Yorop Yodellings - Episode 1: A Reason to Be

Well, here I am. In a curious little town in a curious little European country. Leuven, Belgium. At the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven. Which is basically the Catholic University of Leuven, but the brilliance of the Dutch lies in their ability to spell and pronounce English differently.

I claim I am here to study. To broaden my horizons. To be an ambassador of the Indian culture in an ignorant foreign land. Yeah.

Just a day into my stay over here, and they let me know of the real reason that I am here. It all boils down to the brain of the Belgians. Yeah. A brain with a historical background. You gotta hear this.

When I walked into the lecture hall where our benevolent professor was professing, his lecture had progressed into the some medieval period where Belgium was known for its cloth-making skills, and the City Hall of Leuven was some form of cloth factory. And then, for some reason that I didnt quite grasp because I was trying to find a seat, Belgium ran into a resource crunch.

This is where the promised brain oozes its way into the picture.

The Belgians realized that they did not have resources to make cloth, so they started making lace, which is essentially a tenth of cloth masquerading as the real deal. For some other reason that I again didn't quite grasp because I was trying to figure out how to bring up the foldable table in front of my seat and make my seat a recliner at the same time, the resource crunch crunched the Belgians out of the lace business as well.

So what did the Belgians do? They put their fascinating brains to work, and went to the kidney of the problem. What resource do we have in abundance that costs us nothing? Hm. Um. You know. Dunno. Of course, there is water...rain water... (this is a land where it rains 360/365 days of the year, but they still don't have water in the toilets, but we'll come to that in a later yodel.)

But what would you do with water? Well, throw 536 permutations and combinations of herbs into it, and voila! Presto! Or-whatever-else-is-the-word-the-Dutch-use-in-a-similar-context! You have 536 brands of Belgian beer. But who do we get to sample those beers and die for the noble cause of our country's economy?

Well, the university-town of Leuven is bound to have many eager takers. The powers that be did the math and figured they didn't want too many Belgian nationals tottering around the place while trying to bolster the economy. So thus began the international Student Exchange Programme at Leuven. I am here, they say, to sample all 536 brands of beer, and if I am lucky enough not to develop any unpleasant side-effects, I am likely to spread some positive word-of-mouth in the country where I come from to attract more suckers for the next year. Beer-suckers.

Of course, most exchange students spend a year here. That means 1.4685 beers per day. I, however, am here for 98 days. That would translate into 5.4694 beers in a day. Since I would be travelling a lot out of Leuven and Belgium, I suppose I might be here only for 2/3rds of that time, which would be 66 days. Subtract 12 Sundays from that for religious protest reasons and we have 54 days. Now we try to do the math again. With some rounding off, we land at the nice figure of 10 flavors of beer in a day.

Hm. Yeah. Now I know why I'm here. These Belgians do have brains. Kill two birds with one red-painted brick: get 1000 exchange students a year to each buy 536 mugs/ bottles/ whatchamacallits of beer, boost the economy of this little teensy weensy district trying to pull of a "country" act, and simultaneously drag down the economies of the countries visiting them because the representatives will be too reelin' away to contribute anything besides hics and hocs to their own countries thenceforth. And all that jazz.

Of course, Belgium is the home of Antwerp, the wonderful little hamlet where William Tyndale brought out the first printed copy of the Bible. Belgium proudly claims: "In the beginning was he Word, and the Word was with God, and with the Printers" [ sic]. And lo, Tyndale did publish the Bible in translations. His own translations. You see, the folks here insist that everything does indeed come back to beer in these parts (such as the first building of the Leuven University - the College of Languages Three - it now exists as a pub, to be found in some part of this town that I am yet to visit). Which explains why, apart from phrases such as "salt of the earth" and other such phrases that have lived on, the most famous phrase of all that Tyndale gifted to the Englyshe language was:

"Eat, drink and be merry".

Leuven, the guinea pigs have arrived. Do your worst.