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Last friday, I went along with my teammates to the the M.Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bangalore to watch the Inaugural match of the Indian Premier League (IPL) between the Banagalore Royal Challengers and Kolkata Knight Riders. Since it was my first such experience, I was really excited. We started off early to avoid the rush and reached the stadium at 5.30pm. Dressed up in our corp T-Shirt & with face paintings done :) we were all geared up for the match. While standing in the queue, we were seeing a couple of news reporter interviewing people and turned their camera to focus us ;) donno which news crew. When we were about to enter the stadium, we were asked to drop all eatables/ drinking water before our entry. I even heard one of the stadium officials say "This is not just another cricket match, but a business. So please drop all your stuffs outside". Without much difficulty we were able to locate our stands, sadly we found all the front rows occupied. We occupied the last few rows of the stands.

We waited for another one hour before the opening ceremony started. It was really grand to see the acrobats swinging on hanging sheets of cloth & acrobats descending down a winch from the stadium's flood light pole. The lighting effects and the show where some girls were dancing inside plastic bubbles deserves a special mention. There were big BOOs from the crowd when the BCCI Chairman, Mr Sharad Pawar started to speak. We could hear the same reaction for the IPL Chairman and also when Ricky Pointing entered the stadium for his turn to bat.Then Shankar Mahadevan, a playback singer was singing some hindi songs and the entire stadium was singing along with him. This went on and on and finally the match started at 8pm. From the stands we were seated, the faces of the cricket players couldn't be seen , we were assuming names. We saw a good show by both the team. Kolkata for their superb innings and Bangalore for their quick innings ;) , which helped us in reaching home at 00.30am itself. Altogether it was a wonderful experience and a nice opportunity to see all the cricket stars Sachin, Dravid, Ganguly, Dhoni, Sharne Warne, Yuvraj & VVS Laxmanan face to face under one roof.

A Few dislikes:

• All the food items were sold at twice the MRP or maybe that's how it is in cinema halls oops I mean cricket stadiums.
• You can find huge money invested by the team owners in entertaining the crowd, first the cricket players and then the cheer girls (what a waste!)
  

Some tips for first timers:

• Start off to the stadium as early as possible and occupy the front bench.
• If you want to be covered by the camera DON'T dress differently, rather go and talk with the camera man ;)
• To get a feel of the crowd, you can visit the stadium otherwise its not worth it. IMHO, TVs are a much better option.

Some snaps of that day: Will be updating it soon

Highs and lows of comparison

I was reading through Rick Warren's "The Purpose Driven Life", when I came across this passage about comparing oneself with others.
Rick in his book says, There are two reason why you should never compare your works with others.

1) First one, You'll always be able to find someone who seems to be doing a better job than you are and you'll become discouraged.
OR
2) You will always be able to find someone who doesn't seem as effective as you are and you will get full of pride.

Both these attitudes will rob you out of your joy.

The Bible also warn us never to compare ourselves with others in Galatians 6:4 "Each of you must examine your own actions. Then you can be proud of your own accomplishments without comparing yourself to others.".

So just ponder over how many times we have compared ourselves with others and whether it has resulted in pride or depression?