Best Dancers in Tamil Cinema

While I was watching Saravana recently and looking at how good Simbu was dancing, it struck me that it would be a good idea to list my favorite dancers in Tamil cinema and rank them too, may be the top 5. Thus formed was this post. Before the youth brigade came into the field, whenever I saw the choreography in Hindi movies, I used to think how badly we lag behind them in that field. But now that these young heroes have come into the picture and have performed pretty admirably, I no longer feel bad as we are definitely at par with them as far as choreography goes.

Anyway, for the purpose of coming up with this list, I have to leave out Prabhu Deva (and the other dance masters who have acted as heroes) bcos of the obvious reason he is a dance master by profession and so no matter even if he had acted as a hero in a handful of movies, he is still considered to be a dance master by yours truly. And then there is no place for any of the elder generation actors in my list bcos I think that none of them really mastered the art of dancing. Kamal was pretty good in classical dances (like he showed us in Salangai Oli) but he was just comical when it came to disco/ break dancing and if not for Prabhu Deva, we would have been blindly thinking that what Kamal did in the name of dancing was what dancing was all about :) So, now to the list

5) Jeyam Ravi
He is someone who was groomed to be a hero from his childhood days and hence it came as no surprise that he is very good at dancing. The fact that inspite of his tall and well-built physique, he dances pretty well is a testimony to the effort he puts in. Though he has very few movies to his credit, the promise he has shown is enough to convince me to place him at number 5 in the list. The introduction song in Idhaya Thirudan, among many others, is a good proof of his dancing skills.

4) Surya
He is easily the most-improved of the lot. Nobody can forget the way he started his career in movies, with that amateurish & forgettable dance steps in Nerukku Ner. In fact, during those days, his steps in Aval varuvaalaa were actually the butt of ridicule in skits in college festivals. But if someone who had not seen him 5 years back, were to take a look at him now, he will never believe if we show him the videos of Nerukku Ner songs. Such has been his amazing transformation. I first noticed his improved dancing in an obscure movie called Perianna. I was like "Isn’t that Surya?" I had to look twice to make myself believe. Then came Friends where he had almost matched the best in the industry - Vijay. And he has only continued to improved to this date. But having said all that, I still have to admit that he has this certain artificialness to his dancing, which will always place him behind the other dancers in the list. He is more of a choreographer’s dancer since he does exactly what the dance master instructs him to do. You can see that clearly in his dancing in the Ghajni songs.

3) Bharath
This guy is such a natural, when it comes to dancing. Though he stood out clearly among the 'Boys', the disaster of the movie at the box-office did not help his cause. But I have been following his dancing exploits, in every movie of his form then on. He danced his heart out in the songs of 4 Students and in movies like Pattiyal and AIBI, his dancing just became phenomenal. I will even say that he is the most natural of all the actors in this list but just bcos he has not too many movies to his credit, I am placing him at number 3.

2) Simbu
Inspite of all the silly & irritating things he does (I haven't even watched Vallavan yet), I have a soft corner for Simbu, for no apparent reason. I have asked myself the same question as to why I like him and I have never been able to come up with a convincing answer. And the one thing I admire most about this guy is his dancing. He is just too good. He is probably the best when it comes to doing really fast and complex steps. There is this one step that he dances in Saravana which just made me go "Wow.." Even in that useless film called Kaadhal Azhivadhillai, his dancing stood out for me. Like batsmen in cricket, actors in movies get more matured & better as their experience increases and hence I expect him to only get better.

1) Vijay
This should have be a no-brainer for most of us who watch Tamil cinema but wasn’t an easy decision for me bcos I have always thought that Simbu is as good a dancer as Vijay. The reasoning my thinking is this: if we compare the way how Vijay used to dance during his early days or his first 10 movies (which is how many movies Simbu would have done till now) with what Simbu is doing now, I am sure most of us would agree that Simbu is the better dancer. But I am giving it to Vijay just bcos of the fact that he has carried forward pretty well and to this date, dancing remains his forte and unfortunately, the only thing he is good at it. A majority portion of the songs in my list of most favorite dance songs, has Vijay in it. The Macareena song in Kushi, Aal thotta Bhoopathi in Youth, Saraku vachirukken in Shahjahan, Coca cola brown color-da in Bagavathi, the list is endless with full of Vijay songs.

