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.

Ashes 2009

So, the most awaited series of the year is over and Engalnd has won the ashes with the identical margin as they did in 2005. Let us hope, the next series down under won't be like the backlash they handed England in 2006-07. Ponting the punter got the dubious distinction of becoming only the second Australian Captain after Billy Murdoch to twice lead Australia to ashes defeat in EnglandEveryone had their predictions for the ashes before the series began. I too did some crystal ball gazing and came up with my own prediction. I had sent my prediction to cricinfo blogs but unfortunately it was not published. Now, I get the chance to release my prediction from the coffers as I had rightly predicted a 2-1 series victory for England. However, there were some differences in the way the series panned out. You can read for yourself to find out the details

MY ASHES PREDICTION
So, England has won the second test against Australia at Lords thereby ending a 75 year drought. This means that England go with a 1-0 lead for the next test at Edgbaston. Even during the county matches played during this season, the common question asked to the players was an Ashes prediction. The most popular prediction amongst current and former England players was a 2-1 series victory for England. Now that England has won the Lords test after the tight draw at Cardiff; every cricket fan will be thinking about the permutations and combination that will pan out in the next one month’s time over the remaining three tests.
What is my Ashes prediction? It is going to be a 2-1 series victory for England. What are my reasons for predicting a 2-1 victory for England? Well, it is not just the intuitive mind of the gambler alone. I have been watching the series very closely and see a pattern in the series that closely resembles another series played by Australia last year. Circa, October 2008; Australia came to India for retaining the Border Gavaskar trophy they had held for four years. They had beaten India at home and away to secure the trophy. During the first test at Bangalore, Australia batted first and scored 430 runs with Ponting hitting his first ton against India in India. India scored 360 in reply with the help of half centuries from Harbhajan and Zaheer not renowned for their batting abilities. India somehow scraped a draw in that test. In the post match press conference, Ponting had described how the Australians had dominated the test. Zaheer replied back in his own style about how Australians could not even get Bhajji and himself out. Coming back to Ashes 2009; Ponting had hit a sublime century in the first test at Cardiff. However two tail enders again not renowned at all for their batting and one a number 11 bunny, bats out ten overs for the last wicket to secure a draw. Monty Panesar and Jimmy Anderson ensured that Australia didn’t go to Lords with a 1-0 lead. The similarity doesn’t end there. Australia went to the second test against India with a better advantage than the home team after dominating the first test. The Mohali track was one of the few tracks in India that assists fast bowlers and there were cries all around that the conditions would suit Aussies as the test was played at the start of winter. However, what happened was the complete opposite and Aussies were steam rolled in that test under the astute captaincy of M.S Dhoni where he himself made crucial runs. The 8-1 offside field against Mike Hussey for Ishant Shrama was much talked about later. The Lords test also followed a similar pattern with England captain Strauss making crucial runs and England sealing the victory by a hostile spell of genuine quick bowling. Another similarity between these two series was that Saurav Ganguly had announced his retirement at the beginning of the Border Gavaskar series and Anil Kumble also retired after the Delhi test. This led Ponting saying in public that Indians were distracted by these high profile retirements. The same trend is followed in the Ashes series by the announcement of Flintoff’s retirement.
Okay, so what is going to be my prediction for the next three tests? Edgbaston had quite a few high scoring county championship games. So, like the Delhi test, it will become a high scoring draw with one of the England batsman scoring a big hundred emulating Gambhir’s feat. England will seal the series at Headingly where in all probability Anderson will swing the ashes for them (Just like Harbhajan spun India to a series victory at Nagpur). Both teams will travel to London for the dead rubber at Oval where Australia will thrash England for a consolation win. The final score line will be a 2-1 series victory for England. That is my ashes prediction combined with intuition and analysis. What is yours?

So, you can see that I predicted swing at Headingly and it really swung for the Australians. Secondly, I had predicted the oval test to be a dead rubber with victory to Australians. However, what happened was a high tension contest with the series at stake and advantage to the Australians. England emerged victorious to lift the ashes thereby fulfilling the prophecy.

