A weekend in truly God’s own Country

It’s now been a few months in Kerala – God’s own country and Rekha and I have visited a few places, the same I have blogged earlier. The last trip we did was to the Travancore Heritage a resort about 30 Kms from Trivandrum.

Let me start saying ‘WOW’ – what a wonderful and blissful experience it was. First the rates we paid were off –season and then got a corporate rate as well and it was still expensive in my terms. But got to give to the resort, that the price tag was just peanuts for the solace and bliss we got out just being out there for a day and night. To give a bit of the resort – it is perched on a 50 metre high cliff and you would need to take the elevator, which is within the cliff to go down to hit the beach.

We reached Travancore Heritage at about 4 p.m. on Saturday afternoon (we had booked for a late check in and out) to be welcomed with some, Kerala style Tender coconut. You may feel, so what ?, but what got my attention was the way they had cut the coconut, its bottom, basically that the coconut could rest on the table. A first time view of such a creative way to cut a tender coconut. Then we were escorted to our cottage – I had especially asked for one facing the ocean. I was stunned immediately as we reached out cottage, for, the view of the ocean was not only breath taking but truly out of this world, absolutely spectacular.

Usually, my experience of resorts have been such that, there is nature all around you, but the cottage or your logout you lodge into is pretty posh and in tune with the luxury. But this resort and their cottages are different. The cottages are truly built and furnished to ensure the interiors are in sync with the nature and the environment that you are in. The best about the cottage I liked was the bathroom. A quarter of it is open, allowing the sun to penetrate into the toilet, keeping it fresh, thanks to the wind and the sun. The best part is that, when it rains you can shower under the best water available in this planet.

We checked in, refreshed and hit the beach to feel the ocean waters. The sea was rough and waves high, but we really enjoyed ourselves for about an hour. We returned to our cottage and spent the evening sitting out on the verandah facing the sea and watching the sunset and the high waves splashing the shores. The sound of the waves, the noises the insects were making and the absolute still silence in the resort truly moved us closer to nature. This spell of a few hours, surely rejuvenated me from the hectic work life I was going through the last few weeks and am sure as for Rekha, helped her to throw out her frustration of being lonely at home by being one with nature. We proceeded for dinner and as in all resorts the buffet spread was lavish. We indulged into the spread and hit the sack to the comfort of a noisy air-conditioner.

The next day was a stroll around the resort, enjoy the environment, take a few snaps and then the lunch, which in my opinion was better than the dinner and that we missed the breakfast, the food was really melting into our mouths. We then rested ourselves onto the hammocks, like how a python would do after its meal. Just being still on the hammock with the noise of the waves and the cool green surrounding, I wanted this experience to continue non stop. But as all things come to an end, we had to check out and drive home. We reached our lovely home close to dusk to end a wonderful weekend. I would say this probably has been the best experience so far, that I have had in Kerala.

the Photos of the trip can be accessed from this link http://picasaweb.google.com/askpriyesh/TravancoreHeritage18July09#

Frisking of Kalam – Is it a ‘Salam’ or an ‘Alarm’

This blog has been sometime coming thanks to the overload of work suddenly.

Let me build the context, which most of you would have already read about in the Newspaper’s or seen it on television – today, all the news channel just need ‘any’ story to run through a week of programs. The news channels are really becoming an absolute no brainer, with dead stories. Mr. Abdul Kalam, the erstwhile President of our country was frisked by an American Airline on Indian Shores.

So what – this is one of way looking at this issue. He is like any other traveller for the airline and as per the norms of the airline they frisked him. But for god damn – he was the ‘President’ of this country, the highest office in the country, though we all know it’s just a rubber stamp, so what ? I would have not bothered if it was any other Babu in his place, but lets give it to Mr. Kalam as everyone knows, how different he was / is to all the other Babu’s who run our country. This man is a genius and what has he not done for this country’s scientific movement and this is the reason for me write about him and the issue into a blog.

