Saturday, October 31, 2009

Autumn Break

If I ever had any doubts about the ability of time to fly, they have been put to rest now. It's been only some time that I came to Belgium, and I am already booking tickets for Delhi and looking forward to my winter vacation. Yeah folks, I will be in Delhi for Christmas and New Year's! I can't wait for it and guess what I am missing most in Leuven?? South Indian Food! Yeah, that's surprising for me too. Not family, not friends, not 'ghar ka khana', but I am missing good old Idli, Sambhar and Dosa here. Would anybody believe that? Maybe because that is the only thing that I could not find here at all so far. I am regularly in touch with family and friends, I cook my own 'Indian' meals but Idli-Sambhar is something that is just not to be found in our little town :(

We don't have any classes for this entire week and I am enjoying the break. Talking for hours with Siddharth, cleaning every minute inch of my studio, listening to songs, cooking nice meals etc. Of course I will also catch up on all the subjects where I am lagging behind and prepare for projects and exams, but that is secondary priority for this week.

Our classes have been progressing at a break-neck speed as usual and I did not even realise when subjects like Leadership, Human Resource Management, Corporate Social Responsibility, Business and Law, and Entrepreneurship zoomed past us. The learning in each was immense and I am in awe of most of our professors here. For example, our Business and Law professor started the course with us by distributing some cases and questions to test our ethics and knowledge about Law. In the first class he told us jokingly that the purpose of his course was to keep us out of jail. The entire class laughed but when he discussed our answers to the cases and questions, we realised how unethical, hypocritical and unaware of the Law we were. If we indeed did those things in real corporate world, we would have been put in jail, and all the while we thought that we were being fair!! I do believe my professor's joke now and realise how difficult ethical choices are in the real world. Wow, I am already beginning to talk like an MBA!

Diwali came and went and I did not light a single cracker. I badly missed home during Diwali but thankfully I have very nice classmates. A chinese classmate called us home for tea on Diwali afternoon and we had dinner at an Indian friend's place. His wife had prepared a delicious Indian meal for us, which we ate while watching the classic 'Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro'. We also played cards, because Diwali without gambling is utterly boring. I explained the concept of Diwali to many of our classmates who wanted to know the story behind the festival and why and how we celebrate it. I hope I gave them the correct version of the story, but anyway they would never know the difference :)

On the day after Diwali we visited a Krishna temple called Radhadesh in Ardenne. It is a beautiful place with rolling hills and dense forests. After the prayer ceremony at the temple we took a walk in the woods and it felt like going back to nature and connecting with the Supreme.








The second pic is of the castle in which the temple is situated.
















I hope that after this one week break, I will emerge refreshed and full of energy, specially because it is Autumn and it is so beautiful here. I love taking walks in the park close to my studio and will post pics of the beautiful park soon.

12 comments:

viswajith.k.n said...

hey good to see that you took some time out and relaxed...

Anonymous said...

Awesome life, awesome place, awesome prof's too, it seems!

Yay to the Delhi Visit! Few MBA-designates are able to afford a holiday in the first year!

Diwakar Sinha said...

although away from your homeland, it is quite a great place to be...

Anonymous said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Nikita said...

@viswajith:
yeah!! It is important to take a break from time to time :)

@unsungpsalm:
Thanks to Dad! :D

@Diwakar:
Indeed!

viswajith.k.n said...

looks like u r blog comments were spammed!

Gymnast said...

i love that castle in the picture...did you say there is a krishna temple in it?

Thats surprising. Can you explain?

Nikita said...

@Gymnast:
Yeah it is a beautiful castle. I don't know the history behind the temple but I think it is a part of ISKCON. Perhaps, they own the castle or something. I really have no idea. But it did seem like the property of Radhadesh, that's how they call the temple and adjoining areas.

Sriram Raghavan said...

Hey, your blog is fantastic. It is similar to my Bschool hunt. I couldn't believe that I missed reading this after 6 months of Bschool researching .. :-)

Nikita said...

@HariPuttar:
Thanks! I tried reading your blog but you have no posts there! :)

Sriram Raghavan said...

Hi!! I haven't written about my Application experience on my blog fearing that some tech-savvy admissions chap would google it out. I was just like you, I knew I was management cadre, a bit confused between HR and Marketing - I found both equally attractive (beyond the usual reasons, HR- timepass job and Marketing - globe-trotting) ;-)
Anyway, since you have asked, here’s my blog -
http://sriramraghavan.wordpress.com/

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