Almost Arsenal

The Gunners and the Catalans flew down to Paris for the Champions League final. Even Bergkamp drove down. And so did my friend Prabhu all the way from electronic city to New BEL road.

This was Arsenal's biggest nite ever and what an anti-climax it was. 18 minutes into the match, Lehmann, the goalie who created many a European record on the way to the final, does a foul to avoid a goal, gets sent off. It was a fair decision as the referee blew the whistle after the foul was committed and before the goal was scored. I think it would have been fairer to allow the goal and retain Lehmann and made a match out of it. One goal down, with 11 men, Arsenal would have been better off than 1 goal up with 10 men. This is because, no team in this world can play with 10 men against a Barca 11 and expect them not to score. Sooner or later they would do that and they did, twice.

The match that was billed as a Ronaldinho vs Henry never lived up to that. Ronaldinho was cramped for space by the wonderful defence of Arsenal and Henry missed chances,which he would have scored with his eyes closed in the EPL. Ljunberg ran all over the place, Fabregas was good and even the replacement goalie Almunia was good till he let those two in.

The quality of refereeing was poor without doubt. Both sides missed chances. The two teams were my most favourite and 2nd most favourite teams.

Only positive thing that happened for Arsenal would be perhaps Henry having second thoughts on joining Barcelona now!!!

Template Change

Ya saw couple of my regular blogging friends change their template and I thought, ya once in a while a little change is good for the eyes!!!

There are young designers who are making fundoo templates and helping guys like me who are sad in HTML to redesign and improve the looks of their blogs. I tampered with a couple of them and decided to keep this as it was time for me to leave office and the republishing etc etc was taking some time...so thats abt it...

Big week for Arsenal. Maybe their Biggest ever!

100th Post

And I am glad I am writing for a good cause.
This is what Peter Dulvy, says about how this small adventure started...

In November 2005 I attended Robin's wedding in Kerala. Following the ceremony we all went en masse on a backwater boat trip eating south Indian delights and relaxing. Whilst gliding along the tranquil waters I spotted an idyllic towpath at the side of the river shaded by rows of coconut palms. It occurred to me that it would be really amazing to run through such a beautiful place. A few good books and number of months later I awoke on Saturday 11th March 2006 morning to a call from a friend †in Delhi who was there with me in Kerala all those months earlier. She suggested that I should consider following through on my early comments in November and actually go running in India.
So here I am on the eve of our departure for Delhi where we will be launching the run with the kind support of a Reebok, the Indian Tourism Office in London and Intrepid Travel. From Delhi we will fly to Cochin to arrive on the morning of the 30th. It's a drive north to Kazaragod and a good nights sleep. Somewhere between 4.30 - 5am (mid night UK time) myself Rahul and Dez will awake from sleep with a feeling in our bellies marking the realisation that the wildest plans can actually come fruition. It will be a golden moment for all of us to remember for the rest of our lives.
Check out Heels on Fire and their travel blog

The rise of the Red Brigade

On a day when the Commies come to power, let me share some of the pics that I took in the recent past....

Friends forever

This picture was taken in Kodai, where we had given the farewell to our senior batch of REC. Farewell and Freshers parties have been the pride of each batch. It is more or less like how "well" you ragged your juniors!!! So this is my batch "Mallus"Standing From Left: Sujith, Karthik, Pramod, Prem, Philip, Vimal, Arun, Sanjith, Girishwar & Ashif
Sitting from Left: Sidin, Praful, Dwipin, Vikash and Jiby

I should thank Dwipin for preserving this picture and K for passing it on...

From Bangkok to Bombay

When you see countries like Thailand have infrastructure of good qaulity, it sows doubts on your mind on what exactly is our country doing after so many years of independence. They have got expressways over the city and roads and airports of high qaulity and a very proactive Tourism zing to the whole scenario. They have beaches and massages that sell well, but c'mon, no country can just excel in selling their beaches, if they cant provide good lodging and transportation and facilities to whoever lands in that copuntry. India is on its way, I just hope we are not too late.

So some snippets of this country, not in any particular order though.
So lets start with the two-wheeler taxis or the bike taxis that we see here. They are differentiated from their other 2-wheeler counterparts by the orange waist coat. They flout traffic rules and go on footpaths (like they do here in Bangalore) as seen in the picture. But I have to tell you that in this traffic-jammed city, they are the fastest mode of transport.
Bangkok, must be having the worst traffic-jams in this part of the world. The only time you avoid that is when you take the expressway, running above the city, covering the length and breadth of it, or when you take the sky train, which doesnt cover much of the city.

