Faith in Berlin

Berlin is very different from the other major cities of Germany. Though it is the biggest city in terms of size and population, there are not many industries based around it. So, the population of the hardworking Indians (read Malayali) is negligible unlike in Bonn, Frankfurt, Stuttgart or in Munich. Due to its historical past - citizens from West Berlin did not have to do the compulsory military training - it is a magnet for the artsy kind of people - artists, singers, and the likes ... people who seem to have "transcended" the need for God. No wonder that Berlin is also called the atheistic capital of the world.

I moved to this city about 1.5 years back to first pursue an MBA and now on a job in one of the few companies around here. Those who have been to continental Europe will know that English is not an accepted language. So, it was Deutsch (German) all the way and that goes without saying for the Sunday Mass at the local Catholic church as well. There is a English Mission that conducts mass in English for the expats in a few churches around the city but unfortunately for me and my family - not very conveniently accessible. So, we used to go for German service at the main church in Berlin Mitte (center) which also housed the bishop. Due to the beauty of the catholic liturgy - it is common all over the world - it is fairly easy to follow and I can say my prayers in English. With no offence to Germans in this mailing list, my experience during these services have been poor. For a non German speaker like myself, the sunday services seemed like funeral services - no smiles, the songs were old and sung to the church organ, the altar boys and girls followed a certain regimen and sometimes, depending on the priest, there was also no sharing of the peace (!!!!). The sermon seemed like robotic mumblings and not knowing the language did not help and the expressions on the congregation gave me an impression that I was not missing much. A lot of effort goes into the special services. The Easter service this year was a phenomenal effort - There was the church choir that could rival a professional symphony orchestra. They burst into the most intricate melodies singing Mozart, et all. But the audience seemed as much lost as I was. Easter is one service in the year where families ritually come to church enmasse. So, if you happen to visit the church on this one day, you can be forgiven to think that Germany is a christian country. Someone by my side was listening to his ipod - obviously he was forced to come. I could not understand if the glazed look from the others was their natural feature or a response reserved for a Mozart performance. There seemed to be a disconnect between the church and the church (congregation). No wonder that normal church audience is mostly the elderly and a smattering of the young who may be perhaps foreigners like myself or tourists with a camera sneeking in before going down the Unter den Linden to the Brandenburg Tor.

Without any spiritual inputs in a language that I can understand and without any energy and passion from people around from whom I could suck some passion and energy, I was resigned to checking up something on the Internet at the pace which my slow datacard allowed. I finally decided enough is enough. I need to find some people with whom I can pray. So, I checked on the internet and found a few American fellowships nearby (non catholic) and was wondering if I should contact them. I did not act upon that.

One day, at a sub way station in Alexander platz, I saw two sisters in their habits and looking distinctly Indian/ Malayali. So, I walked up to them and got talking, they were in Berlin from Bonn, just sight seeing for a few days. We exchanged numbers and they promised to put me in touch with another malayali sister who was at a place almost outside Berlin. I did not think much about that till, she called and we spoke. She told me about a community in Potsdamer Platz, very close to the center of the city. Guess what!!!! They had adoration 24 hours a day at a church. The church was managed by the Vincentian fathers (from Trichur) and the fathers did not know German. Praise God Again. So, in fact, the messages were given in English and a translator translated the sermon from English to German. I get to hear it first hand from the fathers. Wow! And they are doing a retreat for the last 2 weekends ( and will continue for the next week end as well) and it was in English and translated into German. The service is distinctly charismatic - the songs are translations of the songs in English (from my experience in India). The adoration after that is beautiful to see a whole congregation of almost completely Germans, raising hands and worshiping the Lord. It is beautiful and this is happening right at the center of the "atheistic" Berlin. I do not know of any other city that can boast of a 24 hour adoration at such a central location (near Anhalter Bahnhof). And personally for me, I never imagined in my wildest dreams of being blessed with such an embarrassment of riches in Berlin...

Please hold this church in your prayers. It is a dream to see the spark from the church lighting up more souls in Berlin. Also, please pray for more leaders and preachers to be raised from the local German people who can passionately express the love of Christ in the native language and touch and and bring in more people. Please pray for the Catholic church in countries like Germany that were formerly Christian that they may refind the passion for christ and fill their people with this passion.

With God nothing is impossible. As he said "Out of these stones God can raise up children for Abraham" .... The spirit of God never ceases to amaze.

A 3 month wrap up!

It is now more three months from the last post. I have thought many times to put down some thoughts but there have been reasons that I did not... Module 7 kicks off on Monday. Here is a summary of my feelings during the last few modules ...

