Best hang over experience!

It was a pleasant evening on 3th Feb 2019 at the YMCA grounds in Chennai, lot of excitement on the air to witness one of the biggest concerts of Ilayaraja (Ilayaraja-75). Great to witness such a massive crowd even before 1 hour of the program start. Any politician would have won a seat or become a president with such crowd gathering.

Lot of fans got disappointed with the seating arrangements, the distance between the stage and the seating area for Gold, Silver and bronze category is almost two bus stops distance. They should have mentioned that the venue for Fans is YMCA and for the artist its Guindy. Fans started protesting for refunds and things were getting out of control and then came Ilayaraja entry, the entire crowd went crazy and they all forgot the pain areas and got settled automatically. Thanks to the big screens, this allowed them to clam down when they saw the musically god on the giant screen. It’s like pleasing a crying child with a chocolate and peace was automatically enforced within minutes

Karthik raja kicked started the program by playing a small AV on the list of people who influenced Ilayaraja in his 75 years of journey. The list included Raja sir’s mother, father, wife, brother, friends and his gurus.  Post this Ilayaraja started with his traditional start of singing “Janani Janani” song. The audio quality was outstanding and the music rendered was mesmerizing, all the musicians did an exceptional job. All their hard work and rehearsals paid of big time and that’s precisely what Ilayaraja and his troops delivery in such concerts.

A special mention to the symphony artists from Hungary. The only thing which kept them hungry are the musical notes from Ilayaraja, otherwise Its impossible to keep your energy and smile in spite of not understanding the language/speech for 6+ hours.

The songs selections were wisely chosen to do justice to all musicians. A great display of Raja sir’s composition. Crowd went wild exceptionally for these numbers

1. I guess it’s a stupid attempt for me to list the numbers, I mean all of them got the same reception. Watch out and don’t miss the telecast on SUN TV

Below are some historical moments/highlights of the show

1. Historical judgement – I guess its first of a kind that a Judge praised an artist during the verdict and wished him all the best to go all out. He quoted that it was Ilayaraja who got the lime light back to South Indian music and it’s a shame to file a case against him to postpone the event. 
2. Day 1 saw A R Rahman and Ilayaraja performing together - A rare occasion where both had lot of fun. It’s unbelievable that Rahman had worked with Raja sir for 500 movies, starting from “Moondram Pirai”, and an emotional Rahman responded saying working in a single movie with Ilayaraja itself is a great experience, amidst a roar of applause.
3. Superstar’s entry and his speech - He said that Ilayaraja was a Suyambu Lingam, a rarity in Musical field. As usual Rajini complained each other saying Ilayaraja gave the best songs to Kamal.
4. Kamal’s emotional act - Kamal Haasan's affection was on display as he sought his blessings falling in his feet, hugged and kissed the legend, as the crowd rejoiced the emotional moment. This was a never seen before incident and also Kamal was in full josh and did an exceptional performance in spite of a bad throat. He crooned a number of hit songs like “Ram ram” from Hey Ram, “Unna vida” , “Ninaivo oru Paravai” and  “Kanmani Anbodu”. Kamal mentioned that he takes pride in the fact that 10% of his compositions for his movies and that he learnt music from him.
5. All the celebrities, such as Director Mani Ratnam, Shankar, Actor Vikram, Vijay Sethupathi, Karthik and many other heroes, directors, music directors graced the occasion just as a true Ilayaraja fan and all of them narrated on how Ilayaraja’s music affected their early days.
6. Mano and Chitra filled in the shoes of SPB and S Janaki. Amazing performance by the duo. 
7. Singer Usha Uthup kept the audience on their toes. It was her 50th year in industry as well and she performed for “Vegam vegam” “Rum bum bum” and the highlight was when she requested the lights to be switched off and asked the fans to switch on the mobile torch when she sang “Kanne Kalaimane”. It was an incredible sight to see a sea of fans lighting the torch lights at around 12 in the mid night.
8. Senior citizens/Old couples getting high – None of the crowd walked out as the event went into the third day. It was 12:15 AM on Monday and still you can spot the old couples dancing and enjoying the performances. First time I am seeing someone getting so high without any alcohol influence. They got carried away and Ilayaraja definitely triggered their nostalgic days.  Their diabetic and BP tablets got substituted by Raja sir’s magic. Such concerts are real threat to the medical industry.

It was close to 1 AM and with heavy hang over one has to leave the venue. It’s an unbelievable event and I wish to live with this hang over for ever.

Leadership Workshop - My Experience and takeaways

My Experience
I had a wonderful experience during the two days workshop on ‘Leading Performance’ conducted at Pegasus near Dodballapur which is 60kms away from Bangalore. Earlier I had attended similar section in MindTree west campus. The impact of this session was far better compared to the earlier session. The reason been we spent most our time on outbound exercise with a dedicated team. The classroom sessions started immediately after that and hence it created a huge impact, the classroom theory and the learning’s can be easily mapped to the events occurred during the exercise. The key points can easily be grasped upon

It was refreshing to meet new minds from Pune, Chennai, Hyderabad, West campus and East campus. Each one is versatile and it was observable through their communications/actions/behavior/culture, one guy prefers to eat kesari bath with chutney :)

Pegasus is well known for team building programs, it’s a huge campus which is unique of its own. Its customer ranged from IT industry to BCCI. Yes our Indian cricket team had been there just before the 2007 world cup; however India got eliminated during the initial stage, that's a different story and we need a separate blog to analyze that.

The food was excellent, felt like being at home. Flipside is I did not sleep for one day since our colleagues were having SOUND sleep. Seven people sleeping in a small tent can be avoided. It might sound stupid but I did not sleep since three of our colleagues were snoring left, right and center. Also we were short of one mosquito mesh. I had to share mine with the guy sleeping next to me. Either of us could able to sleep, at one point of time all the mosquitoes were inside the mesh rather being outside. Despite this the other guy couldn’t control his sleep and he went to sleep. He was so close to me, and he snored direct to my ears. I listened to music and watched a movie from my I-Pod, but still I didn’t get sleep. My IPOD doesn’t have the snoring resist technology, people were snoring with DTS effect and it easily penetrated through the IPOD audio. The next morning I was completely tried when the day started.