In India, if we receive a head of a state of any other country we drive through into the tarmac to receive them. So is it not basic to underestimate the treatment Kalam received. Also, lets be realistic to the fact that, the airline was just being American in their approach – so rigid and do not care attitude that they posses, that they feel there exists no other country apart from the states. Man !, he was escorted by jawans and is that not evident that he is a VIP in this country. Also please explain to the world the ignorance of the staff in the airline not only, in not identifying the VIP (Cause all Babu’s have this clout – will even give this to the airline) but not identifying the ex president, who sports a rock star hair style which is so identifiable or Kalam – able.

Having said all this, what was the aviation ministry doing about it – did not disclose this issue for more than a few months after the incident had happened. Then it woke up to ‘SALAM’, ‘Kalam’ and Babu’s on the issue and created a huge furore. The timing of this furore has been perfect, especially looking at the restructuring of the national carrier and the bail out issue of 20000 crores hanging like the Damocles sword over the ministry. Praful Patel has always been a shrewd player, and his timing on this one has been perfect. The public suddenly have turned their attention to the Kalam issue and we only see Praful delivering interviews on this issue and the TV channels have forgotten about Air India. The choice to ‘Salam’ was brilliantly executed.

Over and above all this, there is an underlying issue which the media certainly have not picked up in detail. Sitaram Yechury made a statement in the parliament – ‘he stated that Kalam’s name resembles one of a Muslim and that could be a reason for his frisking’. A very valid point considering the fear with which the Americans live with respect to the Muslim world. Irrespective of Obama embracing the Muslim world through his speeches across and in the Middle East this fear will linger long. The American airline could have very well done the frisking on the same basis, the basis called fear. If this is the case --- then we are in real trouble in India.

The simple fact that India boasts more Muslim’s in a country outside the Islamic world and the instance of frisking every Muslim traveller is astonishingly idiotic.

This certainly is the ‘ALARM’ India needs to wake up to and look at this issue with a microscopic eye and dig into the context of the airline frisking Kalam.

Whatever said and done and written by me, this fiasco is a certain grey mark on the aviation industry and more on the aviation ministry.

Please for heaven’s sake give some respect the seal of the country, the head of the nation and the seat called the ‘President of India’.

Recession – (foot) Balls to you

Final sequel to Champions -- Game Changers

Nothing derogatory about the heading, but pure play economics that is making even the shrewdest of businessmen look ordinary and their company’s balance sheet even worse. Let me throw some figures that have been paid to some footballers in the last few weeks. £80 million was the amount paid by Real Madrid the Spanish football club to buy Christiano Ronaldo from Manchester United. Close to £50 million paid by the same club to buy the Brazilian footballer Kaka. Where is recession, I can’t even smell it.

Ronaldo was voted the best English Footballer, the Best European footballer and the World footballer of the year, all three in the same year in 2008. The record transfer makes him the richest transfer in footballing history and has certainly changed the rules of the game, in context to what a player need to be paid for a transfer from another club. Mind it, he does not get even a penny for the deal and all the money goes to his older club. So what does he get – rumours are that he might be paid upto £ 3, 00,000 a week plus bonuses and please don’t forget the bucks he makes from endorsements. Let me do some math for you and convert them into Indian rupees. Real Madrid paid a whopping 640 crore rupees to buy him from Manchester United and pays him a salary of 2.5 crore rupees a week to play for them. Another news I read today that an English club, owned by Arabs were willing to pay an English footballer £4, 00,000 a week if his transfer deal goes through.

The amount Real Madrid have so far spent in the transfer window this year alone is £200 million, translating into 1600 crore rupees. The recently opened Worli sea link in Mumbai was built on a budget of 1300 crore rupees – Man!!, no wonder we are a poor country. We can’t even spend money on our infrastructure, in comparison to the money that gets spent buying football players in Europe.

Children across the globe want to become a Ronaldo or a Kaka, fanatics rush into stadiums to watch their games, TV viewership is astounding, the memorabilia sales of their clubs are unbelievable and all this because they are true champions. To add to this, I try and watch every Manchester United game, am a true fan you see (There is a saying in England – ‘You can even divorce your wife, but do not change the club you support’) and I have even bought memorabilia of the top 4 footballing clubs in England.

Mind blowing how champions become game changers in their field and influence the Junta.

Champions – Game Changers

This blog is a sequel to the previous one.

