Wednesday, March 23, 2005

What's there for F1 in Narain?

Well i pondered over why Narain got his break into F1 all of a sudden. well is it really that managers saw his potential only now or what??? where were they all these years? The same person who raced along with Jenson Button the year previous to Button's entry into F1 was four years late even though he was only a few points below button in that formula 3000 series...Why then did he receive this offer now???

Well economic reasons obviously buddy...the viewership for F1 in India is on the rise and India is no more the dull market it used to be. It has people who have more disposable income than before. Meaning that people are graduating from just motorcycles to cars and what better place to showcase your car's engineering skill and what not of your car than in F1, the show business of automobiles. Narain is the right vehicle for them. The day of the first race, all the media had a dedicated section on the rules of f1, the teams, the drivers and what not of the f1. Every media wanted a piece of f1 news. Schumacher became an overnight household name in India if he was not already one. We even learned about the new legislation on having the national flag on your sporting wear. This issue did not gain much focus even through cricket (everyone easily recalls Sachin's headgear having the national flag. However no one noticed the flag's absence until the issue of Narain, should not wear his normal helmet which has the tricolour on it, sprang up).

Also F1, facing a lot of problems related to banning of tobacco advertisements in European countries, is looking for venues in Asia where the legislations are not that strict for tobacco advertisements. The fact that tobacco drives F1 is an undisputable one. Slowly the companies are looking for alternate sponsors is also true for very obvious reasons. This has reflected in the large number of races in Asia in the last decade - Japan, Malaysia, Bahrain, China. The last two were very recent additions. It might not be very long before we see a chinese driver!!! Sounds interestig ain't it???

Well now what is the point? Narain is into F1. we Indians are happy, the f1 managers are happy, everyone is happy. Make hay while the sun shines

Coorg - The Land Of Coffee-Part 2

Day 2 we hoped should go well.Our plan was to visit Abby Falls, Harangi Dam, Nisargadhama Wild life Park and Tibetan Monastery. We had decided the previous night to leave the room by 8am.

Paddy was watching movie until 5 in the morning and his "Apna Haath Jaganaath" was used thrice that night(atleast he claims to have, while mallu dolphin said it was not possible and our dilli friend says with a break of two hours it is possible ). well the masters know it better...The rest of us did not argue...Then at about 8 in the morning we moved to Abby falls...the walk frm the quolis to the falls through some plantation was very good...it was really a sight worth seeing.The falls from the river Madikeri was great and so was the hanging bridge there...however the place was so full of plastics...we just discussed how we spoil a lot of places (me included) Such pristine water until the water fell to the ground.Then it was dirty...May be we should do something about this.promote something called ecotourism perhaps...

Then a stupid guy came there to collect Rs15 for parking our car there...We did shell out and cursing him moved to the next place...On the way we stopped at a small hotel called "jeeths Hotel and started to order some food. I found something palatable, dosa. Karan being the adventurer he is, wanted onion pakoda and he liked it so much that he ordered three plates of it.Others went in for Bread Omelette (the hotelier who doubled as the waiter told hesitatingly that he had it and would prepare it). I finished my dosa and had a litl bit of pakoda while the rest waited for their bread omelette. Well the wait finally got over and bang came three plates of??? well bombay toast. that was okay to our guys and they had it. Even that was only ok. Well by the second round the chef (glorifying the cook there) mastered himself on preparing bombay toast...Shetty even remarked that from now on he would hae this as his today's special item. You never really know. Then we had to shell out Rs20 for each plate of this item...coz he was making it for the first time, he did not know the costing.

Very satisfied with the decent food(heaven compared to the last days dinner),we moved to Harangi dam. It was a long climb from the entrance to the dam...Well the climb was worth it...The water level was really only about 30% of the dam capacity and all of us discussed about how beautiful a sight it would be to see the sluize gates open. The dude from rajastan recalled his experience of watching the dam across chambal river open its sluize gates...Then the roomies, the cross country drunkard from kerala and Mittu, went down to the other side of the dam going to the water. They did not see that the steps stopped at the middle. Then they came up. PCP in shakila style and Karan in his very corporate style formals.

Then we walked back to the jeep and the Devta of the group recalled how fast the momeys in his hometown of Haldwani got over...He badly wanted to taste those as he was sure he would get it near the Tibetan Monastery, our next halt... but before that it was "Dharbooz" time again and this time the whole group went mad... It was great...We finished a full fruit...

