Visiting the past and future in Geneva

 

While I am making new friends along the way in this journey, nothing compares the joy of meeting old friends, and the only two close friends from college days I have in continental Europe, Jyotsna and Pratik, both happen to live in Geneva. The journey from Paris to Geneva was very picturesque, and Jyotsna, smiling and vivacious as always, was waiting at the station for me. She had the weekend all planned out. Six options, two weather dependent (which was lousy the whole time), dinner here, lunch there, every thing was arranged, reservations made -it was like being at home again.   The only item in my agenda was to visit CERN, the largest Hydron collider in the world, discovering the true nature of life, universe and everything in between. Most of my Europe visit was about discovering the last few thousand years of history, but CERN is not only about the history since history began, it is also about discovering the secrets of the future. This is one true modern temple worth visiting, and the few hours spent there were exhilarating. Luckily for me, another friend visiting Jyotsna from New York, Ajay Kapur, was a physicist and turned out to be a perfect tour guide for CERN.   We met Pratik and Avni for very typical swiss fondue dinner. I hadn't seen them since 2003, and there was a lot of catching up to do. For a little while it was like living up the college days again. Next morning, we went to play badminton with Pratik's desi gang, and i was quite glad that i had just started playing a bit regularly back home. Jo had to leave for Rome for work in the afternoon, so Pratik took me home for a lovely idly lunch, and to meet his cute little princesses Seher and Sana. Then he drove me up to the mountains, and I encountered snow for the first and the last time on this trip. He then took me out to a fancy Italian place for dinner with his desi gang,   Visiting old friends, CERN and the Swiss mountains was just the perfect way to spend the weekend in Geneva, and only thing that could have improved it was the weather, which seemed to be clearing up as i left for Milan on Monday morning.