Europe Trip: Introduction

The foundation of this post and the basic ingredients were fused on my way back from what had been a fantastic trip to a chosen few destinations across Europe. This post is a brief account of the terrific trip.

Off late, certain otherwise ‘loyal’ blog-readers, have criticized the typical length and wordiness of my posts. Taking into account the ‘recent-criticism’ and my general typing-laziness has resulted in a bullet point account of the Europe trip!

Pre-trip planning

• First thoughts of Europe trip appeared around a year ago.
• Started to plan for this trip in July, applied for vacation and I was politely told “dare not take-off before the end of project” – so mid-October it was!
• I persevered through my allergic response to book shops and eventually succeeded in purchasing a guide to Europe. I had to literally start my trip planning from scratch. – had no clue to the overall geography of Europe; I still wonder how I managed to pass Social Studies exams at School!
• Started with the ‘mugga-process’ on net, found links to typical Europe trips covering major cities, going deep into history of modern Europe, art, etc, etc
• However, that didn't excite me at all. The very idea of going from one museum to the other, from one city to the other, drained me. This didn’t sound to me like a vacation by any stretch of imagination
• Got back to basics, thought and thought about what I really wanted from the trip
• After a few hundred random iterations of possible Europe travel routes, eventually understood what I was looking for – scenery, winter, snow, drives and may be some bit of technical funades –e.g. car museums or visits to manufacturing plants (e.g. Airbus)
• It was a fairly complex plan – had to fit various constraints to my trip. Maharaj’s 6-day vacation schedule, ideally a weekend in London to meet up Junta, attend cousins’ wedding at Delhi, Diwali at home, attend Slippy’s wedding at Udipi, etc
• Hour-by-hour planning is beyond me, except when it comes to challenging long drives. Lack of time to plan out every detail meant that trip had to be like “reach-the-damn-place, search-for-a-tourist-office, … and take it from there!”

The overall planned trip

Singapore ---> Chennai (0.1) ---> Delhi (2.0) ---> London (1.5) ---> Paris (1.0) ---> Toulouse (1.0) ---> Stuttgart (0.5) ---> Switzerland (3.0) ---> Norway (2.5) ---> Frankfurt/ Black forest (1.0) ---> Delhi (0.1) ---> Chennai (1.0) ---> Udipi (2.0) ---> Chennai (0.5) ---> Singapore
(Figures in bracket are number of days spent)

... the journey begins...

Tendulkar: A Great Knock against Pakistan!

A great knock by Sachin, 97 vs. Pakistan leading India to a series victory, has forced me to push my work-in-progress Europe Trip post to the back-burner.

This truly was one of the best innings that Sachin has played - he seemed to have been in the groove and the 'zone' all the way through. Some unbelievable shots played - a typical classical Tendulkar innings characterized by great timing and placement. One can travel miles to see the flicks to square leg, the authoritative square drive and the punches down the ground. A great knock!

Yeah, yet another score in 90s... 6th time in 2007. But frankly, there is no real reason behind it - it is probably one of those things that just happen. Though this would for sure be at back of Sachin's mind, I am sure, as he said at the press conference, he wouldn't think too much about it. Probably what is more important is that he has been in great form, scoring big scores and at the end of the day, a 100 is nothing more than a psychological boundary... a 93 or 97 or 99 is just as good.

Well played Sachin! A great knock!

A trip to Margaret River and Cape Leeuwin in South Western Australia...

I had a chance to travel to Cape Leeuwin and Margaret River in South Western Australia. My last few trips to Perth had been so well scheduled smack in the middle of the week, leaving me with little chance to explore Perth and places nearby. This time around, the story was a bit different. It had started to tilt towards a frustrating week at work – totally pointless slogging and needless-endless spinning of the wheel…

Mr. Blog Moderator: Take work offline, this is a travel post – keep it that way! You are at the border of breaching rule-2

… to break the shackles, after a couple of hours of googling for places to see, I eventually did find a place that qualified as a “drive-able” destination – the choice had less to do with the scenery and credentials of the location, but more to do with the mileage that the odometer could clock! I did a rough summing of distances to figure out that a trip to Margaret River from Perth could be ~600km in a day – not extremely challenging, but enough to keep me interested! The other option was to visit a place nearby (~200kms trip) – but that failed to inspire me enough! I managed to book a rental car on Friday.