The inner roads inside the cities are cramped at some parts and the best thing about these roads are these nice small trees which do not cramp the footpath but gives some shade. As you would see. most of the pics have been taken whn I was travelling in the taxi as too many meetings and numerous traffic jams made me click less pictures.

This is the talles building in Bangkok. It has 90 floors and is a hotel, whose name I cant recollect now. I like the Johnnie Walker ad on it, which says "Drink, Dont Drive"!!!

The famous water ways in Bangkok. Couldnt take the ride on the boats though.
This was something which I didnt understand. The board there says "Marriage for Alien", whatever that means. I was in the taxi, esle would have gone down and enquired.
This is a classic Heineken ad. I saw couple of billboards which were really classy ones. By the time I dug out the camera from my bag, I was past that. Now anyone who comes to Bangkok, will know of Patpong street and what it is famous for. This rotating ad board has the images in the following order
1. Soi 1 which translates to Street 1 - The image is of a hand holding a Heineken pint bottle
2. Soi 2 ~ Street 2 - And the image is again of a hand holding a pint rather loosely
and the third one is this...
In Malaysia you can speak in English and be assured that the listener will understand what you are saying and vice versa. But not here. They speak in english which you will never understand and ya they don't understand what you speak.

And finally I was back in good old Mumbai!!!

Sportstar - My Personal Collection

This Hindu publication is the only surviving sports magazine in India today...

My earliest memories go back to 1986-87, when I first set sight on this magazine and started understanding the pictures in this magazine. I used to collect the centre-spreads and one-page posters. Our house used to have a huge pile of sportstar mags and I somehow managed to collect it and keep in a corner. I lost out on the old 1980's Reader's Digets though.

To just add on to the collection, I decided to buy the issues of Sportstar when there was a special occasion, say like the cricket world cup or the FIFA WC or the Olympics.

My prized collection includes,
the 1983 issue, where Kapil's Devils won the Prudential cup
1986 FIFA WC starring Maradona
1987 Reliance World Cup
1990 Italia FIFA WC
1992 Benson & Hedges Cup
1994 US FIFA WC
1996 Wills Cup
1998 Zidane WC
1999 South Africa
2002 Japan Korea WC
2003 India Whitewash in finals

I do not remember which all Olympics I have got covered. And to complement this I have this huge collection of posters, right from the footballing legends to the F1 legends (I did not understand this sport then), to the cricketing greats to some exquisitive tennis stars. All these magazines are neatly bound and will adorn my bookshelves once I have a bookshelf in my new home.

I started appreciating R Mohan, Vijay Lokapally and Rohit Brijnath over the years. Mohan quit the magazine and newspaper following the cricket betting controversy and only the other two remain. Also I rememeber another magazine coming up in the 90's called Sportsworld, which was more colourful and trendy. But somehow, I stuck to Sportstar. The latest avatar of Sportstar is of the tabloid size (la Mid-day) and is 8 bucks and not 10! It has a 2-page centre-spread and looks great and is a good read. Unfortunately, the cover story is of how they expect Rooney to do what Gazza couldnt do for England - win a World Cup!!! Well that looks unlikely following his injury .

The World Cup special issues of Sportstar are from next week and I hope to collect them!!!

Gunners in finals

The beautiful game...

There is nothing like a good football game with lots of goals. I was watching the vintage World Cup matches in Star Sports the other day and cannot but admire the beauty of the sport. The climax of the show was the 1986 WC performance of the man they call Maradona. His goals and his skills saw Argentina win the WC.

Whatever Barca or Chelsea achive at the end of their leagues, doesnt matter when it comes to the WC. This is where many have burnt their fingers, eg. Henry has never been as impressive when playing for France as he is when playing Arsenal. He will never be forgotten by his countrymen for that and I think this year he will be in the peak of his career. Lets not talk about Pele, Cryuff, Maradona and Zidane. A lot has been written about their playing days and skills.

What does this WC promise. I think there will be two rising stars. I am going purely by their current club form and they are the most impressive youngsters.



Of course our man, Ronaldinho will be surely mentioned in the same breath as previous four WC heroes after this WC.


There was this black and white quarterfinal match, forgot which year between Brazil and England. Brazil finally win the match quite convincingly and the commentator says " Brazil go through to the semis and England back home". Such a simple sentence but hits you hard, if you are an English supporter, such is the beauty of this sport. I sometimes wish India could play as good as the Europeans and we could cheer our team in a world cup match.