In the last one we read about Roger Federer, his successful and illustrious career and how difficult it is to decipher the functionality of a champion’s brain. In this blog let’s look at individual superstars from a team game and how they have changed the game on its head, both from a fanaticism and a financial stand point.

Ideally like any Indian am starting from cricket and certainly my favourite Sachin Tendulkar. All of you reading this blog know, how cricket in an undefined religion and one religion that unites this glorious country. Till the beginning of the nineties, crickets was just a game and only if you had the real talent were you allowed to play the game against education in India. The majority of the cricketers came from north India and the big towns and majorly dominated by, then Bombay. Education was always first to the middle class Indian, than cricket till a little wonder, a genius called Tendulkar arrived onto the big stage from the same cricketing city – Bombay.

He then really turned the rules of the game and is certainly, one big game changer not only for cricket in India but for Cricket and cricketers across the globe. His genius and his game, not only got him fame but financials the sport never imagined. If my memory serves me right, transworld international a sports consultancy headed by the lat Mark Mascarehnas signed him up for a record 960 crores, for a 5 year deal in the mid nineties. He pulled in crowds to the stadiums, TV viewership sky rocketed (Thanks to Cable TV) and the BCCI were raking in the moolah. Not that India was winning every major tournament, infact they won hardly a handful, but he re-christened a sport once called the gentleman’s game – more a pass time sport created by the royal English, to one where you had to compete to be the best, which helped to cash in for sure. The prize money of matches grew significantly and what, the victorious world cup winning Indian team made, was now being paid for Ranji trophy matches. Middle class families in India looked at an opportunity to push their boys into the sport and spend on them, and education, was now not the real front runner it used to be, at least when compared to the eighties. Boys just wanted to be a Tendulkar, parents wanted the moolah and viewers now want entertainment, thanks to T20 rather than cricket. Even if you hate him, you must salute this genius for changing the game to what it is today.

He certainly is a champion in my book.

In the next blog you will have a feel into international Club Football and what champions are made of.

Champions – Winners and Game Changers

Champions – the word resurrects and resonates POWER. The intent of this blog is look at how difficult it is to interpret what champions are made of and what could be inside their head, which separates them from the ordinary. The field am taking on in this blog in is international sport – an area of keen interest to me.

Let’s start with the latest headline to hit the sport’s fraternity – Tennis and Wimbledon. By the time this blog hits your mailbox, am certain you would have read about the remarkable win, Roger Federer had last night in the Wimbledon men’s finals beating Roddick. The win catapults him back to world No. 1 which he had for a consecutive 250 weeks plus – phenomenal for any individual. But that alone does not make him great, but to win 15 single’s men’s grand slams, making him the only one to achieve this feat makes him the greatest. This feat was achieved in front some of the best tennis stars the game has ever witnessed, for the likes of Sampras, Borg, Laver, Becker, Edberg and others, and in front of superstars of other sports like, Sachin Tendulkar, Micheal Ballack – the German football captain and Chelsea Midfielder and of course Sir Alex Ferguson of Manchester United.

So what makes Federer the champion? Books have been written trying to decipher what’s inside a champion’s mind, millions of analyses have gone into find the functioning of the brain, of a champion, but none have arrived with a true cut answer – we know how infinite and miraculous the human brain can be. Let me relate to a book I had read called ‘BLINK’, by Malcolm Gladwell, where the author through significant different researches tries to find an answer to the question we are talking about. He talks about how successful ‘SNAP’ judgements, made by human beings are, in comparison to the one’s we logically arrive at. Let me illustrate this with an example from a lay man’s life – do we logically probe ourselves before we propose to guy or a gal, its instinctive and that what blink is all about. To put the same into perspective, with respect to last night’s match, Roddick flinched twice – leading 6-2 in the second set tie breaker, allowing Federer to win the set and last game of the match. Both time Federer blinked to be successful. The second set win nearly demoralised Roddick out of the match. He was nearly mentally disintegrated by Federer’s play. Mental disintegration – a term very synonymous with the Australian cricket team and Steve Waugh.

