IPL Trends - Part 2 of 2

Here are the observations on the other four teams, as a continuation to the previous post.
Kolkata -

• On the face of it, Kolkata's strategy in the auction seems to mirror that of Hyderabad with the focus on entertainers and explosive batsmen. However, Kolkata's focus on marketability of the players is also obvious - Ponting, Ganguly, Ishant, Shoaib, Gayle, Agarkar - and I guess it is to do with Shahrukh's persona and intent that these guys ended up being taken for high prices by Kolkata.
• In terms of Chemistry - Kolkata seems to have made a few blatant errors, Ganguly's equation with Murali Kartik or the lack of it is a known fact, Shoaib is not really the team man Ganguly would have looked for, and Ponting is not really the guy Ganguly will be most comfortable leading. It was a joke seeing Ponting set Kartik's field when he came in to bowl as late as the 11th over in Chennai.
• Unless Ganguly leads by example and focuses on the team spirit, culture etc. this might end up being a gallery of stars who underachieve as a collective unit. I dont think marketability alone will guarantee financial feasibility in the long run. It however helps that Kolkata as a franchise could break even the earliest given the 120000 capacity of Eden Gardens, and that the fans are known to be the most partisan in India.

Mumbai -

• Another team that played it strange in the auction. However judgemental it sounds, the choice of overseas and Indian players seem to be governed by their compatibility with Sachin, given that Sachin is not the most authoritative captain in the fray. The focus seemed to be on getting "team-men" when it came to recruiting senior foreign players (Jayasuriya, Pollock, Bravo). Bombay was one of the few teams (Mohali being the other) that invested in young, relatively unknown foreign talent. Clearly, the team wants to build a strong case for the second or third edition, rather than go all out in the first year. Sachin has to do a Warne and groom this team with inputs from Jayasuriya and Pollock - and given the youth in hand, one might see Bombay improving with every match and they might be a team to look out for in the seasons to come. It would be interesting to see if there is a distinct culture and team spirit being developed gradually.

Mohali -

• The team whose strategy is not clear to me. Yuvraj is not exactly captaincy material, and the team is not built for him or anything like that. They seem to have recruited glamourous, marketable guys in the first auction (Lee, Sangakkara, Sreesanth) but have recruited young international stars who provide utility for low prices in the second auction (Marsh, Pomersbach, Hopes, Katich (I am not sure which auction he came in)) - these choices seem to be governed by Tom Moody's presence at the helm. Overall, the team seems to be balanced with strong local bowlers (Chawla, VRV Singh, Pathan, Powar) and promising local batsmen (Karan Goel, Srivastava). It would be interesting to track this team's progress.

Chennai - (I know Girish is eagerly waiting for this one, here we go...)

• Chennai's buys in the auction seem to mirror final selections into IIM. Guys who have made it are those who would have been in the shortlist of atleast 4 other teams. (Parthiv Patel, Raina, Oram, Hayden, Hussey, Dhoni, Fleming to name a few.). Chennai seems to have bought solid candidates who are "fail-safe". The better part of their strategy is that they have also invested in a few other cricketers of GOOD potential and utility (Badrinath, Morkel) and a lot of local young exciting talent. Chennai has to play as Dhoni's unit and as long as Dhoni is able to lead the team from the front and foster good spirit and unity, Chennai should be a strong contender. I see a couple of bowling chinks being ironed out when the transfer window opens, and a fresh investment in a few bankable stars and a couple of new faces.

That's it from me guys...

IPL Team trends - Part 1 of 2

I have restrained myself from blogging about cricket primarily because Cricket opinions are all over the place, and I do not really want my blog to be a "What do you think will happen in the match today?" or "Should Sachin play today?" kind of place. Having said that, I still post this IPL entry - after some of what I discussed with Ganesh the other day seemed too interesting to not talk about.
We were having a discussion on emerging trends with respect to each team and also on whether the auction - the way it panned out for each team was random or were there any patterns to the auction. I am now partly convinced that each team had clear motives to pick the kind of players they ended up buying and that these choices will hopefully pave the way for some very different team cultures and reputations as IPL reaches its second or third seasons. I hereby present our observations on each team -
Bangalore -

• All the world has been critical of its penchant for taking test match players - what it does hide is that Rahul Dravid could have looked for players with proven CVs. Such players could turn out to be reliable bets who would eventually groom the young brigade in Bangalore while also performing well in crunch situations.
• Picture this - while Chanderpaul, Kallis, Misbah, Dravid and Jaffer are not really big hitters - I am sure they will be the kind of guys (if you add Boucher to it) any captain would look for in big games.
• I see them as enablers of a young brigade, and I see Bangalore having a great team spirit and in the years to come - the team that is the Italy of Football - strategy kings.

Hyderabad -

• Flair, entertainment, explosive power, crowd pulling - these seem to be the buzzwords. Deccan Chronicle seems to have gone into an overdrive to pick the players that would serve as great ambassadors to drive its sales and branding. As a team - I still see it packing enough punches (Gibbs, Symonds, Gilchrist, Afridi) to do well. Thankfully - they have invested enough in good local players, but again they seem to go by entertainment value and buzz - Rohit Sharma and RP Singh are hot picks in any list. They could well turn out to be the Real Madrid of the IPL if they keep performing and keep the cash registers ringing.

