Friction

Some recent developments about the internship must be mentioned here. MITACS having initially stated that this is a $7500 internship (including a $3100 accomodation) is now refusing requests to refund the outstanding amount after spending much less on the accomodation for the students than initially promised. I am personally satisfied with my accomodation and even in my case they had to spend about $1500 only. What happened to the students living in Toronto is extremely pitiable. The living facilities are poorer compared to hostels back home. At least in India, they don't have to worry about food. Here the only option left is to eat out everyday. All this has resulted in a situation like in pre-Independent India. Some are radicals but mostly it is like the INC, trying their best to be courteous, debating amongst themselves and demanding the MITACS authorities at the same time. Their efforts are laudable. But I am unsure of my support as demand for monetary compensation does not seem to me to be the correct answer to the accomodation problem while at the same time MITACS shouldn't have claimed in the beginning that the accomodation would be worth $3100.

75 kms

The bike underwent some exercise over the last three days, as I rode it to three different directions around Waterloo. The first day it was St. Jacob's. We browsed the shops at the market, lost a battle against French fries, bought some vegetables at the last hour and were happy to get them cheap (more meat for Russell Peters?).

Supriya and I continued on our bikes to what was supposed to be St. Jacob's village. It was good as we stumbled into stuff. For some time, we were seeing these antediluvian cars on the way, and we were like "We just wanted to see the countryside, din't want to go to the past." On taking a left turn, we were suddenly at a car fair where people were exhibiting odd and antique cars. Some of them were exactly like the ones that are there in the Tintin books -vintage cars and trucks with round corners and a happy expression. Cars in which doors and bonnets were hinged the opposite way round. Some were ultra-modern. Some had zero ground clearance. Some were flat and long like the cars used in old Hindi movies.

We biked on to the central market area of St. Jacobs where we decided to try out stuff at a bakery. There we relished a tart involving strawberry, custard and rhubarb (which reminds me of Asterix and old theatrical crowd murmurs)
After that we took a wrong turn and instead of a village, we saw posh condos all around. There we met the saviours of Planet Earth, but they considered the two of us to be aliens.

Finally before returning, we spent some time at a sequestered spot by the creek near Columbia Lake.

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Day 2 was along the dandelion covered Laurel Trail. A short note on dandelions here: The first week we were here, the meadows were green. The next week, it gradually became yellow with flowers. Thinking this to be just the beginning, I waited for the yellow to grow, but all of a sudden, during the third week, the meadows became white, with small spherical spiked flowers. When Keerthi discovered that the yellow flowers transform to the white dandelion snow, everything fell into place. A transformation as amazing as a caterpillar to a butterfly.

These trains are museum pieces now

Anyway back to the trail along the tracks without any train, Vishnu and  I reached Kitchener. We enjoyed some Caribbean food and music before heading back. Near the Perimeter Institute there was a Clay and Glass gallery. I went in without too many expectations and am not a great interpreter of artworks, but I found the works of Jules Oakes absolutely fabulous.

One of his pieces called Sparrow Swounds was in fact in 4D, - it involved a flock of 120 glass sparrows suspended from the ceiling. Over the course of the exhibition, 23 of them will smash  to the floor and form piles beneath the remaining flock. A recording of the hymn, 'God Sees the Little Sparrows Fall', precedes each fall, sung by an opera.

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Day 3 was a Monday. The sun was out after ages, and I couldn't just stay put in my room after returning from the University. I took off by myself, cycled at top speed to Erbsville, took a right turn and biked along extremely sparsely populated regions. Small forested regions. Huge expanses of farms, with some stables. Found an abandoned barn in the middle of nowhere, perfect setting for a horror movie.

