Keep Calm and Carry on - Life Goes on..

Another of those 2 week business trips coming to an end as I tirelessly end 15 days of living off hotels and suitcases. Packing my bags to leave the wonderful city of Leeds, Yorkshire England without almost unaffected by the incoming surge of passengers into Britain for the Olympics. I wish I was here to watch the games that the UK is so passionately hosting.  As I complete my stay full two weeks on the calendar in Leeds with small breaks in the weekend. The first one being a trip to the spa town of Scarborough on the Yorkshire coast including a 2 mile cruise on the high sea in the North Bay off the coast

Walking the meadows around the Scarborough Castle




The second one joining a group of casual walkers accompanying them on a 15km hike in the Yorkshire Dales. 

Castle and Bay, Scarborough,Yorkshire

Pics from  the Dales walk from Aysgarth Falls to Hawes

Another View of the Dales under a passing cloud

Both these trips were on pleasant and sunny days defying the unpredictable English weather which quite nicely held up on these days. Work, meanwhile  has been hectic as always with a lot of fun and living a consultant life is not too bad. I was in Leeds to support the startup of a new project we begin for a large retailer in the UK. Neil, my colleague and counterpart from IBM UK making me feel as comfortable as it could get and ofcourse always providing local insights into everything I was interested. And, if its Yorkshire, there has to be a mention of the game that has India on its knees-Cricket. Just as in India, Yorkshire villages have a lot of kids playing cricket on the weekend. And like in most cities in the UK, Leeds too has its fair share of desi diaspora. The Yorkshire Post, a newspaper that I have started reading along with the Daily Telegraph is high on cricket to my delight. The TV is full of cricket with praises everywhere for Alistair Cook for his cameo knock against the Proteas. And, a wonderful dinner at a traditional English restaurant ,courtesy Neil. My choice of dish this evening was a sumptuous meal of roasted almonds and goat cheese along with a mushroom pie at the Browns.

Home beckons and I am excited to go back to my kids. And in the meantime a parting message to the UK
Keep Calm and Carry On team GB and Good luck for a successful and peaceful Games ; Be back soon -Ciao

Citius, Altius, Fortius

My Hotel Room,Leeds ,UK, 2012.

The earliest memory of the Olympic games I have is from the 23rd Olympiad at Los Angeles in 1984. The hazy recollections from the games of 1984 was been that of landing at the neighbors’' home uninvited to watch a 15 minute highlights of the Olympiad on Doordarshan, the state run TV in India. This was medieval days when cable TV and multichannel television broadcast was unheard of in my city. Television anyways was too insignificant for most people then although many aspired to buy one soon. I was too young to remember anything specific about the games other than a rush of 'proud' adrenaline every time an Indian athlete competed. As every evening passed by that fortnight, it was clear that India wasn't going to be in the medal table. And on one evening, it was supreme disappointment to hear from everyone around us that PT Usha has missed the bronze medal by a whisker. Quantifying a whisker those days did not make any sense to a primary school boy. Time, then for me was counted in intervals of 45 minutes per subject in the class. And remarkably, and the same 45 minutes on the playground somehow seemed cruelly short. Seniors in school had theories on what went wrong and how PT Usha could have avoided a situation like that. 

It is again another Olympics and once more the games are undoubtedly the greatest sporting event on the planet with London playing the gracious host to the Olympics this year. As I write this, I am at Leeds,Yorkshire having arrived a few hours earlier to Manchester on business. Yeah, my job involves travelling to some of the most beautiful cities in the world and of course helps my customers implement and integrate various software systems that can help achieve their business objectives and financial goals. The entire country is  going gaga over the Olympics and no organisation wants to miss the share of the large opportunity that an event of this scale can potentially impact their balance sheets. Londoners are already complaining about the surging crowds and also the choking up of the city's infrastructure. The Times carried one such letter from a 'holed up' at home reader who had booked a room across the city ahead of a planned family outing so that the cycling road races did not spoil their plans. The times also reported another joke about how relieved Parisians were when they lost the bid to London. 

The Joy the Olymipans brought while growing up are stars who have left such impact in the sporting world. Every athlete a hero by their own standards. These fantastic men and women who have gone beyond the ordinary and bettered previously set benchmarks of human endurance, discipline and excellence. My favourite Olymipians of all times are Carl Lewis,Sergei Bubka, Greg Louganis,Daley Thomson,Mark Spitz,Ian Thorpe,Michael Phelps,Steven Redgrave,Sebastian Coe,Micheal Johnson, Ed Moses, Jackie Joyner Kersee, Flo Joyner,Yelena Isinbaya, Javier Sotomayor, Alexander Popov, Leader Paes,Wilma Rudolph, Paavo Nurmi,Matt Biondi,Alexei Nemov,Natalie Coughlin,Sawao Kato,Nadia Comaneci,Jessie Owens,Larisa Semyonovna Latynina,Vladimir Artemov,Vitaly Scherbo. Truly unforgettable names for the joy,passion and perfection they displayed all during their performing days.