Hotel Babel

On work assignment in Norway for a second time, my company has put me up in a place called 'Hotel Bellevue', which is not so much a hotel as a bunch of small apartments with a common kitchenette that masquerades as a hotel to the non-discerning eye.

I had been living in this very same hotel the last time around that I was here as well, and this is where I have learnt to cook Indian food.

The irony of the situation does not escape me, whenever I am able to boast (in a not so exaggerated manner) about the substantial improvement in my culinary skills (which previously comprised of making 2 min maggi and instant coffee), that have come about, more so as a desparate means to ensure my survival in a land where the abundance of non-fresh, frozen and processed food boggles the sensible mind, rather than a portfolio diversification to have the tag of master chef also being associated with my supposedly mediocre persona.

What I guess I have been trying to say is that I learnt to cook Indian food here in Norway, though I didn't do jack at home, and it doesn't get more ironic than that. Atleast so far as cooking food related things are concerned.

A long long time ago, I can still remember, when Doordarshan was the only thing on TV that could be watched, until us children were (thankfully) unceremoniously ejected from the house to go out and play, so that we would be a pain for someone else, there was a shady serial that ran on sunday mornings for about five to six weeks, after which it was taken off air because of its shoddy production.

It was called 'Bible ki katha' and it was a hindi adaptation of the stories present in the Genesis part of the old testament. I did get to know something new from this serial, so it wouldn't be fair to abuse it the way it deserved.

It had stories about 'Adam and Eve', 'Cain and Abel', 'Noah's Ark' and 'the Tower of Babel'.

The Tower of Babel is what particularly came to my mind frequently, so far as describing my current dwelling was concerned.

A melting pot of people of different nationalities, (Norwegian, Scottish, Russian, Estonian, Polish, Lebanese, Thai, Latvian, Lithuanian, Brit, Swedish and not to mention Indian), this was the place to be if one wanted modestly priced accommodation in the most expensive city in the world.

Also, it gave you contacts and an inside view of how the relatively lesser paid people in the developed world went about their lives. An added bonus was the additional information that one gets to know only through trusted sources via word-of-mouth, regarding where one could get bootlegged stuff that was real expensive in the open market.

Norway is renowned for being a strict country so far as squeezing the balls of all genders alike on issues regarding vices or pet indulgences (call it what you want) are concerned, and hence the price of cigarettes, beer and stronger alcohol are sky high.

To put things into perspective, a 1 litre bottle of Vodka in Norway would cost as much as 10 litres of Vodka back home. If not for customs raining on our parade, not to mention the stupid terrorists with their liquid explosive crap, we brown people could have had a thriving bootlegged booze business there.

The stuff that we could procure was half or one-third the market price and hence all that more relishable, and one could get high without feeling guilty, being the cheap guys (and garls) that we were.

This virtual Tower of Babel was one where I managed to pick up a lot of choice cuss words in some of the lesser popular eastern European languages, that will definitely aid in my self-defence simply because I can use them on even the biggest of detested authority figures in my life without them coming to know I am not being nice to their Mum. Using the equivalent Hindi or English invectives would result in immediate job termination in the very least.

As a gesture of goodwill, I was able to exchange with them the rich treasure trove of Hindi and Kannada gaalis that I have had the 'good fortune' of learning. If you ever visit Scandinavia in general and Oslo in particular, and come across a white who swears like an angry BTS bus conductor, I take full credit for your fall from grace.

Teaching is fun, and it has brought me close to some people that matter a lot to me, and I see that this phenomenon is something that is happening with consistency. There was a Polish couple at the Hotel I resided in, named Maruisz and Sylvia who I used to teach spoken English to. Two months there, and they were able to decipher an Indian guy's full flow veribage in a supposedly 'neutral accent', with very little trouble. Quite an accomplishment for a couple who did not understand me when I spoke to them first.

English has come a long way in being the universal language for communication, and more and more people are acknowledging that fact with each passing day and working to ensure that they are able to join in the melee.

The whole host of interesting characters that were living at the hotel deserve a post each, though it would not be as much fun as having interacted with them personally. One person that comes to mind was this Lebanese guy named Antoine, who wanted to start a nightclub and was looking for women from all sorts of places to entertain his clients, and asked pretty much everyone about where he could 'get good dancing girls' for his venture.

It was funny, but only for so long, and he found out that the people that he asked were not the types who would engage in pimping, and he beat a hasty retreat subsequently.

All the various friends that I had made in my two travels thankfully were, at worst minimally proficient in the language, and that made things so much more easier specially while hanging out or while talking in general.

Their kindness and warmth, specially of those crazy friends of mine at Bellevue is not something that I could reciprocate unless they come down to India.

Falling ill in a foreign country is something that most people would dread, and that is precisely what happened to me. However, there were people who were nice enough to just be there and check in on me ever so occasionally, provide medicines and time-tested remedies, and the fear and dread of being left to suffer inconsequentially due to ill-health in some far off place was minimally experienced and was soon to pass.

Here's to all my crazy friends who made my stay in Oslo something that I will cherish for a long time to come. All the action, all the crazy adventures and all the fun times that I wouldn't have ever possibly imagined would happen to me can all be positively attributed to their presence.

I learnt a lot of things at 'Hotel Babel', and these experiences may never make it to any CV that might impress people that I would like to impress for selfish reasons, but what I have been through has enriched me in much better ways and made me feel like I have, in those two months in Norway, led a life thats a little less ordinary.