Jugendstil Buildings of Helsinki

Helsinki is one of those few towns in Europe which does not dwell on castles and churches to paint its cityscape. The Jugendstil architecture of Helsinki is defined by a spacious and minimalistic look that is a vestige of the idea of futuristic buildings in the early 19th century. 

The stock exchange that you see to the left is one of the numerous buildings that were constructed at the height of the romantic movement in Finland. Although no longer used for active trading, it is one of those places that is a subset of must-see-Art Nouveau in Helsinki.

First up, on our itinerary though was the Pohjola building. Originally meant to be the offices of the Pohjola Fire insurance company but now turned into a run of the mill office building, one could clearly see the influence of Kalevala on the buildings: the beautiful spiral staircases ending in a skylight shaped like an egg (which apparently gave rise to the universe). And then you have references to the birds that laid the egg:         

It seems, many of these buildings were designed by young people who won architecture competitions. Most of them cared the least about reigning architectural styles. In fact, reeling under the repressive rule of the Russians, the Finns were looking for something that was unique to them and these young architects provided them with  just that! Then there was the Uschakoffin house now turned into a café. The original stained glass was no longer to be found. However, one could still find the owls that are quintessential of Nordic Art Nouveau.

And finally, the trip concluded with a visit to the Helsinki central railway station. Masterpiece of Eliel Saarinen, it stands testimony to the spirit of Jugendstil in Helsinki.

 

Suomi Diaries: A trip to Nuuksio

One of the really cool things about the supermarket in Otaniemi is that it opens at 7 in the morning and closes at 11 in the night.

For comparison, the Tech market in Kharagpur would open for 6 hours in a day and remain closed on all (inter)-national/state holidays and Mondays.

The other really cool thing about the Aalto campus is the cafeteria system for lunch – the staff have the same food as the students. Only thing - it is subsidised for the students. Browse through their menus and go to any cafeteria you wish.

Today was one of those rare days when both the cafeteria as well as the supermarket was closed! And you couldn’t turn to the latest Otaniemi Sensation because it wasn’t a Sunday. A trip to Nuuksio National Park was inevitable (unless I wanted to sit in my room twiddling my thumbs). Not really sure of what to expect, I jumped the bandwagon. It wasn’t very difficult reaching the place thanks to amazingly detailed descriptions of routes on the Journey Planner.

And then you could find amazingly detailed terrain maps in the Tourist Information Centres to navigate the area with information about location of camp sites, lakes and even about details such as the kind of trees (conifer/non-conifer) to be found at a particular place.

After a bit of a dilemma*, some crazy ringing sounds in the woods (read lost mobile phones), we finally found a spot that overlooked a lake.

Someone commented that the small piece of land in the lake looked like the famous painting of Michelangelo: The Creation of Adam. Come to think of it, even the colours seem to somewhat match!

One could find people going fishing, hiking, biking, swimming and picking blueberries. (It was too cold for swimming and it is a while for the blueberry season).

We picked up some interesting lines of conversation which I will not describe in detail here. Compressing a 4D event into 2D photographs does cause some amount of data loss. Maybe some of them could be the subject of a blog post!

Hei Hei!!

* We couldn’t really resolve*** our starting points and destinations owing to low signal quality on the mobile phone and an interesting fact** I learnt about how the sun moves near the poles.

**East to West via North/South depending on the season (summer/winter). The peak elevation remains about 60 degrees and not 90 degrees like near the equator. To compound matters, it was around noon: but the sun wasn’t exactly on top of our heads because the noon doesn’t always divide the day into exactly two halves. It depends on the rising and setting time of the sun!

*** See photo above.

Summers Finnished – Not Yet!

Moi. It has been an interesting one month in Finland now and if you have been wondering why there haven’t been any updates from me, that is partly because the Brain stuff has kept most of my brain occupied.

PJs apart, Finland is a beautiful country. Here are some nice shots I took from my digital camera.

  

As you can see, all of them are taken in the day. It gets dark for not more than three or four hours in a day. Of course, none of these are famous landmarks that you are likely to find on the Wiki pages. Some of them are taken on the jogging track (12 kms long!!), others from the bird watch tower close to my apartment and a few at a place called Suomenlinna.

But its really cold out here! No wonder Finland won the Ice Hockey Championships without breaking a sweat! Finnish people are very attached to their language. Practically everything from my work contract to items in the supermarket – everything is in Finnish.

