Starting the Journey

I said good bye to my parents, relatives and friends at the Airport and entered the waiting hall only to discover that my flight was delayed by thirty minutes. I began calculating the time I would reach Frankfurt and then how fast I must walk to Check in to the flight to Durseldroff and found that I had to make the flight go faster! And so I sat alone, for the first time in 22 years, waiting for the flight to take off towards my Doctoral Degree.

Well, I had to play no role in speeding up the engines. The pilot seemed to sense my heart beat and hence he landed even earlier than he should. Frankfurt materialized beneath my foot. The passport officer asked me how long I was planning to stay in Germany and I replied, 3 years. I derived some satisfaction from his bewildered looks and in explaining to him that
I was on starting my Doctor Arbeit and that cleared his confusion!Yet again the flight took off towards Durseldroff. I was pretty much thirsty and the drinks were served only for the Business class passengers. I knew I would be flying back in executive class with my Doctorate after a couple of years! After 30 minutes of thirsty flight, I dragged my heavy suitcase all around the airport trying to locate the Flughafen Bahnhof. 2 floors up was the train taking me to the Durseldroff train station.

With my broken German, I bought a ticket to Muelheim an der Ruhr. My destination for the next 3 years. Max Planck Institute of Bio inorganic Chemistry. I cross verified my ticket with a person standing near me. I asked him in German and he replied in English. It was a beautiful co incidence. He was from England. We were talking about the Cricket world cup and the death of Bob woolmer and the pull out of India and Pakistan and then he said that he was a chemistry doctorate working in Shell. I was really amazed and so was he when I told him about my career. The first person I talked to in Germany was a doctorate in Chemistry. Really pleased that my stars were in proper place, I reached my institute for Lunch and started my PhD with French Fries and tomato Ketchup.

~ by maxprasanna on July 23, 2007.