Czech tales!

I am back after a 6 year hiatus. Where was I, all these years? I don’t know. Time just flew by. All I know, is that I always wanted to write something worthwhile, and at times came across some events worth writing about. But lets face it. I have to acknowledge, what my dear friend Ashok, told about me once: “You are good person, when you are awake!”, so I guess I was asleep all the while.

But now that I am awake, why harp on the 6 years of inactivity?

So, let me cut to the chase and come straight to the subject of this blog entry. This blog is essentially my take on things I observed during my Brno trip. Since, I am famous for my one liners, which my die hard fans keep reminding me about (lot of pun intended), let me describe these experiences in terms of some catchy (I hope) taglines. And if you don’t have anything urgent to attend to, it wouldn't be a bad idea to go through what’s behind the tag lines as well.

So, first let me start with something which I realized soon after landing in Brno. I agree my observations about food and drink might not be the best way to start. But, I had to start from some point ...

Myself with glass of my favorite cola: Kofola

Beer is bigger, Pepsi is smaller: Well, the common Czech beer mug is not as big as the title suggests. At about 500 ml, its about half the size of the giant 1 Liter German beer mug. But let me tell you, whatever Czech beer mug may lack for in terms of the size, its more than adequately made for by the taste of the beer it holds and the number of times it is ordered for. If you pride yourself with drinking 2 Liters of beer at once, you would probably be welcomed to the Czech sisterhood. Yes, you got me right! You need to be able to consume somewhere close to 5 Liters of beer at once to be welcome to Czech brotherhood. Why then did I put Pepsi in the tagline? The usual serving of Pepsi in Czech republic is 200 ml, which was strange for me, as I am used to the serving of 300 ml in India. Talking about Pepsi, how can one forget to mention Kofola, Czech's own Cola? I must say, I enjoyed it more than both its American counterparts, and wondered why it hasn't made its presence felt in rest of the world.

If you don’t drink beer, you are with the Germans: At 132 Liters, the Czech republic has the highest beer consumption per capita in the world. Germany comes a distant second at 107 Liters.  So, you don’t do Czechs any favors by not having beer. Their concern seems genuine to me. Today there’s one immigrant not drinking beer. Tomorrow, there might be others who might follow this path of abstinence. Before you know, this epidemic of teetotalism might spread like wildfire and severely dent Czech consumption. You don't want to loose to Germans, do you? And why wouldn't you drink beer in Czech Republic anyways? So many places to visit and so many varieties to try?

One of the catchy ads for the team outing

Strongest tea is coffee, and strongest coffee is tea: As I am not Mr. Navjot Singh Sidhu, I write (when I write) with fair share of quotes from others, whom I know. And this one is courtesy my colleague Jan Holik. And he couldn't be more right. Save Lipton yellow label, all the other varieties of tea were too light, and sometimes even adulterated (if I can misuse the term here) with stronger flavor of herbs or honey. On the other hand, coffee you get on pressing the mild button on coffee machine would be strong enough to keep you awake, even when you are reading this blog ;). Why not opt for Decaf? Thankfully, Czech don’t drink what I like to call coffee without coffee.

Meat is murder, tasty tasty murder: Offending as it may seem to vegetarians, this was actually one of the tag lines for our team outing. Let’s face it, there are not many vegetarian options available in European food. Sometimes, even chicken, fish or even beef items are termed as vegetarian based on the fact that they contain some raw vegetables. So, if you are vegetarian, please double check after ordering, that what have you ordered is actually vegetarian by asking whether it contains any meat. Better still, use the term "No meat", whenever you want to order vegetarian meal. Your English might seem odd, but its much better to appear bad in English, rather than to end up eating meat, mistakenly.

X means continue and // means end? Somehow, I never realized that relative position of the knife and fork could actually convey some meaning. That is until, my dear friend Jan Reznik finally managed to vent out his frustration on the random pattern of placement of my knife and fork. Even on empty plate, I had kept the knife and the fork in a crossed position. What I didn't realize is that, when the knife and the fork are kept in a crossed position, it means you plan to continue eating, while if they are placed parallel to each other, you have given up on food for better or worse, so the waiter can clear your plate. Now, I wonder what waiter ws thinking before Jan lost his patience? “Does this Indian want to eat the plate too???”.





Enough about food and drinks, lets switch to something which rules Czech roads...

Tram runs uninterrupted while cars wait at a signal

On the road, first there’s God then there’s the tram: Continuing to take inspiration from other’s punchlines, here’s Brno version of Rahul Dravid take on Ganguly’s offside play. Tram is really the best public transport option in Brno, and also master of the road. Everyone and everything on the road, gives way to the tram. There are several trams passing through each station, with a periodicity of 5 minutes to 30 minutes depending on the time of the day. What’s amazing is that these trams are always on time, without a delay of even seconds. They are so punctual that if you don’t see it arriving at time which is mentioned on the station, you are most likely wearing your wrist watch upside down. Other thing, I observed that tram beats car most of the times. I had observed this twice. On both occasions I happened to go on a time outing in a car with my colleagues, and realized on both the occasions the colleagues driving were struggling with traffic and sometimes the route too, while people who came by tram reached much earlier.