Module 3 - Finance sucked the life out of me. There was too much of pre reads and assignments that I can confidently say that I learnt Options and Hedging "on my own" with all the pre reads and the assignments to be turned in before the subject was taught in class. And then... all the mandatory reads for Competition Analysis. Macroeconomics was the odd fun. For every chapter that we read, Burda made us analyse the Macroeconomic factor for a particular country - My group had to do - Belize and make a presentation. I had heard of Belize before and so I had an advantage over the rest of the group but that gap was soon bridged and we were all swimming in the Belizian sand trying tocome up with some sane data. We finally concluded that it may be cheaper to just buy the country out when you consider their GDP!

Module 4 - This was packed with too many short courses - International Business, Knowledge Management, Partnerships and Alliances, Corporate Finance - Courses that got over even before we realized it started!!!! But I loved Corporate Strategy and Corporate Finance - Two courses where I learnt to do some real case analysis and brought back my love for Finance courses.

Module 5 - Field trip to China!! Wow! China will never be the same in my mind. What I saw in China was way beyond what I had even imagined. We visited Beijing and Shanghai and I was blown away by both of them. The Bund in Shanghai and the Pudong Dist - Amazing! - The skyline of Beijing was less visible with the Smog. I wonder why the authorities-that-be need an Olympics to realise that the air is unbreathable!!! It looked and felt pretty obvious ... My blog is not meant to be a travelogue and so I will just stick to my learnings ... I think I am now an expert with chopsticks! I also learnt about building relationships and losing relationships - now I do not care and I feel liberated allready. You meet many acquaintainces along the way and you can make just a few friends!

Module 6 - Intopia - That was a business simulation game and I realized that I have an inner desire to be a winner! - No amount of self renunciation can take away that trait from me without me denying myself ... and to win ... you need to build a winning team!

Then we had the summer break! A well timed short 3 week break ... I hung around in Berlin as Rajani, in her third trimester could not travel. Then a visit to the doctor for a regular checkup and being told that Rajani needs complete bed rest put paid to my trips around Berlin as well. But I loved the break. I got to spend a lot of tme with Rajani and I guess, I love her even more :)

Today is the last Friday before this break ends ... Monday starts the next module and I hope I can be more regular with my blog now ... with my baby expected any time! Wow!

Ceeeee Yah

If you hear “Ceeeee Yah!!!!” more often on our corridors, here is the story. That is a term now added permanently into our classes’ lexicon.

Ron Panese, our Operations Management Professor from Module 2, used it to set us free from our classes at the end of the allotted time. He had Francisco keep time for him and promised to drop whatever he was saying and would stop sharp on time. So, Francisco, the assigned time keeper printed out a “STOP” traffic sign, that he held up at the end and Ron would stop whatever he was saying, stretch his hands out to his sides like an airplane, swirl on his right heel while he yelled “Ceeeeee Yah” and Ron was 70. He looked amazingly young for his age and could give us “youngsters” a run for our money with his energy.

Ron is a visiting faculty – past retirement and if you add up all his stated years of experience, he should be atleast 3425 years old J He had some 63 Ron Panesi’s laws and he livened up the class by dropping them once in a while. It was a sight to see him encourage Vlad with some comments like “Vlad, Baby, You are Hot” ( as in …. You are on track – keep going…) while Vlad seemed to apparently take offense, drawing his eyes in, squaring up the eyebrows and cheeks flushing red. That was the first class and then we got used to this and it was fun, atleast for me. It is difficult to cover the whole subject of Operations Management in just 20 sessions. I loved the final exams – One Case Study that took about 1 hour to read and then to describe an Operations strategy for the company in the case. I do not know what will be my grade, but I loved the final exam, nevertheless.

Of course, he also taught us the great Italian Sign Language – the flick under the chin, for those who know what I mean ;)

Never too early to start learning

Three days into Module 3, I sit up and wonder what happened to Module 2. All the boredom of Module 2 is replaced with hours of pre reads and exercises for Corporate Finance and Industry and Competition Analysis. Yesterday, I had to sit up till 1.30 am to do the pre class exercises for Corporate Finance and the next two days do not look any better - The Crown Case for I&C Analysis, Macroeconomics preread, the Corporate Finance exercises and the Managerial Accounting Individual Exercises. I think this will be my story for the whole module.

In the middle of this, today evening, we had our first Master Class – Ulrich Wilhelm, spokesperson of the German Chancellor. Many were not keen to attend, How is a politician going to add value? But I must say, I came away being very impressed. He was frank, candid and genuine. His matter of fact statement on the Work Life balance being non-existent was so real and immediately, he had opened up enough of him to become, just another You-and-Me doing a top job. The Drinks that followed the meeting was short as I wanted to get back to doing the assignments.