Commentators and analysts often speak about the champion’s self belief in his abilities and self confidence. Let me throw something at you, totally out of the box, for you to chew – I believe, self belief in one’s own abilities, comes from not succumbing to one’s fear of failures, which is a direct relationship of being in the present and not relating to past events of one’s life. We have often heard commentators state a player being “In the Zone” – what does that mean? In pure terms, one being with oneself in that very moment of life as life happens, and not even contemplating a nano second about the past or the future.

Now let’s look at self confidence. It’s totally the reverse of what you just read. Self confidence arises from the fact that you had done a good job of the same event in the past. Putting it into perspective, Federer’s confidence arises from the number of wins he has had under his belt in the past years and hours of practise he has put in. It’s so paradoxical that, even ontology can be given a run. But to look deeper, we can argue that self confidence come from looking at the abilities that you have versus the task you have to render. If you look carefully, I have not used the word capability, as, this word arises from the comparison of your abilities to either your own past, or with a friend, a peer, a relative etc. So capability becomes an evil and does not allow you to be in the present or be in your zone, but be in the zone you are comparing yourself with.

So when we can’t decipher on how a champion illustrates his self belief or confidence or for, matter of fact, we can’t decipher the ideal meaning of self belief and self confidence how are we going to look into the functioning of a champion’s brain.

The struggle into this investigation continues and champions keep arising every moment.

The next blog will look at how these champions become game changers.

Kerala – The Monsoon has certainly arrived

It’s been a few weeks since the met department had signed off the arrival of the monsoon into Kerala, but I believe it was not until a few days earlier that the impact is being felt. There are two things about a monsoon. First is a no brainer – rains and thus cooling the temperature around you and giving a boost to the ecological and economic environment. The second is what am going to blog – the experience.

Monsoons are caused by the larger amplitude of the seasonal cycle of land temperature compared to that of nearby oceans. Strengthening of the Asian monsoon has been linked to the uplift of the Tibetan Plateau after the collision of India and Asia around 50 million years ago. Timing of the monsoon strengthening of the Indian Monsoon of around 5 million years ago was suggested due to an interval of closing of the Indonesian Seaway to cold thermocline waters passage from the Pacific to the Indian Ocean which is believed to have resulted in an increased sea surface temperature in the Indian Ocean. I guess this defines what a monsoon is and why it occurs on the Indian Ocean. To read in-depth about monsoons, you can visit the following website – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monsoon.

It’s been a couple days since the rain has been constant and persistent, cooling the temperature and killing the humidity, allowing the inner temperature of your body to be constant and certainly keeping your mind calm. You might be thinking, I have lost it – Keeping your mind calm. The answer is yes, thanks to the serenity and the tranquility, the experience created by the rain when it falls and hits the ground over gods own country.

Let me share the wonderful experience I had this morning driving to work. Trust me, I have not had this pleasure so far – especially while driving to work. It certainly was overcast as I drove out my parking lot, of my flat complex heading towards NH 4, the driveway to work. As it should be, it started to drizzle, softly, quietly and so non-chalantly that the wipers in the car were not required but surely the petrichor certainly was filling up my nasals. The sky turned grey from white or light sky blue and within seconds opened up to what was now a downpour. I hit the junction on NH 4 to turn right towards technopark (You can’t define it as a techno – park), the climate around turned really grey and started moving towards shades of black, rain cluttering on your windshield, but the surrounding, reverberating with pastures of green. The green on either side of the road covered the surrounding, allowing the road to reflect the water droplets so prominently that you’re ‘wowed’ into a different world. It felt like the pathway to heaven opened with a black shiny carpet, interiored with greens on the side and grey on the top.

By the time I feel and experience this, the green disappears for a while exposing the greyed sky, fuming out water from the top as if the shower in a bath was broken and I suddenly feel I just walked out of a closed entity or more so a confinement. This experience is so scintillating, it can’t be written. With this experience, I can’t hear the honking trucks, feel the headlights penetrating my eyes from oncoming vehicles (remember it is dark that we need to switch our headlights on, though it is half nine in the morning), the illogical traffic sense (if there is one and sense in the right direction) of my way riders that usually make me fume and sweat even inside an air-conditioned car. It’s an exhilarating experience.