Friday evening at work was easy. I was out of office at around 7:30 or so. I did a bit of a walking tour of Perth. Perth is actually a lovely place. It is nearing summer time, but the temperate is still in that zone of comfort - near that 15 degrees mark that I relish the most. May be, it was not just the temperature that made the city fabulous. There is this laid-back attitude that engulfs Perth making an ideal place to chill out. Add to that, Perth rates fairly high on my ABR (average-babe-rating) scale – in my recent global benchmark study of ABR scale, Perth figured right up there, largely driven by presence of certain specimen samples that were observed to be a unique blend of hot and cute variety! :-)

Mr. Blog Moderator: Focus…focus…my friend!

It was a rather strange Saturday morning - I was up at 6:30am, while the alarm was set for 6:45am! There is something about these long-drives that does the impossible to me – “waking up early”! Anyways, I went to collect the rental car. I had asked for a Toyota Camry but was provided with another car – at first go, I couldn’t figure out what the model and make was (after googling over the weekend, came to know that the car was “Holden Commodore”) I found my way to the expressway navigating through Perth roads.

30 minutes into the drive, I had seen nothing outside other than the road and occasional stare at the overtaking vehicles. I had still not reached any level of comfort with the car, I was still trying to synchronize my driving to this new strange car – it was packed with power, the accelerator reacted to the slightest hint and intent to get going, but overall, it lacked that air of refinement. It is a huge turn-off for me usually. Add to it the traditional rectangular side rear-view mirrors (as opposed to the curvy ones you find in most modern cars) gave me a feeling of driving one of those classical vintage cars. The car had the look and feel of a Contessa Classic. I continued to drive, with every passing minute, it got better. One hour into the drive, I had got a good gauge of the engine and the transmission system. Having reached some level of comfort with Holden Commodore, I stopped by a petrol station to stock up some coke-light.

Mr. Blog Moderator: Dude, this is a travel post. Why on earth are you talking about cars and driving and stuff? You are again all over the place; this qualifies as breach of rule #2. Official warning served!

I took a bit of de-tour from highway to enter a region of marshy land. It was a lovely drive – the reflection of the nearby hill in the blue waters was a great sight. I figured out there was no one in the vicinity – no other cars, no houses, nothing… I got off the car and took a few clicks, just as I had started to feel good about the place and scenery around, a scary realization flashed passed my mind – there is absolutely no one here! …I remind myself “if I survive this, I could be the next recipient of red and white bravery award!” While that was inspirational, I need a practical doze of logic. So I told myself “hah, it’s all fauna, there is nothing to fear here”. However, my brave front lasted for exactly 15 seconds. I heard some strange sound and got a feeling that something was moving behind the harmless-green-plants! I got back into the car in a flash, locked all doors and allowed the engine to roar! Phew! I actually didn’t care to look back if there was something really out there.

I took a couple of de-tours on the way to Margaret River – but made sure to remain in the car with the seat belt fastened! Nah, I was not scared, but just in case…! :-)

I reached Margaret River by around 1pm or so after having made a couple of unsuccessful attempts to reach the coast-line on the way. Frankly, Margaret River had been a bit of a disappointment. There was nothing great to see there, it was all winery and wine tasting tours. I was driving that day, so there was no way on earth I could have done the wine-tasting tour. Even otherwise, wine is not exactly aligned with my non-psued life! As I looked around, couldn’t find any decent scenery worth an “orkut-pic”. I have a very simple philosophy to travel – “Is this a place that's worth a few orkut-pics, if not, I wasting my time here”!