Weekend Trip to Madikeri

The trip to Coorg just happened out of the blue. Its two months since I had bought the beast (Quartz black Safari with gold trimmings) and my wife was always reminding me how under utilized the car was. The office trips to ITPL just 4 km from my house was like humiliating the off road powers of an SUV. However, the problem was that we were not ready to travel with my family because of our daughter who is only 10 months old and more importantly because of the news concerning the dreaded H1N1 virus. So, I told my wife that I am planning for a trip with my friends and she welcomed the suggestion. This was on the 10^th of August 2009. I called up fmy riend Ajith (who had also succumbed to the fatal noose of matrimony) the very next day and he was also game for the trip. Next, I called up my brother-in-law, Senthil (Pappu) and surprisingly he also agreed to come for the trip. The last person to join for the trip was my next door neighbor, Anish an engineering college student. So, the trip was finalized in a record two days and Ajith made the reservation at a home stay in Madikeri called the “The Nest”.

We were all set to travel on August 15^th. We had planned to start from my house at 5:00 a.m. There were some unexpected delays and we were able to start by 5:40 a.m from our residence at Kristal Citrine located near Hoodi. We had to pick Ajith from his residence at Kasturi Nagar. We picked him around 6:00 a.m and decided to go to Mysore Road via Old Madras Road, Corporation circle and then using the fly over. The traffic was not bad and we were on our way to Mysore by 6:45 a.m. We stopped at Kamat Lokaruchi around 8:00 a.m for our breakfast. The breakfast buffet was very good and you get an assortment of dosas Mangalore idlis, pongal, uppuma etc. The buffet at Rs. 70 was a steal but our thoughts were very far from making the best use of those seventy bucks.

Pappu, Ajith and Anish posing in front of Kamat Lokaruchi

Anyway, after the refreshing breakfast, we moved on and whizzed through Chanapatna, Mandya and Maddur. We took the bypass after Srirangapatna (The same road which goes to Ranganathittu) and stopped in between for a bio break. The bypass touches the SH 88 towards Madikeri at a place called Yelawal. The SH88 is maintained in excellent condition till Kushal Nagara. After, Kushal Nagara, we took the left turn towards the Namdroling Tibetan Monastery and golden temple at Byle Kuppe. The 7 km journey towards the temple was a unique experience for all of us. We saw the complete topography change in front of our eyes. We could only see Tibetan people and Tibetean house construction. All the banners were written in Chinese (Mandarin or whatever; pardon my ignorance). We felt that we had crossed the border and was in Tibet. The towers of the golden temple were visible couple of kilometers before the temple.

Namdroling Tibetan Monastery and golden temple at Byle Kuppe

Padmasambhava, Lord Buddha and Buddha Amitayus

The markings for the temple were given at all intersections and we reached the first place marked in our list around 12:00 p.m. The temple has 60 ft (approx) of Budhha, Buddha Amitayus and Padmasambhava. The grandiose of the temple will take your breath away. We had very hot momos from the restaurant nearby. We were all ravished but did not want to take lunch at 12:30 p.m. Hence we ordered momos and three plates of momos for four people ensured that we did not need any lunch. My friends gave me the lion’s share of momos as I was the driver. We left the temple at 1:15 p.m. Madikeri was only 40 km from the temple but the roads were very bad and pot holed for the rest of the journey. It took us one and half to travel those 40 km and we reached chain gate junction where we had to take a right turn at around 2:45 p.m.

The 1ast house in that road was “The Nest” and the care taker Mr. Ganesh came out immediately and showed us our room. We told him we need an extra bed as Anish had joined us at the last minute. He promised us he will give the extra bed. The room was very comfortable and we thought it was a good deal for Rs. 1250. Ganesh told us to visit Abbi falls first and reach Raja’s seat situated in the middle of the town around 6:45 p.m when the musical fountain starts.

