Sunset in Newcastle?

Sometimes things happen entirely unexpected.

So was last week's business trip to Ireland that got me stopping over in Germany as well as the UK. A colleague of mine couldn't go, so I had to pack my bags and leave within 24 hours.

Apart from staying a week in Carlow (a small town an hour's drive away from Dublin) I spent a day in Newcastle as well as the weekend at home in Germany.

While taking a walk on the nice coastline of Newcastle, I was lucky enough to witness an awesome natural phenomenon: initially we thought the sun is setting, but after a minute we realised that it was actually the moon rising on the horizon (click and enlarge the pictures for better viewing).

"Quite amazing" ... finds
Memonji

The Papst* and the Furious

The entire Muslim world is outraged while non Muslims are failing to comprehend the cause for this fury. Again - knowledge as well as the will to respect and understand each other's sentiments and opinions is lacking causing yet another chapter of the - if you believe the prophets of the apocalyppse - upcoming clash of civilisations.

After having read Pope Benedict XVI speech at the University of Regensburg (English / German) two things become clear:

1.) The quote the Pope used and which has now become the center of attention does not in any way represent the opinion of Benedict XVI, but was part of a dialogue between the Bycantic emperor Manuel II. and Persian scholar, during which the similarities and differences in the two monotheistic religions were discussed. The Pope used this dialogue as an introduction to the main topic of his speech: the relationship of the Christian belief and the concept of reason.

Having heard or read extracts and parts of the speech this important fact was missed out, making Muslims around the globe believe that the Pope has directly attacked Islam and the Prophet. Under this pretext democratic peaceful as well as absolutely unacceptable violent demonstrations have been initiated and - to an extent - also misused to launch another campaign against the West.

2.) While the controversial quote is not really so controversial, it is rather the context in which Pope Benedict XVI uses it, which makes his statements objectionable to Muslims:

After explaining that the concept of Allah in Islam is not bound to anything (i. e. also not to reason) he continues with the rhetoric question "Is the conviction that acting unreasonably contradicts God's nature merely a Greek idea, or is it always and intrinsically true?" indirectly implying that the Christian-Greek concept of a "reasonable God" is always true.

For many non Muslims this might not an issue, because acting unreasonably by definition HAS to contradict God's nature, since God cannot be unreasonable. In Islam, however, Allah is not limited to any human definitions and concepts, therefore the concept of reason (which is doubtlessly a human concept) does not necessarily apply to Him. Man is not omniscient nor far from fail, thus man's "Logos" (reason) cannot be the guiding principle of Allah either. Therefore, in Islam, Allah can indeed be considered "unreasonable".

By implying the Christian logic into the rhetoric question above, Benedict XVI is indirectly discriminating other beliefs that do not accept the Christian principle of a reasonable God.

Considering the heated-up world we are living in, I would have expected some Muslims to be more "reasonable" in their form of protests and the Pope to be much wiser in his choice of words ...

May the Force be with you ... says

Memonji

*Papst = German for "Pope"

Weekend Wonders

Went to Hyderabad (another booming city of South India) last weekend and - together will a small group of friends - explored the magnificent medieval fort of Golkonda, roamed around the streets of Old Hyderabad, drank delicious road-side lassi (an Indian yoghurt drink), tried to make local jewellers understand that not everyone is interested in buying diamond-and-pearl-loaded-24karat-gold-necklaces, and discussed the similarity of mathematical axioms and religious beliefs.

"Good fun", thinks
Memonji

Love, Peace & Strawberry Cheesecake

How sweet! After weeks, months, even years of quarreling, everyone starts realising how nice this world is and that we actuallly exist to love each other:

On the top of the list: Mr We-Will-Never-Abandon-Enrichment-Ahmedinejad. After blowing the trumpets of the apocalypse for quite a while (and at the same time letting the West fill up his basket of sops) he suddenly turns in and announces his willingness for negotiations and a diplomatic solution. What a nice guy, huh?

Similarily under pressure (though rather from friends than from foes) Mr Jürgen Rüttgers (Christian Democrats - CDU) gives in as well and admits to have - if not exaggerated - at least misphrased his recent demands for more social equality and realignment of the overall direction of his rather conservative and corporate-friendly party. Sudden hindsight?

The German railway union reanimates it's antagonised old friend, ex-chancellor Gerhard Schröder, to fight for labour rights during the upcoming negotiations with the Deutsche Bahn. Forgotten are the days when he was labelled as "neo-liberal", unloyal and was accused to have abandoned all connections and affiliations to his former roots. I guess everybody loves (and needs) somebody - sometimes.