As hunger took over me, I got to this sandwich place that had service time of infinity. I was lucky enough to be served within first 60 minutes. Post-lunch, I did a of customary souvenir shopping and just when I was about to head back to Perth, I saw a direction-board that read Cape-Leeuwin – further scrutiny of the entangled maps that I was carrying in collaboration with my limited geographical and direction sense revealed that Cape Leeuwin was where Indian Ocean and Southern Ocean met. For the disappointment that Margaret River had been, here was a ray of hope to make this day “bloggable”!

50 kms I probably covered in 30 minutes and I reached the town of Augusta. The next 15 kms were fabulous. The road ran all along the coast that had a hint of hilly terrain to it. I stopped to take a few clicks. White beach, vast blue water, greenish shallow sea near the beach, waves splashing into white rocks, temperature around 15-18 degrees mark, couldn’t get any better than this. It was in all a great sight, worth the struggle that the day otherwise had been.

I drove further down to Cape Leeuwin, took a few pics at the lighthouse. I tried to push myself to the limit, but my lack of imagination couldn’t help me distinguish between Indian and Southern Ocean water colour.

It was about 2:45pm, Perth was 350 kms away and I had to get back to Perth before sunset. In Australia, it is better to avoid night drives as Kangaroos often take over the roads post sunset. I actually didn’t get to see Kangaroos at all. My net research tells me that there are 3-4 times more Kangaroos in Australia than humans (80Mn vs a population of 20Mn). Got back to Perth by 6:30pm, had a couple of hours of sleep before heading to the airport to take the red-eye flight back to Singapore. Overall an enjoyable day, nice drive, good snaps…

Mr. Blog Moderator: Time up! Breach of rule-3… some people just don’t learn!

Mr. Blog Moderator steps in!

Mr. Blog Moderator is forced to step-in to maintain the reputation and standards that this blog is supposed to live-up to. Recent trends indicate an alarming fact - “zuk new posts in the last one month” – even in the most liberal blogging world, this would have been completely unacceptable. It's time to pull-up the strings, fasten loose bolts and power this blog back to the expressway!

Mr. Blogger's (author is not for blogs!) lack of self-discipline in maintaining this blog, has forced Mr. Blog Moderator to clearly articulate 'The-Blog-Protocol' moving forward. Furthermore, Mr. Blogger is severely reprimanded for not updating this blog in the recent past and three not-to-be-compromised-at-any-stage rules are hereby enforced to get some discipline going:

Rule #1: Thou shall regularly update this blog.

Rule #2: Thou shall maintain post discipline - focus only on the topic on hand, not the entire world surrounding it!

Rule #3: Thou shall compose shorter posts - no more long-posts-that-go-on-and-on-and-on for eternity!

By order,
Blog Moderator

20-20 cricket and Dravid’s decision to call it quits

Quite a lot happening in the world of cricket – So, I thought this would be the ideal time to pitch in with a post on cricket. Two parts to this post: 20-20 world cup and Dravid’s decision to step down as captain of India.

20-20 is truly an amazing concept and in all probability, the future of cricket. Promising a very cricket-unlike "result in 3 hours”, this version of the game is packaged with a lot more intensity to bring cricket on-par with other sports. At first go, 20-20 world cup didn’t excite me at all. It was not until I saw the first match and realized, well, this is different and interesting. Three factors make this version of the game exciting to me:

