One month in Luxembourg

யாதும் ஊரே யாவரும் கேளிர் 

Yaathum Oorey; yavarum Kelir!

meaning "I am a world citizen; Every citizen is my own kith and kin!"

~கணியன் பூங்குன்றனார் ( Kaniyan Poongundranaar)'s 

saying in Puranaanooru

18th Oct, 2013

After a sound sleep, I woke up late this morning with Sun shines washing my face and lush greens blowing a cool breeze through my roof window. I felt a heavenly pleasure in my heart. I doubted myself and made a reality check to ensure if it is a lucid dream. But it is reality and I am safe at the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, a small landlocked country in Western Europe and one of the beautiful countries('belle pays' in French) in the world.

Rewinding back

I spent 85% of my life in my birth place Kumbakonam aka Thiruk-Kudanthai, a holy temple city and the rest in Chennai and the Manchester of South India - Coimbatore. I do enjoy the swift of changes happening in my life either it be a location change or role transformation - Student to Professional or the reverse. But I should mention these transformations are not out of magic or luck but after so much of pain, risks, emotions and patience. It is only when a challenge is ahead of you, you can realize the family's support, friends encouragement and God's grace coming along with you. I did experienced those and feeling grateful to my parents, friends and the almighty.

A month ago, on 17th September 2013, I was at the Anna International Terminal, Chennai. So many thoughts were chirping in my head and suddenly there was an announcement in the PA system saying "You are on-board". I felt numb for a moment. It took minutes for myself to realize that it is yet another transformation. But this time there were so much of things to learn, change, adapt and get myself prepared.

A 11 hour journey from Chennai to Frankfurt was not enough to get myself mentally prepared. I hardly slept during the journey. I felt no jetlag. I forget to care or even take a look at the magazines, books and a travel game which I took along with me. My thoughts were all about thanking the past, praying and anticipating for the future. I settled my mind clearly with lot of hopes and no room for any confusions or fear. My thought process was put to rest for sometime before landing in Frankfurt with a tasty sambar idly and masal dosa(authentic south Indian dishes) from Lufthansa.  But again that made me think about my mom's cooking, which I gonna miss.

A layman abroad

Having watched many Tamil movies, as how they show, I was imagining and even had exaggerated thoughts about how a foreign country would be. I felt cold and chillness in temperature the moment I was out from the aircraft. Frankfurt is really a busy international terminal. I compared Chennai's Coyambed Bus Terminal(CMBT) with  Frankfurt Terminal. I could find only a few differences and it was very busy. Myself and my three other friends struggled to find eatables for our lunch and we ended up with very few options that were vegetarian. I told myself that this is just a beginning of the survival.

From Frankfurt I had to take another flight to Luxembourg, my destiny. It was a Bombardier Aircraft operated by LuxAir. It was very small and standing no where to Lufthansa's jumbo Airbus aircraft. The propellers seemed very big for such a small aircraft and it had 40+ seating capacity. But I really enjoyed the travel. It was awesome to have the bird's eye view of the Frankfurt city and its outskirts. I was telling myself, "Dude.. You and your camera will find this place very interesting".

The destiny

After a quick 45 minutes flight when I finally landed at Luxembourg City Airport, it was half past 1'o clock already. The place was even colder than Frankfurt. With the help of one of my senior friend from PSG, who was already there, I managed to finish the formalities. Like any other Tamil films, for a stranger in a foreign land, there always arises chaos in taking common transportation and especially in finding address. I was no exception. Myself along with my 2 friends were struggling even to get on a bus, finding our stop and even finding our way back to our home. But fortunately, we had an another Indian guy(from Tamilnadu) living in Luxembourg who came to our rescue when we were caught up in the middle. Indians are always helpful and welcoming to his/her fellow citizens in foreign land.

Day-to-day Activities

It took few days for us to settle down and finish formalities with the Government and immigration. I don't know whether Indian Government or any other non-European countries have such procedures for local administration and immigration. But the proceedings and the way of the Europeans/Luxembourgians administration is commendable. Knowing English is fine for managing day-to-day activities. Most of the people in Administration and Banks know at least 4 languages to speak. I felt pity when I checked my language proficiency.

