Wednesday, July 13, 2011

Appooppanthaadi -15

How about sipping a pint of Remy Martin along with bites of Chicken tikka in a restaurant named after Mahatma Gandhi? After this, just take a short stroll to enjoy a few puffs of Marijuana (Ganja) while watching a live love making show enacted right in front of our eyes? Sounds too bizarre. I thought not twice but thrice before typing this much. I am sure, as the citizens of Aarsha Bharatham ( the Bharat of Saints), even thinking of such dirty things is taboo.



"Rémy Martin is a brand selling cognac (a brandy from the Cognac region of France) , specialist of the Cognac Fine Champagne originally produced by Rémy Martin, a French winemaker, who founded the company in 1724. It is now owned by Rémy Cointreau, a company founded in 1991."

If you are in Holland, especially in the capital city of Amsterdam, you will be tempted to do exactly this. Holland is the only country in the world where a ban on drugs is not existing. Anyone is free to use drugs but possession of drugs is an offense. Flesh Trading and live sex shows are just as a tea shop business here. Let me confess, I did none of the above highly ‘outrageous’ acts. I claim I desisted from such un-Indian acts because I am a proud son of Aarshabharatham. My distractors may allege I did not have the guts to indulge in such activities. However, I did have a dinner at the Gandhi Restaurant - only had a vegetarian mealaccompanied by a coca cola. As said earlier, here too they did not serve water to drink



Gandhi restaurant is an Indian restaurant near the Amsterdam Centraal railway station. There is another restaurant in Mahatma’s name in Paris. Though named after the Mahatma, these restaurant, run by Indians, find no qualms in serving liquor and meat. This was the first shocker I came across in Amsterdam, only to be followed by a few more.

Holland is a country that is always close to my heart. This is the country where the football legends like Johan Cryf, Ruud Gullit and Marco Van Bastian live. When I set foot in Amsterdam, my first wish was to spot that long haired tall guy called Gullit right outside the Ajax Arena and shake hands with him. I must have considered myself the luckiest man in the universe to have lived that wish, but that wish remained unfulfilled. I am a big fan of his. During the 1990 World Cup, I sincerely wished my Soccer Hero to lift the Trophy.



It is just three hours journey from Frankfurt by train to Amsterdam.There are so many High Speed Trains operated by Germany's Bahn Rail . In Amsterdam, if we have to reserve a ticket on these trains, they charge 10 Euro extra. Look, Holland is not operating any trains to Frankfurt. Still they charge excess money on somebody's property!

On the first day of my arrival, I straight away went to the tourist information counter at the outside of the Centraal Station to find out if a hotel room is available nearby the railway station itself. Unfortunately no rooms were available in any of the listed hotels. Whatever available had a hefty price tag too.

Anyway, I had nothing to worry about. I did have a booking in a hotel through internet that was just three kilometers away from the railway station. The taxi took 15 Euros to reach the hotel. There are a number of Trams running in the city that is very convenient to reach any part of this small city



Immediately after checking in, I set out for the places to see in Amsterdam. Obviously my first choice was the Van Gogh museum. It was just walking distance from the hotel. A number of masterpieces of Van Gough in oil paint are displayed in the museum. Van Gogh lived in Holland for a long time and most of the original paintings are in the possession of the gallery in Amsterdam. Photography was strictly prohibited inside the museum. However, in the attached shop, replicas of the original paintings are sold. I took a few of them from this shop. While coming out of the museum, thoughts of a great painter and his tragic end remained like a pain in the mind.

“Vincent Willem van Gogh); 30 March 1853 – 29 July 1890) was a Dutch post-Impressionist painter whose work had a far-reaching influence on 20th century art for its vivid colors and emotional impact. He suffered from anxiety and increasingly frequent bouts of mental illness throughout his life and died, largely unknown, at the age of 37 from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
Little appreciated during his lifetime, his fame grew in the years after his death. Today, he is widely regarded as one of history's greatest painters and an important contributor to the foundations of modern art. Van Gogh did not begin painting until his late twenties, and most of his best-known works were produced during his final two years. He produced more than 2,000 artworks, consisting of around 900 paintings and 1,100 drawings and sketches. Today many of his pieces—including his numerous self portraits, landscapes, portraits and sunflowers—are among the world's most recognizable and expensive works of art.”

1 comment:

  1. Keep posting. It's interesting to read a first hand experience.

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