Surf meets the rocks... chaotic but beautiful  

Could I swim across...?  

On to a well-trodden path now...  

Wish you were here...  

Me takes a break. Btw, the piece of land in the background is where I stay... 

Out into the wilderness...  

Morning glow...  

Magical horizon...  

Sentry of the coast...  

The '92 Chardonnay is the best! 

The famed Hunter wine cellars... 

In search of wine country... 

Extreme Sports In Oz

I had my first Aussie-style injury, mountain biking in the forests. The rollercoaster trail was so much fun and the steep downhill ride through bush and stone was macho and exciting until I fell and almost broke my knee. Did the Chicken Run rest of the trail :-) They don't call 'em extreme sports for nothing :-) But I know I'm gonna be back next week! It's a way of life out here. You surf, bike and dive and get badly hurt and can't walk for a day or worse a week or worse a month, but you're back at it again the day you can!

Less extreme sports are no different. The most popular sport is 'aussie rules', which is something like American football. Without the helmets and padding. Season ending grand finales of rugby and football taking football fever to its heights, I reckon businesses should close for a vacation in September instead of Christmas to allow people a leisurely time to nurse their injuries.

I'm picking up little by little though on a rather uncharacteristically popular aussie sport. Some mock at its followers as bored men bent on beating the hell out of a little white ball with an iron club. More on that once I start swinging the club right.

Cheers.

Room With A View :-)

View from my apartment on a Sunday morning...

 

 

 

I'm Back Baby!

Months slipped by so quickly, silently. Each day was just the same as the previous one, like recurring schedule entries on a computerized calendar. Like clockwork. I wanna break out. Break free. Wander. Write. Dance. Until I begin to long for this comfortable certainty of things again. The couch is an object of gravity. I always tend come back to it. But for the moment I'll wander a little.

Bangalore Theatre Update

My Experiments With Sense - @ Nani Arena-CFD, 5th Floor Sona Towers, Millers Road -- April 29, 8:00 pm

The criss-crossing lives of the most unlikely people, brought together by destiny.

Bangalore Theatre Update

Final Solutions - @ Rangashankara, April 21, 7:30pm

I've heard a lot about this play. I've heard it's a very powerful commentary on communalism. Playwright Mahesh Dattani was awarded the Sahitya Akademi Award for this play in 1998. There was a performance at college (IIT Bombay) a couple of years back, but I missed it that time. I might miss it again this evening, coz I expect to be stuck in traffic halfway across the town even if I start early from office :(

I might be able to catch the next play on Saturday or Sunday. I know nothing about this one...

Madness - @ Rangashankara, April 23 & 24, 7:30pm

Of Friday Mornings And Survival Of Statistics

There is, I think, a strong correlation between the occurence of Fridays, a good game of tennis, and my posting something on this blog.

Sometimes you do things just to strengthen your random proclamations .

Never Share A Doc By Mail Again!

I found this new utility called Instacoll this morning. It's a web-based real time file sharing utility. What this means is that you can work on a document, a spreadsheet or a presentation together with your colleagues sitting in Shanghai and Sydney, all in real time. You can deliver an interactive presentation online. You can also share your desktop or just one application, so Amit can check his mails in private while Ajay is adding notes to his presentation. And they can chat simultaneously as well.

No, you can't talk yet. For that, I recommend Skype. So you'd need to set up a Skype session, or a webconference on your IP Phones, and the like. Currently InstaColl supports only Microsoft Office applications for collaboration. And it's not bug free, indeed I crashed my Word when I tried to start a session from an icon InstaColl put there. And there's no guarantee on security yet. And I'd like to see better emoticons.

But despite the current limitations, InstaColl's utility is very very compelling, and it's supposed to be much superior to MSN LiveMeeting, and it also works well on low-bandwidth networks. My bet's on InstaColl partnering with Skype, coming out with a kick-ass all-bugs-fixed version that can talk, and getting very popular before getting bought over by one of MSN and Yahoo.

By the way, it's been developed by a Bangalore based company. Next I'm checking if they're listed :)

Moonlight and Skytoffee

Always curious to watch a play with an intriguing title.

At Rangashankara, this weekend (April 9 & 10), 7.30pm, by a group from Chennai called Magic Lantern.

Here's My Fiver For French Open

The French Open has quite some time to start, yet my bet's already on Rafael Nadal to play Roger Federer (who else!) in the finals. Why? He said so, so it must be true. He said so shortly after he had lost his first Masters Series final (the Nasdaq 100 Open) to Federer 6-2, 7-6, 6-7, 3-6, 1-6 in a gritty 5-setter.