Universite du Luxembourg

One should be lucky enough to be part of UniLU especially when its turning exactly 10 years by this year. UniLu is a very young and truly international university. One can't witness so many nationals together at one place anywhere other than here. The professors are really good and competitive. The infrastructure they provide are complete and are of high quality. They are planning to move the campus to Esch-Belval by this year end, which is said to be even more sophisticated and well designed.

Weekends

I am thankful to my PSG seniors in introducing a student association called LISEL. It is a nice platform to get to know people from different nationals at one place and get to know each other and their customs and traditions of their countries. I also had quite a few trips to some of the places in city outskirts during Saturdays. So far Larochette, Trier(Germany), Schengen(Tripoint connecting Luxembourg, France and Germany) and Vianden are added to my lists.

The culture

What you reap is what you sow!

It is not a billion dollar secret to know how to socialize or to behave in public. It can be a very simple greetings by saying 'Bonjour'(Good day!) and by giving a smile. It works a lot and do generate lot of positive waves around. "Be grateful and get benefited out of it" is the secret mantra.

Road Traffic

Luxembourgians are very crazy about cars. On a normal day one can witness stranded streets and lot of cars parked alongside. There are cars of all ranges and of all varieties. The road sense and driving practice was another thing which surprised me. They hardly use vehicular horns. These guys might have forgotten where the horn button was fitted in the vehicle. I hardly heard the vehicular horn sound; may be twice or thrice. Isn't this interesting? Yes it is. I realized that there is a kind of orderliness in traffic sense. Pedestrians were given great importance unlike India. A bus full of 100 people may stop and wait for a guy waiting to cross the roads. So the difficulty for me is getting myself aligned and adapted to the rules.

Am I lowering status of our India? Definitely not. It will be a big blunder to do comparisons. We have our own cultural highlights which cannot be found in any part of the world. But I wanted to register a thought that there are also areas where Indian society has to improve.

Identity

I personally experienced many times that people identify Indians very easily. The moment I approach someone, they will be identifying me as an Indian. May be because we Dravidians have a unique facial structure. India as a country and Indians as a fellow human having a very good respect among the guys over here. But Chinese people are also equally competitive with us. I can go one level up the hierarchy and say Asians are having a good rapport with Europeans indeed.

Stranded Streets

1. How many number of persons pay visit to Chennai-TNagar's Ranganaathan street on a Sunday evening?
2. How a street of Luxembourg will look like on a same Sunday evening?

I can easily explain the answer in mathematical style. Here I go..

I assume the answer for question number 1 be X and X be a fine positive integer with 

0<X<Infinity i.e., unpredictable/uncountable. 

But for the question 2 I can give my answers in a single digit Y and Y be zero or a positive number below 10 with 

0<=Y<10 i.e., countable.

Re-energizing my hobbies

Photography and Cooking are the two most interesting hobbies for me. The later one is the one big thing I was missing for past 1 year after leaving Chennai. I am lucky enough in getting it back and I simply enjoying my cooking daily. Regarding photography for a beginner like me, this country provides huge potential to explore and enjoy - not only the country has cathedrals and castles but also lot of landscapes.

Like this I can keep on saying my experiences with the Grand Duchy. There are million other stuffs unnoticed one can enjoy with Luxembourg and the rest of Europe. But above all the climate has its say. Winter is approaching and I am anticipating for lot of fun and experience with temperature going below zero. (Sigh!)

Gratitude

Above all I am taking this opportunity to register my gratitude to Honorary Consul General of India to Luxembourg Mr.Ambi Venkatraman for creating such a platform for Indian students to come to Europe and also to PSG College of Technology, its Principal and the Department of Information Technology for providing me this opportunity. I am proud to say I am a student of PSG Tech now and forever as its alma mater. I also thank my PSG seniors for being the trendsetters and better guides to this destiny.