The day starts early at Pegasus, no matter when you go to sleep the bells rings at 6:00 AM and the programs starts at 7:00 AM and ends at 9:00 PM. However I got refreshed when I saw the energy of my team members during the outbound exercises so I did not mind that night out.

Taking bath is optional and changing the clothes too is optional. I unnecessarily carried more dress. Couple of tracks and T-shirts should suffice. Only 30% of the crowd looked sparkling in the morning. Rest all including me was with the same track and the T-shirt. People thought they can take bath during the break and that break came to me only on the next day morning. These things doesn’t matter, end of the day we enjoyed and learnt new things.

The faculty members Kalyan, Sylvia, Anindya from MindTree and CK from Pegasus are admirable. None of them used PPT and they made the sessions more interactive. They allowed us to participate, interact and share our experience and they highlighted the important points missed by us. Uma, from C2 took care of us very well throughout the program; the two boxes of snacks kept in the bus were worth mentioning


My Learning’s and Takeaway’s
Team’s vision is more important, rather than individual’s vision.
This I felt when we did the team bounding exercise on ‘To construct a tent with blind-folded’. The game goes like this; all the team members will be blind-folded and the team leader who is not blind-folded has to give commands to the team to construct a tent. Six of us were blind folded and we were instructed by our lead to march towards the ground, open the bag, identify the rods, materials and then construct the tent.
Our leader gave us good instructions and I was doing a good job. I felt more satisfied that I did all the things quicker and faster as instructed by my lead at that instance. The time was over and when I opened my eyes it was unfortunate to see that we didn’t construct the tent as required and the Job is still half left. Even though I did my job well and I thought that my team has done well but our vision as a team was not accomplished. To outside world we failed miserably. We as a team have not constructed the tent. This often happens at our project; each individual is happy and bonded with their assigned work or module. They did a good job as an individual but their real success will only shine when the teams succeeds and every member is often remembered of the team’s visions. We need to go beyond our boundary to support each other and help each other so that the team wins. The game is blind folded but the rule doesn’t say to shut your mouths. None of us in the team asked our leader on how well we are performing as a team. Everyone thought as an individual they were doing their best, even the leader thought that she had done a good job on giving smart instructions. Everyone was carried away without thinking about our end result, the vision to create a tent. This can be mapped to the continuous feedback process. No one asked for feedback nor did the Leader give them the continuous feedback. It happened in the end i.e., for example only during the appraisal time

Leader should stand up at the right time and should take complete control and demonstrate from his/her actions

This I felt when we played the ‘Tower of Hanoi’ game. This is the highlight of the program for me. It started around 5:00 PM and we conclude it around 9:00 PM. Google ‘Tower of Hanoi’ or refer http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tower_of_Hanoi to understand the game and the rules. The highlight of the game is that everyone should contribute (around 30 of us), the entire game needs to be played with discipline. None of us should talk during execution and this is one of the rules. If one commits any mistake it has to be repeated from the beginning. The main feature of the game is to find the right algorithm, only 50% of the people were trying to work out the algorithm, rest of us took it easy and waited for someone to crack and explain us the rules. There are other aspects apart from the algorithm; each team needs to identify bridge maker, fetchers, runners, holders and one instructor. It took around 1 hour for us to get the algorithm. When we started the game, we failed miserably. Two instances we failed since some one or the other kept talking. One instances we failed since some of us did not understand the clear role and responsibilities. We never had a practice; we directly entered the battle field and try to learn the things. No proper preparations, plan and cooperation among the team. But when we kept failing everyone was annoyed and finally we had a quick team meeting, the meeting got heated up and went in all wrong directions…
Leader should stand up at the right time and should take complete control and demonstrate from his actions…and yes this was demonstrated by Ramesh, who proactively accepted the challenge and took over the role of being a ‘Leader’ his actions and plan demonstrated that he had a good leadership qualities. He observed all our problems and he never left any stones unturned. He clearly stated the plan and communicated the plan by means of defining the roles and responsibilities for each individual in that 30+ gang. His desire to reach the goal was clearly visible from his actions. The Leader took close to 1 hour to plan this. He had patience and belief that it can be archived. We even had a practice run and that gave us lot of confidence and we all were set for the action.

It took of well and we can see the desire and hunger shown by each and every individual, all wanted to succeed to cross each level and to complete successfully. The first 10 minutes went really well, but there was a small mistake committed by the Instructor, he skipped one level and gave us the wrong movement command. This collapsed and we misplaced the rings in the wrong position. Team was bit disappointed since it was one individual who did the mistake and due to this each and everyone has to repeat from beginning.

The instructor proved that he is a human by means of committing such mistake. We understood that and the team supported him. This brought more fire to us and anxious to the team to see the success. The quality of a person is defined on how well he recovers from his mistakes. The instructor learned his mistake and he quickly rectified by means of using a marker pen to strike of the movements being executed and completed so that he never misses or jumps the movement flow. With that approach and with that fire in the team we could able to finish the entire game in less than 20 minutes. When the referee blowed the whistle we could see the joy and celebrations from each one of us, all of us got animated. It’s OK to fail so that we come back strongly – victory is sweeter when you fight for it as a team
We celebrated as though our Indian athlete overtook Usain Bolt to win the 100 meters Olympic gold medal :)