I play Valencia, Monte-Carlo, Barcelona, Rome, Hamburg. I stop one week and play the French Open in the final.

Rather pleased with himself? Of course, for he knew he had come awfully close to causing the upset of the year. That this fearless Spaniard was just a two shots away from beating the man with a 32-1 record this year could only mean that the 18 year old was on the verge of establishing himself as one of the best in the business.



Roger would agree. He was up against the wall for three sets and probably had to gather every ounce of his grit, and lose a little bit of his ever-cool temper to hold on to the match.

I consider myself lucky to get through... Even on the run he can hit it with the spins - backhand to the court, make you hit another tough shot. We'll see very much from him in the future. So for me this was a big match because I know what a great player he will be one day.

The day may not be too far.

Life After iPod

Business 2.0 prophesizes the next generation of blockbusters from Apple based on the iPod. A Wireless iPod and an iPod that plays video are virtually on the cards for a launch. There's also a nice photoessay on the shape of things to come.

The Blue Mug

Watched "The Blue Mug" at Rangashankara yesterday. And it was fabulous, so much so that I'll prob'ly watch it again when I get a chance.

At its centre, four characters constructed bits and pieces of their past as they remember it... significant and insignificant moments - which sprung to their minds as they speak... collecting glass from broken bottles at the sea shore as a little girl, ubiquitous delhi family gatherings complete with the lassi, watermelons, bhuttas, being stacked up at the top of a cupboard by the teacher, playing jehangir in a college play... ordinary, embarrassing, strange, funny, tragic and inexplicable incidents... sometimes even struggling to separate the truth from fiction in their hazy memories.

Then there was the story of Joginder Chauhan, a man of 40s who was "stuck in 1980", as a permanent memory dysfunction left him adrift on a perpetual stream of present moments, while memories of himself and his family from twenty five years ago clung to him with the clarity of the present. The character of Joginder was so brilliantly played by Ranvir Sheroy... the unrefined language, with the typical touch of punjabi felt so very very genuine, it was absolutely incredible that this person who I knew as a smooth Channel-V VJ was playing the role. Unforgettable.

The other actors - Rajat Kapoor (of Monsoon Wedding and DCH fame), Joy Fernandes, Vinay Pathak (another Channel-V VJ), Sheeba Chaddha and Niloufer - were fabulous in their roles as well.

Brilliant Win!

On the frontpages today - Sania Mirza pulled off a remarkable turnaround to beat US Open champ Svetlana Kuznetsova 6-4, 6-2 in the second round of the Dubai Open

Sania started off on a nervous footing and was 0-4 down in a blink. She fell and hurt her left ankle in the third game, then was a point away from dropping her fifth straight game in the first set. Faltering in her serves and struggling against the painful injury, Sania looked on course to a timid defeat.

And then began the dramatic turnaround as she banished her nerves and decided to go for the shots. Sania played solid attacking tennis and hit some brilliant winners to catch the Russian cold, and won all of the next 6 games to take the set 6-4.



By then Sania was on a song, the painkillers had started working, the crowd was boisterously cheering her on, and the world number 7 was under pressure. Sania traded breaks with Svetlana at the start of the second set, then broke her twice again. Serving for the match, she slipped to 0-40, but climbed back with two forehand winners, saved two more break points, reached match point with a backhand pass, and then forced an error to seal the match in the most befittingly dramatic fashion.

She will now meet Jelena Jankovic of Serbia in the quarterfinals. You know who my money is on.

Retro Bollywood Masala!

Anurag posted a fabulous countdown list of classic bollywood dialogues of the 70s and 80s. A preview - (read the best ones here)

"Kuttay, Kameenay mai tumhe jaan se maar doonga!"

"Tum mere liye mar chuke ho!"

"Bacchhhaaaaaooooo!!!"

"Mulzim ko baa-izzat bari kiya jata hai."

"Ma, tum kitni achchi ho!"

Banglore Theatre Update

Looking forward to two long anticipated comedies from Bombay. This time, thankfully, they gave Chowdiah a miss and are playing at Rangashankara, so tickets will be affordable at 150 bucks.

On the 10th and 11th, The Company Theatre will present The Blue Mug at Rangashankara. The play stars Rajat Kapoor, Vinay Pathak, Ranvir Shoreay and Sheeba Chaddha.

On the 12th and 13th Rangashankara will host C For Clown which has performed over 100 shows worldwide. The play is enacted by Atul Kumar, Joy Fernandes, Niloufer, Vinay Pathak, Ranvir Shoreay, Niloufer and Vinay and Ranvir.