As I soak in the experience and feel the aura of the monsoon around me, I reach the gates of technopark. Technopark is just a name for all the companies situated inside, but ,no where is it close even to resembling one, especially if you come from the IT capital or other IT hubs of this country, where you can see yourself off any building as they are all concrete jungles built with glass all around them, that Saint Gobain would be proud of them. Once you enter the technopark, unless you drive into the side lanes where the buildings are located, you would have no sign of glass till you drive deep into the park to locate the other buildings. And even then there does not exist a building that boasts of only glassed environment that makes you feel that you are a specimen in a lab bottle or a worm in a tequila bottle.

The park itself is simmering green and nature is shining through, thanks to the pelting rain. The environment feels clean, smells green and you feel like a man wearing pure white that you actually don’t feel anything but yourself and the feeling of being one with Mother Nature. All dreams end when you wake and so does this experience as I turn in my car to a parking lot to get to work. The experience had to come to an end, but will live with me for ever and will be synonym with Kerala.

Michael Jackson – An ode to a Maverick

MJ as he was fondly called is a true reminiscence of my childhood. As I grew up in the early 80’s and 90’s, the only thought of western music would always be MJ, the album thriller or his poster with BAD written on it. Be it for my generation or the previous or the one immediately after me, he was next to god (Not taking it away from the other generations). He revolutionised music from the western world. We had no Google to understand the different genres of music or torrent to download. We never grew up with trance, lounge or remixes. All said POP was the in thing and we were often reprimanded verbally from the elder members of the family for listening to them, as they were bad western influences. (Today majority of the things we do, wear or talk is western. For e.g. you are reading a blog, my blog, A blog is a western idea, the internet is a western technology, I can go on …)

Un-till the mid 90’s, till MTV came in through cable television, atleast I had no clue of what was POP, Metal, Heavy Metal was or even the other bands, singers, musician etc. MJ was my king of that world called English music. English music meant the music from the movie the ‘The Sound of Music’. No exposure at all till the King arrived. I still remember trying my best to save 30 rupees to by the BAD album. It was an era where you had to listen to MJ to be socially – the happening kid. Listening to Illayaraja or RD Burman, you were termed too Indian and not acclimatising to the western culture and you would be left out – peer pressure.

Who can forget the man who created break dance for us, I can call him “the father of Break Dance” as I saw him first doing those inordinate dance steps. Can you forget the man who caught his crotch, so often, publically, that you would be embarrassed to the hilt and that’s not all, would then shriek his lungs out holding on to them as if he was committing hara-kiri. Man!!!, he created a cult – don’t know what, but a culture that changed the world. Can we forget him doing his famous moonwalk – the smooth movement of his body backwards that stunned viewers globally and we were all in awe of something stupendous. Men and women would cry out loud at every instance of spotting him, he was god to him.

Haven’t the world copied many a dance step from him. The Indians too did it and we did not miss even this opportunity to copy and wasn’t an era where we had to copy the western side of this globe to most of what we wanted to do in life. Don’t we remember Javed Jaffrey, Anand Babu (The Tamil movie dancer, son of actor Nagesh who had returned from the USA and created ripples with his dance) and the so called ‘The dancer of Indian Cinema’ Prabhu Deva – who was slated as India’s answer to MJ and break dance. WOW what nostalgia this man’s demise has brought forth to me – my childhood.

Am not going to write the negatives or the so called scandals, because we have read this in the past and will read it again and again in the present and the future. But we got to give this man the due respect of being a genius, a maverick and creator of a genre of music and dance that is distinct to MJ, that the world revelled on it and will never let it die.

He ‘thrill(er)’ed us with his music, he ‘beat it’, he wanted the to ‘heal the world’, wanted the ‘Bad’ and ‘Dangerous’ things to end, no ‘blood anywhere not even on the Dance floor’. He did not want any ‘Smooth Criminal’ or even a ‘Stranger in Moscow’ and all he wanted was one world – ‘We are the World’.He and his music and his life will be penned in ‘Black and White’ into the books of ‘History’. Let his soul Rest in Peace. We will miss you MJ and we will “Remember the time”.