Define understandable roles and responsibilities, prepare well and have fun

I understood this better when we played ‘Construct a complicated bookshelf’ event
The game is to construct a bookshelf from scratch by using the 18 wooden slaps provided. The team which constructs in less duration is declared as winner. We were shown a demo, and the Pegasus staffs (three of them) completed the bookshelf in less than 27 seconds. We were a seven member team and we named our team as ‘The Carpenters’. We were given 1 hour time for us to plan, prepare and practice.
From the demo we understood that there were 5 blocks and these 5 blocks can be constructed independently and then on needs to be integrated in one order. The Leader allocated each of us to concentrate on a particular block; it’s the individual’s responsibilities to understand the triads involved to construct that 1 block. The leader will then guide us the order in which we need to integrate. The block which I need to construct should come in the second order, and it involves 4 wooden slaps. This I understood very well and I concentrated to understand the size of the wooden slaps, the hook of the slaps and the distance of each hooks in the slaps. Remember all slaps will look identical, it all depends upon the distance between each hooks and no of hooks each slap has. Once I have identified that, my job is done and I am ready with my module. We took about 30 minutes for all of us to construct each block. After that we integrated all and we took 1 min and 45 seconds to finish our first attempt. But it was a failure, the position of one slap was wrong. That became handy to us since we understood that one piece is the trump card and it needs to be taken care. We went back to our respective blocks and practiced again and after 10 minutes we integrated again and this time it was success and the time clocked was 40 seconds. We were happy that we completed and it gave confidence to us. All understood their part very well. At that instance we were left with 15 minutes for the event to start. We used that to the full maximum and kept on practicing, we would able to bring down to 24 seconds. That’s our best clocking and then we went on to the stage for the event. We prepared well and we trusted each other and we had the confidence to perform less than 24 seconds. Above all we wanted to have fun and give our best.

Each team will be given 3 attempts and the average score on the 3 attempts will declare as the winners. We clocked 35, 26 and 24 seconds respectively and our average score tied up with other team, but we were stated winners since we had consistency in our timings.

This happened because we prepared very well and we understand each individual’s role and responsibilities very well. This can be easily mapped to our work, most often we don’t prepare well, preparations in terms of identifying accurate test data, right test cases and exact test scenarios during the test preparation phase. At times we identify them only during the test execution phase and due to this we lose the quality time there.



Takeaways from Customer management
Don’t hesitate to ask help from customer
This tip got highlighted when we played the ‘Tower of Hanoi’. We spent more than 1 hour trying to crack the algorithm, we even googled? from the mobile to crack the algorithm. The Pegasus team acted as a customer and they were ready to give the algorithm for us, but we hesitated and even we did not had an idea to seek the help from them. All we need is to play the game and see to completion, the rule doesn’t say that we should not get the algorithm from Pegasus. In the end we got the algorithm from Pegasus, otherwise I don’t know how long we would had spent in cracking that algorithm. This is true with us too, we hesitate to seek help from customer, we need to involve the customer too, and in this case the customer was willing.

Face the conflict and act on it with calm mind
Conflict can occur with everyone be it with customer, with manager, with peers and with team members. Anticipate the outcome of the conflict and act on it with a calm mind. Reacting without a time gap can create wrong results. This was demonstrated during the customer conference call imitate session.

Other important takeaways
· Don’t have a fixed plan or strategy, keep re-visiting according to the situation and utilize the resources well. Don’t under utilize or over utilize. This was from the ‘Kill the bug’ event

· Some of the tips highlighted from the ‘One Minute Manager’ book. I liked
‘Look at the team members face and observe their behavior when they are at work’

The above story is all about ‘My experience’ and my learning’s and takeaways. The next blog will be about what I implemented from the takeaways and how it earned me the results

Panoramic Europe

Four countries in five days in a coach bus are you joking!!! Well, that was the reaction from my Wife when I broke the news to her about the Europe trip which I had planned. The package tour is called ‘Panoramic Europe’. However this was jus a thought which was raised and there are lot of stuff to be considered to make this a reality. We need to have a Schengen visa; we need to have valid 3 months UK visa once you return back to UK, the client should approve for 4 days leave, can my 3 and half year old daughter roam around for 5 days on the cold weather. Considering all these factors, I had few doubts on my mind whether I can experience this tour. However my wife showed tremendous inertest and she has a great passion in travelling. Being a home maker and doing the same routine job, she was looking forward for this much needed break. Later I decided that I need to make the most of this chance to make her joyful and to take a time off from my normal life.

Things progressed in a steady phase to our favour. My client had approved for 4 days leave and Star tours had the option to arrange for the Schengen visa as part of there tour package. My colleague Monish, the one who briefed me about this tour stressed the point that having visited UK this would be our best chance to plan for a Europe tour. With him, all the formalities had been completed with ease and we choose Oct 1 to Oct 6 dates for the tour

We were all set for the tour and our tour check list showed that all our items have been checked. We then boarded the taxi around 4.30 AM on October 1st and reached the tour pick up point at 5.30 AM. Out of curiosity, we were the first to reach the boarding place J and waited inside the public telephone booth to escape from the cold wind.

Later people started to arrive one by one. The coach was full, all the 49 seats have been booked and all were Indians expect for one foreigner or I should say only one local British women who accompanied her Indian friend. It seems this tour is meant only for Indians. They serve Indian food throughout the tour. We departed almost on time and we reached Dover where our first day of the tour started.

Day 1: (Wednesday) London - Dover - Calais - Brussels - Hotel

We boarded the ferry on our way to Calais France. The sea welcomed us with a warm shake. The 90 minutes journey prolonged to 2 and half hour due to the roughness of the sea and almost everyone got sea sick. After an uncomfortable voyage we finally reached France. We settled back to the bus and after half hour we had our first break for lunch. They served good quality hot Indian food. The caravan followed us throughout the tour and they served lunch and dinner. After a good lunch we headed to Brussels Belgium for a photo stop at the famous Atomium structure. The Atomium structure is a monument built for World's Trade Fair. It is 102-metres tall; with nine steel spheres connected so that the whole forms the shape of a unit cell of an iron crystal magnified 165 billion times. The top sphere provides a panoramic view of Brussels. The view of the Atomium structure was wonderful. Unfortunately, we were not able to get the panoramic view since it was closed by the time we reached. The delay in the ferry spoiled our day’s schedule which eventually forced us to miss the famous Mini Europe tour in Belgium. We then headed back to a hotel in France located in the town Thornville and with that our first day of the tour ended with drowsiness.

