Recently been to: Irani Chai Restaurant

Had been to the Irani Chai Lounge Bar and Restaurant over the weekend. Its located in Jubilee Hills Rd #10 and serves very good Hyderabadi food and has a unique combo-meals offer too. Its proximity to my office would’ve made it an ideal lunchtime rendezvous but for the fact that it is located slightly off the beaten track and transport to there is slightly hard to get. And it ain’t within walking distance either…by the time I have a filling meal and hike back, it would be digested

Anyways, I’ve written in-detail about that place over at my Hyderabad Restaurants Blog. Do check it out sometime and leave your valuable comments.

“Official” Google Diwali Logo for 2008

Seems Google heard me wishing for an official logo for regional festivals on their .co.in page, over at the Google Diwali Logo post. So they go ahead and put in one for Diwali over at Google.co.in. Here’s how it  looks like [link]:

 

Not bad but Balachander’s unofficial one was better!

☼~☼~Happy Diwali~☼~☼

Here’s wishing everyone a very Happy, Safe and Wonderful Diwali. May the festival of lights usher in a bright new beginning in everyone’s life and dispel the surrounding gloom and sadness.

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I know the wishes are a day early but curiously enough, the Bengalureans (and I presume the Kannadigas too) are celebrating Diwali on Monday itself! AFAIK, Deepawali Amavasya isn’t until Tuesday and that’s when we’re going to celebrate it. Have a safe and un-noisy one everyone…Ciao.

Music Review – Yuvvraaj

The Maestro – A. R. Rahman – and the Showman – Subhash Ghai – come together after eight long years in giving us the latesht Bollywood  musical – Yuvvraaj. Their last collaboration – Taal – was a musical success, if not a commercial one and whose melodies are quintessential Rahman. Gulzar saab pens in the lyrics for Yuvvraaj, which ought be one poetic journey. And I hope the melody reigns yet again; almost a regular feat for Rahman, I should say.

Rahman’s svelte vocals create an impressive opening for Tu hi toh meri dost hai and newcomer Benny Dayal makes a good contribution though his opening rendition has an uncanny resemblance to Sonu Nigaam! Shreya Ghoshal lends admirable support with Rahman himself joining in later on. Salman Khan himself opens the Main Hoon Yuvvraaj track with the background of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, which has been performed by the Chennai String Orchestra. There’s a tongue-in-cheek reference to bad boy, superstar and Jaanemann which leads me to think whether it was Salman’s own impromptu rendition! Zindagi Zindagi has Srinivas (he of the kaisi hae yeh rut fame from DCH) in soulful form and with some mellifluous lyrics, it comes across as a reminiscent track. The beats pick-up significantly in Shano Shano which also resurfaces as a remix (remix? and Rahman’s track? is that a first?) later on. My least liked track of the lot, its mish-mashy and quite haphazard, what with a bevy of singers at the helm led by Sonu Nigam.

Now Listening (frequently): Desi Girl

If you’ve been noticing the da traxx list to the right in the sidebar, you’d have seen that I’ve been pretty much listening to the same song over and over again! Of course, the fact that Real Player doesn’t support scrobbling doesn’t help in putting up the other songs I’ve been listening to lately. Coming back to the oft-listened track – its desi girl from the upcoming Hindi movie Dostana. The track has a Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy feel to it but is actually by Vishal-Shekhar. Sung with aplomb by Shankar Mahadevan and Sunidhi Chauhan, its one groovy track. It has some hummable lyrics too (labelled as silly by some!) which go well with the hip n’ happening & cosmopolitan (Miami?) feel of the movie. Lyrics and a YT vid follow after the jump:

Chinese Grand Prix – Sunday Race – Hamilton wins, Massa 2nd

It was a copybook victory for Lewis Hamilton at the Chinese Grand Prix as he led from start to finish in a blemish-free and slightly drab race. Felipe Massa finished second and kept his title hopes alive, albeit very diminished & teammate Kimi Raikkonen finished 3rd. There were none of the starting shenanigans as in Fuji and the top three cars ran around in the same order until Raikkonen allowed Massa to pass for 2nd place with a few laps to go. The 2008 Formula 1 World Drivers’ Championship will be decided at Interlagos in the last round of the season.