There you go with the list of the best dancers in Tamil cinema. So, now to you guys. Agree/ disagree with the list? Any honorable mentions that I mssed out?

Travails of the Indian team

Looks like the West Indies tour at the start of the season did a world of bad to this Indian team whose fortunes have gone down hill ever since returning from the Caribbean with a rare test series victory but a thumping 1-4 defeat in the ODIs. It appears somebody cast a voodoo or something on the team. The defeats in Malaysia and in the Champions Trophy were bearable but it is the way in which they have lost the first 2 ODIs in South Africa that has bothered us fans very much. Looking back, our record in the past bilateral series against South Africa has been anything but abject bad. So, it should really come as no surprise that we are having a nightmarish tour thus far. But I guess the reason for our disappointment stems from the fact that these humbling losses come after a very good season when we broke the record for consecutive matches won when batting second.

The debacle in the first game, no matter how humiliating it was, was understandable, given that it was the first game of the series. We are not used to playing on such bouncy pitches against a pace attack which boasts of names like Ntini and Pollock. The abject manner in which we went down without a fight in the second game is probably what fuelled the growing dissatisfaction to the tipping point levels. The injuries haven’t helped India either. We are already without one of our important middle-order bats, Yuvraj and now we have lost Dravid till the test series begins. Add Munaf Patel to that list and our cup of woes is full to the brim. But I do feel that all hope is not lost yet.

Looking forward to the next 2 games (well, its hard to even do that, with our batting mainstay Dravid out for the next 2 games), what I read in Cricinfo a while ago was what exactly I had in my mind too and what could be the ready-made solution to the batting order woes - have Sachin play in the middle order. Jaffer and Sehwag can open and Sachin can come in at number 4, so that it gives the batting order some sort of stability. That is definitely a good alternative at this moment. Sachin looked comfortable in the first ODI but got out cheaply in the second. But if there is someone in the current team (now that Dravid is gone) who can bat on these kinds of pitches, then it is him. And for heaven’s sake, the team management has to get rid of the genius idea of having Dinesh Karthik play as a pure batsman. The bowling department looks decent (except for the last 10 overs in the last game) even though I cant understand what is Agarkar still doing there. Looks like Sreesanth will start in place of Agarkar and that is definitely a welcome decision.

If VVS too can make it to the starting lineup for the 3rd ODI, I guess we would be in much better shape and can look forward to some credible performance from the Indians and even may be a miracle (I mean, winning the game). Having said all this, I believe that the one man who can make all the difference in the world - Sehwag - needs to fire. If he fires big time, India wins. It is as simple as that. Lets keep our fingers crossed.

Just Dont Get It!!!

The reason for this very disjointed post is my experience during this past weekend when like every desi I dutifully went shopping on Friday to spend some well-earned money: No matter what store I ventured into, there was this huge line of people standing in line at each of the billing counters. And guess what took me by surprise? The high number of employees on the floor, helping out customers. I just couldn’t understand the logic behind having more folks on the floor than at the billing counters than. Most of the customers flocking these stores on Black Friday know exactly what they are looking for. Most of them do not need any assistance on the product that they came to buy. They were there bcos they spotted the deal and have been on a healthy diet of sites like this. The lines were the longest in stores like Circuit City and Staples.

I was wondering what could be the reason behind this decision of the store owners, not to increase the personnel at the billing counter. It definitely can not be their inability to get employees to work on the day after Thanksgiving bcos over here, folks who work on days like these are paid 1.5 to 2 times their regular pay rate. The other reason I could think of was - by doing so, they make sure that they look super-busy giving the customers a notion that they are having some really hot deals and due to which they hope that the customers will make a beeline to the store.

