Lets go with the flow????

I was chatting with one of my friend in India friday night. She was telling me that she has decided to take life as it comes and ended saying, " I have decided to go with the flow".

Have you ever heard of the theory that if you hear or see something new you will definitely come across  it again in some way within the next 36 hours??? From my experiance i will tell you that it is very very true!!! Let me give you an example......

Saturday morning my collegues and i started from Graz, Austria in the car to Krumau in Czech Republic. It was a four hour drive to start our "adventure weekend". I have been having some slipped disc problem and attending physiotherapy sessions. My therapist told me not to go for it. But my collegue promised me that Vltava is a very quiet river and there is nothing dangerous about it, just a relaxing boat trip ( So i decided to go anyway!). But the weather God was against us! From 37 deg C on friday, the temperature sunk to 15-20 deg C on saturday with showers( heavy at times). But after the drive we were all motivated to still go on the boat. 14 adventerous people, five canoos, four Kajaks, a distance of 17 kms with 5 minor water falls to cross to reach our camping place!. I and my collegue decided to take a canoo. Two girls who had near to zero experiance in handling a canoo! We thought, what the heck, it is afterall a quiet river, we can manage...we put our valuebles (purse, cellphone, keys, some food and drinks) in a plastic barrel,closed it and put it into our boats and started the journey.....

The start 

I have never manuveared a boat in my life. The person sitting at the back has to change the direction of the boat..so i told my collegue to sit at the back..It was quite an interesting start..the boat was going round and round....and we had  no idea how to get it straight.....and soon came the first water fall...Ofcourse we were more than confident that we could not manage that with our brilliant canooing skills.We had to park the boat in a bank before the water fall, drag it out of the water and carry it downstream where the fall ends and start rowing again. This time i decided to try my skills at manuvearing the boat, so sat at the back.

Fall No. 1

Actually it seemed that i was doing a better job at manuvearing the boat than my collegue..Well..almost.......in the process of getting the boat out of water my collegue lost her paddle. I told her that i would manage the boat on my own till the next halt. Suddenly one person from our group shouted out that he found a paddle in the river...My collegue shouted to me, " See there is a tree hanging there...if we go there we could hold on to the tree and get the paddle for him".So we decided to go to the bank of the river to get the paddle from him....Thats when we learnt the Rule no. 1: Avoid the trees which are hanging along the banks of river, they can topple the boat!! And so we banged against the tree and fell into water...a deep sink...but the life jacket brought me back on top...i swam towards the bank and held on to a branch and shouted out to my collegue...She managed to catch the boat and dragged it to the bank...with the help of others we got the boat out of water and emptied the water from it. It seemed that we were not the only ones to fall...few other people fell from their canoos as well...Some of them really panicked when they went under water... 5 out 14 decided to quit at this point and left back to Graz..But we two decided to try it out...."We are wet anyway, lets do it!". And so we got the boat back into water and started rowing again!

Fall No. 2...When I thought i was going to die!