Delhi -

• The team that I think has invested the smartest. There are enough patterns to conclude that this team wants to be the choker of opposition with its solidity. McGrath, Asif, Sangwan, Maharoof, YoMahesh, Amit Mishra is a solid and varied bowling attack and it is the team rich in its fundamentals. They have interestingly picked a solid batting line up with a lot of good local talent. This team wont suffer much from attrition and has a GOOD selling proposition in terms of attracting crowds (Gambhir, Sehwag, Dhawan, Rajat Bhatia, Mithun Manhas are all Delhi ranji players). It did help that Delhi are the Ranji champions though. I see this team as being a ManU of cricket with enough all round ability, solidity and pedigree to serve as a bastion of solidity and flair in the future. GMR seems to play cricket like its construction business - a strong focus on solidity and foundations.

Jaipur -

• Shane Warne's team - He clearly wants to build this team as the quintessential unit. The team is full of young talent who are raring to go. The captain calls all the shots, even the international players are not the kinds who will do their own thing. They all seem to chip in as per the captain's mandate. I see Gerrard in Warne and a lot of Liverpool in Jaipur. The conservative spending seems to be strategic given that Jaipur is not going to generate revenue to the same scale as say a Kolkata or a Chennai. And they have clearly chosen to invest in bright young stars (Taruwar Kohli, Shane Watson, Yusuf Pathan, Pankaj Singh) and enable these guys to literally grow with the team. This is a team very close to my heart. My best wishes to Warnie and I sincerely hope his inspiration, tact and vision serve his team well in the years to come. Emerging Media seems to be a fine name for the company that has backed this team.

Part 2 coming next.

Please feel free to voice your views on the same.

Radio

One of the biggest sources of happiness for me these days is derived from driving in the road listening to the radio. I consider myself privileged to be living in a city where I understand the local language, know quite a bit about its culture and most critically - enjoy the city's music. The buzz of a new day greets you in the morning - and aptly so. Tuning into Radio One's (94.3) breakfast show with Suchi is a tonic for me early in the morning. Her voice, delivery, class and charm are unmatched in my opinion and she keeps me glued to that channel when songs are not playing. Humor is available in liberal quantities in some of the channels targeted at the masses - Suriyan FM (93.5) most notably and it is pretty enjoyable - and more enjoyable than I initially thought. However in terms of content and presentation of programmes in the morning session I am very impressed with Radio City (91.1). The morning hosts are extremely efficient with their words, and hardly rant on for more than necessary. Particularly impressive in her RJing is Chinmayee for Aaha FM (91.9), and I wonder if she has a role in selecting the songs played during her show - the songs are of a higher standard than other channels. Imagine - they played "Isayil thodangudhamma" at 9am one day.
Overall though there clearly seems to be a focus on peppy and popular music in the morning session - and that is reflected across Channels. Features like traffic update, city news add to the nativity - much to my delight. The evening programming is more content based and targets specific segments of the listeners. Of the evening programmes - Rahmania hosted by Rehana is impressive but gets too repetitive given the limited number of songs that can be played. Songs like Aadi paaru mangaatha can be heard almost daily - this makes it irritating at times.
Anyway - here is a quick summary of my rating for each channel :

Mirchi (98.3) seems to have lost the plot a bit. I do not get any associations attached to the channel these days. The RJs are not of the highest quality and the programming is not unique.

Aaha is good in patches with its Breakfast show with Chinmayee and the Rahmania show. The programme after 9 pm that plays Ilayaraja songs is very good too. Otherwise - its positioning doesn't seem too clear to me.

Suriyan FM is a truly mass channel and it scores with its clarity in positioning. They stick to playing popular music and are good at it.

Radio One seems to give me the feeling that Suchi is wasting her time there. It seems to be a mass channel like Hello FM 106.4, but might never match Suriyan FM.

Hello FM has a big problem. It has the channel at 106.4, and is too far from other channels. Also adding to the difficulty of getting there are some government channels and one english channel after 98.3 Mirchi. Programming and content are OK - it is another mass channel and nothing more.

BIG FM (92.7) is impressive. Its content seems to be engrossing. However, I need to listen to them a bit more to understand how they are different from Mirchi of the past.

The clear winner in my opinion is Radio City. They have a youth focus and are very sophisticated. Their programming on VDay was fabulous - the top 150 love songs were pretty spot on. The channel intelligently shares content with their other city stations and has English music hours and Hindi music hours like Aaha which also has a Hindi Music programme. All in all, an intelligent channel.

A unique song...