Of course, almost everything here is highly advanced. Take for instance, the transportation system. From telling the time of arrival of the next bus/tram at the bus station, integrated travel card for all modes of transportation, cultural trams to live tram maps, it has everything that a passenger could possibly want!

Or the way in which the waste is disposed – different containers for cartons, metals, biodegradable, plastics and mixed waste! And not to forget the recycling centre at the University where one could exchange second hand items free of cost!

The litmus test for a techie is of course – the internet speed. Here are some interesting (crazy?) speeds I got. If you are more inclined to outdoor activities, a wide range of selection is available: roller skating, kayaking, Ultimate Frisbee et. al all inside the University campus.

I guess there couldn’t have been a better place to spend my summers! I have reached my word limit. More in the next post.

Hyvä päivä!!

A Question of Relative Motion

A very interesting discussion came up the other day while we were having a cup of tea in the canteen. The question in contention was:

If a traveller from India boarded a flight to US and then came back, would it take longer one way than the other?

Assumptions

Several simplifying assumptions were taken: no atmosphere which means no drag, no viscous force etc. etc. And of course, we are to do the correction for the time difference to arrive at the final figure.

Several arguments in favour and against it were put forth. To start off with, A argued that it is a simple case of relative motion. You go one way, your relative velocity is higher. You go the other, your relative velocity is lower. So, obviously, it would take different times. Simple enough.

Bump, an apple hit me! (That makes me Newton v2.0?)

“Do you mean to say that if I were to simply take a plane up in the air and hold it stationary there, I would reach USA after 12 hours?” B put forth. “Or if I throw an apple up in the air in a moving bus, it will come back and hit me”, said B consolidating his argument with an analogy.

Playing with Apples on a Bus Top (Nike?)

C pitched in A’s defence stating that the time period in consideration here was very less. What if I stood on top of the bus and threw an apple up in the air? The bus isn’t accelerating. Would the apple come back on me or would it fall behind?

“Of course, it would come back and drop on me”, said A. “Newton’s first law. A body continues to remain in its state of motion unless acted upon by an external force. The external force while throwing up is only in the vertical direction. So, it continues to move with the velocity of the bus while in air.”

My First love: To be a Space Scientist (Ending up in IIT was chance)

A continues , “How do you think a geo-stationary satellite works? It continues moving and remains above a specific country all the time even though the earth is rotating.” A had now switched sides.

Intimidated and discombobulated, C argued, “OK, but think of this. The plane works on the principle of jet propulsion. There is a horizontal force in action”. Silent upto now, D jumps on board the discussion. “That is not an external force. It works on the principle of conservation of momentum.”

Ricocheting Arguments!!

C put forth a last ditch effort to save his argument. “Fine, but how do you explain this? You board a plane at day time in India and after travelling 15 hours, it is still daytime when you land. That clearly means that your relative position with respect to the sun hasn’t changed much even after 15 hours of flight. Which was what B was saying. I take the plane up. Let it remain stationary with respect to the sun and lo behold! I reach USA. The plane expends all the energy only to remain stationary in space.”

Clearly, everybody was quiet frustrated and disoriented by now. All tea cups were empty. I for a fact decided that this wasn’t my cup of tea. Back in the room, I sat back, relaxed and started my first assignment from CAOS class: Fahrenheit 451.

Post Scripts

PS1: The flow of arguments may not be exactly the same as discussed. Some changes have been made to present all view points. In fact, there were more than four people.

PS2: I checked the flight timings. There seems to be a difference of 3 hours either way in most flights. Don’t ask me why that is.

PS3: If you didn’t read what was written above and directly skipped to the happy ending, to make a long story short: it is a question of relative motion.

Beggars to Entrepreneurs

Travelling in local trains is always a difficult experience. Sometimes it is enlightening too.

This weekend, for example I found that beggars can be entrepreneurs too. They aren’t as dumb as they are made out to be.

Here are some striking instances where the begging party applies itself to the situation at hand.

1. At the ticket counter: If you have ever told a beggar that you don’t have change to give him, beware. Enter the modern day street smart beggar. Standing at the ticket counter, waiting for you to give him the Re 1 change that you got from the counter. No excuses now.
2. Catch me game: This was a really smart lady who sent her small kid to go around to get something. On receiving the coin, the kid would throw the coin or roll it across to her mother as if it were a game he was playing. Not surprisingly, he was more successful than her mother at raising funds. The true virtuosity of the kid came to light when he got a packet of biscuits from a generous bystander and returned beaming to his mother holding it like a trophy.