In Circuit City, they had a even worse strategy – they would not let you get your hands on the high profile items. They ask you to stand in line (without the item you want to buy) and you will get to know the fate of the availability only when you reach the counter. So, once you reach the counter, they search for the item in their inventory, have someone go & fetch it for you and then you finally pay the bill. Naturally, this was taking way too much time than at any other stores.

All this drove me crazy bcos though the crowd on a Black Friday is probably 4-5 times more than what they normally encounter, with proper planning they could easily streamline the crowd by having more employees on the shift (Some stores like CompUSA were much better in bringing down the wait times). My experience made me take an oath that this is the last year I am going out to any of the stores on Black Friday. Coming to think of that, it might not be a bad idea bcos many of the so-called deals will be available online in a matter of few days from now. Say, for example this red-hot Canon SD 600 deal which was offered at $199.99 by Circuit City is actually available for 204$ in this site here.

You guys can think of any possible reason?

BTW, couple of more items to be added to my You are a desi if list.

1) You watch a Bond/ Spielberg movie in the opening weekend
2) You head out to the electronics stores on Black Friday

Paruthiveeran album - Yuvan's laudable attempt at folk

As a Yuvan fan, this was one of the most expected albums (along with Vasanth's Satham Podaathey). Coming on the heels of their stupendous musical hit in Raam, the Yuvan - Ameer combo has come up with an authentic rural theme based album, this time around. To be very frank, I was not surprised at the genre to which this album belongs to. With the kind of stills of the movie that were released, Ameer had made us to expect exactly this kind of a non-commercial album. Total of 6 'songs', 3 of them are proper songs and the rest are folk numbers. With the recent Sivappathigaaram album too having a substantial number of folk songs, we might be seeing the revival of the lost genre.

Ariyaa Vayasu - A neat melody with simple orchestration. Mottai has rendered the song in a soulful way. Hearing the song it makes you wonder if it was the Maestro who actually composed this song too, which I think is a huge compliment for Yuvan. The second time you listen to the song, you will start humming along with it.

Aiyyaiyyo - Quite easily my pick of the album. Shreya Gosal's voice is like honey to the ears. Krishna Raj, who has sung some notable numbers before, is actually the surprise highlight of the song (Just read from Suresh’s take on the album that he is the same one who sang numbers like Thanjaavooru manneduthu). Oh, the place where he starts the song "sandaazhi un paasathaala" is just awesome. The song's simple tune just sucks you in. Yuvan comes in for the usual humming part and he does not do a bad job (that is to say he could have done better). This is the only song where the lyrics stand out and draws your attention.

Sarigamapathanee - This has my favorite Madhumita singing. That itself is enough for me to like the song. Along with the catchy tune which Yuvan has thrown with it, this is another of those short & sweet songs (it only runs for 2:16 mins) that you will start liking it, in a few listenings. But I also feel that this song will appeal better when seen with the movie. It also has Ameer listed as one of the singers. There is only a high pitched humming that can be credited to a male voice in this song and if that is Ameer's, then he definitely should have a great talent for singing.

The remaining songs are folk songs which you would be able to hear if you go to any festival in rural Tamil Nadu. The Tukka dunga number in particular is the highlight among the 3 and is like a medley of numerous songs. The number Naathaswaram has been credited to some Sanmuga Sundaram group and is completely instrumental - a daringly different attempt from Yuvan. The dialogues interspersed in the other folk number - Voororam puliyamaram - are actually very entertaining and make you look forward to the movie even more.

In conclusion, Yuvan has treaded his father's way in this album and Virumandi is the album that comes to my mind when I think of a recent movie by the Maestro. Like Virumandi, this too has couple of awesome melodies and then the rest are all situational songs, suited for the movie. Bottomline - a must-buy album if you are a Yuvan fan. You got to appreciate this guy for what he is doing - first he comes up with a completely unconventional AIBI, then a path-breaking Pudhupettai and now, this completely off the track album. Frankly, when was the last time we had an album like this? The MD should have the guts to even think of doing an album like this. Yuvan is getting better and his growing maturity shows in his compositions. Laudable effort.

