The provider of all answers in this world - Google - says that more than 200 Bollywood movies have been shot in Switzerland. If you add the other "woods" existing in India (Kollywood, Sandalwood etc.), the number would easily cross 500. No wonder, Switzerland is such a famous tourist spot among Indians. I had the opportunity to travel to Switzerland during my recent trip to Germany.
We were three of us and we had booked a package tour. We were not surprised to find that the majority of people in the bus were Indians. I had to keep looking outside the window to avoid the feeling of travelling in a Bangalore Red Bus. We had planned to make a trip to Jungfraujoch inspite of the ultra-high cost of the ticket. What is Switzerland without snow?
Very soon, we realised that we had 2 groups of Indian tourists in the bus - the three of us in one and the rest in the other (the other group was formed purely for the sake of convenienece because I could not see anything common in them). Anyways, the "other" group did some research on the train timings etc. since our guide was more of a tourist-trying-to-be-a-guide. The Indian groups decided to leave the hotel at Interlaken at the unearthly hour of 6 AM whereas the German group (tired of seeing too much snow) decided to leave later. The tourist-trying-to-be-a-guide-who-was-sleeping was woken up and informed about this plan and he instructed us to meet him at Grindlewald station at 1:00 PM the next day.
The 2 Indian groups started from the hotel together the next morning but when we boarded the train, we lost track of the other group. The next time we saw them was at Jungfraujoch. They thought that we missed the train but the fact was that we were in a train ahead of them. They made it very clear that we have to catch the 11 AM train to go to Grindlewald. We wanted to spend more time at the top so we decided to take the 11:30 train.
At the "Snow Fun" area at the top, I met Mr.as-you-wish (the reason behind the name will be disclosed in the next few sentences). He wanted to ensure that we took the 11 AM train but I replied that we planned to take the 11:30 one. He replied back "As you wish". He was no Shakespeare to deliver the dialogue like the title of a play. He was no Shah Rukh Khan either. His expression clearly said that what he really meant was "Go to hell".
The other group took the 11 AM train and we took the 11:30 train as planned and were on the way to Grindlewald. Now there are 2 stations in Grindlwald. This we did not know before and we only came to know only after the incidents mentioned in the next few sentences (sorry, too much of German influence) happened. At the Grindlewald Grund station (which is a station before Grindelwald Main), I saw the confused-tourist-trying-to-be-a-guide running towards the train from the bus. To our surprise (which was pleasant, I should add), the bus was standing in the Grund station. We got down and to our surprise did not find our other Indian friends in the bus. They had somehow missed the bus and our assumption was that they were waiting in the other Grindlewald station.
After half an hour of waiting, the other Indian group came - sweating and panting - after walking in the hot sun (yes, it was "hot sun" in Switzerland). I should have captured the look in their face when they saw us inside the bus. Their face were full of question marks - "How did these guys reach ahead of us?", "How did they know that they had to get down at Grund?" etc. We were not ready to provide answers but they were not ready to ask either. Mr.as-you-wish hardly looked us in the face.
Remember, always do what you think is correct (of course, after analyzing the facts). Do not worry about the Mr.as-you-wish's. They come and they go. But when you reach your "Grund", you might be mightily happy and others would be equally surprised and ashamed. Enough gyan.
No comments:
Post a Comment