A third instance, to whom I had referred in passing here, was the snake charming beggar.

Obviously, as impressed I was, so was I distressed. Why did these people not spend their energy on something more productive? Rather than spend their time begging (which did not come across as an easy profession to me), why not go out there and do something of value. Maybe sell some newspapers. Or start a roadside food stall. Or become a local tourist guide. Thousands of possibilities.

What drove them to beg is a mystery to me? Was it their attitude, the government or just chance. I have many questions but no answers.

The Search Ends

After some amount of procrastination, I finally decided to put some of my random thoughts into a structured blog post.

It has been a hectic semester searching for and finalizing internships. After quiet a bit of fight, I will have to settle with Finland. Casting away thoughts of posting a laconic A?! on Facebook as my status message, I think it would be more satisfying going through the whole process step by step and looking at some of the ups and downs I had.

August-September ’10

Internship season begins. After the initial jitters, ITC finally comes to campus. I get my first experience of a real GD. Not to be remembered, I must admit. I had hardly learnt from experiences last year.

September-November ’10

I never thought getting internships could be this hard. ITC selected 8 from the whole batch. Deutsche Bank selected one from the 3rd years. Schlumberger was my best bet. Made it to the interview stage after a somewhat arbitrary GD (Topic was “Rolling & Stones”).

Interview was even more arbit. Here is a sample:

I: Do you drink?

Me: (Brief Pause) No.

I: Do you listen to rock music?

Me: Yes.

I: Which is your favourite band?

Me: Pink Floyd.

I: You don’t drink and listen to Pink Floyd?! Don’t fib! (Laughs)

Me: (Sheepish smile & an awkward silence)

Although everybody described their interviews as good. I knew the moment the interview ended that I had a very slim chance of making it through.

December-January ’10

Companies coming to the campus had started to dry up. Even those that came didn’t sound very attractive. I started to forget about the internship and concentrate on other things.

SF came and went. I made it to the final 6 teams on 2 occasions in a marked improvement over last year’s performance. Some of the keywords that stood out were Suppandi, The Tipping Point and Scrabble!! (That is an in-joke!)

February-March ’10

Finally, internship gets finalized in Finland. I was pretty excited but institute rules and regulations regarding foreign internships somewhat dampened the atmosphere. Couldn’t really define the exact moment when I got the internship. But, I guess I’m pretty satisfied about it. And more than anything else, the work there sounds quiet interesting.

Had my first taste of an inter-hall event in March when I got a bronze in Whats the Good Word. Keywords were Poltu and Farziaap. More about it in the next post. Cheers!!

PS: On a somewhat unrelated note, I love Asok, the intern

A Beginner’s Guide to Travelling On a Local Train

You’ll Need: One handkerchief (a must), 3 one rupee coins, one 10 rupee note, plenty of cash, headphones, empty purse

Step 1: Buy your ticket

If you have ever come across a joke like the one below and believe that this really works, you are in for trouble.

Engineers may be smarter than accountants. But Ticket Collectors are smarter still (in India!).

Step 2: Reserve thy seat

This is where your most precious item comes into play. Even before the train stops or the doors of the compartment open, drop in your kerchief on your favourite window seat. Now, not even Sheldon can move you from your seat!

Step 3a: Put on your headphones

Whether you wish to listen to Pink Floyd, Jagjit Singh or Enrique is your choice. But putting on headphones is a must. This will help you ignore all the low-profile scums and beggars that come along.

There will be surprises. Don’t panic. You cannot ignore little girls coming with harmless snakes in round boxes to be opened at the right moment (Pandora’s Box!?). Use your first lifeline. 1st one rupee coin. You have only 3 lifelines. So take utmost care while using them.

Step 3b: Take off your glasses

If you happen to be among the self-evident geeks with big spectacles on your nose, better take them off once seated. That way they cannot be kidnapped for ransom. In the worst possible case, use your 10 rupee note.

Step 3c: Know thy train

For more details, look up extension of joke above.

SPOILER (highlight to reveal): On another trip on a local train, the engineers buy 3 tickets and the accountants buy no ticket. Guess who is smarter?

Step 4: Follow the herd

Be ready before your station arrives. Once the train arrives, do not hesitate. Do not think. Just follow the herd.