My french nightmare

yah ek bahut hi karun dastaan hai!!

It seems finally the law of averages caught up with me. If u travel twice a year you might have one or two problems once in 50 years.... But if you travel 50 times per year, u might end up having a problem or two sooner then later.

Summing up -
My experience of Belgium was partly traumatic and nightmarish as I lost my Office Laptop, IPod, Modem, and a lot of other office equipment to a robbery at Brussels south station at night. (a man diverted my attention and thanked me profusely while somebody else ran away with the booty). This happened when I was coughing, sneezing under fever at 5 degee temp at 9.30 at night.(I lost my way to my original station).
To add insult to injury the conference where I went was quite unsuccessful as per the organisers due to poor response from bilateral donors like the French AID, DFID (out of 50 confirmed donors, only about 10 turned up while 100 odd project participants like me were present )etc. Though my presentation and project was highly appreciated.

Brussels as a city is quite beautiful though the tourist attractions are scattered. Such incident was not enough to spoil my mood and I saw the whole city during the two days there.

My experience of France was also quite eventful with my cousin giving me company at every step (including the theft incidents as he also lost his bag which was quite expensive at a hotel during check-in).

From all this incidents I have two major learnings.... Events happen when you become complacent or start taking things for granted.... Secondly Indian society is the biggest support and one must learn to value it come what may.

But having now seen three european countries, I am planning to concentrate upon English speaking countries.....

I wish, had gone to french India rather than france. There are lot of people from Pondicherry in France. I met a person at the airport who was saying that Indians are treated as vulnerable community here by the immigrants from Belgian Congo and Algeria etc.


Well story poori kahan batai maine tumko :)

I actually lost the whole baggage on the first day itself and so I called up SM to get back the PPT. After the conference I called up Neelimaji from the hotel room :) (as was staying in a business park called berkenlaan).
Insurance people say we r not responsible for thefts only transit losses ......
During checkout they handed me a fon bill of Euro 170 (more than the net present value of the laptop etc.) charging me at the rate of 11 euros/min. Total 15 minute ka baat karna bahut mehenga pada :)
When I told the reception lady, the reason for the fon call, she empathised
Even U, my god not again, well just 2 days ago one german gentleman lost his laptop, passport, money etc :) He went completely berserk and carzy...... I said no am too level headed to go that far
haa haa haaaaa
Ever since have come back, from everywhere am hearing similar tales. (even from the collector of Ranchi who was robbed off 300 Euros in a train in paris).

Delhi workshop ended abruptly bcoz Henry (their programme coordinator) had a sudden seizure out of the blue and started bleeding from the ear on the road.

May be he was affected by the ill luck/ omen I was carrying around that time..... One more person in the flight to turkey lost his mobile after talking to me haa haaa haaaa.

When I came back It was again my turn as my symbian operating system crashed for the second time this year :(

Well the Mahua season is here, so multiple trips to Som, Phalasia and Phulwari Ki Naal Sanctuary are in the offing this month.