1. While it looks like a pure batsman’s game at first thought, 20-20 is not just pure bang bang bang with the bat. 20 overs has proved to be a lot of time. Batting requires a fair bit of planning and more than anything else ability to adapt to the situation right there at the centre. With fielding restrictions lasting for first 6 overs, it gets very interesting – should batsmen go all out and slog in the first 6 overs or keep wickets till about 10th over and then start to turn things around. As teams play more and more matches, they will get to the optimum solution to this riddle - it probably depends a lot on the depth of batting, but I think, most teams would try to follow an algorithm as this version of the game develops and game statistics are further analyzed. I am sure most of us have an opinion on this (after all, we are no less cricketing gurus)! I am no different and in my view, if I was the develop a batting plan for 20-20 I would approach the game in the following way:
   
   o First 6 overs are critical – it is important to make most of it to post a huge score. After a couple of quick singles in the first over, 2nd over onwards openers can probably go all-attack and get some quick runs, taking a few risks and sacrificing a wicket or two, if the need be.
   o In my view, 2-wickets-down is probably the first decision point. From there-on batsmen need to balance defense (singles and twos) with full-blown slogging. It all about the confidence the team has in the batting “at what stage can we be reasonably confident of not getting bowled out?”
   o The above would lead to “not any worse than 3 down at 10 over point”, “not any worse than 4-5 down at 15 over point” and so on
   o So, if a team is 40-2 at the end of 6th over, they could possibly play a bit sensibly till 10th over, get to 65-2 or 70-3 by 10th over and then look to take the bowlers on
   
2. There is little to choose between teams in this version of the game. All it needs is a couple of cameo innings to post a decent score on the board. 2 quick-fire 40s or one 60-70 in the innings and you get to a decent 150+ score. While better teams start as favorites, there is every chance that a lesser team would come up on top. This is very good for popularity and the reach of the game.
   
3. Bowlers have a role to play and a very important one. Firstly, it is about understanding expectations – if one can bowl 4 overs for 25 runs, that is indeed a job well done. A bowler with 6 runs an over against his name can walk off the field at the end of 20 overs with his head held high and all pride intact! Secondly, it is not impossible to get wickets in this game. A few bowlers have picked a 4-for in 4 overs and that is no less than a match winning contribution. So, all-in-all, I would say, bowlers continue to be just as important as they are in a one-day or a test-match. It requires all the skill to keep batsmen down to singles when they are looking to attack almost every bowl.

Dravid’s decision to step-down

It was a decision that surprised everyone – after a very successful series in England, this was probably not expected. While various reasons are being speculated ranging from media pressure, to unwarranted criticism to his own batting form to rift between senior players to conflict with selectors to a very reactive decision, etc. But knowing Dravid the way he has been over the years, I find it almost impossible to believe this decision to be anything close to being a “rush of blood”. Dravid is one person who would have thought through this in very minute detail before making his decision public. In tune with his on-the-field personality, “Dravid, the wall” is a very balanced individual off the field as well. He is a master at “putting things in perspective”. I am therefore very sure that this decision is not a result of one comment or incident that irked Dravid, but rather a decision that he believes is in his best interest. If I was to bet my money on the most important reason driving this decision, I would probably guess his own batting form to be the most important factor – an average of 21 in South Africa and 25 in England is clearly playing on his mind.

Who next? - is a tough question to answer. Ganguly is not likely to be given the responsibility, nor would he be very keen to accept it. That leaves Tendulkar to take up captaincy. But it is not that simple. While we expect Tendulkar to play every test match, he would probably like to pick-and-choose one-day matches. Yuvraj’s life off-the field does not make him an ideal candidate at the moment, though I do think he is captaincy material. That leaves Dhoni (the current 20-20 captain) to take charge. These are still early days in his career and captaincy could prove to be one responsibility too many for Dhoni. Having said that, Dhoni is very clearly what could be termed as “captaincy material” – a balanced responsible player as a very consistent performer.

As a Tendulkar fan, I would like him to focus on his batting and produce a few high-class innings before he decides to retire in the next 1-2 years. But, given the situation, it probably makes sense for Tendulkar to share the burden of captaincy and groom Dhoni over the next 2-3 series. A bit of a tough situation to be in, but hopefully team India will stay united in what promises to be a challenging winter ahead – a lot of matches against Australia and a few with Pakistan.

Musical preferences and peer pressure!