I continued till finally I saw some people. The middle-aged lady was wearing the traditional peasant's dress. She couldn't give me a road direction and referred me to the head of the family. As I walked ahead along the side road past some farm machinery, a well, and a barn, I approached a house, with a yard and three children loitering around. The kids and the man were all wearing full sleeved shirts and trousers with suspenders. The kids had red cheeks and they looked at me with a somewhat bewildered expression. They had a rustic feel about them. It seemed like a slum scene from a Charlie Chaplin movie. There was someone sitting on a rocking chair. From the dress, it was probably a she but I couldn't guess the age. She had a particularly unpleasant expression and she sat still the whole time while I chatted up the man. I introduced myself as "a traveller from India". For the first time I called myself a traveller and it kind of sounded cool. After 2-3 minutes, I took off from there. As I was returning, a flock of geese flying across the orange setting sun formed a memorable picture...

Seriously?

This we found on the bill board of Wetmore Hall of the University of Toronto. Might as well be a prank but you never know.

PS: I called and confirmed that it was a prank. How unfortunate.... just when you think you can get a surrogate mother.... :P

The rest of the animals

We got lucky about the weather in spite of a murky forecast. The persistent rain stopped just when we were about to enter the zoo, and again started pouring as soon as we left it. But it was the animals who disappointed us. They were kind of bored of the visitors, and mostly dozed off in some obscure corner of their enclosures. An arctic fox, a puma and a Siberian tiger were very agitated though, as they diligently patrolled along their cages. I saw Polar bears for the first time. I witnessed the effort needed by one of them to rise from its sedentary position and felt their laziness absolutely justified.

Tortoise idling away

Flamingoes

Penguins from Africa. From the Cape of Good Hope

A suspicious Chameleon. For some reason it was sneaking up along the branch in a robotic way - two steps forward one step backward

Friendly ray fishes. They swam along the edges of the pool almost as if they liked human touch

Bearded Dragon

Moon Jellyfish

We would have liked to witness some of the Victoria Day fireworks along the Waterfront, but we ran out of time for that. Instead we got to see a complete semicircular rainbow, encompassing a third of the sky. Spectacular

A five legged elephant, dinosaurs and domesticated snakes

Quoting the Globe(Toronto newspaper), "It should be preserved as a humourous commentary on the state of civilization in this city in the early 20th century... it should be kept intact as an awful example of local artistic immaturity. It should be stuffed and mounted like a five-legged elephant" 
When Sir Henry Pellatt decided to build Casa Loma, he didn't realize that it would become famous for the wrong reasons. The building wasn't fit for anything. It is some kind of an elaborate joke. After Pellatt went bankrupt, plans were made successively to make the structure a home for war veterens, a war museum, a high school, a convent, a monastery, a hq for the Orange Order , a club for wealthy men, and even a home for the Dionne Quintuplets. It became a night club for a short while and then a luxurious hotel for a shorter while, before it finally became a tourist spot. Even here it doesn't fit. I seriously feel that this is a waste of money for tourists.

The subway service in Toronto isn't too impressive, especially the token system. We went downtown to the harbourfront, and were humbled by the tall imposing structures. You kind of feel looked down upon.

                             Not tall enough?                                                        How about this?

 Keeping snakes as pets is common in Canada. The one in my hand is a bull snake, one of the largest species of snakes in Canada.

 One with the sky  - Toronto and Lake Ontario from atop CN Tower

Going up the more-than-half-a-kilometer tall CN Tower was part of the unwrit rule that I spend an evening of my second weekend in a foreign land at a high place (Australia- Skydeck; Europe - Eiffel Tower). The view was as usual majestic. 

The CN Tower package also involves a short 4D exprience called Himalamazon, but Torture would probably have been a more apt name for the show.

We crashed at Aritra's place for the night. He was the ghost host because he was in Montreal. Sukanya was the replacement host and she did well. However, little did Aritra know that for two nights, his room would become a dormitory for five. I was specifically told not to use his roomie's bed, but I took the responsibility of doing so without him getting a hint about it. The roomie made the task more difficult with loads of clothes strewn randomly over the bed. A camera click and a pre-departure referral of the pic was sufficient to work around the issue.