After the French not showing the expected enthusiasm of heading (or at least significantly contributing to) the new (and supposedly equipped with a new, stronger mandate??!) UN peacekeeping force in Lebanon, Romano Prodi has decided to save the EU from another embarassment when it comes to securing peace in it's own "backyard" and is taking the lead. At last it seems that even the Europeans can get something together ... yes "together" ....

And last - but not least - we have the man our girlfriends dream about when they have stopped dreaming about us, Mr Robbie Williams, inviting all his TakeThat buddies - from whom he had parted in disgrace some ages ago - to join him on his solo-tour. He was heard saying: "My absolute truth is this: I love Take That, I love that I was in Take That and I love their music."

Love is in the air

sings
Memonji

Remembrance

She was as much part of the little church down the road as the large sky blue cross that was painted across the entrace. Sitting on a small wooden stool on the sidewalk she had known me since early childhood, in fact I cannot recall ever passing by the church without her being there.

Sometimes she was - almost lost - staring into the empy space - sometimes expressively chit chatting with street vendors passing by or just sharing pieces of acient wisdom of a forgotten world with the worshippers coming out of the church.

She always had some caramel or tamarind candies for us whenever we were on on our way back home from school. Later on she understandingly smiled and nodded her head when I was dropping my first girfriend off in the small bylane next to the church. And finally, every morning when I went to office I made it a point to slow down the car, pull down the window and wave my hand, wishing her a good morning - not really realising that it wasn't only only the blue paint of the cross that had faded in time.

Now, she isn't any more and I take the direct way to office.

No more candies,smiles or good mornings.

Hail Mary.

Future Plans

To each his own.
Here's mine:


My contract in Bangalore is until Jan'08, when I will move to Burkina Faso. My company is planning to set up some gold mines close to Taparko and will need my expertise to manage the overall project down there. The current forecast is that we should break even some time around Mid-March '10, so that I will be able to handover my tasks to someone else.

Following this African Adventure I'll spendsome quality time with my parents at the Lake Constance. I'll meet a nice blonde at the "Golden-Diva" club, quickly fly to Las Vegas, marry her and proceed to Havana to get to know her family (she'll be half Argentinian and half Vietnamese, but both families would have sought political asylum in Cuba - for obvious reasons). Celeste (her name) and I will then turn entrepreneurs and set up our own little health club in Dalian, China (November '10). It'll be called "QuickWellness" the concept being her massaging the toes of the high society customers with the background being filled with the tunes of me singing arias of various Italian opera classics. Within a year it will have become the talk of the town, so that we eventually take the company public.

With our two little children, Hägar and Malaika, getting older we will need to think about education, so we'll sell our majority stake in QuickWellness, rediscover our religious roots, become Hamish and move to Pennsylvania by 2016.

working on 2017 and beyond
Memonji

Indian Art

15 August is a national holiday (Independence Day) here in India. Everyone is off and celebrates the departure of the Brits from the Subcontinent. The corporate celebrations have been preponed (since we don't work on Tuesday) and the whole office was decorated in the colours of the Indian flag. On this occasion a girl from our team got some flowers and designed the above beautiful Rangoli on the floor - a sight I wanted to share with you ...

Still fascinated ...
Memonji

Jackpot

Since the picture of my last post called exclusively on the female population of the planet, today's is dedicated to the men's world.

Strolling through downtown Bangalore last weekend, I was passing by the Military Recruitment Center where I spotted the above.

So if you really wanna have some fun, and get out of the daily routine of your boring UN peacekeeping mission in Kosovo, or be it even Lebanon, come to India. Here we still have an enemy and - believe it or not - we actually confront it. Last time in '99. It was only for two months, but, some 600 combatants got killed and more than 1400 injured.

As you can see - no false promises, no nationbuilding and none of that humanitarian aid crap. Wargames in India are for real.

Come, fight, die. And be a winner for life!

.. advises
Memonji

Men & Big B's

Ladies and Gentlemen,

yes, Gentlemen, too. Despite my professional discrimination of the macho turned metrosexual male world (see photo above), I am welcoming them to my little virtual parking lot, where - at least for now - I am trying to be politically correct.

Going forward, while commuting between impressively huge offices of multinational hardware and printing giants and a little unimpressive appartment as well as between the two big B's (Bombay & Bangalore), I will stop by over here and share some sounds, scenes and stories of my life on the subcontinent.

So, stay tuned ...

says
Memonji