Day 2: (Thursday) Hotel - Lake Titisee - Black Forest - Rhine Falls – Switzerland

After having the continental breakfast, we checked out of the hotel and proceeded to the amazing Black Forest, stopping at the beautiful Lake Titisee Germany. The Black Forest region is essentially known for three distinctive features: its highlands, scenery and woods and the traditional cuckoo-clock. The weather was so nice and cold and we had our lunch at the lovely environment in the black forest. After the lunch we had an opportunity to visit the cuckoo-clock manufacturing place, were a demo on the making of cuckoo-clock was shown to us. We saw different types of cuckoo-clocks. Continuing the journey, we crossed the German border and reached at the most spectacular waterfalls in Europe, the Rhine Falls. The Rhine falls is located in northern Switzerland and close to the German border. The Rhine Falls is the widest waterfalls of Europe, just ahead of the Dettifoss (largest waterfall in Europe) in Iceland. We boarded a cruise which took us near to the falls. The force and the flow of the waterfalls were amazing. We headed towards our hotel in Switzerland to end the day. The accommodation provided in Swiss was great. It was a 3 star hotel named The Terrace at Engelberg, located at the top of the hill. We stayed there for two nights.




Day 3: (Friday) Mt.Titlis – Interlaken

The 3rd day of the trip was the most memorable day. We went to Titlis Mountain which is one of the most admired places in Swiss. It is approx 10,000 feet high from the sea level. We reached the peak via 3 cable cars. The last cable car is the world's first revolving cable car. The cable car ride was an amazing experience. On the way we got a lovely view of the city. Luckily it snowed and we were able to experience the snow too. Once we reached the peak, we rented shoes to get into the snow. We were all well equipped with the winter clothing and hence we did not face much problem with the cold. Getting into the snow for the first time is always exciting and fun. Since I had already experienced before I observed the reaction of my wife and kid. They were on cloud 9, my wife and kid were so excited and they had a tremendous time playing in snow. You can see their reaction from the below snap. I could not stop my wife, she left Kaviyaa with me and went all the way further down and had a blast of a time on our absence :)

After the breathtaking experience in the snow we headed to the ice cave where 5 countries national anthem can be played by selection and of course we selected our National Anthem. Then came the photo studio were we took a snap in the traditional Swiss costume as part of remembrance of this lovely place. We struggled for the poses expect my kid Kaviyaa. She likes to give pose anytime anywhere 24/7 J. This studio is famous that most of the celebrities had taken photos with similar costumes. We saw Virender Sehwag and some other Hollywood stars photos who were trying to match our poseJ. The time came for us to leave the lovely spot. We left the place but my thoughts and memories are still hanging around there.



After the splendid time we continued our travel passing through the scenic nature to Inter Laken. On the way we stopped at Luzern which is one of the most famous Swiss cities to visit the Lion Monument. It honours the Swiss Guards who were massacred during the French Revolution. Swiss military is so famous that it’s a mandatory for everyone in Swiss to serve for the army for 2 years after the education. After taking couple of snaps we continued our way to Inter Laken. Now came the real beauty of Swiss, were ever you turn you can see Mountains, falls, snows and scenic locations. On the way we saw some famous locations were Bollywood and Kollywood songs have been pictured. The air and the environment were so clean and tidy that we had a pleasant walk for an hour. The day ended with scenic memories and a good mood to sleep and leave Swiss the next day morning.



Day 4: (Saturday) Swiss – Paris

We left the Hotel Terrace early in the morning and boarded in the bus towards our way to Paris, it was told to us that it would be a long journey on the fast highway, the whole day we were in the bus with a halt in between for lunch. The day made us to open up ourselves with others who were travelling with us, all these days we had offered face to face smile to everyone for the past three days, and we had fun in the bus playing anthakshari, dumb charades and personality identification games. We didn’t know how long we were playing before our tour manager interrupted us in between and asked us to see the Eiffel tower. Everyone started to rummage around and finally the Eiffel tower appeared to our left. Welcome to Paris, was the message from our tour manager. We started getting closer to the Eiffel tower and in the end we had a magnificent view of the tower. Our booking for the Eiffel tower was made on the next day morning, so we jus passed throw the Eiffel tower to enjoy a boat cruise along the romantic River Seine and marvel at some of the most famed sights of Paris. The Paris city was amazing, it was being told to us that Paris in night is a fantastic sight and having visited Paris we should never miss this opportunity. Paris at night was not in our tour package, however we requested our tour manager to organize this for us. The tour manager too felt that this is a must do activity to experience at night. He organised the tour for us with a condition that at least 40 people should agree for this tour by paying extra 15 Euro per person. Every one was excited and gave a green signal. After the cruise ride we checked in to our hotel in Paris and after the dinner around 10 PM we headed to Paris at night tour.

Paris at night

Paris at night is a spectacle. The amount of light energy consumed is amazing. The entire city is lighted up. The traffic is so heavy and at once I felt like I am travelling on Bangalore’s Hosur road. After a slow moment, we reached the place from were you will get the best view of the Eiffel tower. Words jus can’t explain the beauty of Eiffel tower at night. You can see want I mean by seeing the below snap. Astonishing display of lights, every six minutes, you can notice the lights glittering at the entire tower. Undoubtedly that moment was the highlights of the tour. Unfortunately my kid did not experience this, since it was at the midnight and she was too tried too. After this we passed through some of the famous spots such as Concorde Square, Opera house, Champs Elysées, Arc de Triomphe and many other historic buildings. We also visited a place where Princess Diana died in an accident and the hotel which she had the last dinner of her life. The number of people on the streets in Paris is uncountable. This would be the next crowded street which I had seen; of course the first would be the Ranganathan Street in T-Nagar, Chennai. It was around 1.00 AM that we returned back to our hotel. The other highlight of Paris by night is the amount of information that our tour manager Viraf had given. He knows in and out of Paris and he went to the extent that he can tell how many bricks were used to construct each monuments. It was an awesome experience.



