The force is still strong and will march ahead....

Alright, yes I am still the same like I was in school :-)

I still have the same energy like I had when I was 12

I still look at girls the same way, and go whoa, and sometimes feel shy talking to them.

I have a poster of Gisele Bundchen on my door, and introduce her as my gf to everyone.

I get emotional when my friend leaves.

When I came to Beijing, I met three crazy Brazilians; Rentao (founder of the force) called the 4 of us the “Dark Side of the force”. The force has partied together for the last 2 months like crazy, traveled, had some crazy experiences, and learnt a lot from each other.

But not anymore, Renato is leaving.

For whoever has met this guy, knows he’s the craziest felio de puta(SOB) alive on this planet.

Just to give you an idea and for inspirational purposes (so that I can read this next year and plan my travel accordingly),Renato leaves Beijing today to travel around China and then goes to Pakistan by a bus, yes a 48 hour journey from Kashgar to Sost. Trek in Pakistan then move to Iran and then turkey.

Whoa!!!

Yes Rentao you are leaving, but like I promised I will take the force ahead….:-)

You will be missed.

I am proud to be an Indian Brazilian. :-)

Vande Mataram...

“This article is just a view point of a person, that’s me. It doesn’t intend to hurt any ones sentiments.”

I come from a small city (like Abhi puts it) called Ahmedabad in Gujarat State. Not everyone speaks English there, most of us even if we do, don’t speak and write very well. Not everyone is "modern" & "advanced" out there.

I am one of them.(Only difference is I moved to Mumbai 4 years back and I think I am different)

Till today I would have never accepted it , my ego would have been crushed if someone pointed out my grammatical errors. I think its cool to say “dude” then to say “bhai”. To learn an extremely cheap abuse in “Hindi” is uncool for me, while to learn even worse words in “Portuguese” is really cool. I actually go jumping around in bars saying the same word to my Brazilian friends and they smile. I would never do that to my Indian friends in Hindi. I talk to most of my friends in English and think if I talk in Hindi I will be looked down upon.

I know I am not the only one thinking that way.

However there is point I am making here.

Why?

Some of my friends unintentionally here have been making me think about it

Felipe often gets amazed that I don’t talk to my friends in Hindi, that I have a bigger collection of western music then Indian music.

Raffi another friend of mine asked me the other day when we “INDIANS” organized an Indian night at our place if I could, show her some traditional Indian dance. I didn’t know how to, the same night I was in a bar dancing away to glory on some western music.

I am not planning to change, but I am happy I am thinking. One of my main goals for China was to tell my non Indian friends about India and make them visit the country so that they could experience the rich culture, heritage and warmth of the country and its people.

I am not thoroughly prepared for that myself, I have to read up my own history before telling my friends about it.(you can blame me for being inattentive in my history classes for this.) But I am happy I am learning more with them and they get to know a little about India through me.

Felipe is reading about Indian culture, history music ,movies and Raffi who a month back knew very little about India is now curious, or atleast that's what I think.

I am proud, that I have convinced at least two people mentioned above to visit India and it’s a way to tell myself that “I AM PROUD TO BE AN INDIAN”.

My internship is on track, this is one of the things what I wanted to realize(and much more in the next 10 months). One was right when one said "You dont realize the importance of something till you dont have it anymore"

To being at least “one realization” old. ( in chitgo’s words one more experience old !!)

Things could'nt be better as I write this , a news alert pop up on my laptop. Mrs. Indira Nooyi the new CEO for Pepsi Co.

Vande Mataram (Happy Independence Day!!)

Hey AIESEC.....

I got this picture from a friend of mine, and it brought back old memories.

Lot of you have taken up huge responsibilities at various stages of your AIESEC career and I like to believe that you have put in your best effort. More importantly AIESEC in Mumbai has progressed.

I am proud to be a part of your AIESEC experience & learning in your initial years.

Here’s wishing AIESEC Mumbai all the best, and like I always say “I’ll be watching you” :)

Zamanama eh eh…..

Jitu

View points, people, music.....

Another week comes to an end....

Another week of meeting crazy people, traveling, partying real hard, listening to different music....

Another week of learning some more technical details about photography…

Another week of some crazy stories that I won’t forget…..

