I found people of Japan passionate to be workaholic, the offices were used to be full of people in the evening and sometimes even in the midnight. Japanese people are very particular to maintain the politeness in the behavior, they do not tolerate even slight impoliteness from their colleagues. They ...

   One of my room partner woke me up in a few minutes and told me to get ready. I resisted in sharp voice, "do you go to the office at 4 in the morning"?. "No", my friend replied. "Please have a look at your wrist watch, if at all it is set according to Japan Standard Time". I looked into my watch, it was 7:15 in the morning, so I was sleeping for whole four hours and I was feeling like I had just reached the apartment few minutes ago from my journey all the way from Mumbai. Still in a voice of protest I said, "but its just 4 hours I was sleeping, don't you think it is unfair, especially when somebody is exhausted by a journey of  16 hours". My friend smiled and replied,"It is a Japan my friend, sleeping more than 4-5 hours is considered as a sin here, you have already completed your quota, now don't waste time and get ready quickly". Two of my friends were going to drop me at the Shibuya station on the Yamanote line and one o...

 It was late in the night according to local time when our flight landed on Narita airport. We were standing in the queue for immigration. "We are almost 2 hours late", my friend muttered. I saw in wall clock it was showing 11:30. "Now at least two hours to reach the apartment at Rokugoudote", I said to myself, a distance of approximately 65 kilo-meters. I was worried about the mode of transport, I was totally unaware of the fact that the taxi which was supposed to pick up us from Narita airport was already gone. Immigration officer demanded my passport and invitation letter then he looked at me and called his colleague, discussed something with him. His colleague then asked me whether anybody is accompanying me, after I pointed my finger to my friend both of us were told to wait in some waiting room. He did not ask us any single question or not even explanation for something. We were sitting there for almost half an hour like a statue, I was so tired that I was not...

 On our journey to Mumbai international airport we found out that my and one of my colleague who initially missed our van had a ticket of same airline but the guy who boarded the van at the end was having a ticket of different airline. He became nervous as he was going to travel entire journey from Mumbai to Tokyo all alone and for the first time.     We reached Mumbai international airport six in the evening. After getting inside we immediately checked in our luggage to avoid extra burden. I sat on a bench, thinking of how to spend time. I wondered, for a last whole week, I was in need of some spare time for relaxation and I could not afford it but now I was having a plenty of time to spend and I was getting bored I was not feeling like to take a rest.    Three of us were wearing suit, neck tie, in a perfect formal attire, I was feeling like we are part of some high profile delegation and are visiting Japan to attend some important co...

   Sometime your silent, straightforward life takes sudden turn, it changes drastically, you don't get time to prepare yourself  to face the new era of your life. In a same way, my life took a sharp turn in 2006, I was switching my job to company having customers in Japan. I joined the company office based in Pune. The induction and other formalities took place and my life in the new company started. I was happy and first few days passed in that happiness. But you quickly get bored at new place if you are not assigned any interesting work and same thing was happening to me. That boredom was irritating me and occasionally, thoughts of one more switch started coming to my mind. I was not doing any interesting or so called challenging work for almost next two months and finally on one fine morning I decided to ask my management about this and if they don't respond positively I was thinking to quit this job and find the new one. I talked to my manager and conveyed h...

Gangtok :- Capital of Indian state of Sikkim, located among the long ranges of Himalayas and on the eastern edge of the country. When we were entering into Sikkim, a routine check was performed and we were allowed the entry into the state. Our taxi was changed, we were given local taxi and a local driver according to a law of state transport authority. Due to clean roads, disciplined traffic and cool weather, Gangtok looked like an European city in appearance. Our stay was for three days, after taking enough rest, next day we started for 'Tsangpo Lake' very early in the morning. The narrow road goes through the high mountain ranges, we were not aware how far and high we were going. Suddenly when I looked out of our car, I saw the roads were covered with the snow and we were now among those high snowy mountains. There was a considerable traffic of vehicles of Indian Army, off course Indo-China  border was close. In few minutes we reached near the lake. It was awesome view, every...

   It's just other side of the story, the story of corruption, the practice of accepting and offering the bribes and the complete failure in destroying this ever growing monster. I had written an article in this blog few months back regarding Mr. Anna Hazare's movement and the huge support he received, still receiving and how the things have started changing.   I was happy to see that somebody is there who is honest and is ready to fight till his last breath against the corrupt politicians and their corrupt system, he received phenomenal impact on the youth, middle class and elite society in our country. But in last few months I got to see and experience numerous things which made me think to myself. Is that true that only politicians, bureaucrats and all types of government employees including police men are corrupt? And what about us? Are we clean? Or we are just the poor chaps who were forced to bribe and follow these corrupt practices by peop...

   Kalimpong:-        We were not feeling like to leave Darjeeling, but our driver come guide suggested us that if you stay here another few days then you will get bored hence better pack your bags so that we can move ahead to Kalimpong. We packed our bags obediently and started for our destination.   Frankly speaking before planning our tour, I wasn't aware of the name of this town. I was not willing to include that town in our list but it was the only town which was feasible and suitable on our route. Similar to Darjeeling, Kalimpong also lies in a Indian state of West Bengal. This town is of moderate and pleasant climate. After reaching the town I found this small town very calm quiet.  I did not find much interesting things in the town. There was a private garden of cactus, numerous types of cactus were present there, I was watching some of them first time in my life. We got bored of them very soon and left the garden and visited the 'Z...

   It was Sunday evening, the weekend was coming to end. I was sitting in front of Television set watching those usual boring  programs. I was feeling like to go out for evening walk but my laziness prevented me from doing any action. I spent few minutes lying on the sofa pretending to watch the Television program. Then my wife called me, she was doing something in the terrace of our flat. I was irritated, my laziness protested to move and I respected it promptly. Finally my wife came to me hurriedly and took me to the terrace by literally pulling my hand. When I reached the terrace, I was silent for a moment. I took my camera and rushed to the top of our seven storey building. Would you like to find out why I was speechless?

The year was 2008, I was getting married and me and my wife were searching for honeymoon destination. We wanted some unique place to visit, with moderate weather and with a little bit different cultural flavor. The month was March, hot and humid Summer was about to start so we had a very few options in our hands. Goa and Kerala were out of question because of the humid weather, Uttarakhand was not accessible due to harsh weather, Himachal Pradesh was so common and we had plans to visit the Kashmir in future. Then I looked with hope towards the east and felt like east is calling us. So we finalized Darjeeling and Gangtok as our destination on the eastern edge of our beloved country.      3 hours from Pune to Mumbai, 3 hours from Mumbai to Kolkata by air, overnight journey of 12 hours from Kolkata to the place called New Jalpaiguri  and we were at the feet of the great Himalayas.  Now our next journey was by car. There were 4 places which were going to visit, Mir...