Day 5: Sunday - Paris - Calais - Dover – London – Guildford – Home

No excuse, the wakeup call is set up as usual at 6.00 AM in the morning. We checked out the hotel and headed to Eiffel tower. So far we had not gone much closer to Eiffel tower and the time has come for us to experience it much closer. Our booking was at 9.30 AM and we went 30 minutes before time. It was a masterpiece. It was too windy and unfortunately they did not admit us to enter the top floor of the Eiffel tower. The lift took us to the first and the third floor of Eiffel tower. It’s the same OTIS lift which is been used since 1889 the year when the Eiffel tower was constructed. We had a good view of Paris from the Eiffel tower. We shopped and brought some souvenirs on the shops available on the third floor of Eiffel tower. After spending two hours around the Eiffel tower, we headed towards Dover on the way back to London. Five days went jus like that. The tour had come to an end. We had our dream tour. It was well managed tour were we had no issues on food and accommodations. The tour was worth for each penny which we had spent. My kid had a great time in the tour. We were worried initially and she proved us wrong in all possible ways. She gave us trouble in having food, but apart from that she was well behaved throughout the tour. In the end she became the princess of the tour as she was the only child in the tour. First day she had problems with interacting with new people, but on the fifth day, she was on the opposite side. She started to pull the mike and started singing Nursery songs along with the coach driver Lawrence. He is an unbelievable guy with good sense of humour. They both had good time throughout the tour. The tour might have ended, but the memories we had will be there for ever. Three cheers to Star Tours for organization such a wonderful trip :) People who visit London, should definitely eye for this tour.

More snaps are available at the below link

http://picasaweb.google.com/dinakar.97/EuroTripSwiss#
http://picasaweb.google.com/dinakar.97/EuroTripParis#
http://picasaweb.google.com/dinakar.97/EuroTripBelgiumGermany#

Cricket at the Olympics

2020 Olympic news: India missed the Cricket Bronze...lost to Poland by 1 run!!! Oh no, we don’t want this news instead we want to hear ‘India won the Gold Medal by defeating the World champion Australia’.

Well for this to happen, Cricket should definitely get an entry to Olympics. It’s a shame that cricket is still not part of the big event even after the introduction of T20 format. The Olympics are the world's greatest sporting spectacle and why shouldn't cricketers not be a part of it? Thanks to T20 format which gave us an option to be considered for Olympics considering the time factor. There are some events were each country dominate and the other countries try to adapt and follow them. Jamaicans dominate the short run, Ethiopia and Kenya dominate the long runs, and the list continues. Considering this why can’t a country like India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka dominate this sport and eye for a medal for their country. Nowadays winning a medal in Olympics for the above mentioned countries is a nightmare and a struggle. Cricket is any time better than European handball and America’s favorite past time event baseball!! . Cricket is no more a game played only by 10 or 12 countries. The game is now already played in diverse countries with very different cultures.

T20 version of the game is always exciting, nail biting and fun to watch comparing to other sports like Trampoline, Modern Pentathlon and Sailing in Olympics. The recent IPL tournament had proved this. All the matches played in IPL were exciting; we never knew which team will win the match until the end. That’s the beauty of this format. One good over with the bat or ball can change the course of the game

The IOC should not bother about non-cricket playing countries like US and China for cricket in Olympics? Instead the ICC can groom the existing start up countries like Namibia, Kenya, Canada, Netherlands, Israel, Afghanistan, Argentina and Germany who started to play cricket at present. Cricket will not expand into the United States and China, until 2020. In spite of hosting a Football World Cup in 1994, the world's most popular sport remains a marginal presence in the American sporting consciousness. How can cricket even begin to enter this market when there is a perfect bat-and-ball alternative by means of Baseball? China has never competed in a men's Olympic Hockey tournament and the USA.. no one ever questions if Olympic participation is bad for Hockey! Cricket needs to be an Olympic event.

An Olympic gold should be as good as winning the World Cup! The reaction from Kapil Dev stated that Abhinav Bindra’s Gold medal is better than India’s 1983 Cricket World cup victory. The entire nation was happy and proud about Bindra’s achievement. Hat’s off to him on this achievement. Leander peas after losing two consecutive bronze medal double matches, one in 2004 and the other in 2008 had given a statement that he will again eye for the London-2012 Olympics Gold. No one is better than Leander when it comes to playing for the nation. His Davis cup statistics will answer his commitment. He holds the highest win-loss record for India having won 83 Davis Cup matches against 31 losses. He is the first to win an individual medal for India by winning a Bronze medal in 1996 Olympics Singles event. That’s the passion he has for the nation and for the game and especially for Olympics. That’s the supremacy and honor of an Olympic medal

To know the power of Olympics Gold, let’s take the current incident which happened in this Olympics; British athlete Rebecca Romero won the Rowing Silver medal in Athens-2004. She was desperate to win Gold and eventually she did that in Beijing 2008. You can wonder what the big deal in this is. But you will wonder if she had done it in other sporting event. Yes, she won Gold in Cycling in this Olympics. Such a inspiring story that she won the Cycling event four years after taking a rowing silver medal in Athens. So introducing Cricket in Olympics will definitely influence other countries and other sportsmen and down the line we can see a Chinese drive in the Cricket field

ICC should take this approach to expand further. We have around 12 years of time and that’s a pretty long period. They should allow the likes of ICL/IPL/EPL/XXL franchise to feature only the start up countries. Remember only with the start up countries. ICC has already had enough tournaments for the start up countries but it never got an exposure or publicity. ICL/IPL/EPL/XXL has that power and eventually they will succeed. At first Twenty20 cricket should be in the Commonwealth Games and from there they should take it to Olympics.

I wish one day I could see Arjun Tendulkar (son of Sachin Tendulkar) to hit a Six in the last ball to win a 2020 Olympic gold medal for India. Let’s hope this happens and let’s hope that Cricket gets an entry into Olympics sooner or later.

WIMBLEDON…. Some dreams do come true!

It was late in the evening and young sensation Rafael Nadal was just walking back after yet another superb performance which saw him win the match in straight sets! He approached towards our section of the crowd and suddenly, was right in front of me!

Me: Nadal! Autograph please! Congrats Nadal, that was awesome tennis. You are a champion in grass court too.

Nadal: Thanks guys.. thanks for your support.

Me: Nadal!! I am from Chennai. I don’t think you will remember me… I had in fact taken a picture with you during this year’s Chennai Open. The day before your semi-finals match I met you while you were training in one of the practice courts?

Nadal: Is it!!! Sorry I don’t remember. I enjoyed my stay in Chennai. You people love sports and it’s good to see you here.