My New Phone - Blackberry Pearl

It is amazing on how the life expectancy of cell phones here hovers around the 1 year mark (or it could also be the itch of wanting a new cell phone every 12 months). In my case, while I was still sitting on the idea of whether to upgrade my phone or not, rain played a 'blessing in disguise' act. When we were playing cricket 2 weeks back in pouring rain, my old cell phone got wet and gradually, in a matter of few days stopped working completely. So, hurray!!! Time to get my hands around a new phone. This time around, I did not even look for any other phones since ever since I read about the reviews of the Blackberry Pearl, I had decided that it was going to be my next cell phone. So, after I got the chance to take a look at it physically from one of my friends, I was just waiting for the day when I could upgrade my phone.

I am no gizmo freak and thus I look for only the basic features from a cell phone. And the pearl has all the features that I want in a phone – has a speaker option, bigger screen, plays mp3, takes pictures (first Blackberry phone with a camera), has bluetooth connectivity, you can check your emails and browse the internet (of course, with the data plan). Unlike the previous Blackberry phones which were bulky & more importantly didn’t look like a normal phone, the Pearl is small, very sleek and way too light & thin. The trackball (similar to the mini-joystick we have in Sony Ericsson phones) is one of the many highlights of the phone. It is like a mouse and so all you have to do to navigate is to roll your finger over the trackball. The navigation using the trackball is so effortless. The next thing I have loved so far about the phone is its amazing & crystal-clear display (it is a 2.25 inch TFT screen). Even the most important aspects of any phone – signal reception & call quality – is pretty good when compared to my previous Moto ROKR phone. So, if you are on the lookout for a new phone, try this. It is worth the hype that was generated before its release.

Small trivia about the phone: The reason why it called a Pearl is bcos of the trackball which resembles a pearl.

Amateurs vs Professionals

I loved this one quote from the latest GMC Truck commercial.

Amateurs work until they can get it right
Professionals work until they can't get it wrong

Beautiful observation and how true. The one example that I can think of where this difference can be clearly explained is a 400 m hurdles race. If you are an amateur, the way to practice is to make sure that you do not check your speed while running between the hurdles. In other words, the strides between the hurdles should be very smooth, so as not to check your speed for the sake of getting over the hurdle. Compare this to professional hurdlers, who are so good that they do not have to even think about their strides in between the hurdles. Folklore has it that Edwin Moses, the US track & field legend who dominated the 400 m hurdles event in the 1980s, can run the entire 400m hurdles race with his eyes, BLINDFOLDED. Awesome, right? But more importantly, clearly shows the difference between a professional and an amateur, like the caption above says.

Weekend movies - Udhiri Pookkal and Imsai Arasan 23-aam Pulikesi

Udhiripookkal: This was what I knew about the movie before watching it:

1) If you ask Tamil movie lovers who are in their 30s to come up with the list of best Tamil movies ever, this movie would find a place in the list of 9 out of 10 people.
2) Though I have seen the movie a long time back, it was the parting shot of the movie that I was able to remember, mainly bcos it justified the title of the movie.
3) Vijayan as the hero of the movie.

Now, after watching the movie, I can understand why everyone felt so and in fact, I would have jumped on that bandwagon, if not for some minor shortcomings which let the film down IMO. The movie was awesome. I love Mahendran’s narration style, relaxed and simple. You go get a feeling that the movie is moving at a slow pace, but there is something happening in each and every scene that gradually builds up to the unforgettable climax. The one thing I observed in this movie (and something that I didn’t see in Mullum Malarum) is the way he starts every single scene. He would start the scene by showing just a single character, uttering a dialogue. He wouldn’t be showing who that character is talking to and where the scene is happening. Then, he slowly zooms out and reveals the other person in the scene and the location. That, I thought, was pretty neat.