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Day 2:

Royal Ontario Museum - the entrance

 

T. Rex -Other than the dinosaur section, almost everything else bored us to death

We went to the Toronto Islands. Many of us wanted to go to the volleyball beach (a code word for something else) in these islands, but there wasn't enough of the sun left for us to reach there in time. We had a long walk along the southern side of the islands. USA would have been visible on the other side of Lake Ontario but for the fog, which seemed almost creepy, as if a storm was building. Thankfully nothing happened.

As we approached Toronto downtown from the islands, it felt like we were nearing an alien city. A spectacular sight.

Dundas Square, the Times Square of Toronto

Closest to the target group (note university building immediately behind)

Living up to the name of the department

Well..... Jack Sparrow turned out to be a teetotaller and wore glasses. I am disappointed because everything else about Stephen Turnbull is so much like the legendary pirate, his appearance, his movements, and way of speaking. He even had weird stuff on his table like a stuffed parrot, and an archaic lantern. The chair in which he sat was broken in a peculiar way that made it very suitable for star gazing, but never tipped over. In Ryan's absence over the first week, I developed a good rapport with him. 

On the first day, I met Taylor 30 minutes before the scheduled meeting. He saw me in the passage-way and correctly guessed who I was. We had a long session as he explained my task and gave me the required background with a lot of enthusiasm. He took me to Cosmology group meetings and seminars, and afterwards provided explanations to bring stuff that went way over my head to a closer 'getting-a-hang'able range.

Ryan Speller is one of Taylor's graduate students, and he is my guide for the summer.  He keeps his head shaved. He recently fought a boxer to save his cute dog. If there are any confusions for the reader, the boxer is also a breed of a dog, and this particular member of the species was over-aggressive. Anyway all that is very irrelevant to the context. Ryan has this geeky friend Jonathan, who contributes to restoring the average hair length by his long locks. Then there is Uzair, whose work on modelling star clusters I liked, and whose idea that religions are scientific, I opposed. There is one Chinese guy too, who is very friendly and keeps asking me the most irrelevant questions, but I am forgetting his name at the moment.

Last Friday, we went out with the Physics group for drinks and then some light meal. Over the din of the bar, I couldn't get what all the waitress had to offer, and looked around for help. Finally I did with some light Canadian beer. There was Robert and Helen from London, who claimed that people often mistook them for Australians, but I assured them they were too gentleman and lady-like to be Australians. We all chatted for a long time before wishing each other a happy weekend.

Today again, after a group meeting with Taylor, we went to the Grad House and played a game of "Oh! Shit" over a pitcher of beer. This card game is so named because winning is not guaranteed in the game, but at least one person loses. After a while I got a hang of the game, and did pretty well. Here's a link if you are interested -(http://www.pagat.com/exact/ohhell.html)

Too Many Cooks ...

Two years ago I cooked alone. It was mostly bad, but it harmed no one. Last year was great, with Abhirup and Yogesh leading the way, while Deepesh and I followed the orders. At the end of the stay I did learn some cooking good enough to support myself.

In this trip, so far Rohit has taken up the culinary charges. He did pretty good for the whole group of 6-7 critical diners. After a few days, I felt I should contribute sometimes too. I decided to try preparing some aloo curry. What followed was commotion. I had in my mind some way of preparing it, and others had their own ideas. Keerthi and Supriya joined in too. Now we had too many ideas, and it was then that I wisely decided to retire and see Rohit & the girls fight it out ... "Put it into the microven, otherwise it will never get cooked", "Why are you taking it out so early, more heat is required" ,"That pan is too small", "Add some more spices"... Even Vishnu quipped in from time to time though he himself was clueless about cooking. In reality, the alternatives over which all the bickering was centered, didn't matter that much. However all the three cooks were adamant about their preferences. The final product was no where near from what I had in mind initially, but I did not mind. It wasn't very good, but was very eat-able.

