I never thought I’d get into this. The IPL frenzie, I mean. Too much of pompous marketing hype, and a proof of what would happen if cricket was more than cricket and added bollywood and cheerleaders to the mix - thats what I thought. I had initially gotten some tickets from a friend, and had passed it on to some friends who showed more interest than me in the game. But when a couple of tickets were offered by a close family friend with the best seats in the stadium, it was a bit tempting to say yes, than to put it down and Yes I said.

This is the first time I am watching a live cricket match in the Chennai stadium and I am no sports reporter. So I hope the readers of this blog will be lenient should this fall short of an actual coverage.

The game was to start at 4pm today, but the ticket said that folks would be expected there a good two hours beforehand. Knowing how our folks have no sense of time these days - or are just enjoying an extra hour or so lazing on a saturday - we decided to play the first mover advantage and head to the stadium early. We reached there at around 2:45. The sun was still out. It was fairly hot, but a couple of folks - Mirchi Suchi, Benny Dayal etc were trying to keep a few people occupied and entertained with their live music.

At around, 3:30, the teams started coming in, and were going about their routine of stretches and excercises, and ten minutes before the game, the coin was tossed and Kolkata won it, preferring to bat.
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Previous test matches in Chepauk MAC stadium have been a real test of skill for both batsmen and bowlers. Think back to the tied test against Australia in 1986 or the agonising loss to Pakistan in 1999. But this time around, the pitch has been a feather bed till now, late into the 4th day. There has been nothing for the bowlers so far.

Yet this match will be remembered for the highest test score by an Indian batsman. It was in this same stadium that Gavaskar scored his 236 n.o. against West Indies, which was the highest score by an Indian for a long time. It took a great effort from Laxman in 2001 to go past that and Sehwag upped it in Multan in 2004. After seven years, the record has come back to Chepauk.

Do you still think a result is possible in this match?

N. Ram, Editor-in-Chief, The Hindu, brought up the point more than once - how does the audience ask questions on a book they haven’t yet read?! Last Sunday evening at Landmark, the audience worked on it, and somehow managed to ensure a decent 90-minute interaction with filmmaker-writer Saeed Mirza, who was launching his first book “Ammi: Letters to a Democratic Mother”. (first book to be published by Landmark’s new publishing wing - Tranquebar Press)
(Personally it was the reading of the essay on the “Ham Sandwich” that had me clutching the book and waiting in queue for Mirza’s autograph in the end)
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Chennai is “Celebrating Sara” was a message that percolated through three different newspapers and one magazine, over the weekend, so V and I decided to succumb to the silent urgings of mass media and track down this Samukha Art Gallery (right before Raintree evidently) and take a peek at the private collection of an extremely intriguing individual.

Geeta Doctor’s book, sharing the title of the exhibition, which welcomes visitors at the entrance of the gallery (located in the same compound as a gorgeous house) describes the collector, Sara Abraham as a variety of things, but we sorta hastily dropped the book at the mention of her “withering glance”!
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The MoMo Chennai edition is on the next weekend at Gandhi Nagar Club, Adyar, Chennai (This might change. )
For those not in the know, here’s the fount of all wisdom, the Wiki, on Mobile Mondays

Mobile Monday (MoMo) is a networking organisation for mobile industry professionals fostering cooperation and cross-border business development through virtual and live networking events to share ideas, best practices and trends from global markets. Founded in autumn 2000 by Mobile Monday Oy in Helsinki, Finland, Mobile Monday now has 47 chapters worldwide, which host meetings on a selected Monday evening each month.

Shorn of all that jargon, it’s a place to catch up with the latest technology in the world of mobile telecommunication.
The Chennai version this month will cover mobile web and application development. If you are interested, go forth and register. Only 75 seats, and 50 are already taken. So you might want to rush!

Saarang, the annual cultural festival of IIT Madras, without any doubt is one of the many things that defines Chennai and the 2008 edition of this fest begins tomorrow, bigger and better than before as the students of IIT M always promise.

Apart from the usual events (Lits, DumbC, dance, music, dramatics, debate etc.) this time they have introduced four new events including Solo dance and Short Film Making. Short film making was actually introduced last year, but it didn’t take off as expected and hence it has been re-introduced this year.
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Tara Publishing is having a reading of one of its new children’s titles, That’s How I See Things at Landmark, Nungambakkam, on Saturday, January 19 at 6 p.m. That’s How I See Things by Sirish Rao and Gond tribal artist Bhajju Shyam has been chosen as one of the Best Books for Children for 2007 by The Sunday Times of London.
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Mylapore Festival, an annual event in Chennai in the month of January is sponsored by Sundaram Finance and organised by Mr Vincent D’Souza of Mylapore Times. This year the festival was celebrated from January 3rd to 6th, 2008
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The annual Chennai Book Fair is being held in St. George Hr. Sec. School , Poonamallee High Road (Opposite to Pachaiyappa College) from Jan 4 - 17th 2008. This annual fair is one place where you can find almost all the publishers in Tamil. Don’t miss it.

Yes. I am talking about the Indian Cricket League. The Chennai team is named as Chennai Super Stars with Stuart Law as captain and Michael Bevan as coach. The other foreign players in the team are Ian Harvey of Australia, Chris Read of England, Shabbir Ahmed of Pakistan and Russell Arnold of Srilanka.
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