Narmada Bachao Andolan: A recap

• Narmada Bachao Andolan has been active for around two decades now. But that has not stopped planners from increasing the height of the Sardar Sarovar Dam.
• Of the 30 large dams planned on river Narmada, Sardar Sarovar is the largest. With a proposed height of 136.5 m, it's also high on discord between the planners and the Narmada Bachao Andolan.
• The government claims the multi-purpose project will irrigate more than 1.8 million hectares - most of it in drought prone areas like - Kutch and Saurashtra.
• But Sardar Sarovar spells doom for close to three lakh twenty thousand people, mostly tribals who'll get displaced. The state government had promised to rehabilitate these people, but it's failed to do so. And despite that, the height of the dam has been increased several times in recent years.
• In February 1999, the Supreme Court gave the go ahead for the dam's height to be raised to 88 metres from the initial 80.
• In October 2000 again, in a 2 to 1 majority judgement in the Supreme Court, the government was allowed to construct the dam upto 90 metres.
• Then in May 2002, the Narmada Control Authority approved increasing the height of the dam by another five metres.
• And a couple of years later, in March 2004, the authority allowed another raise - this time to 110metres.
• Now the most recent move in March 2006, the Narmada Control Authority gave clearance for the height of the dam to be increased from 110.64 metres to 121.92.
• It was after this last judgement that protestors gathered in the capital and activist Medha Patkar went on an indefinite hunger.

Role Models

NBA is very popular in India. Guys stay awake to watch the game and keep track of the playoffs. I just hope that this generation also reads and understands something about the other NBA too - Narmada Bachao Andolan.

This NBA has been one of the longest non-violent movements in India. You do not have to go to Gujarat to find out or understand the reality of the situation. Now it has gained prominence in the media because Medha Patkar went on a hunger-strike. Our government as usual will have excuses to give for not rehabilitating an entire village. Otherwse how can they make their 1% in the whole deal.


Amir Khan and Rahul Bose have also supported the cause and Khan had to come in for a lot of stick for his endorsement of Coke. Lets see how he reacts to the situation. The only Sportsperson who I remember turning down an endorsement for the Colas is Pullela Gopi Chand and the only Actor in India who did something similar is Mammooty.

~Sujith

P.S. Another interesting read would be this very rare Amir interview in Tehelka

Mourning Leftovers

This is my office...

An insecure city, Demi gods in South India

When I left office on wednesday hearing the news of the death of Rajkumar, the first thing that came to my mind was 2001 RECT, when Veerapan had kidnapped the same person and for one week or so no companies from Bangalore came down for placement. As I got off near my house and walked towards the apartment, I realised that I was in for some hard time. All the shops and restaurants near Ramaiah college were shut down. The 2 petrol pumps in that area were closed. People were there on the roads, heading home as if some cylcone was going to hit the city.

Half an hour inside my apartment I realised that I do not have anything to eat. Just a bottle of mineral water was too little for 2 days. A friend was willing to give me Maggi. Then I thought the best thing to do is take a rickshaw and go to my friend's place in Indira Nagar. Atleast he stocks food and I would have some company for the next 2 days, if it gets that bad. So there I was in Indira Nagar after paying twaice the meter charge. Also on the way picked up a family pack of Maggi and some biscuits.

Around 1 AM in the middle of an Arsenal Portsmouth match the sports channel conked off. Some channel surfing made us realise that only the news channels are working. Blame it on the Rajkumar factor. Thank god there is braodband connections in this world.

The TV channels said all the shops closed down due to respect for Dr. Rajkumar (he is basically a third standard passout I guess). The real reason being that people were forced to close down due to the fans pressurising them to do so. There were these youngsters on the bikes, parked in the middle of the road, with Karnataka flags in hand and shouting slogans for Rajkumar. Police was not there to help these merchants open and operate shop. A good percentage of the population are working bachelors and how many of the would have stocked food, god only knows. Shivaji Nagar area, which is a muslim-dominated area in Bangalore functioned without any disturbance, these 2 days it seems.

Now why would a film star command so much respect in this state. After all he had acted in only 200 movies. Prem Nazir has acted in more than 600 movies in Malayalam and when he died, I dont think anything like this ever happened. Lets forget that for a moment as in Malayalam, unlike the Tamil, Telugu and Kannada film history the bigger movie stars do not command any respect in the political circle. Well after all they are just actors and not politicians, who can run a state. Let take some examples

NTR, was the biggest of them all in Andhra Pradesh. He was just like Rajkumar, acted as the ideal man in most of his movies and later on moved to politics and was hugely popular. He was the chief minister and did a lot of good to his people. If he dies and there is public mourning and reactions, I can understand.

