Tuesday, June 8, 2010

On Top of Europe.. Khemcho..

Just been back from a two-week hectic tour of Europe. As the tour manager said : 14 days, 9 countries, 10 hotels; and on the road for about 12 hours a day.

Hectic but damn good... The renaissance architecture was imposing, the country sides were pleasingly lush green and clean, the towns picturesque and the water bodies well-maintained and again very clean.  And what can one say of the majestic beauty of the glorious Swiss Alps? Fantastic...and a childhood dream come true.

Hectic but not too tiring as such... May be the credit goes to the smooth road network at most parts; and perhaps the routinely standardised but intelligent itenerary of the tour...          

The roads are smooth but the city traffic can be as risky as at home. We almost missed the Eurostar connect to London sitting in the Paris traffic. Ofcourse, we didn't miss home. There was so much to see around and in any case there were so many Indian tourists everywhere; On top of it, we were on a group tour that provided Indian food all the way.  

The group was a perfect replica of the kind of socio/demo-graphic patterns that one is typically exposed to. A couple of days of sizing up and the group of 50 settled down immediately into linguistic and regional sub-sets; Followed up by subtle marking of territories and the not so subtle one-up-man shows.

In the not so-subtle category, couple of patterns struck me. One, we always want to herd up since it provides a comfort zone of we vs them. Then we find enough parameters to create further sub-sets in a variety of ways. Two, despite the herding, some of us always want to be accepted as better than others. Even if it may get down to silly games like mine-is-better-than-yours.

The kids in the group had great fun. Many of them are quite amazingly talented. I see a distinct fearlessness and freedom in the new generation kids. Nothing to hold them back except the reins of the stressed-out and beat-up old souls....   

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