While I was living a bit of a flash back last weekend, a very strange realization struck me, leaving me perplexed and with much to think about. – I found that my music preferences have changed quite a bit over the last few months. I tried to extend this flash back to as further back as I could to help me better understand this strange phenomenon. I found that, unlike most other things, my musical preferences have varied a lot over time. I gave it a bit more of thought, but I couldn’t get my head around how and why musical preferences have changed as much as they really have. Further introspection made me realize that this has by far not been a gradual natural shift over years, but instead a highly fluctuating trend largely driven by my external factors!

To put things in context, let me show an illustrative graph of how my musical preferences have evolved over time. (graph above)

With a very theoretical approach to problem solving, I tried to break this issue up into number of small time intervals to derive some sort of trend that could explain this huge fluctuation in preferences. This is how my musical taste had changed over years:

Early and mid 90s: Rehman’s brilliance and Baba Sehgal’s rap music essentially got the first change to my music taste

Late 90s: Much of it was driven by MTV, Channel V and 2 hour a week, 7pm-9pm countdown of western numbers on Chennai’s 107.1 FM

… moving to the more interesting phase of changes…

August 1999 onwards started my vidya vihar campus life. My walkman helped me survive through the initial ragging days on campus. That was not to last long as my walkman was subsequently “borrowed” by a senior (I still distinctly remember the senior who took my walkman away!). Anyways, immediately after the first one month of ragging as winter began to set in, I found my way to Nutan market and bought 2 local rustic speakers with a matching amplifier to help me graduate from walkman head-phones to something more bass-producing.

Our wing had started to gel together, 11 of us from 8 different states talking different languages. So was the music, a bit of Assamese music mixed with Gult and Tamil numbers from other half of the wing. Then there was rock and I had my pop music! I was then so against rock music that I had only one expression to describe rock music – noisy nonsensical stuff for drug-addicts!

Music to me was then pop – I would listen to boyzone and backstreet boys and likes. I called MLTR as rock (by the way, MLTR has and will remain my favorite). As our wing slowly became a wing from a group of 11 different individuals, we became a bit more vocal about our opinions. Soon, I started hearing comments like “THIS guy only listens to dhhop dhoop ding ding pop music” … while I put up a brave face to all the comments with a not-so-convincing reply that went like “so wat, my music, my preference!”. By the end of first year, my wing’s perseverant criticism has succeed in creating one significant change – I had internally started to feel the pinch of not knowing what rock was all about.


Year-2 (2000), I got my comp. to campus – while the intention was to learn some Java and C, the comp. processor spent most of it’s time processing music files and “movies” J.

I copied tons of music files to my hard disk – I now had a vast collection of music including rock. Somehow, I couldn’t get myself to listen to heavy metal. But this was to change soon – a change driven by my wing as they would all barge in and change the music to rock. When I resisted the change to rock, I would get a lecture from my wing and a long explanation to how my pop music sucked big time! Slowly, I started to appreciate rock, what sounded like noise not too long ago, had started to sound like music now – there was energy in bass and metal sound that I started to appreciate, there was madness in head-banging that I had started getting addicted to, etc, etc

Overall, the shift to rock was very much driven by my wing and access to MP3 songs. While it was to become my preferred music over the next few years, the dramatic shift was nothing more than pure peer pressure that raised an internal voice – “me too please…!”

I continued with ‘primarily rock’ music for most of my 2 years at WIMWI as well with no major changes. I played roughly the same play-list over and over again. Unfortunately, this in some ways implied that I had cut myself from following the latest top-chart music. My only exposure to new music during this entire phase was at ramp parties that I was anyways not too regular to.

Once I shifted to Singapore, we got a music system for our home and another amplifier for my room – I continued with my “rock only” music for most of my first year here. My flat-mates and other close friends would often play some nice Hindi-remixes and I gradually started to enjoy non-rock music all over again. No drastic measures as yet, I was happy with the mix of music and the odd addition of Hindi pop was always welcome.

2007, a different beat!

