Travel Diaries 3 - Switzerland

This article is long long overdue. I love blogging travel episodes as much as I travel but could only write about few misadventures and not all travel experiences as yet. though I wrote about US west coast and Hawaii way back in 2010-11, I`m heavily backlogged and what better place to rekindle the series than with Switzerland - rightly sobriquetted heaven on earth.

That was September 2013 when we headed on to our family expedition to Europe and ran into some unexpected turn of events (both good and bad) and were left a bit sour towards the end of our Italy tour. We were in pursuit of a real getaway from a mess (will blog that in travel diary about Italy) and we could not ask for a better place.

Train journey from humid, tropical central Italy towards Alps of Northern Italy bordering Swiss brought in a holistic change in the climate, mood and the entire canvass. We arrived to a small town called Interlaken (in the German spoken part of Switzerland) sometime during late evening and retired to bed after a tiresome journey. We could not exactly comprehend the surroundings in the sleepy town at the outset but could hear river flow and swaying woods.

The dawn brought to us one of our happiest and most pleasant days. Pristine unadulterated backdrop, swiftly flowing river just in the backyard, snow capped mountains in the vicinity swept us off our feet. Before we could relish ourselves completely, the ticking clock was teasing us. Quickly finished breakfast and headed to Jungfraujoch, supposedly the highest point in Europe.

While the steep train journey towards the peak in itself has been a tourist`s dream, the top of the mountain can`t be explained in words. Despite having visited Banff, Jasper and the glacier there, Jungfraujoch is in a completely different league. First hand experience of Alps`snowfall, the ice museum and surprisingly a bollywood themed Indian restaurant made our entire Europe trip worthwhile.

Next day in the itinerary was Lucerne. We had no real idea what was in store until we boarded the train to the city. If anybody asks me what could potentially be the best train journey ever, I`d not mince my words before suggesting Interlaken-Lucerne visuals. Almost all bollywoodish movie duets were choreographed there. Ridiculously lush green meadows, belled grazing cattle (Swiss icon), frequent springs and waterfalls, turquoise lakes, winding train tracks, friendly people around - I can just feel everything all over again.

Lucerne is a bigger town than Interlaken, bit more commercial, crowded, better infrastructure and I dare say - more beautiful. On the banks of swan populated lake, archaic old town, die to experience climate. I felt how lucky could one be to retire and spend their post retirement phase of life in Lucerne. I don`t rule that possibility out ;)

From Lucerne we had been to a day trip to Mount Pilatus, almost similar to Jungfrau, but the steepest cogwheel train trek in the world was worth it.

Next stop in our expedition was the most famous city of Swiss, Zurich. Financial capital of Switzerland and hub of Indian black money ;) Zurich can be compared to Toronto or New York City or Paris (though much smaller than all three) but better infrastructure, helpful crowd. Not much for nature-lovers though. We had to route our journey through Zurich to connect to our next stop which was Innsbruck in Austria.

The only off-note among so many good picturesque memories was exorbitant cost of living or traveling. Easily the most expensive country in Europe (atleast among those I traveled).

Another travel diary soon.

The Curious Case of Ram Gopal Varma

It's been 25 years since Ram Gopal Varma's Shiva released. Incidentally I just watched (quite unfortunately) his short movie on Lakshmi Manchu's legs. RGV came a long way or rather stooped a long way from his dream big bang debut to his sad state now. During late 80's "Shiva" came like a breath of fresh air for me. At the age of 9, I so loved the slick, subtle way, novel camera movements, lack of any unnecessary dramatics or larger than life characters.

Then came a splurge of movies with his distinct mark like Kshana Kshanam, Rathri, Gayam in Telugu and Rangeela, Satya, Company in Hindi which are all examples of his true brilliance and genius. I later understood the strong inspiration he'd drawn from The Godfather trilogy, Martin Scorsese and Alfred Hitchcock movies but he blended their finesse with his own vision resulting in such epics. I believe his best times ended during the phase when he turned a bad emulator of Quentin Taratino, a genius himself but was junior to RGV in the world of cinema.There started his curious case..exactly like that of Benjamin Button

The man who showed the country what underworld was, directed nonsensical crime thrillers like Contract, D, James, Shiva 2006, Satya 2, Department which have no hangover of his previous masterpieces whatsoever. Other forgettable movies like Jungle, Daud, Mast, Naach, Nishabd, Darling, Agyaat, RGV ki Aag, Ice Cream blah, blah and blah made his case even more curious. His horror movies like Kaun, Vasthu Shastra, Phoonk, Phoonk-2 are at best badly made b grade remakes of The Exorcist and Hitchcock flicks.

Sarkar and Rann were kind of saving grace but again Sarkar Raj, Rakhta Charitra were marred by his eccentric camera angles (which were more irritating than novel), unnecessary decibels in background and not to mention bad screenplay. But as an erstwhile fan I watched all the above mentioned movies just in anticipation of good movies, Each time he announced a film, I hoped it was his comeback only to get convinced that his era ended but..this Manchu lady's feet shortie is a culmination.

While he can be tolerated for his bad movies, he started his moribund interviews, irreverent tweets, arrogant blasphemy and PR minded controversies with certain shock value. He famously declared that no director can predict the outcome of their vision and audiences who don't know movie-direction shouldn't criticize. It's similar to saying that people who eat at restaurant shouldn't criticize the chef for bad food if they themselves can't cook.

I read somewhere that he's buried in a mire of debts running to several crores and his desperate compulsion to stay afloat in news by making some stupid comments on twitter only to provide some visibility to his films reflects a very sad and sorry state he is now in for the kind of visionary he once was. A man revered on a pedestal along with Maniratnam, Shekhar Kapoor and dubbed Scorsese, Hitchcock or Taratino of India is now at best, a history.

Regardless of his current box office stamina, creative vision or execution, one can't take away from him the credit of establishing a parallel genre of cinema which shook the entire generation and produced a school of directors, actors most of whom are currently raising the flag of RGV brand high. Hope that'd be his legacy.