Memorable Days in Switzerland
-R Balachandran, IIM Indore.


The wedding of my sister was wonderful. So was the feeling of being back at home. There was one thing that was making me feel less upbeat when I had reached India to attend the ceremony. That was the awareness that I would leave exactly nine days later. Nine days went without me noticing one. I had to leave back to Switzerland. I realized then that I could be a pretty good actor. Had to artificially emote being okay while fighting hard to hold back the lump in the throat. Anyway let me not delve into trivialities too long. However dramatically portrayed, these descriptive clichés are better left to Hindi movies.

So finally back in Zurich. The flight to Zurich didn’t feel that important this time for me to carefully remember each and every incident. Back in Zurich and back to office the following day.
Christmas was a week away. In Switzerland and other western countries, there is a week long vacation between Christmas and New Year. Vacation is a vacation. So even after leaving cozy comforts of Home, the impending vacation made me feel better.

There were three things in my agenda for that vacation. Experiencing nightlife, Trying out skiing and visiting Jungfrau.

Nightlife is a strict no-no for most Indians. Also there could be consequences for discussing it in a write-up for academic submission; so I shall go straight to the second item in the agenda. This way I can keep the reader(s) guessing. Guessing anything other than me meandering in the chill till dawn.

The next thing in our agenda was Skiing. Our confidence clouded shreds of fear as we took train to a place called Davos. We walked straight into a Rent-a-ski shop as soon as we reached Davos. The shoe that the shopkeeper gave us was a clear indication of things to come. The shoe was made out of some polymer that was totally inelastic, extremely hard, and unbelievably heavy. It was in the shape of a cowboy boot. It had some innovative tooling for buckle. The only problem was that the innovation was only on tightness and not a bit on comfort. It is very difficult to describe what that boot made me feel. It felt like 4 bricks tied around the calf muscle with a barbed chain. All this made me forget the six feet ski racks that I was carrying. After reaching the ice, I followed the shopkeeper's instructions and successfully clipped the ski on to the boot. What followed was a moment of insanity. Ice offers absolutely no grip to a Ski rack; I learnt this on that day. Friction was a word that seemed to have been removed from the dictionaries. All attempts to move forward slid me a few feet backwards. It made us the laughing stalk of the area. I wonder whether they had some cameras there and put us in candid camera shows. We had to move forward. A spurt in confidence enabled me to dig the stick in my hand deep and pull myself slightly forward. After a few attempts we were successful. We gained some momentum and moved into the actual skiing area. Eventually we were able to move around freely in ice in plane surface. All the speed had to be built by our strength. I wasn't satisfied.

In a spurt of overconfidence, I removed the ski from my boot and carried it to a slightly higher place some 200 feet away. I wanted to ski down. I didn’t know how foolish that decision could turn out to be as I forgot that I didn’t know how to turn or brake. In characteristic display of guts, I ignored my friend's warnings and put on the ski. Before I could balance myself with the ski, I started to move. The speed began to increase. As I reached the steepest part of the slope, the speed and balance were things I could hardly think of. All I was thinking then was how to fall with least damage. As fate would have it, I never fell till the bottom of the slope and gained maximum speed possible. At the end of the ramp, I completely lost balance and had the fall of my life. Full with somersaults and rollovers. One can imagine a typical hero heroine roll scene from Hindi films. Sans the heroine, it wasn’t funny.

Thankfully snow was soft and I dint bang into the trees. So there was no collateral damage. The thrill of falling was actually nice. We skied for the rest of the day. I must have had more falls than the day I learnt to walk. But then who complains. It was a day well spent. We planned to return to skiing before leaving Switzerland.

The rest of the holidays went in healing the aches. The first week of 2007 was quite eventless. The planned follow up ski weekend hadn’t happened. Nevertheless in one of the weekends, we made it to Jungfrau. The name of the pace is pronounced as Yun-fro meaning young girl in German. It is the highest railway station in Europe about three and half kilometers above sea. I think this has to be among the most exotic places on planet Earth. I can vouch that I’ve never seen anything better. It took about five hours of train travel from where I stayed.

The last two legs of the journey were by cogwheel trains. This route should be among the most scenic rail route anywhere in the world. The last leg of the travel is through the hill. They've bored a huge hole through the hill and put a railway track through it. So the train is like a slated Lift moving through long and steep tunnel. The construction of such a track is a colossal achievement of engineering.

In its journey the train stops at couple of viewing windows. What we see outside cannot be aptly described by my meager writing skills. Through those windows wee saw clouds at a slightly lower altitude than where we stood. The monotony of cloud was broke at places by ice-capped peaks. "Breathtaking " is an adjective the only comes close to fairly describing the view.

After a few minutes of viewing, the train resumed its journey and reached its small station. Jungfrau has a large Ice palace. Ice place is the name given to a huge cave built with ice. It has some statues made completely of ice. Outside the ice palace, Heaven awaits. I mean, if someone had to shoot Heaven for a movie, then Jungfrau has to be the location. Again my descriptive abilities fall short. The ice palace opens into a rocky pathway draped in hard ice. On one side we can there are snow-covered peaks. The other side looks like abyss. It is hard to see any colour other than shades of white anywhere. If we are lucky, as we were, to be in the place on a sunny day, we would see that snow glittering like gold.

The few weeks enriched me sufficiently. I had forgotten the glum feeling that I had as I was leaving India after my sister’s wedding.