The movie was going great but right after Vijayan gets married the second time, completely loses track for the next 20 mins or so, only to find its footing again in the scenes leading up to the climax. And that’s where my disappointment stems from. When you are watching an all-time classic that is going great, you keep saying to yourself that so and so scene should not show up in the flow and if that exact thing shows up, imagine how disappointed you would be. That kind of a thing exactly happened while watching this movie. So, the scene is this: Vijayan comes back to the village after his 2nd marriage and everyone is watching him get off the parisal. Right then, his first wife's sister, who was the one he badly wanted to marry, starts singing a song, making fun of him. And just like that, all the good things I had to say about the movie evaporated and I was like Mahendran, please don’t do this. That song and roughly the 15 mins following that had a huge impact on what I had to say the movie as a whole. When you are watching a yesteryear classic like this, you expect everything to be perfect in every sense. So, when something went awry, I just couldn’t take it.

As far as performances go - Vijayan is clearly the scene stealer and expectedly turns in a power packed performance. The star cast is amazing, with even the relatively unknown actors coming up with very convincing performances. The Maestro's background score was as always perfect and among the songs, the classic Azhagiya Kanne is superb. Looks like it was Mahendran who started the age-old tradition of casting Sarath Babu as the highly qualified/ dignified/ soft-spoken/ highly educated person (His role in Mullum malarum too was a similar one), a tradition we have carried on till this date. The last time I can remember him doing a similar role was in Baba. Bottom line - this is very good quality cinema but I would stop just short of calling this movie a classic, which his debut movie Mullum Malarum was. Somehow, of all his movies that I have seen, Mullum Malarum stands tall. The only movie that I want to watch badly is Metti, to see if he had gotten any better after making Mullum Malarum. Mahendran fans who have watched all of his movies can comment on this.

Imsai Arasan 23-aam Pulikesi - Watched this movie, finally a good 4 months after the film was released. I immensely loved the movie, from the outset. Though the jokes as such were no great shakes, the timing of the same made me laugh uncontrollably and at one point, even fell off the chair while doing so :) When I was thinking about why I liked the movie so much, I realized that the main reason was bcos the jokes in the movie were more along the lines of what we, as students, would have come up in our skits during our college days. For example, the akka mala and gupsy references. I am sure every one of us would have seen similar skits during our college days. But at the same time, this can be brought out as a minus point too bcos of the inability of the director to think of any special jokes that we might expect from a professional like him, when compared to amateurs like us. Like in all successful comedy movies, what makes the movie more enjoyable and captivating is the presence of a valid storyline, no matter how much aradha pazhasu it is. Again, Shankar has to be given all the credit for even attempting to do something like this - produce a historical comedy movie with Vadivelu as the hero. The whole cast was funny, with Vadivelu playing his Pulikesi role to perfection. The only place the move dragged a bit is during the romance scenes when Pulikesi is in the prison. Bottom line - If you are expecting a laugh riot like the Kamal - Crazy Mohan movies, you might be disappointed. But if you go in with no such expectations, you will thoroughly enjoy it, like I did. Truly hilarious. Now, time to look forward to Veyil.

Mid-season NFL Ramblings

The top 5 questions / talking points as we are midway through the 2006 NFL season.

1) What’s up with the Pittsburgh Steelers?
As much as we (as in, the Seattle folks) hate the Steelers for spoiling our Super Bowl party that fateful day in February, their dip in form has been alarming, to put it mildly. Usually, what Championship winning teams in other sports do, is trade some of their best players for a lot of money to other teams, right after winning the Championship. But the Steelers did not do that and except for Antwaan Randle El, had all their stars coming together again for this season. In the draft, they picked up the hugely talented wide receiver Santonio Holmes from Ohio State. Coming in with almost the same team, the Steelers at this stage of the season are virtually out of the playoff picture. 2-6 is not the way one had expected the Super Bowl champions to start the season with. They reached the nadir last week, when they lost to the Raiders, inspite of just giving up 98 total yards on offense. Their remaining schedule does not look pretty either - 2 divisional games against the Ravens and a road game against the Panthers. Like my friend here says, Crapsburgh would be a better name for them.

