iBlog: Nishit Shah

Electric. This is one word I would use to describe the atmosphere at the DY Patil Stadium for the match between Mumbai Indians (MI) and Deccan Chargers (DC). Though I had been to a couple of one day Intl and a Test match earlier this was my first time for a T20 Match. My li’l sis had never been to a cricket stadium earlier so she accompanied me. I had bought a couple of thousand bucks tickets for the South stand online. I was of course cheering for the home team and had got the MI tatoo on my cheeks and pasted the MI stickers all over my navy blue tee. My sis thought that I had gone crazy, but that’s the ways I am The stadium was absolutely superb. It was jam packed and the crowd was absolutely amazing. I was not expecting it to be so packed since the stadium is way out of the city. The arrangements made for food / water were too good. I was never hungry or thirsty at all like my previous encounters while watching the matches at Wankhede. Thought I was a bit disappointed with the stale samosas sold at the venue by CCD. I didn’t expect this from them. I had to literally throw away the 2 packets after eating just one bite and had to relay on McVeggie burger to survive.  The MI cheerleaders were right in front of us and I must say that I was absolutely spell bound by their performance. Watching them dance, I came to the conclusion that the amount of energy and enthusiasm that had was infinite. Kudos to the guys n gals from Shiamak for putting up a great show. Unfortunately the MI played so badly that they never got a chance to cheer in the second half of the game…

Disappointed. This is one word that I would use to describe the outcome of the match. The MI didn’t really play well. At one point of time I was wondering if they would even cross 120 runs. But thanks to some impressive stroke play by Bravo and Nayar, they managed to score beyond 150 runs. Adam Gilchrist slaughtered the MI with no mercy. In the beginning the crowd was a silent spectator to his massacre as they seemed to be somewhat loyal to the home team but it seems Adam the lion tamed the crowd and everyone started cheering for every stroke that went out of the boundary. The Deccan Cheerleaders were always on the platform and had to dance on every other delivery. They were a bit far from where I was sitting but somehow managed to get a glimpse of those tall firangs cheering. I had planned to watch all the matches to be played in Mumbai but now will only go for both the semis and the finals if I manage to get hold of tickets. If they will be available online like b4..nuthing like it.

The spirit of one of the greatest cities in the world was seen on its streets on 20th Jan during what is called as The Greatest Race on Earth. And boy what a wonderful experience it was. The last time I had seen so many people around me on the road was at the time of Mumbai floods on 26th July 2005. My previous attempts to run this race failed as I was too lazy to enroll and last year I signed up too late ! But this year I learnt from my previous blunders and had signed up well in advance and also ran 5kms every day (err.. almost everyday) for almost 3 months to prepare for the event ! I had taken part in the 6km dream run along with my workmates. We had decided to meet @ Bombay Gymkhana near fashion street at around 7:30am. By 8 everyone had gathered and had a gr8 time taking pics and fooling around. I was surprised to see around 95 odd people turning up from 110 registrations from Directi. I hope that we have a much bigger turnout next year ! We had made arrangements for Directi gas balloons and by the time the race began each of us were carrying atleast a dozen balloons and were running with me. It was funny to see small kids coming to me and saying uncle uncle ek balloon do na! I ended up distributing all of them and even took from my friends and gave them away. Did my bit to make some kids happy !

Then we all moved to Azad maidan from where the race was supposed to begin. It was gr8 to see soo many people around running for a cause. There were people all the way on the road cheering us. I can’t write how wonderful that experience was, to see the spectators clapping, motivating and cheering the runners. We completed the race in no time and saw many celebrities on the way ! After completing the race we all gathered near the exit and danced for almost 2 hours on the tunes of DJ Megha from MTV.

Looking back it was a gr8 experience. Will prepare myself to run for half marathon (20km) next year!

After almost couple of months of preparation for the marathon, I am all set for it. I can now jog for round about 10km at a stretch. Though, I am running in the Dream run which is of 6km. Its gonna be gr8 fun. Will specially designed T-shirts for the Marathon and around 150 of us from Directi running, am sure we gonna make some mark ! Will write more about the event once its over and upload some pics later if I manage to take any. Meet u there !

Mumbai Marathon is back celebrating its 5th instance on 20th Jan 2007. Registrations for same have already started. I had missed the last year’s race as my application was rejected for being too late and I ended up being a mere spectator of this magnificent event! So, this time around have registered myself for the 6 km dream run way before and have started training for the same
Its fun to get up very early in the morning when its still dark and I hop / skip / jump / jog / speed walk to complete around 5 km everyday. Right now its seems I have stamina to jog for only 1.5 KM continuous. With under 2 months to go for race, I have challenged myself to run the complete race 6km at one go !

