Airtel Champions League

The first edition of the Champions League was cancelled without a ball being bowled because of the Mumbai terror attack. The second edition had a different set of challenges before it took off. IPL had evolved to become a very successful business model and everyone thought the champions league is a spin off from IPL to get much more from this nascent market. Well, going into the second phase, the tournament has produced very high quality matches, a chance for cricket buffs like me to observe emerging players at close quarters. I remember a Tri Nations A tournament in Nairobi between India, Pakistan and Kenya in the year 2004. The matches were telecast live and the one person who caught the imagination of many people was a young guy by the name of Mahendra Singh Dhoni. He hit couple of centuries against Pakistan and truly announced his arrival. It was just a matter of time before he made his way in to the national team. Fast forward to 2009 and the Champions League is doing just that. We are able to see some very good talent from South Africa and Australia and see if the best of the rest from India can match up to them. I think Andrew Puttick, Corenlius de Viliers, Kieron Pollard and Mckay are all going to play for their national teams in the near future. We also saw some fierce determination from Robin Uthappa to showcase his talents at the highest level. However, other than the players, another thing which has contributed to the success of the tournament is the short and crisp format where each match is important and at each stage four teams lose out till the semi finals. We were all weary of the long and dreary format of IPL where each team play each other at home and away. I dread the day when the number of IPL teams are going to be increased post 2011. The one significant factor which has contributed towards the success of the tournament is absolute quality of the matches. To watch Kieron Pollard decimate the Blues the other day was pure bliss. Already, the pundits have come up the verdict that the tournament has legs and I also think so.

Weeklong trip to Palakkad for Onam

It is customary for a malayali to go to his/her native place for celebrating Onam and I am no different. I got my leaves approved by my boss couple of months back and I was as pleased as a plum when he approved my leave request for the entire week. As, I was going in “The Beast”, I had also planned to visit couple of other places. We started early on Aug 29, 2009 at 6:00 a.m. I was accompanied by my wife, my daughter, my brother in law and my wife’s grand mother. We came relatively quickly to Hosur road and electronics city was also devoid of any traffic. We had breakfast at A2B at Chinar. We took the Hosur-Krishnagiri-Dhrarmapuri, Thoppur-Mettur-Bhavani-Avinashi-Coimbatore-Palakkad route and reached home by around 1:30 p.m. Being, a conservative driver, I drove at maximum speeds of 120 km/her only.

Me, my wife and Malu @ A2B Chinar

The next day, we had a quick trip to Coimabtore and the following day was a quick trip to Ottapalam. The purpose of these visits was to see our relatives we have not seen since our marriage three years back. We were treated with Kaaya varuthathu, upperi and pazha nurukku everywhere. The next day, August 31st was Uthradam and hence we did not go anywhere. We had the made the traditional pookalams and kept Mathoru. In the evening, we had a visit from the local Mahabali and my daughter Malu was thrilled.

Local Mahabali and Vamanan
Pookalam

Mathoru (No spell check available)

The next day was Thirivonam and everyone had shower early in the morning and put on new clothes. Following the latest trend in Palakkad, we also ordered Ona Sadya from outside. The Sadya was nice and I really had more food for lunch than I could remember for a very long time. The consequence was that I gained a few pounds by the time I reached Bangalore. The next day was dedicated to visit my wife’s ancestral home at Pollachi and their coconut grove. We started in the afternoon, visited a temple and reached the place by 4:00 p.m, I had four tender coconuts on the rocks there and boy it was better than having four cans of beer.

Scenic Pollachi

Four Cans of Beer equivalent of Tender Coconut

We had scheduled to visit Madurai during this trip and so on Friday morning around 9:00 a.m, we started our journey towards Madurai. The route was Palakkad-Pollachi-Pazhani-Ottan Chathram-Dindigul-Madurai. We had our lunch on the way and reached my wife’s uncle’s place around 2:00 p.m. Madurai is really unique in it’s own way and brides and grooms are given celebrity status at least for a day. The city was full of flex posters. Not from Surya’s new movie, but of brides and grooms. They can live their lives as gun slinging heroes and romantic heroines at least in the posters. We saw the grooms in different attires ranging from cow boy suits to space shuttle suits. The heroes’ friends are the support actors and their faces are shown in small squares at the bottom of these posters.

Wedding Poster with Angelina Jolie, Maria Sharapova and Trisha (West meets East)

We saw that there were many places that could be covered in day from Madurai. We deliberated on whether to go to Rameshwaram or Munnar and finally zeroed in on Thekady which is around 150 km from Madurai. We started around 7:00 a.m on Saturday. We decided to give a rest to the beast and took the brand new i20. I can safely say that i20 is a very good car which can really go at high speeds with good stability and minimal roll. The braking is also amazing. Coming back to the travelogue, the route taken was Madurai-Andipatty (Jayalalitha’s constituency)-Theni-Kambam-Kumaly and Thekady. We also took a boat ride which is the only entertainment in Thekady at the Periyar Tiger reserve. We got the upper deck and started our journey around the reservoir of Mullaperiyar Dam. I don’t remember our boat’s name but I do remember seeing the fateful Jala Kanyaka on the way and everyone waved at each other. Little did we know that the boat was to be involved in one of the biggest mishap in a few weeks. I do want to clarify one thing at this point. It was drizzling at that time and everyone in the boat was going to one side or other in the boat depending on the direction of wind and boat direction to avoid getting drenched. This did not affect the stability of the boat in any way. Similarly, everyone went to one side when a herd of elephants or deer or bisons were spotted. All, I can say is that the instability caused by the passengers moving to one side was not the reason for the capsizing of Jala Kanyaka.

Entering Thekady

Our Boat:-Jalatharangini

We started from Thekday around 11:00 a.m and decided to pay a visit to Suruli Aruvi (Suruli Falls). It was a forgettable experience. When we reached the parking space itself, we realized what to expect as the only things sold there are Chandrika soap, shampoo and cigarettes. We paid a quick visit to this common bath and were on our way back again. We were able to reach Madurai by 3:00 p.m.

Suruli Falls:- Bather's Paradise

It was decided to visit the famous Meenakshi temple in the evening. It was really crowded and there were no parking near any of the entrances. The Masi street was completely congested and my advice is that don’t venture here without a driver. We were able to get a very good darshan by taking the Rs. 500 special darshan token. Even for that, we had to stand in a queue for 15 minutes. We went to Murugan idli for dinner and had a taste of the famous Madurai Jigirthanda (Hope I got the spelling right).

We started our journey back to Bangalore on Sunday morning around 6:45 a.m. The route taken was Madurai-Dindigul-Karur-Namakkal-Salem-Thoppur-Dharmapuri-Krishnagiri-Hosur-Bangalore. We reached Bangalore by 2:00 p.m with minimal tiredness and we were ready for our regular song and dance routine.

P.S: I hope I will be able to write about my Tirupathi trip in my next post.