Love it or hate it but you can’t ignore it, that’s Indian Premier League (IPL), the domestic professional Twenty20 cricket competition inIndia. Since its inception in 2008, initiated by the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), IPL has come a long way and has emerged as one of the top sports brands in the world. IPL was the fifth largest brand in the world of sports in two years of operation, just below FIFA and higher than Wimbledon and F1. The IPL has actually become the number one cricketing property in the world.

All said and done, as the fifth edition of IPL is round the corner, its worth to check where IPL as a brand is heading. According to a valuation by Brand Finance, the brand value of IPL has fallen to $2.92 billion (Rs 16,163 crore) from a peak of $4.13 billion (Rs 19,675 crore) in 2010. A Business Standard report noted that even television ratings have fallen consistently from 4.81 in the first year (2008) to 3.27 in 2012 edition. Even ad revenues have slumped 30 percent this season from a year ago.  So will the Sixth season of IPL be better and bigger? let’s wait and watch.

‘Pistah’ the run anthem from the soon to be released movie NERAM has become the latest YouTube sensation and is going viral big-time in various social networking sites. NERAM (Time) is an upcoming Tamil/Malayalam Bilingual film which is the directorial debut of Alphonse Putharen under the banner of Winner bulls films starring Nivin Pauly, Nazriya Nazim, Simhaa,Nasser, Manoj K Jayan, Thambi Ramaiah, Lalu Alex, John Vijay, Shammi Thilakan, Charlie…

Back to Pistah, the run anthem.  The song went online on March 10 morning and by end of the day the video was viewed by close to 80,000 times! over 5000 people have shared it on various social networking channels. This song comes at a very crucial time in the movie. Originally penned by Legendary Malayalam movie actor  Jagathy Sreekumar for the movie Kinnaram, released way back in 1983. Additional lyrics were added and sung by Shabareesh Varma, my younger brother

Here is the team behind the song.

A Winner Bulls Films production & Koral Group Viswanathan
Film – NERAM (Tamil & Malayalam)
Song – Pistah the run anthem
Music – Rajesh Murugesan
Singer – Shabareesh Varma
Lyricist – Jagathy Sreekumar (Kinnaram 1983)
Additional lyrics – Shabareesh Varma
Cinematography – Anend C Chandran
Editing & Direction – Alphonse Putharen
Typography – Alphonse Putharen
Sound Design – Vishnu Govind & Sree Sankar ( Sound Factor )
Final mix – Raja Krishnan (Four Frames)
Music label – Think Music.

Now time for Pistah!!! enjoy the song!!!!

Okay now you’ve become one

Started the day 1 from Chennai to Pondicherry, via ECR road

On way to Pondicherry!

In Pondy

Day 2: Morning: Pondicherry to Tiruvannamalai

It was a great experience driving through village roads

Day 2: Afternoon: Tiruvannamalai to Thengannur

Then back to Chennai, covered close to 400 kms!

So now its my turn. Well I came to Chennai in 2001, in search of job and in the last 12 years or so, Chennai has gone through so many changes. As most of the bloggers mentioned earlier, there are lots of things that I like in Chennai.  Some being Marina Beach, The Schmidt Memorial on Elliots Beach, The Central Railway Station, Ranganathan Street, T.Nagar ,Wonderful temples in the city , Fort St. George and the latest and my fav Anna centenary Library in Kotturpuram.

But then what surprised me the most in Chennai is the emergence of so many interesting and wonderful events in the recent years. Being an event blogger this excites me the most. Chennai hosts of all kinds of events, you name it. Tech events, events in arts, music and drama, on entrepreneurship, startup events, events like TEDx, BIL, PKN and SAM. These events are not only entertaining but informative also and a great place to network and meet interesting people.

I wish Chennai host more and more such wonderful events. Now the tablog must continue, introducing the next blogger Vid Dev, a Chennaiite who blogs at ‘The Pensieve’. http://viddev.wordpress.com

To start with, some cars

Some more

Now the real heroes! Photographers! Everywhere you can see them, with different gadgets

They hunt in groups

Oh, that’s me

Then, everyone wants to take photos with the car

All together, it was a great fulfilled Sunday morning!

BlogAdda has come up with an exclusive product review in association with Tata Motors  for its latest offering – The Vista D90 exclusively for Indian Bloggers.  30 Bloggers from Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore, Chennai and Hyderabad will be sharing their experience of driving Tata’s Vista D90.  I am happy to be selected for this novel & an exciting programme. So the programme is you will be given the Vista D90 car for three days. During these 3 days, each blogger is required to share their moments of driving the car in the form of tweets, images/posts on facebook & a post on the blog as well.

So wait for more updates and live tweeting, hey roads of South India, here I come

“Not much else in my mind for the rest of the day.” Walter Crocker, on Jawaharlal Nehru’s death in 1964

Same was my state after hearing about Nirbhaya’s death news.

It is an ill bird that fouls its own nest, just as the flame generated by the Arani destroys its source, the stick. The Mahabharata

In their bold use of compositional dynamics, taking inspiration from several domains and creating new heights in musical collaboration – both these master legends show startling similarity.

Lalgudi GJR Krishnan, scion of the Lalgudi family and master violinist, along with Anil Srinivasan, classical pianist who has now worked across domains present a unique lecture and concert of the works of these two master composers. The culmination of the morning will be a joint presentation. Krishnan and Srinivasan have now performed in different venues across the world. Their work was commissioned and recorded by Felmay Records, a label based in Europe and has already come in for immense critical acclaim and serious dialogue. Their concert at the Purcell Room in the Southbank Centre in London on a similar vein was met with great appreciation.

Both these musicians present this morning as a tribute to the living legend Lalgudi Sri Jayaraman.

This unique and interesting lecture-concert is on 24th december, 10 AM at Sri Krishna Gana Sabha. For more details, visit Anil Srinivasan’s Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/MadrasPianist

CII Chennai chapter organised an interaction with Dr. Marshall Goldsmith, World renowned Leadership thinker and author of best selling books like ‘MOJO’ and What Got You Here Won’t Get You There. It was a lively session with lots of exercises and participation from the attendees. I found Dr. Marshall Goldsmith quick witted and extremely humorous.  Here are some of the highlights from his talk

Great is the need for student to learn, greater is the need for teacher to teach

Great achiever is all about me, great leader is all about them

If we say great, but… to the people we love, we send a message that there is no great

Four words to be a better person, help more judge less

Once you go up the ladder, your suggestions become orders

Classical challenges of successful leaders are adding too much value, telling the world how wonderful we really are, passing too much judgment and winning too much

Over-committed is one of the most common problems of successful leaders

More successful people are more committed

Every time we get promoted, two things happen, we get more power and we get more freedom

Peter Drucker once said, we spend lot of time thinking what leaders want to do, but never discuss what leaders should stop doing.