There is one person in our group though, Adarsh, whom whenever we ask as to what he had for his meals, he always answers, "I cooked something", "I had something", but he never reveals what that something is, even on rigorous inquiring. This has led to a lot of speculations, including doubts over his status as an earthly being.

A Dampener

The rain complimented by the winds brought down the mercury substantially. The spirit of seeing around a new place never leaves me though. 

St. Jacob's Village, adjoining Waterloo, has a market where many of the merchandise come directly from the produces of many villagers. This was one of the places recommended by the old man at the bike garage. My first impression of the place was a 'mela' like the ones in India, complete with a merry-go-round for children. Only that the shopkeepers came here in horse drawn carriages or caravans. Many home-made food-stuff were available. I tried out some and liked them. Besides loads of vegetables being offered at cheap rates (since it was nearing the end of the day), there were also many clothes and gift-item shops. There were some eateries too. One store was selling second hand books at 3 for 10$. I couldn't turn down the offer.

In the evening we went uptown, which should actually be called the downtown because it was supposedly the most happening place in Kitchener-Waterloo. But on that day it was almost deserted because of the rain.

The 10-minute bus journey from uptown back to the university was phenomenal though. Some drunk girls in minimal clothes had boarded the bus and what they were doing could easily be classified as soft porn.

On Saturday, our group comprised us Mitacs fellows, and 2 internees from London (the one which is an hour away) and a non-Mitacs girl also stationed in Waterloo. The next day there was an addition to our group. Supriya having just arrived in the morning at CLV, decided to go out with us. It wasn't the kind of welcome she would have preferred, as we all had to walk some 12 kilometres in the rain, in search of the Laurel Creek Conservation Area entrance, and by the time we found it, all of us except Irene (from London) and Vishnu, were tired enough to ditch the idea of going into the park.  

The Laurel Creek Reservoir

The others

One day when we were having our post dinner chat session, suddenly Vishnu noticed some movement between the grass and the streets in the dim lights outside, and we all came out to see some creature almost tiptoeing away in a hurried manner as if it had stolen something. This raccoon was followed by its comrade which seemed to be involved in the same crime. Sad I couldn't capture it in my camera....

The squirrels here are cat-sized, and they literally gallop. There are many of them around in the university. Rabbits are sighted relatively less frequently. So far, two bunnies have shown me their arse as they jumped away from me miscalculating the danger I posed for them.

Then there are birds. But they are angry birds. These are geese in their nesting period, and they are very suspicious about any passer-by's intentions regarding their eggs. Recently, while I was cycling to the university, one aimed straight for my head, without hint of any provocation from my side. I swerved my bike at the last moment to save myself. Besides they crap a lot, and make the streets green in the process. There are some less angry birds too, like a variety of small swallows and a red crested bird.

Yesterday while returning from the university, I met a beaver near the Columbia Lake. It was braver than the other animals I met so far. I initially thought it was an otter, but then it pleaded to be called a beaver. I wanted to see its dam, but instead it entered into a hole, and kept watching me. As I went closer, it lowered itself into the hole, gradually and very smoothly, as if it was standing on a platform which could be lowered mechanically. But all the while it had its eyes transfixed on me. The whiskers twitched from time to time. After some time, we decided to leave each other alone. I also saw another animal of some similar kind - it looked like a hybrid - I would call it a Squiver.

A machine called Stealth

I hope that this trip is going to be different from the rest because of this investment. We went down the King's Way to the place where this fat old man lived, made bicycles out of individual parts, and made a living out of selling them. We wanted a bike that would last 3 months, and come in cheap. Keerthi got a good deal at 45 dollars, Vishnu for 70, and I brought in my prize for 95.
The bike has Stealth written across the body in the 'Terminator' font, blue-black in colour, thick grooved tyres, gears for both wheels, it all looked great for the price, given that normal new ones from proper stores cost around 1000 dollars. The old man specifically said that my bike was unique in its design and to take good care of it, so that it doesn't get stolen. As I rode it back to the CLV, cutting through the air, and down the slopes at 40+ speeds, it felt terrific.
Already I am so much in love with my new bike that it almost feels like I am cheating on the one back home at IITK. Anyway, Diptarka is 'riding' that at the moment...