As I packed my stuff to leave, I saw a few die hard football fans cueing in on the Champions League Semis between Barcelona and Manchester United. I joined them as “Tiger” Satya had connected his laptop to the TV and the Stefano, Adrian and Santiago rooted for their favorite team (only of the two, not otherwise…) – Barcelona. Casey joined us soon and we did some Canadian football analysis. We watched this goalless draw over a few beers and headed home.

Our feeble effort at managing a work-life balance

A New Dawn

Spring Break - One week at the end of the Module 2. This was supposed to be fun and some of my classmates indeed planned it like that - planned trips to Egypt, Canary Islands, Stockholm, Prague, etc. For me it was supposed to be time for relaxation and some sight seeeing in Berlin with with wife.

But I was wronged on two counts - the weather was bad except for Monday and there was so much to read up for the Module 3. The Book on "Strategic Management" was so stressful while being so irritating that I lost my patience with the course itself. If the three stanford professors could write a book that was filled with so much of crap, I am sure that there is still hope left in this world. But more of that in another post.

For the first time in my life, I felt that it was indeed nice to be rich. Sitting at the SONY center at Potsdamer Platz in Berlin on the only day we could move around Berlin, I felt an inspiration that I should be rich. This may sound so trivial for many but for me that is profound since money has never been a motivation for me - infact I have chosen paths that took me away from money consciously. Not to say that I will do anything for money - my upbringing and morals will not allow me to do that. But to be able to create something big and to have the ability to do something as liberating as the SONY center, I need power that can come from being rich and powerful and not from being a middle Manager. Coming home, I changed my desktop image to a picture that I took of Ritz Carlton at Potsdamer Platz to remind me of my new change - I want to be a guest at the Ritz, not as a perk but as a matter of fact :)

Berlin is beautiful and very inspirational. I Love this city

Berlin Half Marathon

St.Hedwig’s Catholic Kirche in Berlin Mitte is located behind the Opera house and across from Humbolt University. It is also just a few minutes walk from ESMT. The Church is the seat of the Berlin Archbishop. I would have expected such a church to be multilingual. However, they have Eucharistic celebration only in Deutsch. My wife and I are particular to attend a Sunday service where ever we are. So, we continue to attend this church though we do not understand the sermons by the priest. But the beauty of the Catholic church is that the rituals are the same in any part of the world and that makes it easy for us to follow the priest as he says his prayers and we say our response in English as we are used to.


So, last Sunday, we attended the 10 am service and when we stepped out, I remembered that it was also the date for the Berlin Half Marathon. We walked over to the start point of the half marathon at the Berliner Dome, just across the street from ESMT. The race had already started much before the time we reached there and the city staff was clearing out the road blocks, etc. So, we spent some time looking at the Flea Market along the spree – checking out some paintings and some nice small leather pouches shaped like sea shells, etc. The day was a cruel one for running – it was bitterly cold and felt like below Zero. As we walked to the end point – the Rathaus, on the opposite side of the Dome, We could see people lining the street and the excitement building. We could hear clapping and general noise levels rising as the winner of the woman’s marathon - Peninah Arusei crossed the finish line. The Kenyan clocked 68:22, which is the third fastest times this year so far.

Stefano and Martin from ESMT were also running the half Marathon. So, we decided to see if we could find them among the runners reaching the end point. We found a place just opposite the cheering band and the cheer girls doing the routine. The trickle of runners reaching the finish line began to increase in momentum – one followed by another, then soon groups of 5 runners running together, then, 6, then 7, then 10, steadily increasing till all we could see were a torrent of bobbing heads into the distance. A record number of 20,660 runners from 86 nations had entered Germany’s biggest and best quality half marathon. 17,733 runners finished the race.

Looking out for Stefano and Martin in this flow of runners became very difficult. There were a few false alarms. People looking like Stefano came in all shapes and sizes. I must have waved at many of them. They would have thought I was just cheering them on. I was only one of the 150,000 spectators who had lined to see the marathon.

Martin is the class manager of our batch. He is quiet, unassuming and sponsored by the MAN group. He is also the German junior canoeing champion. With this kind of sports background, he had gone onto the marathon without much practice. His past experience with running a marathon was the Berlin Half Marathon about 4 years back. Stefano was better prepared – running atleast twice during the week preparing for this half marathon … He, of course, has other reasons to keep himself fit - to run away from girls (or someone in particular?) who were chasing him J. He is this popular Italian whom the girls cannot seem to have enough of. He had done a marathon about 2 years back.


