For the last 9 years, I have never missed attending at least one match at the Chennai Open. It’s the biggest ATP tournament in India and for guys like me, its probably the only opportunity to watch the World’s best in flesh. Think Rafael Nadal and Carlos Moya. It’s been an absolute must on my annual calendar.
Sadly, this year I can’t watch a single match. Why? Because of a board outside the Nungambakkam stadium that reads, “All tickets for all matches sold out”. Heck, even the advertisement in The Hindu today carried those dreaded words.
Yet, you watch the matches on TV, and at least 50% of the seats are empty. I saw many fans lining up outside the stadium turn back disappointed. Let’s forget the fans for a moment. The half-empty stands look ugly on TV. That’s hardly reflective of the kind of interest that Chennaites have for the game. It in fact reflects bad on the tournament organizers. Wouldn’t the players like to play to a packed audience?
Apparently, most seats have been given away to sponsors, the Tamilnadu Tennis Association and definitely to a whole host of politicians…who either don’t have an active interest in the game or too busy to attend the events.
This year has been the worst in the last 9 years I’ve known. In the previous years, you could walk to the ticket counter and atleast find a few tickets available (except for the finals or the big matches). But this year, its been a total wipe out for folks who just want to watch the match that day.
I regret not buying the season ticket on the day it launched. It was going for only Rs.1500 for all days. A steal, actually. I’m kicking myself now.
It feels a little odd to watch the match on TV, when the real action is actually taking place less than 5 kms away.
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Happy New Year everyone! One of my resolutions is to continue blogging regularly and what better way than to start off with a post while the new year celebrations are still in the air.
Here’s the article I sent in today for my column at New Indian Express.
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Today will see the highest turnout of joggers at Elliots Beach. Today will see the highest enrollment in gyms and slimming clinics. Today will see the lowest sales of cigarettes. Fast forward to February and all those fancy new year resolutions will turn into big guilt pangs.
Sounds familiar? Well, take heart for a whole lot of us have been down that road every year. We fixed resolutions without fail only to see it fizzle out within weeks. Its time to fix that…with a little help from handy online applications.
43Things : It’s a fantastic site for you to list down your new year resolutions. Once you list them down, you can also know who else has got similar goals as you. More importantly, you can also connect up with folks who have successfully achieved the goals and they can be an excellent source of tip for you to achieve yours. Visit www.43things.com
Email the Future You: Forbes has a future email service that allows you to write an email time capsule to send to yourself at a future date 1, 3, 5, 10, or 20 years down the road. Visit http://forbes.codefix.net/capsule/
HassleMe: This is one hassling you won’t get pissed about. HassleMe is a service that reminds you of your new year resolutions at a time you would least expect. It sends out reminders at unpredictable times. Visit http://www.hassleme.co.uk/
Password as reminders: With so many times that you login into your email, how about adding one of your new year resolution as a password. That’d act as a constant reminder. For example, ‘rundaily’, ‘KillTheSmoke’ etc.
SMS Reminders with PingMe: You tell PingMe.com your New Year resolutions along with the dates and it’ll ping you when the time comes. No escaping. You can add events to PingMe through the website, email, or SMS.
Good luck!
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Ever since I saw the new drink at the departmental store near my home, it’s become my favorite drink. Tropicana Twister is the closest to the perfect sweet tasting orange drink that I’ve come across.
Minute Maid is too watery to my liking and the Twister had the right consistency.
Unfortunately, I came across a fact about the drink that I didn’t quite like. Tropicana Twister is a ‘Fruit Drink’ and not a ‘Fruit Juice’.
What’s the difference, you might ask. My answer: Big.
A ‘Fruit Drink’ is just marketing speak for synthetic drink. In other words, the drink has more ‘concentrate’ (what locals refer to as ‘essence’) and less or no fruit pulp.
I head to the fridge, pick up the bottle of Twister to read through the ingredients. It reads, “nature identical flavouring substances”.
I don’t want nature identical stuff. Just nature would do please.
To me, the drink isn’t the same anymore, even though it tastes great.
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There’s a trend I’m beginning to see.
Every time I get a telemarketing call, I quickly interrupt the sales pitch and in not-so-nice terms say I’m not interested in their offer, and hang up the call. I hang up even before they get a chance to explain. It’s not proper etiquette but hey, like hell I care.
I feel bad for these folks. It’s really not them. It’s their job that forces them to make those annoying calls. Offlate, I’ve taken it easy on such folks.
I politely reply back saying that I’m not interested. I don’t stop there. I continue talking. I request them to please remove me from their calling-list and then I ask them to call me back to confirm the deletion of my name.
Invariably, before I can finish my sentence, they hang up. This has happened to me 9 out of 10 times. I’m sure they must feel good after this.
Glad to be of help!
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This is the latest Nokia ad featuring SRK that will hit the TV screens soon. When I heard about the new advt, I asked the Nokia team if they can pass on the video to me. It was a 5 MB video and never made it past their email system. The logical thing was to have it uploaded onto YouTube.
I was under the impression that most promos/video are typically kept under wraps until it hits the TV or the big screen and so it was a pleasant surprise when they let me have the video. It’s a sure shot sigh that the big companies are waking up the power of blogs and social media.
The video was shot by Pradeep Sarkar, the director of Parineeta and the new Rani Mukherjee starrer, Laaga Chunari Mein Daag.
I was able to get some interesting tid bits about this video. Shah Rukh Khan agreed to devote 8 hours for the shoot amongst his schedule and that’s all the luxury that the ad team had to play with. In order to maximize the usage of the 8 hours, simultaneous sets were erected in the same studio at Mumbai.
The script required 7 sets to be built. If you see the ad, there’s a different set of almost all major scenes (living room, the baby room, railway station, Hotel promenade, Red carpet premiere, Discotheque and the Balcony with the city skyline view). Apparently many production houses refused to take up this shooting contract because they felt 8 hours was too short a time to shoot the entire ad. Pradeep Sarkar was one of the few ones to take up the challenge and that’s how he got to make it.
The team started with the sets since mid-November and the actual ad was shot last week. The shoot started at 3:00 PM and closed around 11 in the night. SRK was having a temperature and wasn’t keeping too well but you never get to see that on the ad.
I’m told that SRK has been a Nokia phone user for the last 10 years (his current phone is a E90) and that was the one of the major reasons why he agreed to do the ad. The other factor, I’m guessing, would be the money! 
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Email:Kiruba @ Kiruba.com
Phone :+91-44-42733619
Mobile : 98415 97744
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