Before coming back from the garage though, we had a long chat with the old guy. He told us that contrary to popular belief, many people in Canada are very poor, and the government levies heavy taxes and imposes huge fines for trivial offences. Even in Waterloo, he said that he could take us to places where he knew many people who were failing to ensure their basic minimum living requirements. He does his part by donating bicycles to many people, often at his own expense.
He also informed us of some cheap but good places to buy fresh food, and offered to give us a ride to the countryside sometime, at a subsidized rate.

69 Columbia Lake Village

Irony in my address too. I share the place with Rohit, Vishnu and Madhavan. It's a two storeyed wooden structure. Beautiful from the outside and inside, but when I go up or down the stairs, the whole thing shakes and creaks. I am generally not so confident about wood, but people here are and that's what counts. Also wood is less sound-proof. I am pretty sure one day soon, the people living in 68 would lodge a complaint against us. The four of us have separate rooms, but a common kitchen, toilet and a living room. With a backyard having a wooden bench-cum-table and green meadows rolling into all directions, it was almost like the sets of some movie.

When I came here the first day with Wan, I was immediately overwhelmed by the presence of the other three apartment-mates who had arrived before me. Rohit and Vishnu were the big bosses being one week senior in Canada. They were very helpful indeed and helped me settle down fast.
At 67, lived Adarsh to be joined later by Sundaram, while 65 was for the girls Keerthi and Supriya (yet to come)
Vishnu, Keerthi and I are the only non-veg people around, but so far we have been heavily dependent on Rohit for our daily dinner of rice, vegetable and curd. Madhavan started missing South Indian food, within 3-4 days, but it looks like he will have to learn to live with it. 

The Community Centre having pool, table-tennis and fussball among games and other less important stuff like washing machines and a helpdesk

The third first look

The welcome package of MITACS complete with a GSA (Globalink Student Advisor) was nothing short of spoon feeding. I am not against it, and infact it was great that they saved us the trouble of opening bank accounts, getting an insurance, and a phone card to call back home. We right away got some substantial money to start off.

The institute is a 20 minutes walk away from the Columbia Lake Village. It is all about getting used to everything all over again - keeping doors open to let people behind you enter, calling professors by their first name, pressing the button at street corners for crossing, straining your ears to follow conversations for the first week or so, absence of water in the loo (a good example of irony in the name of the place)...

We are in that part of Canada that is trying to force its way into the US, after a straight line drawn using a 500km long ruler. Detroit, Cleveland and Buffalo (in the US) are very close by (only a few hours drive). Waterloo is very peaceful and green. It is a student centric small town, surrounded all around by the countryside and numerous lakes, big and small.

Canadians are said to be trying hard to form an identity by themselves, trying to prove to themselves that they are a race different from any other, especially Americans. But their European connections run too deep to get rid of. A person landing in Toronto coming by the flight from Delhi, said that he is going to London. I was like 'Excuse me?!?'. Other passenger: 'It's two hours from here'. It took me some time to realize that there is one London here in Canada as well. Right in the state of Ontario, we also have a Paris, a Heidelberg, a Mannheim, of course Waterloo and even a Delhi (pronounced as Dell-hi) !!!

Anyway my first impression is that there is a lack of cultural depth here as compared to Europe. It seems like this is an ultra-modern civilization in the making. Just like in Melbourne, there is a huge population of Mongoloids and Punjabis here. Additionally there are many people from the middle east, from north Africa and from southern parts of Europe too making this a very diffused culture.

The Ordeal that was not

IGI-T3 is no Dubai, but it is an airport the capital can be proud of. We were flown to Delhi not by the flight originally decided upon. The alternate flight was 3 hours in advance. At the Calcutta airport, Arpan, Shubro, Anisha and Shalini had come to see us off. Actually it was more of a ploy by Aritra to bring his girlfriend Shalini without his father suspecting anything. Anyway I was imagining the see-off scene in Bong Connection, and was utterly disappointed by the handshake goodbye. 