2) Is this finally Peyton Manning's year?
Well, the analysts covering the game have been asking this question every season, for the last 3-4 years. I really thought last year was their best chance of going to the Super Bowl, bcos of their vastly improved defense complimenting the omni-potent offense. But their defense, particularly the rush defense, has sucked so far this year. Plus, Edgerrin James leaving them has made their offense very one-dimensional (though I have to admit here that Joesph Addai is getting better with each passing game). So, given all these, if I have to answer this question in one word - NO would be my answer. I would like to see Peyton win the Super Bowl but they say Defense wins Championships and the Colts defense in their current state can't do that.

3) Will the Seahawks escape the Super Bowl losers jinx?
For starters, the Super Bowl losers jinx is that none of the Super Bowl losing teams since 1999 have gone to record a winning season, right after their Super Bowl appearance season. So, when Shaun Alexander and then Matt Hasselback were injured (making them miss a combined 9 games), the jinx was rearing its ugly head again, here in Seattle. After the Monday night victory over the Raiders, the Seahawks are 5-3 and if Hasselback comes back as expected in 2 weeks' time, I am picking the Seahawks to become the first team to break the Super Bowl jinx and record a winning season & ultimately make it to the playoffs.

4) Will the Cardinals ever wake up from their slumber?
Just like number 2, another prediction that is perennially made every pre-season is that the Cardinals are the sleeper team of the year. Every year there is this one team which no one would expect to do well but they end up doing extremely well and they are called the sleeper team of the season. For example, that billing would fit the 6-2 New Orleans Saints this season. But the Cardinals? Everything they did during the off-season - signing Edgerrin James, drafting Matt Leinart and inaugurating a state-of-the-art stadium - suggested that this is finally the year that they will turn the corner in their franchise's history. The fact that they arguably have one of the best wide receiving core in the NFL made everyone look forward to with hope. But at 1-7 with the worst record in the league, this has turned out to be another disappointing season for the Cardinals and Leinart is yet to register his first win as a starter.

5) Will the NFC East get less-competitive ever?
It is just unbelievable on how tough this particular division is - Redskins, Eagles, Cowboys and Giants. We have conferences like AFC south & NFC West (with 2 abject bad teams) and then we have a division where all 4 teams are tough to beat most of the time. The Giants are currently ahead in the race for the divisional winner but the Cowboys and Eagles are not far behind. Save for one year during the last 4 years, one of the 2 NFC wild card spots has always gone to the NFC East. Even away from the conference, their schedule is pretty tight. I was taking a look at the remaining schedule of the Washington Redskins and it looks brutal. The Giants are the favorites to win the division this season but in a tough division as this one, you never know what will happen. I am rooting for the Eagles, who inspite of a 4-4 start, look pretty good.

My predictions for the NFC and AFC Championship match-ups:
NFC: Bears vs Panthers and Panthers advance
AFC: Patriots vs Chargers and Chargers advance

I am sure many of us here would have come across jokes about the typical life style of desis (basically “You are a desi if” forwards like this). I have always wanted to come up with my own list but haven’t gotten many to make up a list. Anyway, the reason I am mentioning here is that there is atleast one item that I would add to this list. So, here it is - you are a desi IF you show more patriotism for your hometown football/ basketball/ baseball team that you would have ever shown for a team form your home country, say, the Indian cricket team :)

