Economy shopping in Eindhoven

It was a little difficult for me to collect this information when I was new here, so I decided to share it. Definitely not an amazing list for the pros in the world of shopping, but for students like me to survive :).

1. Supermarkets - cheaper to expensive -









2. Department stores, household goods - cheaper to expensive








3. For Clothes




4. Second hand goods and furniture

Location - Meerakkerweg 2



5. Open Market

The beloved Saturday Market for farm fresh fruits, vegetables, flowers, clothing and other good stuff. :)

Location - Woenselese Markt

6. Indian grocery stores

Jyoti Variety Store
Tongelresestraat 87

Omid Store
Geldropsweg 2/C

Rohit Tropische Winkel
Suit Bonifaciuslaan 308 and Bakelsedijk 67

7. Indian clothing

haha! kidding! There is only so much you can expect! :)

Shopping is one my weakest points. I go weak in my knees when ever I get into big shops. I get through the ordeal as quickly as possible generally. I get bewildered and am mostly clueless about what I should buy. Sigh! I need some coaching in this front! :)

Philips, here I come!

In 1891, Anton and Gerard Philips laid the foundation of Philips & Co.in Eindhoven and that is perhaps the biggest thing that happened here. The city was probably put into the map of the Netherlands after Philips' establishment and growth ;). The Eindhoven University of Technology, TU/e was established in 1956 to cater to the research needs of Philips. More and more industries gradually started growing around Philips and now Eindhoven has become an industrial hub of sorts.

So it is of no great surprise that several students at the university here do their projects directly at the industry and TU/e is the number one university in the world as far as university/industry tie ups are concerned.

I quite easily landed myself for a project work at Philips Research (talk about being at the right place! :D ). Not having worked anywhere else before, I was quite taken by the sheer size of the High Tech Campus (HTC), the facilities that they have and the work culture. Everything is so sophisticated. God even the canteens here are high tech! I looked like a fool the first day and stumbled across everywhere.

Everybody looks so serious to me in the office environment and people hardly have time to get to know anybody a little personally. The professional environment does scare me a little bit. University life is a little cosy, especially when you get into research. :D

Time will tell how I get through my project work. So far so good!

Best part: Free coffee machines :D and a 12km bike ride everyday!

The Tamil Tigers gone?

Lately, I have been receiving several questions over my Tamil identity - Does that mean you are Srilankan? Was Tamil Nadu (the name of my state in India) a part of Sri Lanka? Then was Sri Lanka a part of India?

Sri Lanka was conquered by several rulers in ancient India like the Chola, Chera, Pallava and Pandya dynasties. Interestingly, Sri Lanka was colonized by the Portuguese and also the Dutch around 16th century before it was finally ceded to the British Empire in 1815. Sri Lanka was never a part of the British India. The British though took several workers from Tamil Nadu to work in Sri Lanka, eventually creating a considerable Tamil population there. Being a minority, they face considerable discrimination over the Sinhalese majority and the demand of this Tamil population in north and east of Sri Lanka to create a separate state (Tamil Elam) being the main cause of conflict between the Srilankan government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elam (LTTE) for over a quarter of a century.

So no! I am not a Srilankan and no, the words Tamil and Tigers do not always go together. :)

We had an intense discussion about the situation in Sri Lanka in my department at TU/e and since I am Tamil everybody wanted to hear my take on the issue. Well,what can I say? In the name of justice both sides committed attrocious mass murdering of the people caught in between. It will always be bewildering to me how in time, some races kill other races for their survival and some kill their own. With no media to report things accurately and the LTTE leader having a reputation of using several duplicates (sounds like a movie plot uh?), some are skeptical about his death reports. By the way, why would he carry his identity papers with him? Just so that nobody has any inconvenience in recognizing his identification when they catch him!?

I am more or less convinced though that he is gone and I can't help appreciating the sheer grit of the government against the cries of the entire world. There is a whole new beginning for Sri Lanka, waiting for them. I hope their government seizes this opportunity to, if not undo but repair and heal some of the grave injusictices that they have committed, IMMEDIATELY. Equality and Justice, two simple concepts in principle but in practice so far has caused most of the miseries of mankind.

Oh! Just in case, Tamil is a classical language, spoken in parts of India, Sri Lanka, Singapore, Malaysia and Mauritius.

Picture Courtesy - http://www.topnews.in