"C for Clown" is a show created completely out of improvisation on the rehearsal floor. Six clowns trace a day in the life of a circus/theatre performance. The act includes mime, patomime, acrobatics, dance with a little bit of spoken word. A complete theatrical creation based on an actor’s experience on and off stage, "C for Clown" is a first of its kind on Indian stage.

Showtime 7:30pm!

Chennai Open

Those are pics from Chennai Open 2005. Lifted from the Chennai Open website, I acknowledge; I didn't carry a camera I'm afraid, but it was an amazing experience watching Moya and Srichappan up so close. The final was a treat to watch, it went down to the wire and had plenty of entertaining rallies.

The best part was watching these guys serve. Matches on TV hardly ever show a full serve action. In fact I picked up a few tips watching Srichaphan and have been bombing the courts with some power serves ever since.

Speaking of serves, a couple of interesting serve stats from the tournament:

Prakash Amritraj served up a 219km zipper during his 1st round match against Ivo Hubereger. Though he lost the match to the the Swiss, this remained the fastest serve of Chennai Open.

Paradorn Srichaphan served the most number of aces in the tournament. And here's an interesting one I read in a newspaper: One of these was the slowest first service ace - at just 137km! Srichaphan, serving strong and hard, suddenly slipped a fizzing wide serve that caught his quarter-final opponent on the wrong foot.

Bangalore Theatre Update

Perchance To Dream - @ Rangashankara, Jan 30 to Feb 3, 7:30pm

Footsbarn travelling theatre troupe of France brings a colourful presentation to town this week.

The production is an amalgamation of extracts from various Shakespeare plays that Footsbarn has staged over the past 30 years. The plays include A Midsummer Night’s Dream, King Lear, Hamlet, Macbeth and Romeo and Juliet, portraying the seasons of life.

... The production can surprise and enthrall you provided you have no rigid notions about the way art should be or more pertinently of how Shakespearean drama should be played.

Shaadi@Barbadi.com - @ Chowdiah Memorial Hall, Feb 3, 7:00pm

A hilarious comedy with Paresh Rawal in lead role

Stephen Wolfram at Techfest 2005

Stephen Wolfram is the creator of Mathematica and the author of A New Kind of Science. Having had a distinguished academic career beginning at an early age, Stephen Wolfram founded Wolfram Research in 1986, and has been its CEO since.

Catch him live at Techfest 2005, Jan 28-30, IIT Bombay

East Coast Rally

Shree Kumar cycled all the way from Chennai to Kolkata in 15 days. A distance of over 2000 kilometres!

He's blogged all about it. With pictures.

[via Anita Bora]

Showed this to my new roomie, Vineet, who early this week had proclaimed me crazy when I recounted a 60-km bicycle trip through the ghats north of Bombay last year.

"Occurances of irrationality cannot be used to rationalise ephemeral moments of personal insanity," were his dismissive words.

Go Sania!

Play your heart out!

Gonna be a beautiful day

I played well today. I played aggressive, dominant. I served brilliantly, and hit some incredible returns. I won. It feels good.

Bangalore Theatre Update

Monologues - @ Rangashankara, Jan 21, 7:30pm

Creeps - @ Grasshopper (Bannerghata Road), Jan 21, 7:30pm, and @ Rangashankara, Jan 22 & 23, 7:30pm

A shocking comedy on the increasing influence of media and a commercialised society in shaping the personaly being, relationships, desires and aspirations of "Generation Next".

Katha Collage - @ Chowdiah Memorial Hall, Jan 22 & 23, 7:30pm

Directed and enacted by Naseerudin Shah, Katha Collage is a collection of three plays based on Munshi Premchand's renowned works Shatranj ke khiladi and Bade bhai sahib and Kamtanath's Sankraman.

The stories are essentially about the circle of life, told in Hindustani through a middle class family in Uttar Pradesh.

Stand Up Noah Small - @ Rangashankara, Jan 26 & 27, 7:30pm

With a cast of 47 children, "Stand up, Noah Small!" is a large scale musical that has been performed extensively in UK and is being produced for the first time in India by Hippocampus Children’s Company. The play has written by Nick Stimson and the music is by Chris Williams.

The director of the production is Bangalorean Vivek Madan who has to his credit plays like Children of a Lesser God and Yavamajakka. The Composer, Musical Direction and adaptation for Indian audiences for this production is done by Chris Williams. Chris Williams is a theatrical entrepreneur, who has made a name for himself in UK and Europe as a composer and a musical director, especially for his work with young people.