Soon came the third waterfall. It looked terrible...we managed to park the boat before it started and got out...carried the boat downstream along the bank. " Oh my God, look at this waterfall...the currents are so strong here", i said. "Yeah, it looks dangerous. But two more water falls only left. We can do it" told my collegue.. We got the boat into water again and both of us managed to get into it. We just took our paddles in our hands..Suddenly a strong current from the above waterfall rotated our boat and a huge wave crashed into our boat, toppled it and we fell deep into water..i could see nothing but brown water below...my legs hit against the rocks below...the lifejacket brought me up..and before i could try to swim, the current carried me with the flow and i sunk into water again...i managed to come up....My collegue was behind me, she shouted, " Lets try to get to the bank"....I shouted, " I am not able to swim against the current...Out boat and our barrel...we need to catch it...I swam a bit and thankfully i had long arms...i got a hold of the boat.The water filled into it and it was sinking. The barrel being light was floating on water. I caught it with my other hand. But the sinking boat was pulling me down. Like God in disguise, there was a boat in front of us...The people in it rowed towards us. A lady caught me. I shouted, " Take my barrel, i am not able to hold on"..She took my barrel and put it onto her boat. i was catching her boat and holding on the sinking boat with the other hand...Another boat came towards us...A man on it tried to hold on to the boat in my hand. I let go of it and held the lady's boat with both my hands. My collegue caught on to it as well. " Oh my God, this is horrible", i told her. The lady on the boat was stroking my hair from time to time and was saying "Dubri Dubri". I had no idea wat it meant. We were holding on to their boat for nearly 3 kms. Our legs were hitting the rocks underneath. It hurt and we were still under shock. They finally managed to find a bank where they could park the boat. They got there and pulled us out of water. We didnt know wat was going on...They could not speak english or german...They got us into another big boat for 6 people. My collegue was still under shock and the weather was cold and rainy. She was shivering badly.i rubbed her hands to keep it warm and said..." What is happening? and where is our boat and our barrel? i dont know what happened...". In other 500 m they parked the boat and got us out of the boat and the people who rescued us came and hugged us and told something in Czech language. We told them thanks and hugged them back. They brought rum and vodka and asked us to drink it to keep us warm...We took it and drank a few sips..it felt warmer...

They had finally got hold of our boat and drained the water out of it. They had tied our barrel to our boat so that it doesnt fall. They asked us which countries we came from..They were very nice..and at that moment like God to us!

Fall 3 & 4

We were still under shock. But we had come too far...there was no way back...we had to keep going and reach our camping place. We were drenched completely. It was so cold. Finally standing on the bank with the friendly Czech people we saw other people from our group passing by. We thanked them for the last time and bid them Goodbye, got into our boats and started rowing again......Thinking of it now, i am so glad that we could keep our cool and carry on. We were kind of proud of ourselves for this. I shouted out to one of the guys in our group, " We had a major rescue....but please stay with us from now on...if something happens again you have to save us!". Actually we were doing pretty fine..But still we were no experts in steering the boat...The boat was moving left towards the trees on the banks and we tried to steer it to the right, but did not have enough force to do it quick enough...we ran into the bushes and fell into water again. But we had seen worse...this was not so bad...with the help of our other collegues we got the boat upright again and got into it....We proceeded on...and this time we crashed into the bushes in the right hand side of the river. Finally our collegue shouted out the Golden rules of canooing...

Rule no. 2: Try and stay in the middle of the river as much as possible

Rule no.3: If you want to turn left, the person at the back should hold the paddle to the left and for turning right they should hold it to the right without rowing

Rule 4:  Stay on the side of the river which has more water, otherwise there is danger of rocks hitting the boat.

Rule 5: Stay away from any artificial constructions like walls of the bridge in the middle of the river...If you hit against it your boat can topple!

The Finish

After learning and applying the golden rules, we actually did quite a good job..Well we were not the fastest...But for the last 6-7 kms, we did not bang against any trees or bushes on the bank of the river...We were wet, cold and further drenched in the heavy rain...But we just thought to keep going on and reach our destination. We managed the rest of the two waterfalls well. Then finally came our camping site. We rowed towards it. Two guys from our group were already there...We threw out our rope to them. They caught it and tied it to the bank. We finally parked the boat and got out!!! It was a feeling of content... "Wir haben geschafft!" (We have done it!)...

Now do you believe in the theory that if you hear or see something new...you will definitely come across it some way within the next 36 hours??? If you still dont believe it, observe it keenly yourself the next time!...Its true!!!!

Thanks.....But i am a vegetarian.....

Today, sitting in the Cafeteria, staring at my plate with "Gemuese ravioli mit tomaten Sosse", i suddenly got inspired to write. Why exactly??....Because it tasted terrible. But ofcourse i didnt have a choice, it was after all the only vegetarian dish in the menu! Thank God there was one! i started gulping it down my throat.This is the sad life of a vegetarian.....to make things even worse, An "Indian vegetarian" when they travel around the world!..