Me: Oh I never thought that I will meet you again and that too in Wimbledon. Thanks for the autograph and all the very best for the final match!!

Nadal: Thanks for your support. BYE!!!

Me: Wow Rajee [my wife]!!! what a day we are having! I never thought that we would get a ticket and never thought that we will end up meeting Nadal at the centre court. This is like a dream for me!!!!!

Rajee: Yes it’s like a dream for you and in fact it is a dream!!! Get up now, the time is already 5.30 AM and you need to catch the 6.00 AM train for the Wimbledon!

OOPS!!! That was a dream. Yes my wife Rajee shattered my dream and woke me up on the D-Day morning that I had planned to visit Wimbledon.

Wimbledon! This is the tournament that every tennis player dreams to be a part of and this is the tournament which every tennis lover would love to watch. I was lucky enough to visit UK for a project assignment while the Wimbledon spectacle was going to happen. I being a sports freak believed that missing watching Wimbledon would be a crime! Luckily my colleagues Monish and Jagan also had the same passion for the game, so we all grouped together and planned to make this a reality.

All we knew was that getting a ticket at Wimbledon was a nightmare. But still we googled and got enough information. We came to know that getting a ticket in Centre court is impossible. All the tickets were sold out much before the tournament and we couldn’t afford to get the tickets which were sold by the third party. The ticket ranged between 2500 to 3500 pounds. With this money I would have conducted my own tennis tournament in India… naming it SATHYA OPEN! This way I would have made my father very proud and happy. My father is also a great tennis fan, a regular visitor of the Chennai Open tournament. He has a 100 % attendance record at the Chennai open, following it from day 1 of the tournament, way back in 1997 till date. He knows each and every player who played in that tournament. Unfortunately none of the players know about my father :)

He was very desperate that I should watch Wimbledon at any cost.


Coming back to Wimbledon, we came to know that we can still buy premium tickets on the day of play. Approximately 500 tickets daily for each of the Centre (except for the last 4 days), No.1 and No.2 Courts are reserved for sale at the turnstiles.
Roughly 6000 Ground Admission tickets are available each day for entry to the Grounds, including the No.2 Court standing enclosure and unreserved seating and standing on Courts 3–19. This number may vary depending on the number of people already in the grounds, the number of courts in play and the weather

To get this ticket we need to join the queue. For a ground pass it is usually necessary to join the queue several hours before the grounds open. For a show court ticket many people choose to queue overnight to maximise their chances of being able to purchase a ticket for Centre, No.1 or No.2 Court.

We were confident that we will at least get ground Admission tickets from Court 2. If lady luck favours we may get a ticket at Court1 too. We clearly made up our mind that even though if we fail to get the tickets we will at least feel the atmosphere and watch the match on the Giant screen which is known as the Henman hill. We at least wanted to experience that.

We all decided to go on a Saturday. Unfortunately the first Saturday of the tournament will be the most crowded ones. We did not have any options since our project commitments did not allow us to plan on a weekday. We had decided to take public transport since taking a car is not a good options since the traffic can be very heavy and car parking is strictly limited. Moreover we didn’t have a car :)

The match starts at 12 noon and we had planned to join the queues around 7 AM. This we thought will give us a good chance of getting tickets. I left my home around 6 AM in the morning. My wife waved her hand in a happy mood with the belief that I would be having a good day and also because she would be having a good day on my absence :)

Monish and Jagan joined me in the Guildford Railway station and we caught the 6.02 AM train. We reached Wimbledon station around 6.50 AM and reached the stadium at 7.00 AM by boarding the shuttle service available from the station.

The shuttle service took us to a place which is near to the queue. We got down from the shuttle and the steward’s greeted every one and briefed the public regarding the facilities available in the stadium and the route to the ticket queue. We started walking towards the queue. As we walked towards, we saw some 100 people marching towards the stadium escorted by the cops. We thought we can quickly go and join them. When we took a curve, we couldn’t able to believe the scene. There were around 4500 people standing in the same queue. Hello and Welcome to Wimbledon!!!

We saw each other’s face and started laughing. None of us have seen such a big queue in a single sight in our life. We don’t know how to react. We were stunned, but our legs started moving towards the queue and finally we reached the queue. The queue was made beside the big car parking area, where in we can see the entire people who are standing in the queue. The queue was divided into rows, where in each row can occupy around 800 people. After some time, the stewards gave us a queue number, our number was 04844, 04845 and 04846. We asked the stewards the possibility of us getting tickets. She answered with a smile and said that no worries you people will get the ground pass tickets for sure but not the tickets for the centre court and court 1. She gave the statistics that till queue no 8000 people will get a ground pass tickets. That gave us a relief and a confidence that we will see the spectacle. We came to know that the all the counters will open around 10.30 AM and till that the queue will not move further. We were able to see all activities happening on the queue. People were sleeping, playing cards, listening to music, reading book, playing football, playing cricket and sharing there previous queue experience. For the first one hour there was no movement on the queue, after that it started moving in a face where in it will lose to a tortoise’s speed.

At around 10.30 the queue started moving at a steady pace. On the way to the ground, people were giving us a cup of strawberries; it seems strawberries are so famous in Wimbledon, that every year about 27000 kilos of strawberries are eaten here, together with 7000 litres of cream. Since it was a sunny day, people started giving sun creams for free (to market their brands). As we moved further we entered the security check. This check was similar to the one which happens at the airport.

Finally we reached the ticket counter; we enquired whether tickets were available for the centre court or court 1, but as expected it was unavailable and we bought the ground admission ticket. Each ticket cost 20 pounds. We quickly entered the stadium and went near the place where the order of play been listed at each ground. We analysed and we had our schedules and we planned our matches accordingly.

1. Gentlemen's Singles - 3rd Round – Court 3 - Rainer Schuettler (GER) Vs Guillermo Garcia-Lopez (ESP)

We wanted to watch this since Rainer Schuettler is a professional tennis player who is in the circuit for the past 10 years. Before this match he had defeated James Blake of US in straights sets. So watching him in action should be a good start for us.