I am not a great believer of making new-year resolutions, but I sorta intended to bring about some change to my musical taste in 2007. It started off with when I got a few Hindi CDs during one of my customary Landmark visits in Chennai towards the end of 2006.

The next quantum leap was in April 2007 after I got my Avante. My first week drive of Avante was with heavy “side-rear-view mirror vibrating” rock music. While I enjoyed the blast of music, my friends didn’t exactly think too high of my music taste. I noticed the gradual resistance building up and I could visualize my music collection being vetoed against – this did hit me! I was now under pressure once again, to bring about a change and become socially more acceptable!

It was on one of those “destination-less” drives in Singapore, by some strange configuration of lack of other time-pass activities, we shifted to playing Antakshri. I had like not played Antakshri for years and it was nearly a life-changing experience for me if I was to stretch my imagination a bit. Firstly, it was back to Hindi music and alarmingly, I could only recall only very old Hindi songs! – the ones that a generation elder to us would classify as old! I was labeled as “1950s songs expert”! While that ended as a joke we had a good laugh about, it somehow made me ask myself some very philosophical and open ended questions “why have I completely shut myself from Hindi songs, Hindi pop, Western pop?” That of course had just one answer as I immediately went to the music store and began the process to gradually upgrade my music collection.

This was a turning point for sure. I still do enjoy rock as much as I once did, but I have started to get back to other forms of music that I once used to relish. It has been a strange rediscovery – certain songs have certain events and time stamps associated with them. e.g. Hindi pop (esp. Baba Sehgal) takes me back to my younger days, MLTR (like Someday Somewhere) takes me back to 30 minutes before a test, Bryan Adams’ “18 till I die” and Roxette take me back to my 12th standard days, Roja to very vague memories, etc, etc

This change in 2007 has again been driven by friends and so called peer pressure. I have little clue about how this trend would shape up in the years to come. However, if there is one thing I do know and I can be sure about, is that, I will continue to enjoy my music collection – the form, language, intensity would continue to fluctuate, but hopefully not the underlying passion!

800 rpm at crossroads!

800rpm (my auto blog) was intended to be unique and different in some ways. In the short period of time since this blog first rolled out of the "manufacturing plant", it has already been to the service centre a couple of times with the co-drivers/ bloggers wanting to redesign this blog entirely!

After the fanfare surrounding the initial launch ceremony, Maharaj and I entered a phase of cold war. While I wanted this blog to be christened 800 rpm giving it a refined-and-cool-feel-with-just-enough-power, Maharaj wanted a more aggressive image with name closer to being 6000rpm and the blog’ image around roaring-engines-producing-full-thrust-power. With diametrically opposite preferences and tastes governing how we envisaged this blog to be, Maharaj and I officially declared the war on!

Over the next couple of months, we will leave no stone unturned to prove our respective blog-name preferences. The battle sparked-off with a few rough email exchanges, followed by a chat and call to prove how disgusting 6000rpm as a name was, etc, etc. In the coming few months, we are considering both legal and illegal steps to help us reach a conclusion. On legal front, we have approached IUPAB for the rules governing the latest blogging nomenclature (IUPAB is International Union of Pure and Applied Bloggers). We have also appealed to the wing jurisdiction to come-up with its point of view. Needless to say, 800 rpm is likely to emerge as the winner in the process given how nerdy 6000 rpm as a name is.

On the illegal front, our first instinct was to say “pen is mightier than a sword” and a “keyboard is mightier than a pen” – so let this battle be fought over blog posts. However, that didn’t sound like war enough, so we got back to fighting the battle with a sword instead. In the process, Maharaj ended up with a wounded left hand and had to undergo an operation to set it right.

While this was the opportune time for me to take over and declare 800rpm as the eventual winner, I am a firm believer of war ethics. Maharaj was therefore granted time to recover before we continue this battle further! In the mean-time, I will go ahead and compose a few posts for this blog – And you Mr co-blogger, recover soon buddy!