Chelsea are champions again

Chelsea are champions of the English Premier League for the second consecutive year. They wrapped it up with a 3-0 win over ManU. They were always ahead throughout the year and it was just a matter of when they were going to win. The other teams were just trying to catch up. Although everyone might say that they had the money and bought the best players, but I think it requires a lot of teamwork and dedication to win the league.

Jose Mourinho is the best coach in the world at the moment. It is amazing that he has won the league for 4 years running (2 with Porto and 2 with Chelsea) and that shows the class of the man. He would be disappointed though that they did not go farther in the Champions League or in any of the cup competitions. He is a very agressive and a sharp shooter. Sometimes he crosses the lines with his comments, but ultimately he shows the results.

A few good ones i liked were

On his arrival - June 2004
We have top players and, sorry if I'm arrogant, we have a top manager.

On his new job - July 2004
If I wanted to have an easy job...I would have stayed at Porto - beautiful blue chair, the Uefa Champions League trophy, God, and after God, me.

On Roman Abramovich - March 2005
If he helped me out in training we would be bottom of the league and if I had to work in his world of big business, we would be bankrupt!

A thoroughly deserving victory for Chelsea

Coming soon: The gunners are in the Champions League final and hope they become champions.

The 'best' team in the world

The best team in the world for me currently is the Detroit Pistons in the NBA.

Pistons know only one way to play which is 'as a team'. It is a team that has been built over the last four years and their starting lineup has been the same for the last 3 years. It is a team of selfless players who are not playing for individual glory, but they want their team to succeed. You will find very few examples of such a spirit in this world of commercialization. Every time I see them play, the more I learn from them. This is not artificial, but true team spirit. Every game has a different player being the highest scorer and every game has a different star. It just does not matter to them how much each player scores as long as the team wins.

The core of the team is Chauncey, Ben Wallace, Rasheed Wallace, Prince and Rip Hamilton. They have a good support set of support players as well. They play team defense which is very tough to break down. None of these players was an all-star until this year. This year four of them got selected except for Prince. They won the NBA in 2004 and lost a close championship final to Spurs last year. Every year and every game they are improving and this year they are miles ahead of everyone in NBA in terms of the number of games won and their quality of play. Three coaches have come and gone in the last 4 years and nothing seems to affect this well oiled machine.

Team spirit, sacrificing for each other, supporting each other and their only goal is for the team to win the game. I don't know how long this team bonding and spirit is going to last, but as long as it does, basketball and sports is the winner.

Sanjay Subramaniam in NY

It has been a long time since i have attended a carnatic music concert. So, when i got an opportunity i did not want to miss it, thanks to my cousin Sowmya who got the tickets. The concert was hosted by the world music institute at Symphony space in upper west side. The artiste was carnatic vocalist Sanjay Subramaniam ably supported by Guruvayur Dorai in mridangam, Nagai Muralidharan in violin and Neyveli Venkatesh in kanjira.

Symphony space is a grand auditorium with a seating capacity of around 900 and when the concert began there was less than 200 people. With such a large South Indian community presence in NY/NJ, there was not enough attendance. There was a very brief introduction by the host about the artiste and their ensemble. I would have liked a more detailed introduction highlighting the achievements of the artistes. The crowd was a good mix of Indians and Americans and i could not quite noticing a trio of kannada mamis who were switching between American accent to local kannada quite easily.

Everyone settled down once the artistes have seated themselves and there is a downtime when everyone tunes their instruments. It is a good 5 min and it would have been a good time to introduce more about the artistes. Sanjay looked completely different from what i had imagined and read later on that he has changed his looks for the season. He looked more like a rock star with this long hair and a thick moustache than a carnatic musician.

He warmed up with Shankarabaranam and then moved on to Sahana ragam in detail. He was technically very strong and did not take any shortcuts. His best came in a composition in Thana Roopi ragam which kept the audience enthralled. The violinist was giving good support, although i felt (from my limited knowledge) he could not keep pace with Sanjay. Sanjay never eased up with any simple compositions, but kept on with quite challenging raagas. For me, one of the best part in a carnatic concert is the avarthanai when the percussionists are given a free hand to demonstrate their trade. The high level of skill of Dorai (senior artiste) came to the fore and Venkatesh was equal to the task on the khanjira and it was quite memorable for about 15 minutes. Sanjay finished off with a couple of light numbers and with a thillana at the end. There was a standing ovation from the audience at the end.

The best part about carnatic music i like is its non invasiveness and peace that it brings to oneself. I am still not able to identify the various raagas and it is proving difficult. For the same reason, i like bhajans more since you dont have to worry about the technicalities and just focus on the spirit. Bhajans have a lot of audience involvement and it is all about creating the right environment and the whole crowd is part of the experience (more like a rock concert). In that sense, carnatic music is more about each person internalizing the music and relating to it.

A faboulous carnatic music concert for two and a half hours.

Note: Coming up later on this month is Vikku Vinayakram's percussion ensemble and U Srinivas on mandolin in May.