MGR in Tamil Nadu, commanded equal respect and his death also led to some paranoia in TN. But he was also the chief minister and did a lot of good for the state and its people. Rajnikant is the next in line for similar treatment. Everyone knows that he has a invisible presence in Tamil Nadu politics and has played an active part in some of the elections, through his movies or through his fan clubs. Another actor who was very famous and well respected was Sivaji Ganesan.

Lets not talk about Mallu movies. They either make sensible movies or porn and are equally accepted. But people know that movies are movies and politics is politics. You maystill show the photo of MGR and win elections in TN, but you cant do that in Kerala. Couple of the film stars who came in through the theatre movements in Kerala invariable support the Communists, like Murali, who fought elections in Allepey.

Now what is Rajkumar's contribution to Kannada. 200 movies and doesnt it stop there at that. He set up one of the best studios in Karnataka, paved the entry of his sons to tha Kannada movie industry. Otherwise what good has he done to the common man, other than acting in movies in which he plays the common man. Well sometimes, people have to be kept in thier place. Rajkumar was also chosen as the most popular person in CNN -IBN poll where he won hands down over, Rahul Dravid, Anil Kumble, Narayanmurthy etc etc.

Girish Karnad summed it up nicely in one of the news channels. He said this is the pent up emotions of the average Kannadiga coming out in the streets. The Kannadigas in Bangalore have been given a second class citizen status in their city and they wanted to prove a point to the outsiders that, if they want they can hold the entire city to ransom. Well nothing more to say, other than "Thank god Rajkumar died of a heart attack and not get killed by anyone/anything".

Kuttanad in black &white

A New Spirit in the Indian Team

The Indian One-day team has got something about it that makes them invincible. I know we have not played in Australia/NewZealand or SA or WI for that matter. But who cares as long as we have been winning consistently chasing targets. Something which was our undoing till some time back.

Youngsters like Pathan, Dhoni and now Raina have come in and showed maturity beyond their age. Yuvraj in the pinkest of form will be the man to watch out for if his form continues till 2007. I feel sad for Kaif, who somehow seems to have lost the plot. He was at one time the next-man-for-captain, but somehow seems like the next-man-out. ODI has reached a stage where scoring at more than 100% strike rate has become the norm. Kaif will lose out to guys like Yuvraj and Raina who can bowl a bit (if wanted to), field like Jonty, run between wickets like Bevan and score runs at more than a-run-a-ball. This is where Kaif will lose out. He somehow always used to miss out on hitting fours and sixes at will.

Whatever they say about the conditions favouring India in the last 2-3 tours, I think we have the right attitude now to win in any condition.

Arsenal thru to Champions League semis for the first time

Allapuzha Back Waters

God's Own Country, Devil's Own People

"There was no space in hell, so we came back - FUMS".

This is what was (is) written on the blue cupboard in room no 5, Agate Hostel. FUMS stands for F@#$%d Up Mallus, thats what we the 2001 batch called ourselves. Well this arrogance you can see in most of the Mallus, whichever part of the globe you find them. Be it a Mallu living in Kannanmoola or Koramangala, in New Jersey or Tripunithara New Town (if there is somethign like that). They carry this air of being the most notorious as well as the most well-heeled section of the society they live in.

It is true that there is no rural area in Kerala, every adult in this state can write and read, the most number of Skodas get sold in this state, in human development index the parameters are comparable with any developed European country etc etc. But so does the state top in suicide rate, educated unemployed people and most number of people suffering from mental illness etc etc. Somehow the positives outweigh the negatives.

I have not seen a more politically motivated state. Now being the election time, there are news floating thick and fast on the latest controversies, scandals, seat adjustments, chat show with your area candidate etc etc. My family has an inclination towards the left and though I criticise them at home, I wuld prefer the LDF to win than the UDF. At home I have heard the latest crtitcism of the incumbent Chief Minister, be it his policies or him secretly fillinh his Swiss bank accounts with Treasury money. This is an interesting case of some really non-political way fighting elections. The lady in question is a firebrand SFI activist who got injured in the police attack against students last year. She was the face of that protest.

And to top it I went and saw a political movie in the afternoon. Had gone to see another movie, saw the crowd outside and decided to see a movie in more peaceful surroundings. And I dont rememeber how many political movies I would have seen in Malayalam with some reference to the current political scenario in the state. Most of the actors have brought to life a lot of characters from the political scenario. I have see a lot of movies with the heroes being the brave Communists and the villains the British or the corrupt Congress. I wonder why there are no movies with any Congress hero!!! My favourite political movie in Mallu is still "Lal Salaam", with Mohanlal playing the character of Netturan.

