Wednesday, April 14, 2010

IPL III - CSK vs RCB

IPL III is beautifully poised, with five teams at 12 points after 12 matches. Lalit Modi should be a happy man, since his plan has worked out well. So it is going to be a tough fight from here. Leaving all those stuffs behind, IPL does provide some enjoyment. We had gone for the match here in Bangalore. As usual it was the CSK vs RCB match on March 23, and as usual, we were there as CSK supporters.

After a bit of delay, we got settled there. This time it was a lot different from IPL I. RCB was doing good and there were so many supporters for RCB. We were like an island surrounded by RCB supporters, tough task for us actually. And unfortunately, Dhoni was also missing in the match due to injury. Raina won the toss and called Bangalore to bat, the decision we were not happy with. We still follow the street cricket rules, the team winning the toss should bat first.

Anyway the match started with some CSK domination. CSK bowled well picked up quick wickets and match was in control til the 17th over. So till the 17th over, we got opportunity to shout and keep ourselves happy. After 17th over we were at the receiving end. RCB fans in the row behind us were shouting in our ears when Uthappa's shot cleared boundary line. But it was still interesting than sitting in home and watching the match alone.

We expected some fun in Chennai batting. Expectation that Hayden would fire, backfired as Hayden just kept switching between normal bat and mongoose bat. And Man of the match Bailey, showed his skill as very good test batsman. Thanks to Shyam, who came up with the idea of calling everything as "Idea batting", "Idea bowling", "Idea fielding" for all of CSK's mistakes. Back row, RCB fans, should have wondered what we are upto. We just wanted some entertainment :) Anyway after some time RRR was too high and wickets were falling. We knew, its time to leave and we left in the 15th over. Soon the celebration of the RCB fan, announced us the results. Thanks to whoever responsible for arranging all the BMTC buses, soon we caught a bus and went home, discussing whether IPL is fixed or not. And most important thing, White mischief, the cheer leaders of RCB were dancing a little away from us and it was good :P

This time the crowd included DP, Eric, Shyam, Musi and Myself. In IPL, we cant blame a team, because it is not in their hands. It doesn't matter how a team plays, when it is money that is actually playing. Lets see what Modi has in mind for CSK. My teammate's prediction was that CSK will reach semis, since both the semis are in Bangalore and CSK has some support here in Bangalore. Lets see how it gos.

Monday, April 05, 2010

Yercaud Trek

Anyway we reached Salem at around 4.45 AM. Rengasamy, who travels to Salem every weekend. He quickly took us to a coffee shop where we had a good Tea. And then the otherAfter a long long time, once again we went on a trekking trip. The trip was to Yercaud near Salem in Tamilnadu. We started at around 00.00AM from Bangalore and the crowd from Bangalore included, Musi, Pramod, DP, Eric, Rengasamy and myself. What could have been a peaceful journey was disturbed by Illaiya thalapathi's movie, Sivakasi, where there were only punch dialogues and sentimental mokkais. Whenever i travel in TNSTC buses, i get to see only Sivakasi, Thirupaachi or Thamiraparani or some Ajith movie and not even one good movie. Probably a trick used by state govt to keep the drivers awake.

Whatever it is we reached Salem at around 4.45 AM. Rengasamy, who travels to Salem every weekend. He quickly took us to a coffee shop where we had a good Tea. And then the other people, Yousuf and Dhilip joined us in Salem. Boarded the bus that would take us to the "Adivaram" where the trekking is supposed to start. After 15 minutes of journey we started the trek.

The trek started exactly at 7.00AM. The weather was ok at that time, and think we had a lot of energy. So we climbed at a faster pace. First wicket to go down was Musi, who had lost all the energy after 30 minutes of walk. After some rest, the trek continued. Summer had just started and we could already feel the heat. With occassional rests the trip continued. We entered the estates around 9.30AM. The silver oak trees, and the coffee plants looked a little pleasant. We continued our trek through the estates and at around 10.00 AM the heat became unbearable. Musi developed a sprain in his legs, thankfully we had the pain killer. At around 12.00 we completed the trek at Ladies point, where we gulped some watermelon and pineapples. Funny part is we had eaten watermelon and pineapple for around 200 Rs.

Yousuf, had arranged for a car to travel to the resort, "Enchanting woods or E woods"  where we stayed. He is actually the owner of the resort. The resort has the caption, "Just do Nothing". It was true, after reaching the resort, we did nothing :) The resort was wondeful, in particular the food was awesome. Yousuf who had designed the rooms has done it a lot carefully. When we reached the resort lunch was ready, with rice, sambhar, rasam, fish fry, omlette and papad. After a fantastic meal, all the tired souls rested in peace, with only Deivapalan's dinosaurus snores disturbing the silent atmosphere. By evening the sleep had given us a lot of energy and we decided to burn some calories playing cricket.

After cricket it was time for some barbeque. Yousuf had arranged for a barbecues and we feasted on Chicken barbecue and Musi the only veg guy munched on the veg barbecue made of cauliflower, potato and onion. After that we had dinner too !!! Parotta and Chappathi, with fish gravy was awesome. Yercaud which was annoyingly hot in the morning was pleasingly cool in the evening. Few brave guys like Pramod, Eric and Yousuf decided to sleep outside, willing to bare the cold. I stayed there for a while watching the stars and talking about some stuffs which i am not able to recollect now.

Next day once again we started with Cricket. Street cricket has weird rules, Pramod made it a lot weirder by introducing -ve runs whenever we lose our wicket. In between  had breakfast of bread, panniyaram, omlette, mango jam. Yousuf also demonstrated how to prepare coffee from the coffee seeds. After that continued with game of cricket, took bath, had good lunch of chicken, jeera rice, egg etc. Wanted to catch the SETC UD bus from salem to Bangalore. Could catch that without issues. In Salem, got parotta parcelled for dinner from the infamous Selvi Mess and it proved to be a little too spicy requiring around 2 litres of water for 2 parottas.

Forgetting the hot weather at Yercaud, it is a memorable trip once again.

P.S. - Had presses Ctrl+x Ctrl + s few times in Emacs, which actually posted it in the blog. Sorry if your feed nad got messed up..