We were awestruck by the distant view of the Tibetan Monastery in Kushalnagar, Coorg. It is an amazing architectural marvel. The inside prayer hall is truly one of the memorable places...Gold plated statues of Lord Buddha, and two other Gods revered by the Buddhists...The writing below the statues claimed that the statue of Buddha alone was 60 ft tall while the other two were a shade smaller at 58 ft. Really an architectural marvel. So were the dragons that were on the pillars and the paintings depicting the life of important moments of Buddhism...The place was so quiet and peaceful. All of us were discussing wherefrom the funds for all this have come and also how is it possible to come to a third country and establish such a big and beautiful place. This golden temple also houses a large tibetan population. This is supposedly the second largest Tibetan Settlement in India.

After the tibetan monastery we decided to go for our food. We decided we would go to a hotel called "East End Hotel" which came up in the last night's list but was not considered as it was a little far from the place we were and the driver had gone elsewhere and we had to walk.

Reaching that place we thought yet again some Gatiya Khana. It was in a old kinda place...Well when we stepped in and saw some good food we thought ok finally some good food. And i enjoyed that meal. Gupta had a pint and it was really chill. The the two mallus also had some drinks and food and after a good meal we decided to move to the hotel and leave for Manipal... Well all of us were so happy with the food today...And that made the day overall a very good one...

Then we vacated the room at around 4.15pm and on our way back slept most of the way through. The drive was scary once we were on the plains. The driver (he had amazing control no doubt) was going at such speeds and overtaking so scarily...To take away all that we started to sing and crack some "do kaudi ka jokes" like the Shetty is a ullat pallat guy for Hewlett Packard guy and what not???

The last moments the driver was all the more skillful. Mobile in aone hand and the steering wheel on the other and still overtaking other cars at 80 to 100 Kph speeds. We were just sitting on the edge of our seats literally...We reached at 8.50 pm to the hostel and thanked our stars for that...

Overall a very good trip...memorable one...To say it in short, Karan's words suit it bestKya Baat Kar Raha Hai.

Coorg - The Land Of Coffee-Part 1

Hi iam just back from my trip to coorg with seven of my other friends. Well i am in the middle of my last break in MBA. Well nice way to round off the MBA stint.

We started from our hostel this monday the 21st of March 2005 at about 8am. Well the ride was really bumpy and half way to Coorg i started throwing up courtesy Kesari Baath at Apoorva Mess... Then we stopped for a while at the nearby stream to freshen ourselves. It was a lovely sight and we had our feet in the running water and it was so refreshing that had we enough time, we would have stayed there a little longer...

Then we started on our trip again and then visited the Triveni Sangamam where Cauvery, The mystic Sujyogi and an another river meet. i tasted the water, though it was not clean,just to see how different it was from the same water that i get at my hometown Salem. Boy oh boy it was really tasteless, while at my place it used to be so salty...well atleast i get it at my place,as it is near mettur...the poor farmers in Tanjore do not even get that, thanks to the Spat between the two neighbouring states (well the neighbouring state has its own reasons,there are farmers here too...)

Than we moved on to the place where River Cauvery has its origin. This place called Talacauvery is a very religious one for very obvious reasons. The place has a very small well (or kinda) and the river's birthplace is this. I wonder how that very small spring provides the most important resource - drinking water for people living in both the states...Well thats the beauty of nature i guess...

Then the most important thing for that day...yeah i am talking about food. I was the only teetotaller in my group and everyone else was just waiting to lay their hands on a bottle of chilled beer and some really hyped about Non veg food. Here again iam in the minority...yeah iam one of the two vegetarians or rather eggetarians in my group...The time was around 2.30pm and we were just looking for any place that would serve these two and of course some vegetarian food, which is taken for granted...