Again at Delhi, Dadu (Anirban Banerjee) came to meet us. The parting between Dadu and Aritra was definitely more romantic. We had another fellow traveller in Sukanya, who had to bear with us at both the airports. Aritra was at his excited best and bought some stuff, he would not want me to mention here.

The flight was almost a test of character and physique. About 16 hours being seated in the same position. Thankfully the seat beside mine remained unoccupied. After all, the flight including its services weren't all that bad, but still Air India became the butt of all jokes (for ex. Aritra said that 3 months down the line, if we search for Air India, an error message could come up, "Sorry the airline you are looking for does not exist")

Sometimes I was bored enough to think of some common geographical problems like sun taking longer to set when seen from air, or the fact that it is possible to rotate faster than the earth approximately above 60 degree latitude (which results in seeing the sun back-tracing its path and setting in the east)

To take the shortest route, we had to travel along the great circle and that meant against our intuition, that the route was over the Caspian Sea, passing over Moscow, Stockholm, Helsinki and Oslo, cutting the southernmost tip of Greenland, and then entering Canada. Whenever the sky was clear we saw snow fields in different forms:

 Ice covered landscape of Sweden

 Snowy home of Santa (Greenland)

Ice breaking off and melting into the ocean, off the coast of Canada - Newfoundland

Toronto from the air seemed like belonging to a civilization from the future. Orderly arrangements of apartments and top class highways straight from the movies. Even on the way from Toronto to Waterloo, I found that there weren't any crossings, all were managed by flyovers. Another thing you notice immediately is the huge areas of water-bodies scarring the surface throughout - an absolute potholed landscape.

Finally Up

So far in the previous trips there have been hindrances in various forms. Whenever all is set to go to a new place, something or the other comes up, be it racial attacks, or some volcano in Iceland. No I am not going to Libya this time, but an Air India pilots' strike kept the worrying part in us engaged. But the mood being down has got nothing to do with all this. It is because, I have been saying farewell to a lot of people of late. Great men they will become, but we don't know when our paths will cross next.

And of course, it all started with a major hiccup, because on the 17th of December I got two letters. The first one went as follows:

"Dear Arnab Dhabal,

Congratulations! We are pleased to inform you that your application to the MITACS Globalink internship program was successful.  Please see the attached document for more details on this internship award.
Please confirm your acceptance of this internship by email to Megan Mercer, Programs Specialist, MITACS Globalink at mmercer@mitacs.ca no later than January 7th, 2011.
Please note that the MITACS office will be closed from December 18th to January 3rd, 2011, inclusive.  Any correspondence sent during that time will be answered when the office re-opens in January.
Congratulations again and we look forward to seeing you in Canada in the summer of 2011!

Kind regards,
Melinda Benn, B.Sc., M.Sc.
Program Specialist
-------
"
I go to sleep with Canadian dreams. Next morning I open the mailbox and find a mail from the MITACS director, and it said:

"Dear Arnab Dhabal,

Thank you for your application to the MITACS Globalink Internship Program.  We regret to inform you that you have not been selected for this highly competitive program.  We received many high-quality applications for a limited number of positions and had to make some difficult decisions.
We wish you success in your future endeavours, and thank you again for your interest in MITACS.

Kind regards,
Arvind Gupta
Scientific Director and CEO, MITACS
------
"
In other words, "Dear Arnab Dhabal, you are in a situation" And to add to it, I couldn't even confirm anything for a fortnight until which their office was closed. I had one companion though in Aritra, and possibly we were the only ones in such a situation. Anyway, the reader already knows what the end result was, from the very fact that I have started this blog.

So here I am, about to start my journey to the land of ice hockey, immigrants, northern lights, Robin Scherbotsky and also Justin Beiber...