I think education can be linked to awareness and that is proportional to the news-saviness of this state. I have not seen people in any other state discussing Politics and Football in tea shops, trying to watch the 6PM, 9 PM and 12 Midnite news of 2-3 different channels. I want to vote in this election and this would be the first time I would be participating in the election process of my country. I wonder why they have postal ballots only for the Military. A good percentage of the educated youngsters in this counry are not in their home-state/city and hence lose out on voting.

Lal Salaam.

Few days in Trivandrum

Well, I am in Trivandrum for the last 2 days and would be here for a couple more. Lots of things happened in the last 2 days. To be brief

• Mummy retired as a teacher on 31st. So there was this small tea-party thrown to some 30 odd teachers who came over to our home. We have decided to call her "Teacher" from now on so that she doesnt miss her school and students
• It was also my Birthday and for a change I had some 30 odd teachers singing "happy birthday", while I cut the cake. Couple of friends came home and had the snacks for dinner
• Today went to a place called Allepey/Allapuzha, better known as the Venice of the East. It has a lot of waterways and houseboats. So we hired one for the day and what a time we had. The pictures will be uploaded soon and I am sure after that each one of you would plan to spend a day/nite on the house boat.

So come back here in a day or two to see the pics

Indian Coffee House - An Old World Charm

I usually get a lift to office from a colleague of mine. So I walk all the way from Commercial Street to the entrance of Brigade road and get picked up from in front of Cauvery Handicrafts at about 8:10 AM. So today I was waiting at the same place when I get a call from the colleague saying that the car has had a puncture and will take atleast half an hour to reach MG Road.

So I decided to walk down Brigade road and see if some place is open where I can do some timepass. I realised that when you take a walk on that road when nothing is open, you do notice a lot of shops, which you would have missed on a crowded friday evening. But I was surprised to see a "Kohinoor Restaurant" on Brigade road. It is so shabby that I really didnt want to taste the coffee there. And you wouldnt believe it, there is no newspaper vendor also anywhere.

So I decided to take a walk on MG road towards Kumble circle. Luckily for me, the Deccan Herald office there sells Deccan Herald on MG road. So newspaper problem solved, but where do I sit/ stand and read it. I keep walking till I see Indian Coffee House. The door was closed. And somehow I thought they opened early morning. But then, one person, just pulled open the door and went in. That is when I realised that they were allowing people in. So I too enter the hotel to find atleast 4 tables occupied with people reading newspapers and no tea/coffee served.



It was 8:15 AM. Most of the people were old and were deeply immersed in their newspapers. I take the table next to the big, wide window overlooking the MG road. After some time an old man comes and sits on the other side of my table, though there were some 4-5 tables that were unoccupied! He gave me some suspicious, I-have-not-seen-you-here-before looks. That is when I realised that maybe he was a regular customer and this is his usual table and I am the one who is encroaching. We sat on the same table without talking to each other but exchanging smiles.

That is when I started noticing the crowd coming into ICH. A chauffeur driven car stops and a couple in their thirties come in for break fast. A old red kinetic honda parks on the side and two girls in khader, with jute bags come in. The old man orders egg sandwich and I ask for tea. The walls have not been given a new coat of blue for I dont know how many years. The wooden panelling has come off at most places. I see that the footpath outside has the same mosaic pattern as the inside.

After I read India's heroic exploits in the common wealth games and the pathetic display in Mumbai, my coffee is over and I get a call from my colleague. Time to gte back to the real world. For some time I was living life in slow motion.

Grenade & Ram Mohammad Thomas

The picture is of a grenade, cut into half.

The place where I am currently put up, is owned by a retd. Colonel. The other half of the grenade is with a jawan who saved all their lives by throwing back a grenade at the LTTE attackers in Sri Lanka.

It sits proudly as a table top in his office.

Reading a book called "Q & A", by Vikas Swarup. Tight read hai. The lead character is called Ram Mohammad Thomas and he has just won one billion ruppees in a TV show. The TV producers think he has cheated (more to do with their inability to pay so much right now), he thinks he got lucky because they asked him 12 questions, whose answers were known to him. How and why is what the book is all about.

Mumbai - another view

Welcome to Mumbai

The Premier Padmini Taxi, decorated and lighted very well, playing the AIR commentary on the ongoing Test match


The Movie Capital boasts of many multiplexes, this is one of the 2 completed ones in Thane. A lot of my weekends have been spent here

The much talked and discussed about Mill Lands in Central Mumbai. There was a mill there the last time I passed by...

And what Mumbai without Vada Paav...this small Tapri was a hotspot during my NPIL days