A stamped tram ticket.

Money is time as well: You would surely begin to question, my knowledge of English proverbs now, but I tried to up the ante by reversing the well known proverb here. In Brno transport system, you can literally buy time with money, time on transport system that is. Just like any public transport ticket, you buy in most of European cities, the ticket you buy here is valid for multiple modes of transport like the bus and the tram. However, the important difference is that you buy a ticket for duration of time. So, a 20 Kc ticket purchased at the tram gives you 15 minutes worth of time, to travel to your intended destination. But for city like Brno, where the distances are not big and trams travel frequently 15 minutes is more than enough for you. And just for the record the time starts when you stamp your ticket on entering the bus or the tram. If you try to read the numbers on the stamp on the tram ticket to the left of the screen, you would realize that the stamp itself contains the date and time of start of the travel. However, it is wiser to buy ticket from the shop where they are sold at lesser price. So, a 24 Kc ticket gives 90 minutes and access to 3 zones at seen in the picture on the left.

From what rules the Czech roads to what rules the Czech hearts....

The coat of arms of the Czech Republic
(Badge used on the players jerseys).

It would be hard to lose to Germans? No, now I am not referring to Czech beer consumption, where it would be impossible for Czechs to loose to Germans. I am just referring to, one of the points of bar room discussion before the Czech vs Germany clash in group stages of Ice Hockey Qualifier (2012 Men's World Ice Hockey Championships).
Why is it hard to loose to Germany? Well, if I were to explain this phenomena  in cricketing lingo, I would say Germany is the proverbial Bangladesh  of Ice Hockey World, and Czech republic probably . While Czech republic has won the Ice Hockey Championship 12 times (3rd after Russia and Canada) with a total of 46 podium finishes (joint leader with Canada), the Germans have never manged to win it and have barely managed to obtain podium finish on 4 occasions.
So, why would the Czech team want to lose to Germany? So, that they face Russia in quarterfinals, which were supposedly easier opponents than the more organized and consistent Swedish team.
What happened in the end? As expected, the Czech team didn't take these bar room discussions seriously, defeating Germany easily in that match. They went further ahead, and also ended up defeating Swedish in Quarters to surprise of many. Bigger surprises were to follow though, as the Czech finally lost to friendly neighbors Slovaks in semi-final, who eventually lost, to the Russians (Australians of the Icehockey, if I were to use cricketing analogy). Considering both Czech republic and Slovakia were once part of the united Czechoslovakia, I didn't get an impression that the loss to Slovakia was as painful to Czechs as the loss to Pakistan is to Indians. Probably, my next para will analyze why things are this way.



Since I have already mentioned about Czech republic and Slovakia being a part of Czechoslovakia, let me tell you something I realized after going over how the nations came into existence ...

Czechoslovakia as a federal republic
between 1968 (Constitutional Law of Federation)
and 1989 (Velvet Revolution) .

Break-ups can be peaceful too: Since, we are talking history here, please forgive me (or be thankful to me) for not inserting any PJs here. Partition of India happened during its independence, and still remains the most haunting memory of what was supposed to be India's tryst with destiny. By a rough estimate, around 1 million people lost their lives in communal clashes during the partition. Even 66 years after the partition, the relations between the two nations that emerged out of the partition, India and Pakistan, continue to be sore and cause of concern for the development of both the nations. In contrast, the dissolution of Czechoslovakia into Czech republic and Slovakia, also known as Velvet Divorce was a completely peaceful and bloodless event. I have also read that the velvet divorce also brought stability to central Europe at a time of great unrest, allowing the Czechs and Slovaks to sidestep what would have been a period of intense legal and political wrangling, and cultural tension, and instead focus on state building. I also realized that the Brno office (part of Czech republic) employed quite a few Slovaks, and I couldn't sense any bitterness between colleagues from Czech republic and those from Slovakia. Perhaps, there were some jokes when it came to the question of who defeats whom in Ice Hockey, or probably whether a united team of Czechoslovakia might have ruled Ice Hockey. Otherwise, the question of nationality was never of any relevance. Perhaps, the totally different context of partition of India and dissolution of Czechoslovakia renders any comparative analysis useless. However, it is still worthwhile to note not all breakups need to be violent.

That's all???
Well, I have plenty of other experiences to share, like: Some not so pleasant ones about the difficulty to communicate with people in English, more so with the Indian accent; How wide the footpaths really were, and what a travesty it was not to allow them to be used for cycling, when in fact I felt unsafe at times to cycle on the roads; How good it was to see the Czech people coming to eat in Indian restaurants and thoroughly enjoying the same;How glad I was when I got a genuine team jersey of Ice Hockey team courtesy by colleagues at work;

 But I believe you are running out of patience, so I would like to end this blog entry before you take out all the anger on your laptop ;)!