We visited Summer Palace (Old & New), historical yes, but I didn’t get that feel of all of it being authentic. Maybe like some of my friends said that I didn’t like it that much because it was filled with tourists. The OLD summer palace was much more beautiful, with much more nature to appreciate, felt much more authentic then the new one, the ruins were beautiful, we discovered African ruins ;-) hehe….Pictures will be put up some time soon…:-)

Random Conversation still interesting…

I met someone who is from the STATES and brought about an extremely interesting point about why US politics is screwed up.

I quote
“Jitu, US citizens get one week of paid holiday in a year, almost 80% of the country doesn’t travel like Europeans do or any other country. They are bound to be narrow minded and individualistic”

I don’t know if it’s true but if it is , it makes some sense. I know a lot of my friends give importance to traveling and how one grows as a person knowing different cultures. Your view point on US politics or traveling will be appreciated.

Music I am listening to.

1) Marisa Monte: Her voice is divine, the music is soothing, and she has one song in English called “pale blue eyes”.

2) Gilberto Gill- This guy was a tropicalistas(Read more about tropicalismo on (http://www.answers.com/topic/tropicalismo) in the 60’s would go and record music with Bob Marley, basically was crazy and these days is the culture minister of Brazil.

3) Blur: Beetlebum…what you done….Beetelbum…Great…

4) Moby: Simply put his music is extremely entertaining, different beats, changes your mood. Good.


Bejios

Not a serious/emotional entry...:-)

Crazy is not the word…..

Last week Ralph (our SN manager) and we decide to keep a “get to gather” for @ members, ceeds, and trainees.

We decided to keep a house party and extend the invitation to all our friends too. I have to admit we were expecting a few people and knew the neighbors would be disturbed so we informed them in advance that we are having a party at our place with an excuse that it was Felipe’s birthday party.

The food, tequila shots , enough booze, music was all set and in place. (I have a feeling Felipe wanted to give a very elegant look to the party so he put candles all over the house. It looked cool.)

Till here all sounds well planned and thought about.

What we didn’t plan was 50 crazy people partying at the same time would be madness. Just informing the neighbours that we would have a party wasn’t enough because they sent the security guards to stop the party and almost threatened us that they would call the cops.:-) J ( I have to admit I didn’t care. I was too “happy” to care…). I am not complaining, I know a lot of people enjoyed and I did too. I met some really cool people at the party and it was nice to talk to them. Even if there was no place to stand (is because we expected 20-25 people and 50 people turned up.) Neighbours complaining only ensured that we shifted that party somewhere, so I guess by midnight or around that time(I don’t remember :p ) we went to “Browns”. It is actually one of the best clubs in town and it gives me a feeling I used to get in Toto’s. Excellent Music, Great people and dancing on top of the bar: p is something you dont miss there…

Sometimes (in our case more then sometimes) you don’t need a reason to let loose, last night was definitely one of them. The night I think lived up to the hype.

Coming back home at 7am and wondering what the hell just happened(because the entire house was messed up) just confirmed that people had fun…:p. Our house got cleaned up and is ready for another bash. J

Some crazy things I did last night.
I took 200-300 pictures.
I bought 3 movies from a DVD shop which was open at 4 in the morning.
I was trying to talk to people in Chinese, even though I cannot say one full sentence.
I made friends with this woman who makes by far the most delicious “jirou chuar” (chicken bbq) and she can say my name now. It took me 20 minutes to teach her…:-)

Life is good…. Some pictures below…. (it is difficult to take pictures with just candle lights, I am learning from the master )

If anyone wants to see all the pictures we took, just let me know.

Cheers

Fred: Brazilian Chinese born in Taiwan :-) 

Effects!!hehe 

eu sou brazileiro!!!! 

Hi! My name is Clemens and I am one of the strangest people you will meet. :-) I dont smoke but I carry a pipe with me for occassions.:-) 

Hopp SCHWIZ!! 

I thought there were 50 people in the house, where are the rest??? In the kitchen(what did you think??) 

Bogota Invaded Beijing :-) 

Ralph, you were suppose to take care of everyone.... 

Hmm.. Nice .... 

We bought the traffic cone from a super market. I swear :-) 

According to Felipe, the house looked like it was ready for a Civil war... 

Dont complain about Mantunga Station not being clean now...ok?? 

Some day I will park myself here again..:-)