Its been 2 weeks since I am getting up everyday at 05:15 (doesn’t matter what time I go to sleep) and leave by 05:30 and am back after a 45 minute workout at 06:15. Will try and increase the time and the distance covered gradually.
So, if you haven’t signed up for the race do it ASAP and hey don’t forget to run for a cause. It makes one feel good that we are making a difference in someone else’s life who is not as fortunate as we are.

Also, I have signed up as a volunteer too. I dunno how I am gonna race and volunteer on the race day but hope to do both. I hope that the organizers accept my application.

See u there !

Yippie ! I can’t believe it.. I thought I would miss the finals but thanks to the awesome place called Directi where I work, everyone in my office got to watch the match that too on a big screen. Earlier in the day I walked into the office disappointed as I won’t be able to watch the finals but hey as soon as I login, I get a mail from Bhavin (Founder- CEO Directi ) saying that arrangements have been made for a giant screen along with snacks and soft drinks for a whole office at ClubLink in Malad. Imagine there were 400 odd young crowd cheering for team India for every good stroke we played. We had a blast.. I have never enjoyed watching a cricket match soo much in my life. Kudos to the great company I work for. Reminds of We are the champions by Queens.

There’s a brighter side to India’s exit from the World Cup. Something that can cheer up disappointed fans and angry advertisers. Sri Lanka has done a great favour to Indian economy by ousting the cricket team from the World Cup. There are about 80 million cable and satellite viewing homes in India.

According to TAM ratings, the average viewership of all World Cup matches
held till now stands at about 3%, with India vs Bangladesh touching a high
of 7.25%. To reach the finals, India would have played at least seven more
matches.

Considering a TV Rating of 7.25%, at least 5.8 million people would have
watched the match. This would have resulted in a productivity loss of 371.2
million man hours (5.8 million x 8 hours x 8 matches), apart from stress
faced by mothers during exams.

About 3% of 81 million TV viewers (2.4 million) were ardent cricket fans and
would have sat through all eight hours in the remaining 28 matches. Thus
overall, Indian team’s ouster would result in a productivity gain of 481
million man hours of work (28×2.4×8 man hours), if put to use.

The Sri Lankans have given a boost to the Indian economy by saving 54,902
man years of work (one year = 8,761 hours). Indians can build seven phases
of the Golden Quadrilateral connecting Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai
spread over 5,846 kilometres all over again, with this time saved.

A daily wage skilled labourer in Delhi earns Rs 17 per hour. If put to
productive use, the 481 million man hours can produce Rs 817 crore of GDP,
which is 63% more than BCCI’s annual revenues of Rs 500 crore, last year. It
’s 401% more than the Rs 163 crore losses, corporate India has predicted to
incur due India’s ouster.

The state electricity boards are also thanking Sri Lanka for the great
favour. A TV consumes 45 watts per hour. Assuming a viewer will now switch
off his TV by 12 midnight, it will save Rs 135 watts at least per viewer
(not considering the electricity consumed by other appliances running
simultaneously. )

This will save the electricity boards 324 million watts of electricity (
3.24 lakh kilowatts) in just 28 days. According to estimates, SEB losses in
India will touch Rs 1 lakh crore by 2008.

If disappointed viewers completely switch off their TVs for eight hours, it
will save the government at least 8,64,000 kilowatts, along with many more
lives - at least three Indian citizens have been reported to die due to
cardiac arrest or suicide after India’s defeat at the hands of Sri Lanka

-Source a forwarded mail.

I couldn’t think of any better way to describe the Indian cricket team, thanks to their pathetic display at the world cup. Greg Chappell had once said Perform or Perish when he started coaching the Indian team. And, the Indian team has been defeated and perished in a way that even minnows would be shameful if anything like this happened to them. I came to know from News the day when Sri Lanka were playing Bangladesh that few India cricketers including Sachin Tendulkar had gone to watch the match to “learn” and “understand” what are Sri Lankan strategies….lol.. And what did you learn Mr. Tendulkar ? How to get out for a duck ? Cool. We are proud of you! Dude, its time for you guys to retire perish. And what is still surprising is that common India man is still hoping that our team will enter super 8’s IF Bermuda beats Bangladesh. Such worse is the situation is that our team has to relay on a minnow like Bermuda who are playing for the first time for their ticket in Super 8s. Team India should be shameful of this.