Mr. Ganesh, Caretaker at "The Nest" and his son Gagan

We took a shower and started our journey to Abbi falls around 4:30 p.m. The road was quite treacherous. After 10 km we reached a place where all cars were parked. However, some cars were going further along the road beyond the check points. The people manning the check point told us if we pay Rs.15 we can go ahead and park close to the falls. Otherwise, we have to park there and walk the last one kilometer. We paid the money and went inside. We parked our car near the falls and had to walk only around 200 metres down to reach the falls. The falls were breathtaking and spectacular and we all thought it was worth the effort to come to view it. Standing on the hanging bridge and the cold water spraying on your face in the middle of nowhere; you do feel a calmness within you. However, reality strikes you immediately when someone pushes you from your vantage point.

Abbi Falls

We started from Abbi falls at 6:30 p.m and proceeded towards Raja’s seat situated in the middle of Madikeri town. We paid the entrance fee of Rs. 2/ head and entered the garden around 7:00 p.m. The musical fountain was in full swing with foot tapping Kannada, English and Hindi numbers. Some patriotic somgs like Vande Mataram was also played as it was Independence Day.

Raja's Seat

We reached our “Home away from Home” around 9:30 p.m. and were ravenously hungry. I thought the simple dinner of chapathis and Kurma was one of the best dinners I had ever eaten. However, Aji was of the opinion that the salt was on the higher side and even came up with the ingenious explanation that in Kodagu; people use more salt as they have the warrior blood running in their body. Senthil and Anish, the “Kochu Pillers” (small kids) of the group did not have any comment. The drunken debauchery followed and Senthil showed Aji a lesson or two on how a small kid can beat you at your own game. Being, the sole driver in group, I excused myself and retired to bed early (at around 11:30 p.m).

We went to Bhagamandala temple first situated en route to Tala Cauveri. The entire architecture of the temple reminded us of temples in Kerala. Ajith gave the priest a dskshina of Rs. 50 and from that point onwards he was treated like a royalty. He was given half a coconut, bananas and the other prasadam in the form of a powder. The best thing was that he had given neither coconut nor bananas for any pooja.

Bhagamandala Temple

We started from Bhagamandala and started the 10 k.m journey through the ghat section roads to Tala cauveri. It is said that Tala Cauveri is the origin of three rivers; Cauveri, Kannika and the mythical Sujyothi. The river Sujyothi is supposed to flow through Pathala or the underworld. We reached Tala Cauveri at around 9: 00 a.m. The place was like a hill station and completely covered in fog. The temperature also had come down considerably. We offered our prayers at the temple and started climbing the 200 odd steps to the top of the hill. However, we were deprived of a scenic view as the entire place was covered in dense fog.

The Scenic Tala Cauveri

We started back to our base at 10:30 a.m and reached there by 11:30 a.m. We had a breakfast of traditional Akki Roti. We filled gas in the car and started from Madikeri town for our return journey at 12:00 p.m. One of the places we had missed during our onward journey was Nisargadhama and we stopped there on the way back. We spent an hour there hopping between the rocks strewn at the river bank and the tree houses. This time, we had decided to get a proper lunch even though we had eaten our breakfast at 11:30 a.m. However, there were no hotels nearby and we thought of having our lunch at Kushal Nagara. The journey back was uneventful till we reached Mandya. From there onwards, it was like going in outer ring road (ORR) on a weekday morning. Somehow, we crossed Maddur and Channapatna. However, there was a really big traffic jam at Ramanagara. The traffic police came and asked us to take a detour via a village road which will again rejoin the highway outside Ramanagara. The villagers not accustomed to seeing so many vehicles pass through their Kucha roads promptly put up a barricade and start collecting toll of Rs. 10 from the vehicles. Their reason for collecting the money was for the forthcoming Ganesh Chaturthi celebrations. We palmed off a Rs. 5 note and they let us go through. We touched the highway and it was really dark and driving the last 50 km was really an ordeal for me. We decided to go through the NICE road and touch Hosur road. Only after the Bannarghetta road toll booth we found that, the NICE road connection to Hosur road was not completed. We went through the village roads and finally touched Electronic City second phase. From there we took the Kudulu road and touched Sarjapur road and then ORR. We dropped Aji at his residence at Kasthuri Nagar and reached our residence at 9:30 p.m. It was a wonderful trip but we were all dead tired and ready to drop in to our beds.......