2. Ladies' Doubles - 2nd Round – Court 4 - Sania Mirza (IND)/Bethanie Mattek (USA)/ Vs Maria Kirilenko (RUS)/Flavia Pennetta (ITA)

Do we need a reason for this? Of course! An Indian player is involved in this match!

3. Gentlemen's Singles - 3rd Round – Court 2 -
Mikhail Youzhny (RUS) Vs Radek Stepanek (CZE)

We wanted to watch this match very badly. We choose this as the match of the day for us. Both are equally talented players. Mikhail Youzhny is a new star in making and Stepanek is a solid player. Youzhny's had defeated both Nadal and Federer recently. After that defeat people thought that Federer is now beatable. The Federer fear factor had come down in the year 2007

4. Mixed doubles - 2nd Round - Court 11
Mahesh Bhupathi /Sania Mirza Vs Igor Andreev (RUS)/Maria Kirilenko (RUS)

Mixed doubles specialist Mahesh Bhupathi is playing in this match along with Sania..WOW what a pick! This should be a good finish for us. Remember Mahesh Bhupathi had won the most number of Mixed doubles Grand slam title with different partners. In fact he had won 6 titles with 6 different partners. The list goes like this… French Open with Rika Hiraki (Hiraki was the first Japanese woman to win a Grand Slam tournament). U.S Open with Ai Sugiyama and Daniela Hantuchová. Australian open with Martina Hingis and Wimbleton with Elena Likhovtseva and Mary Pierce. Can he achieve that feat with Sania? That would be 7 titles with 7 different partners. With whom will he pair for next year? Hope he pairs with an Indian at least in the Mixed doubles.

The above was our list and also we decided that in between we will sneak a look on other courts to watch other stars. Remember all these matches we need to watch in standings, if luck permits we may get a seat to sit. So let’s go!!

Our first match experience: Schuettler (GER) Vs Lopez (ESP)

The match was supposed to start at 12 noon and we reached the court 3 around 11.40 AM. Luckily we got a place in the first row to stand. In that 20 minutes gap we admired the beauty of the environment, the crowd, the grass on the court, the ball boys, and the lines men. We took our cameras and took some quick snaps. Then came the players been cheered by the crowds. Lopez who is a good player in clay courts, played as tough he is playing in a French Open. There were no serve and volley or drops, both played from the base lines. This was not the game to be played in Wimbledon. This is the place where tennis is played at the best. People displayed all their talents at this tournament. Who will forget Boris Becker’s drive behind the nets, Stefan Edberg’s serve and volley, Goran Ivanišević big aces, Agassi’s great returns, Steffi Graf’s fore-hand, John McEnroe on-court behaviour, Ivan Lendl nightmare of not wining this title, Sampras elegance and his big aces during the break points, Federer’s one hand back hand flick down the line…and the list continuous… Who will forget Martina Navratilova’s passion and hunger to play and win the Wimbledon title, 20 times she had crowned the title, 9 singles,7 doubles, 4 mixed doubles, she appeared for continuous 31 years. She was aged 50 when she won her last title at Wimbledon… WOW unbelievable record and truly a living legend. Wimbledon is all about history and that’s why this is been the number 1 of all the grand’s slam.

We were not that impressed with this match and we decided that we will move on to the next match after watching the first set. Schuettler won the match easily by 6-2, 6-3, 6-4

Sania’s Doubles match: This match happened at court 4 which is very next to court 3. We went much before this match to get a proper seat and we luckily got a place to sit. Now came the crowd, all the Indians were heading towards this ground to watch this match. With lot of cheer from the Indians, Sania entered the ground. Around 1000 snaps would have been taken during the course of this match. One guy who is sitting near to me took only photos and eventually he never watched the match :). Sania as usual started the match with a struggle. She couldn’t able to hold her serve. Her new partner Bethanie Mattek was too good, I meant her game :) she played solid tennis and with her talent Sania could manage to win the first set by 6-3. Sania got into the rhythm in the second set and played some good fore-hands down the line. They gelled together and won the second set and eventually the match by 6-3, 6-4. Even though it was a straight set victory, there were more rallies being played. With her new partner I guess this pair can go all the way to the finals. Around 301 people watched this match and in that, 300 were Indians. The odd man out was Dusan Vemic who was supporting his mixed doubles partner Pennetta. He was standing next to me and was supporting them. Finally we saw some good quality tennis been played. Doubles match is always fun to watch since it is action packed.


Lunch break and the next match:
The time was 2.30 PM, it was so sunny and we were tired too. We wanted to have lunch and relax for some time. We headed over to food courts. There also we had queue. Which ever place you go in the stadium, a disciplined queue will welcome you. We brought some sandwich, pizza and some cool drinks and started to roam around the stadium. We went to the Wimbledon shopping and shopped couple of things as a remembrance. We charged our self and got ready for the second half of the day. We headed towards Court 2 to watch the big match between Mikhail Youzhny Vs Radek Stepanek on the way to our surprise we met Mahesh Bhupathi. We took autographs and took a snap with him. By the time we reached Court 2, it was fully packed. This court is called as the Graveyard of courts due to its reputation as the court on which many seeded players has been eliminated during the early rounds. Famous players who have lost on the Graveyard during early round play include Joe Creedon, Ilie Nastase, John McEnroe, Boris Becker, Andre Agassi, Pete Sampras, Martina Hingis, Venus Williams, and Serena Williams. We tried our best and finally we got into the Court, but we were not able to get a good view. This made us to think on some other options. We decided to watch this match from Court 3. Yes from the last row of court 3, you can watch the match on Court 2. We quickly went to Court 3. But people were cleverer. By the time we reached, the last row was jam packed. We had patience; we waited for some one to get out from the row. After 20 minutes some people left the row and we rushed into the last row. We settled and got a very good view. The match started and to our no surprise some quality tennis has been played from the beginning. There were good servers, good volleys, good drops and overall a good competitive tennis. The first set took some time to get over has there were more break points opportunity available for both players. In the end
Youzhny won the first set by 7-5. We wanted to leave this much at that instance and as planned we want to watch the Bhupathi/sania match completely. So we decided to head towards court 11.