With passing time, I began to lose hope of being able to identify my friends among the runners. If there is one lesson I learnt from this marathon, it is that, never run alongside a beautiful woman runner. If you do, no one ever notices you. Maybe I did miss them!!! I was also looking out for Santiago, he was to join Martin and Stefano from Potsdamer Platz to run the last 4 Kms to motivate them through the last leg. As the stream of runners continued to flow, I could see women runners and then children. I was sure that they were definitely faster than letting kids overtake them. I later got to know that it took them over 3 minutes to move from their position to the start line after the start of the half marathon – so packed was the race. Soon the crowd of runners became very tired looking men. I must have definitely missed them.


While I was discussing with my wife whether to stop this futile search and return home, like a slow motion scene from a Hollywood movie played to the background of the Final Countdown, In the midst of the white sea of people, I see this black stallion – running proudly with the head held up high. The contrast was stark – drooping tired white shoulders all around and this steady head with a sparkling smile and black mane – the head of the Argentinean, Santiago. Following him closely were Martin and Stefano. Santiago was leading the heroes home. The cheering band drowned out our calling out of names. So, we made our way back to the finish line to meet our proud runners. There we saw Elka and Ritesh who had also come to cheer them. We hung around for a while as Martin and Stefano posed for a few pictures along with their chief motivator – the black stallion, before stopping at the stands for their quota of energy drink – a nice cold beer!!!


As they relaxed after a morning well spent, my wife and I returned home as I had to get back to school for a group meeting for Marketing. My group was writing a paper on the marketing strategy of facebook.


I am proud of Stefano and Martin who ran the Half Marathon and not to forget Santiago for his boundless enthusiasm. Hopefully they will also run the Full Marathon in September.

Pictures: Stefano gesturing to Santiago and Martin to join for the picture .... The runners - Stefano and Martin .... the runners joined by the Stallion :)

Thirty Minutes

What is the difference between a beer and a pee?
Answer: Thirty Minutes

This is the joke from Santiago as a penalty for coming late to a Managerial accounting class by Mario Resse.

Many professors have their own mechanisms to ensure that people are on time for classes. Our class has been fairly very good so far – mostly on time, except for Vlad who goes to bed at 6 am when the classes begin at 9 am. Well, Vlad is an exception; his body is yet to decide when it should go to sleep and when it should awake. He says he slept for 4 hours totally in 4 days during this week and I believe him – he has managed to read up all the material he could on Sovereign Wealth Funds for the Kansleramt Visit and also do his part for the Operations presentation and also write the first draft for the Marketing paper.

During the first module, Konstantin (OB) had a rule – if you were late, you buy a bottle of wine for the Bergfest (our weekly(?) get together) and we collected about 12 bottles. Of course, this includes when you were late even by a minute. So, that is a fairly low number. Eric (Marketing) had us contribute 10 Euros to a charity to be selected by the class and he was kind enough to promise to give a matching contribution to the charity. Now, that is asking for trouble. So, the last day, all of us decided to be late by 2 minutes and we all chipped in 10 Euros each, or 310 Euros for the 31 of us and Poor Eric had to shell out 310 Euros. Eric is definitely a good sport. I am sure that if this message got out, none of the professors would ever offer to match our contribution for coming late.

Francis (Decision Making) was more direct. He said that coming late would affect the class participation scores automatically. I do not know if he went through with his threat but this unknown element was enough to ensure that we were on time. Of course, with Francis, he has this twinkle in his eyes when he says something that we are not sure if he was joking or if he was being a cool assassin with a smiling exterior. Michal (Economics) and Zimmerman (Intro to Accounting) were very nice on this front. – no threats, no penalties… but by now, we were Pavlov dogs and automatically thought there was a loss if we were late.

Second module – there were no threats and there were some signs of the Pavlovian behavior wearing off when Mario Resse decided to put an end to this by saying that anyone who is late had to tell a joke to the class and hence the joke from Santiago. This is counterproductive, as telling jokes took away some of the time of the class. Being an accountancy professor, Mario realized his mistake pretty quickly and has proposed some pretty unique suggestions including having a quiz with the number of questions matching the number of minutes of being late. He may eventually go back to having us buying a bottle of wine but of a brand of his suggestion.

Just a few minutes after the joke, Mario got back at Santiago. When Santiago answered a question from Mario wrong, Mario made the gesture of an imaginary gun and asked what is the difference between the answer from Santiago and pointed the imaginary gun at Santiago and said “pop” – The answer: 2 Seconds!!! The class rolled up in laughter at the quick comeback by Mario. Mario 1, Santiago 0.