Weekend Movies - Sigappu Rojakkal and Fiza

Sigappu Rojakkal - I don’t really remember watching this movie even once before. All the other classics/ famous movies from yesteryears, I would have atleast seen them once many years back. But this is one movie I have missed for some reason. And after watching it over the weekend, I was glad that I didn’t watch it all these days. This was movie making at its worst. I simply can not believe how this movie has been given a cult status as far as thriller movies are concerned. I guess the one reason why this movie is popular even today is bcos of the fact that may be the theme the movie handled should have been path breaking during those days, a good 28 years before. But everything else about the movie was just badly executed. Bharathiraja is abject bad when it comes to handling thrillers like these. I have seen that in movies like Captain Magal, Tic Tic Tic & even Oru Kaidhiyin Dairy was nothing to rave about and my experience of watching Sigappu Rojakkal only goes on to confirm the same. The only memory I will carry out from this movie would be the Ninaivo Oru Paravai song and Kamal's raw rendition of the song. I have read some bloggers comment on how during the early days of their careers Thalaivar did more quality movies than Kamal and how Thalaivar's performances were better than Kamal's. A good example is Kamal's performance in this one, which is very ordinary and Thalaivar in Mullum Malarum. I am bringing in Mullum Malarum here bcos it is the movie that got released in the same year as this one was released. If one were to compare their performances in these 2 movies, Thalaivar beats Kamal by a long way. Overall, a very disgusting & forgettable movie and another reason why Bharathiraja should stick to his forte - movies based on rural themes.

Fiza - I had missed seeing this movie when it was released, even though I had wanted to see this bcos it carried some good reviews. The songs of the movie were a huge hit back then and inspite of them, the movie didn’t do all that well at the box office. The one thing which took everyone by surprise was Hrithik's decision to act in a wannabe art movie like this, right after he had made his debut with a bang in the completely commercial Kaho Naa Pyaar Hai. This movie was good, with a serious storyline and a decent execution overall. If not for some of the songs that hindered the narration, this movie would have been better. The story of this movie is simple and revolves around Kareena, her brother Hrithik and their mom Jaya Bachan. Their peaceful life is disrupted by the 1993 Bombay riots and when caught in a riot in the neighborhood, Hrithik runs away into oblivion. Kareena finally finds him after a search of 6 years in a terrorist organization and even though she brings him home, he finds it hard to live with the guilt of killing people, in the normal society. All this sets up a chilling climax which was pretty well done. The movie had some great songs, with a single song contribution from ARR. The background score has been done by Rahman's assistant, Ranjit Bharot. Decent watch, this one.

Monthly Sports Round-up - October 2006

October 1 - Tiger finishes off the season with his 6th straight victory at the Amex PGA Championships. This was almost a landslide victory for Woods, as he led the field from round 1 and kept increasing the distance between himself & the rest of the field with each passing round. At the end of the 3rd round when he led by a good 5 shots, the tournament was as good as over. His record of not losing a tournament when he is leading after 3 rounds, remains intact. Now, Woods heads into a well-deserved off season, after what has been a hectic but hugely successful season for him.

October 1 - Schumacher wins the Chinese Grand Prix (a race that Alonso should have won if not for the technical problems with his car & the pit stop) and thus ties Alonso atop the season's driver's championships leader board, with 2 races remaining. This is the first time that Schumacher finds himself in here - at the top of the leader board, since late 2004.

October 7 - The Champions trophy starts with an expectedly lop-sided match between Sri Lanka and Bangladesh in Mumbai. The only thing I used to like about the past editions of this tournament was the fact that it was mostly instant elimination. You lose a game, you are out of the tournament (partly a reason why Australia's cricketing resume is incomplete without a Champions trophy victory). But this edition of the tournament looks to me as though it is too long (it spans almost a full month), bcos the instant elimination or sudden death concept has been put away with. Plus, bcos of that, the teams have so many days between games, which makes following the tournament a not so fun proposition. I would like India NOT to win this trophy bcos of the fact that no Champions trophy winner has won the world cup before.

October 8 - Alonso makes a strong comeback, by winning the Japanese Grand Prix and thus, with Schumacher not finishing the race due to a very rare Ferrari engine failure, he is now 10 points clear of Schumacher in the drivers Championships table and only a miracle in the final race of the season - the Brazilian Grand Prix on October 22 - can stop him from winning his 3rd consecutive drivers' championship. Schumacher is almost all set to go out into the horizon without a victory in his final F1 season. The only good news is that Ferrari can still win the constructors' championship. For Schumacher to win the Championship, both of the following need to happen - Schumacher should win the final race and Alonso should finish outside the top 8 spots. But what he said when asked about his chances in the final race of the season shows us what a great sportsman he is : As for the drivers’ (title) it is lost. I don’t want to head off for a race, hoping that my rival has to retire. That is not the way in which I want to win the title. I simply loved that attitude.