Bhupathi/Sania Match:
Court 11 was jam packed at that time since Safina match was progressing. We waited for that match to get over. Once the match got over, most of the people left the ground. Court 11 was too good. We had around 500 seats available for people to sit and watch the match. We choose a good view and we were all ready for the match. To our surprise we came to know that the there is one more men’s singles match before the mixed doubles match. We had no options, we decided to sit and watch that match too. It was a match between Marin Cilic (CRO) Vs Paul-Henri Mathieu (FRA). Slowly the Indian crowd started to fill in the stadium. After some time we noticed that many of the Indians has started leaving the stadium. This gave us a doubt on whether the next match can happen at this ground since the time was around 6.30 PM. We went and asked the stewards and we came to know that Sania’s match have been changed to Court 19. We immediately left the court and headed toward court 19. By the time we reached, it was jam packed. No place to stand also. As usual we choose the next court (18), this time it’s an aerial view. But we had a seat to sit and watch the match comfortably. By the time we settled the first set was almost over. It went into the tie-breaker. Sania and Mahesh were not playing well. There was no coordination between them. Sania struggled with her service and eventually they lost the first set by 6-7(4). They continued the same form in the second set. They got broken early in the set. We were more disappointed with their effect. We wanted to move on to the next match even before the match is over.

Turning Point:

The turning point didn’t happen to Sania/Mahesh but it had happened to us. Yes, while we were heading toward court 18 we came to see a huge queue at the re-sale counter. What’s re-sale counter? Well this is the counter where people can give there center court and court 1 tickets for re-sale. People who leave the stadium much early can hand-over the tickets at the re-sale counter. The tickets are then re-sold to the public who had got the ground admission for a flat 5 pounds rate. The money being generated by this re-sale will go to the charity. Well what a concept. This concept will work only if people hand over the ticket to re-sale counter. Since the re-sale queue for the center court was soooo huge, we thought we won’t get the chance. Also our legs do not have that strength to stand in the big queue around 7.30 PM. So we decided to watch the Sania/Mahesh match. Since that match was not that interesting, I told our guys that we will try to get the re-sale ticket on court 1 were Leander Paes & Rennae Stubbs is playing against Jonas Bjorkman & Alicia Molik. Leander pair lost the first set but had won the second set. We wanted to watch at least the final set. So we quickly headed towards the re-sale counter for court 1.

Jackpot: Icing on the cake:
To our surprise the center court queue was moving very fast. There were only 50 people standing before us in the queue. We then decided that we will ourselves give a chance by getting into this queue. In the mean time we checked the status on the center court via the Giant screen. Nadal Vs Keifer match was going on. Nadal is about to win the second set and the time was 8.00 PM. We have around 1 hr and 30 minutes of Play left for the day. The play can stop at 9.30 PM due to bad light. So if we are lucky we may get a chance to watch the third set in the center court for an hour. We were so excited we badly wanted to get a glimpse of the center court even if it’s for 10 minutes or so. The queue started to move fast, we were too excited. Our dream is going to become a reality in 5 or 10 minutes. We got a new energy; all our tiredness and pain had gone in seconds. Finally a Gentleman rushed to the queue and issues us 3 tickets for 15 pounds. Can you believe this? We can’t able to believe our eyes. A center court ticket for 5 pounds!!! We will never forget the 3 unknown people who had returned the tickets at the re-sale counter. 3 of us got 3 different tickets, one at north gate, other two at the south gate. We started running towards the centre court. We planned that we all met-up around 9.30 PM at a place where we shopped.
In next 120 seconds we were at our respective place in the center court. I had to wait for 5 minutes to get into the seat as the game was in process. That 5 minute I relaxed and took a long breath. I heard the sound, Game Nadal..Nadal leads 5-2 and the first set by 7-6. The steward opened the rope and allowed to me quickly take my seat which at the T row number 399. I went and sat in my seat and from then to the next 1 hour it’s a dream for me. There were unbelievable scenes, the center court was amazing, next 10 minutes I was admiring the center court rather than the match. Then I was remembered that I need to watch the match. Nadal was serving for the second set and in no time he won the second set. Now I have one set left and I can concentrate on watching the match.

Unforgettable third set in a tennis match:

The third set between Nadal and Keifer will remain in memories forever. Nadal started to serve and he holds his first game in the third set with ease. Then Keifer started with his serve. Nadal who is adapting well to the grass court showed his class and power. Keifer was not able to match Nadal’s power and placement. He easily broke Keifer in his first game. The same happened in Keifer’s next game. Nadal was leading 4-0 in the set. It was fun watching the court challenge being raised by Keifer. What’s a court challenge? Well a player can challenge against the lines men call. This is like our third-umpire decision in cricket. The challenge will be shown on the TV and based on that the chair-umpire will take decision. Whenever the challenge is shown on the TV, the crowd used to synchronize their noise according to the ball movement. Keifer used all this challenge in the first few games and he had no more challenge left with him. Suddenly Keifer got a new energy, he broke Nadal’s serve. The crowd started supporting Keifer, after all they wanted to see one more set of action. Keifer then fired some quick aces and hold his serve. The score was 4-2 at that movement. Keifer never gave up and was fighting till the end. Nadal held up his serve with some good quality tennis. Some of his shorts are unbelievable. Whenever a rally lasts more than 5 shorts then you be sure that Nadal will win that point in the end. He is the master in rallies, he will keep giving you the returns and all of a sudden he will find a placement with amazing power.

Keifer again fired some quick aces and hold his serve. He fired 5 aces in his previous two games, he was pumped up. The score was 5-3, now Nadal will serve for third set and eventually for the match. Nadal kept his clam and played consistently well to take the set and the match. The match got over by 9.00 PM, and with that our dream day ended at Wimbledon. Until 7.45 PM we never thought that we will get an opportunity to visit the centre court. Three cheers to the Wimbledon organizers, they made our dream and many of the tennis fans dream a reality by incorporating the daily tickets concept with a well managed queue mechanism. The re-sale of ticket gave us an opportunity to visit the centre court.

The photo gallery is available at the below URL

http://picasaweb.google.com/dinakar.97/WimbledonAlbum

In the end it was Game, Set, and Match to our passion and patience!!!