And we came across a mallu restaurant and boy the two mallus in our group became our interpreters at that place (until then Shetty the local boy from mangalore was the official interpreter)...well thinking we would get some good food, we ordered our dishes and we get Kerala rice and at that moment our Tairak De Rajasthan's face was worth seeing...his favourite dialogue on seeing south indian food (read anything other than roti and paneer) came out...kya sadaa hua kanaa yaar...But his stomach forced him to and he had it...Ankur a.k.a. Chacha, my fellow eggetarian took something that the restaurant fellow called omelette...Then we pushed out to have some cool drinks and we stopped at a nearby bakery...Six of us had normal pesticides (read soft drinks) while the other two - the kid with the tobu cycle, Karan and the mallu dolphin, Nair had something called Kokkum...Nair claimed it was a sexy drink and he had had it earlier in a place whose name starts with c (it was ratnagiri...)and karan too was adventurous and he replied "Kya Baat Kar Raha Hai...Main bhi piyuunga" and they had it. The very first sip and the reaction on Nairs face said it all and the rest six were offered this heavenly drink...After enjoying their heavenly drink the awesome twosome then wanted Dharbooz (well water melon in Hindi) and they had loads and loads of it...

Next we moved over to Madikeri, the biggest town in Coorg or Kodagu District. We moved to a place called King's Seat (Shetty referred it so) or raja's seat to see the sunset. well we reached there at about 4.30 pm. We bought some groundnuts and some bhor (resembled what we called elanthapalam in tamil, i do not know the english word for it). Then we waited and then clicked a few snaps near the place where the Raja's of Coorg used to sit. It is a place under the ASI now. Then we had the local specialty...yeah the coffee and it was really nice...then we moved to the omkareswara temple...prayed there and went around the places nearby...then we found a nice hotel...two rooms for eight of us... costing one grand... it had television, hot water, rug and all the basic amenities in a hillstation hotel...it was very clean... we rested for a while before our chance to search for a nice place to have our dinner...

Dinner or rather searching for dinner was awesome...first we came across a hotel called "Hotel West End" which a lot of ppl recommended and it was so smelly for the dude from rajasthan that he ran out...Then we moved to the town's main street and check out places like"castle rock", "choice","capitol", "Durbar" and finally we settled for "Capitol" as it had a nice ambience (on a relative scale. it was nothing compared to even the worst of hotels in our good old Manipal). Then we get the menu and all the piyakkads eyes light up on seeing that both Romanov and Smirnoff Vodka cost the same...They very obviously went for Smirnoff and also ordered for other drinks and tried Pork for the first time. The kid did not like it so much as it was very soft. However he was too eager on having a bottoms up and tried to get everyone in for this...this was all done to accomodate me as the restauranr hardly served any vegetarian food. Being good frenz they finished their drinls fast and in search of a good place to eat, we settled for Durbar...

Durbar was great!!!well that is an understatement i should say...everyone was amused by the first dish that came. yes chappathi and something the waiter called as Dal Fry...we, chacha an me looked at each other and laughed our heart out and thought about the dear junie Sudhir Kamath who rightly warned us before we started that we would not get anything to eat being vegetarians. It is a vegetarians nightmare...well the nightmare was comng true. However our other frenz food was also so great that they really loved it... Karan must have inhaled some laughing gas...he was laughing his heart out at the conversation he had with the waiter who would bring him everything other than the dish he ordered (paratta was what he got when he asked for fried rice)...Then we had some juice which was surprisingly nice and then moved to our room... the climate was really good (a saving grace for the day)...All in all everyone was thinking have we come to the wrong place...no food at all...we imagined so much but nothing at all...we planned our trip for the next day and went for sleep

Sunday, March 20, 2005

Renault - Is this their dream year in the making?

"Renault" well the car is all cute and very smooth in the way it moves. It moves like a figure skater on the ice...The car, 2005 version, is an absolute beauty and the two drivers are among the best in the business- Fernando Alonso and Giancarlo Fisichella. Alonso may well become half a schumacher in future. Well by that i mean will win three or four world championships. well to break Schumi's record seems it will take a long long time and a driver who is going to be consistent like michael.

Well coming back to renault , the strong points are that the car is too quick out of the blocks and very quick in the corners and with the new rules hardly allowing any overtaking ( well you got to save your tyres through two sessions of qulaifying and a full race buddy), this team has got what it takes to be the champions this year. What with they already winning the two races that have happened this year...one victory each for the two drivers and both are looking good for many more. At the moment the Ferrari team is totally overclassed by the new cars of renault, toyota, mclaren and surprisingly red bull (what in the world is a beverage company doing in f1, iam yet to find out)...lets wait for them to bring in their new car and all things might change then...well being a tufosi i hope so... i want to see michael on the podium as fast as possible...They are likely to bring the car out for the fourth or fifth race at Bahrain, SanMarino or Spain...the faster the better...else it will be too little too late (like the Mclaren season last year)...