October 21 - The Baseball world series begins with the 1st game of the series between the Detroit Tigers and the St. Louis Cardinals. It has been a dream run for the Tigers who were not given a chance against the supposedly best-lineup in the Yankee history. But the Tigers defied the odds in beating the Yankees in 4 games and now are all set for playing the ultimate prize in baseball - the World Series. The Cardinals, after a loss to the Astros in the National League Championship series last year, now they get a chance to redeem themselves after last year's loss, going in touted as the best team in baseball.

October 22 - So, Alonso, it is. The Renault driver wins the driver's championships, after Schumacher fails to win the last race of the season which was won by team-mate Felippe Massa. That brings an end to one of the most glorious chapters in the history of world sports. It would be a fair statement if I were to say that it was bcos of him, that most of us took to watching & following formula one as a sport in the first place. He will be missed and I was sad that he didn’t get a chance to get out on a high, winning the driver's championship. And with Alonso's second place finish, his team Renault also won the Constructor's championship for the season.

October 28 – The St. Louis Cardinals are the World Series champions, by defeating the Detroit Tigers in 5 games. The victory gives the Cardinals their first World Series win in 24 years. The Detroit Tigers who went into the series with a full 6 days’ rest and who were touted as the favorites, failed to put it across a determined Cardinals team, who virtually limped into the post season with a mere 83 regular season victories. The Tigers committed an uncharacteristic 8 errors during the series, the most that any team had committed in the world series in 50 years.

October 29 - The 2006 NFL season just had their best game of the season which had the Indianapolis Colts play against the Denver Broncos at the Mile High stadium. Peyton Manning finally breaks the myth about the supposedly invincible Broncos defense, lighting them up for 3 TDs and 345 yards. It was a typical Peyton performance, with him clinically dissecting the Broncos pass defense. The game did live up to the level it was hyped up to, with the Broncos offense too having a field day. But in the end, a minute and 40 seconds proved too easy for Manning, as he drove 60 yards down the field and set up a game winning field goal by Adam Vinatieri. It is amazing to see what this guy can do, right up to calling plays on the field and one shudders to think what the Colts would do without him. The one difference between Peyton and other quarterbacks that I have noticed is that while other quarterbacks throw to places on the field where there ARE receivers, Peyton throws the ball to places on the field where there WOULD be receivers. Many a time, you will see that at the time Manning delivers the throw, there would be no receiver in the area he is throwing to. That to me is the biggest difference. His wide receiver core is just so solid, that he is able to do that. All this sets up an intriguing match-up this weekend between the Colts and the Patriots, starring easily the 2 best quarterbacks in the league.

October 29 - India is knocked out of the Champions trophy, after an insipid bowling performance hands over the game to the Aussies on a platter. Defending a score of 249 on a good batting pitch, India let Australia off the hook, by conceding 100+ runs in the first 15 overs. After an amazing last season, where they even broke the record with 17 consecutive successful run chases, this has been one season the Indian team would like to forget. I am not sure what happened to the team over there in the Caribbean bcos ever since they returned from the West Indies, they have not been their usual self. The batsmen have consistently failed to put up good scores on the board and even on the odd occasion when they were able to, the bowlers botch it up. The dip in the form of each of the players has been alarming to say the least. Except for the last 2 innings, Dravid has struggled and Yuvraj & Raina's total lack of form just adds on to the woes. Those to me are the important reasons behind India’s downfall. Sachin struggled after 2 wonderful innings in Malaysia and as a Sachin fan, it pains to see McGrath get the better of Sachin one more time. Dravid and Chappell have the South African series, to set everything back in order before the big tournament begins in March. Something tells me that India is going to record their first test series win in South Africa in the upcoming series. Any takers?