Chinese Grand Prix Podium - Hamilton, the winner, Massa 2nd and Kimi 3rd

I was dozing off for most of the race (courtesy a really early start of the day for me) but I guess it wasn’t as exciting as Fuji anyway! Alonso and Kovalainen’s starting moves and few midfield battles were all that were for us to cheer about. And for Kimi fans, the ungainly sight of him slowing down to allow Massa to pass for second place was disappointing. Kimi has only the last race left to claim the most fastest laps record. Go Kimi Go! The title challenge is however a relatively easy one for Hamilton as he holds a seven point advantage over Massa and just needs to finish 5th to be crowned the sport’s youngest champion. One must bear in mind that last year too, he had the same seven point advantage over Kimi and lost the title! So anything can happen…

Race Reports: Formula1.com | BBC Sport | Grandprix.com

Chinese Grand Prix – Saturday Qualifying – Hamilton on Pole, Massa 3rd, Kimi 2nd

Lewis Hamilton took pole position for the Chinese Grand Prix with nearest rival Felipe Massa in P3. Kimi Raikkonen was second fastest while Heikki Kovalainen was fifth with the on-form man Fernando Alonso in P4. Red Bull’s Mark Webber was sixth fastest but will drop down ten places because of an engine change. Nick Heidfeld, Sebastian Vettel, Jarno Trulli and Sebastien Bourdais take the last of the top ten places on the grid. The front row of the grid is exactly same as the Japanese Grand Prix where Raikkonen had pulled off the starting line much quicker than Hamilton. If that happens again and with Massa and Alonso just behind Lewis, it can quickly turn into an ugly scrap for the race lead into the first corner.

Chinese Grand Prix Grid - Lewis Hamilton on Pole, with Kimi Raikkonen alongside and Felipe Massa on P3

Q1′s early leaders were Nelson Piquet, Timo Glock & Sebastian Vettel but when the big four came rolling, it was Lewis Hamilton who was P1 ahead of his teammate and the two Ferraris. Both the McLarens paced in the mid 1 Min 35s times and at the end of the session, the Toro Rosso of Sebastian Vettel and the Renault of Fernando Alonso were in between the McLarens and the Ferraris. BMW’s Robert Kubica made it into Q2 by the skin of his teeth as he could manage only 14th fastest at the tail end of the session. Those who dropped out of the session were the Red Bull of David Coulthard, Williams’ Kazuki Nakajima, Honda’s Jenson Button and the two Force India’s of Adrian Sutil and Giancarlo Fisichella.

Q2 started off amidst complaints from Coulthard about the BMW of Nick Heidfeld impeding his run but that’s something the Stewards will look into later on. Kimi Raikkonen was the early pace setter but was almost immediately pegged back by Heikki Kovalainen, who in turn was immediately pegged back by Massa. Hamilton could manage just fifth fastest initially but then put on soft tyres and did a blinder of a lap – the only driver to drop to 1 Min 34.9s – and was P1 for that session. Robert Kubica was again in trouble and could manage only 11th fastest which ultimately dropped down to 12th. Joining him in being relegated from the second session were Nelson Piquet, Rubens Barrichello, Timo Glock and Nico Rosberg. They will however move up a place on the grid owing to Mark Webber’s 10-place penalty for an Engine change (and may also move up two places if the stewards decide to punish Nick Heidfeld for impeding David Coulthard).

Q3, as usual, was a straight shootout for the pole position amongst the top two teams and as in Q2, Raikkonen was the early leader and surprisingly, Mark Webber was second fastest. Massa and Hamilton both couldn’t pip that but Heikki Kovalainen did and put his McLaren on provisional pole in the initial runs. When the final runs were made, it was Kimi first, then Hamilton eclipsed that effortlessly but Massa couldn’t and neither could Kovalainen. Crucially, Massa was slower than Kimi which meant he was in P3 and immediately behind Lewis. Fernando Alonso put his Renault in between Massa and Kovalainen and if the front-runners trip over themselves at the start of the race, it can be yet another win for the double world champion! All is set for an exciting race tomorrow!!!

The Airbus A380 at Hyderabad

If I would’ve been still staying at my old rooms, all I’d have to do was look up and there it would be…right in front of me! The “it” in question here is the Airbus A380, the world’s largest passenger airliner which landed at Hyderabad’s Begumpet Airport earlier today as part of the India Aviation 2008 event. My erstwhile rooms were a stone’s throw away from the airport’s boundary walls and from there I could spot all the flights as they landed and took-off. We even practised guessing the plane’s model by the sound it made

Airbus A380-841, Airbus Industrie, F-WWOW, originally uploaded by Sameer Chhabra@Flickr

Though I myself didn’t go to the airport and snap any pix, I found many over at Flickr - Sameer and Crew320 have some great pix from the show. And Liju has a writeup about the event over here.

Image from Sameer@Flickr