Lets wait and watch the next race...
Also look out for "whats there for f1 in Narain?"

Team India

Well another media created term that came into everyday use after India defeated Aussies in india in 2001. Well after the Kolkota test to be exact.

Well coming to the point, India rarely played as a team after the hyped use of this term to address the indian team. Well for once did play as a team and ironically the venue was kolkota and the opponent the so called arch rivals Pakistan.

The match was a very absorbing one and i liked the way the whole match was played all the way. It was played with a friendly attitude. However the most interesting point of the match was the partnership between Rahul and Dinesh Karthik. This came at a very oppurtune time when Sami had taken Ganguky and Laxman was hit by a bouncer. Rahul fresh from a century in the first innings was continuing his good work and the young keeper from Tamil Nadu played well to give him support. To an extent, i felt Sami got carried away by his bouncer to Laxman and wanted to repeat it to other batsmen. His length was short when he was actually bowling at a very nice pace and rhythm. This tactic by Sami i felt actually cost them the match. ( I know not many would agree with this, but then this is my blog and i have the freedom to express my view).

In the second innings Kumble was at his very best...only he or a bowler of his kind and stature could have bowled with so much effect...was overall a good match and poor old steve bucknor would not remember it so even though this happened to be his 100th test match as an umpire. Well the newspaper item by TOI "Sachin (c) thin air (b)Bucknor" says the story very clearly. However he did not give Rahul out when he was plumb in front (not that he did it purposefully). However the media sees only the negative...

Well this has been one long write up but its ok i guess...

My Batch at TAPMI


My Batch at TAPMI
Originally uploaded by dalmatian.
Well this soft copy of the caricature of all my batchmates was done by a few of my batchmates and junies for the book Interface. My photo resembles my looks as in the photo that i had taken about six months back for my placement. Well anyways this is real cute work...

Have the new F1 rules tamed the Prancing Horse?

Well tomorrow the 2005 f1 season moves to Kaula Lumpur Malaysia. Well the first race saw the actual implementation of some really bizarre decisions on the part of FIA governing body for this season. A few of them are

- No tyre change for the entire race
- No engine change for two races, else drop down by ten positions in the starting line up
- New qualifying format. Two sessions of qualifying and the aggregate would be taken

All this is being viewed to make the sport interesting (read stopping ferrari's or rather schumi's dominance). well the first race showed how interesting it was!!! except for Renault team nobody liked it ( Even they would not have liked it had they not won 1 and 3 positions). say whatever, today after the first qualifying session in Malaysia, the scene very much looks like the ferrari is more the challenger rather than the dominator...



well with regards to the main question "Have the new F1 rules tamed the Prancing Horse?" only time will tell.

My heart says no for i love seeing the aggressive schumacher...this has earned very few frenz...Well, go Schumi...

Saturday, March 19, 2005

Schumi


ms2001-australiangp-car2
Originally uploaded by dalmatian.
Have the new F1 rules tamed the Prancing Horse?

My experiments with Blog

Well i heard a lot about plagiarism, IPR and things of that sort. Did give a paper too very recently on IPR. Do not how i fared though.... Well i also heard about cases of plagiarism on blogs....i Do not want to be a party to it. So iam just trying to learn how to create a link. Lets see how this experiment goes.....

I was just watching the cricket match between India and Pakistan at Kolkota. Yesterday, Steve Bucknor gave a horrendous decision and the whole media went berserk on this issue for Sachin is Only next to God Himself in India...well today the same man did not give Rahul Out when he was plumb in front....what is the reaction to that...i do not know. However i read one interesting article on yesterday's incident in my friend venkat's Blog....lets just see what he has to say....
read

First Blog

Well i have finally managed to create a blog after a lot of marketing from my frenz who kinda survive on blogging. Do not know if i will be able to maintain it coz i have landed a job in mumbai and i do not know if i will be using the internet that widely as i am doing now in my insti...i wil definitely miss this institute TAPMI in this small litl town called Manipal in South India. Iam enjoying my last days of my MBA life here. just finished all that is needed to in this degree...But have i really learned anything out of it. well time will tell.....

Dalmation