I have always felt the word "Unique" come to my mind whenever I have listened to "Sandhosha Kanneere" (Dil se re in Hindi). Rahman has never quite composed a song like that after that. In fact no composer has composed a similar song. It is the ultimate song of contrasts and contradictions. I have not been able to slot it into any genre of music. It has got some unbelievably energetic and full throated bursts where you get so breathless on even listening to it. And as if ARR required a break when singing with such intensity he suddenly mellows down to render such lilting and moving lines "Kanneere, sandhosha Kanneere....". There is one total "yekkam" and "parental sublime love" when he sings that "Penne, penne, pesaa penne" lines. Even the BGMs in the song are totally unique, especially the guitar bits in the second BGM that are so contradicted by those booming drums. Its almost like the two layers of music even within a BGM seem to contest each other's feel, leave alone the contrast between parts of the song. The visuals also puzzle me, with dancing kids and random people celebrating and so on.
The only part of the song that has been repeated by ARR in his subsequent and previous films is that delightful overlap between the chorus and ARR's restrained singing in the pallavi that comes after the second charanam. The chorus so beautifully sings the lines ("Sandhosha kanneere" onwards) in lag with ARR's vocals. This has been repeated most memorably in Theendai (it got released very close to Dil se - Another trait of ARR that seems to be observeable, he seems to repeat a particular technique/ fad he likes in his works in a particular time. Enough of the digression though. Anyway, Theendai had very little to do with chorus singers, so the digression stops here). Actually, a single major scoring point of ARR when compared to Ilayaraja is his taste in Chorus singers. If only Ilayaraja's chorus singers did not have that jarring and irritating tinge in them! If I were to indulge in a digression where I mention the song in which I most enjoyed ARR's chorus singers it has to be Madhuraiku pogaadhadi. ("Karpoora kannigaiye vaaraai" and so on - reaching a peak in "Nee indira maharaaniye" , beautiful rendition there!)
All in all, coming back to Sandhosha kanneere - it was one hell of a song that totally refreshed my spirits after a long work day. Listening to it in Big 92.7 FM actually made me experience the radio station's tagline "Kekkalaam, pesalaam, life kondaadalaam!!!"
Anyways readers, why dont you list other unique songs of ARR? I really want to go into another ARR rediscovery journey over the next few weeks. Keep posting, and sorry for the delay between posts!

A sudden discovery - Madhavan played Sujatha?

Sujatha (S. Rangarajan) the writer/ dialog writer par excellence in Tamil literature and cinema is no more. He is credited with spearheading the team that designed India's first Electronic Voting Machine. While these are in the news and are well known facts - what really caught my imagination was that - I now realize suddenly that Mani Ratnam's protagonist in "Kannathil Muthamittal" was more than loosely based on Sujatha.
Here are my observations on the similarities between Thiruchelvan (played by Madhavan) and S.Rangarajan (Sujatha)
1. Both write under a "Female" pen name (Indira was Thiruchelvan's wife's name - same with 'Sujatha' Rangarajan).
2. Both shoot into fame/ have a connection with Anandha Vikadan
3. Both have a day job in a productions/ government sector company (Maddy can be seen wearing uniform to work and talking on the phone/ meeting employees or union guys. Sujatha was an engineer at Bharat Electronics Limited in his day job.)
4. The obvious connection - Maddy speaks Sujatha's lines in the movie - and a lot of the thoughts are said to be either Sujatha's or Mani Rathnam's - the views of life, the focus on simplicity, the so-called "live for yourself" principle, the incisive nature of the speech and writings and so on.
I will research a bit more on Sujatha and see if there are any more similarities.

Belated Birthday wishes to all concerned.

I have become an expert at missing birthdays of close friends/ family.
Take the example of one friend X - I have missed 2 of the last 3 birthdays. This time I realized I missed it some x time period later. (this birthday wish miss instigated the blog entry.)
Take the example of another friend Y - I missed all of that person's birthdays till 2005 and then wished the friend once in 2006 and again missed 2007.
I dont remember wishing Z in the last 6 years.
I missed XX's birthday last year. I only knew XX from 2004 - so I had wished XX for 3 consecutive years before this inevitable miss.
All of X,Y,Z,XX are what I would consider CLOSE friends.

X, Y,Z, XX - I am sure all 4 of you read this blog. Sorry to each one of you.


Here is a message to all you friends who have been victims of my oversight.
The fact that I miss birthdays is testimony to my forgetfulness. And that alone.
p.s -
So much for missing birthdays of friends, I did not wish my mom on her birthday last year.

Life updates - in a few bullet points.

1. Attending 4 marriage ceremonies within 24 hrs is difficult. I also suck at socializing in marriages. Yet I like the feeling of being important enough to attend them.
2. Shankar Mahadevan in TZP is god reincarnate. The title song is my pick for song of the year.
3. Purchasing my first kurta and wearing them to marriages is like a coming of age ritual. Momentuous.
4. The Elliots beach is a fantastic place to discuss life, the universe and everything.
5. The producers, director, cast and crew of Billa should consider themselves lucky to get away with such a K max movie. Billa will make Karan Johar ashamed when it comes to marketing K max movies to make money out of them.
6. Life in Chennai rocks in patches.
7. Points 1-6 may not add any value to your life.