My mind wandered to India. The vegetarian friendly country, where there are always so many many options to choose from even if you dont eat meat. Where there is a sign on the product saying whether it is veg or non-veg. Where there exists the only vegetarian Mc Donalds!...And where it is normal to be a "vegetarian".....

It all started with my trip to Germany, where i went to pursue a higher education, my idea of starting to explore the world. My first flatmate was a latin-american girl. She and her friends were cooking together once..i didnt exactly know what, but it was a smell which choked me...i knew it should be meat. When i passed through the kitchen i saw some red meat being chopped....absolutely not a sight i was used to. It didnt feel good. I rushed to the toilet and was sprinting back to my room..her friend called out to me.."Hey Asharita, do you want to join us for dinner?". He was smiling pleasantly. I feld bad but then i had to say, " Thanks a lot...but i am a vegetarian". Then followed a set of questions. I didnt know these questions were going to haunt me over and over again. Let me give you some examples of the questions and comments i have faced in these three years in Europe:

Non-Indians

• Vegetarian? Is it because of your religion?...Oh btw is it true that you can find cows on the roads in India?
• So in India people dont eat cows?why?
• You have never eaten meat in your life? Never??
• So you dont eat any meat?? What about birds?
• Sorry we dont have any vegetarian dish in our menu..But we have fish?....You also dont eat fish??
• Vegetarian......oh ok, sure, we have boiled potatoes.
• Oh you are vegetarian...see there is also cheese on the plate next to the meat. You can take that. You eat cheese right? ( Err...Thanks...but it is touching the meat. I find it hard to eat it. But its fine..i am not that hungry.)
• Ok,that day i observed that it was not ok for you if the meat was touching the vegetables and cheese, is it ok if the vegetarian dish is also cooked in the same pan as the meat ??( My boss asked me this, as he wanted to invite the international students for lunch to his home...i felt odd...i just smiled).
• Ok then it is not really ok...But is it ok if the meat and vegetarian dish are cooked in different pans, but they are standing next to each other while cooking? ( Actually it was not ok when i was in India...But Europe changed me. As long as it does not have any contact with the meat, i still eat it.)
• Vegetarian?...Oh..I dont know what you could eat when you come to Latin America..We just eat lots and lots of of meat there. But hey, you could get lots of fruits and vegetables. ( Thanks...thats good for health. Maybe i could lose a few kilos as well!).
• You know in our country they discourage children from being vegetarian. It is believed it is not good..But obviously it is ok i guess.

Indians

• So tell me...are you really still a vegetarian?? Tell me the truth!
• How do you survive in Europe yaar?!
• You are really missing something in life...start eating non-veg.
• Eating chicken is like eating paneer you know, just try it once
• Arey what is this! you people think too much of yourself...You treat meat like it is an untouchable!!
• You know meat is a rich source of protein. Vegetarian food hardly has any nutrition...what is your protein source?

The questions, comments and criticism we the vegetarians face....Life is not that easy. Initially i was defending my stand, then started explaining to people about the psychology of vegetarians....But finally i got immune to all the reactions i received. Now i just say...I am a vegetarian because i chose to be, and i dont have a problem about being one.

So this is what it boils down to....

(a) If you feel like eating something spicy and yummy, cook it yourself !( or wait for invitation from other Indians for lunch or dinner).

(b) If you are too lazy, then there is always bread and cheese, Yogurt, Pizza Margerita (frozen ones mostly), salads ( a healthier option) or Pommes!....

(c) and for extreme laziness, there is Vegetarian Doener, falafel............and the single vegetarian dish in the Cafeteria menu -The tasteless Gemuese Ravioli mit tomaten So
sse today!!

So i finally finished my lunch and left to continue with my work....