Game on!

It was another day at work, nothing eventful really, until I got a call from my brother-in-law. He managed to get four passes for the IPL semi-final match between Mumbai Indian (MI) and Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR). Though I am not too much into cricket, I really like watching these 20 overs a side matches and since neither Bio or I have seen an IPL match live in a stadium, we agreed instantly. Also there seats were one the best ones in the stadium and it was pretty close to where the players were sitting, so that was even better. So it was my brother-in-law, my dad, Bio and myself. Both, my brother-in-law and my dad are huge cricket fans, so I guess they were much more excited about it than us.

Since this is a watch related blog rather than a sports website, I'll keep it short and simple. We arrived at the stadium about 45 minutes early and after going through a number of security checks ( I think there were 5 of them), made out way to our seats. The players of both teams were still doing their warm-up exercises at this point and It was fun to spot your favourite players in person.

Thought I'd snap a quick wrist shot at the entrance

Players doing their warm-up exercises

Soon enough the cheerleaders were out entertaining the crowd and we happened to have seats right behind them :)


The stadium was almost full and the atmosphere was electrifying as this is a country of cricket lovers. Also, since the match was being played in Mumbai, there was a LOT of cheering for the home team. A guy in front of us tried to get the attention of any player on the field that was closest to us, but couldn't. There was also a Mexican wave from time to time which got a lil too much in the end and most of the people didn't bother about it by that time. I think we even got to be on TV when the ball was smashed in the area right where we were seated. You have to really watch out for hits like these. A kid sitting close to us narrowly avoided being hit by the ball that came our way. He was lucky that it only grazed his left arm.

My fav batsmen - Sachin Tendulkar on strike :)

Time for another quick wrist shot!

All in all, the experience was better than what I had expected. It turned out to be a great match which went on till the very last over and we (MI) won by 4 wickets :)

Blast from the past

The other day, my parents were busy doing some spring cleaning while I was coping with a mild hangover from a company party the previous night. I didn't really expect to have a productive day, until my dad found this (apologies for the quality of the pics as they have been taken from my phone's camera)-

I couldn't believe it, my old Swatch! This watch had been given to me by my brother in law about 7 years ago. Bio got one too, but he lost his. It was a huge deal for me even at that time as it was my first Swiss watch. Even though I wasn't into watches at the time, I knew Swiss watches were something to be desired. This one had certainly taken a beating over the years it went missing. The strap was literally in pieces and the crystal full of scratches. I was happy to find that the battery hadn't leaked and as far as I could tell, a simple battery change would put the watch back in action.

One thing that bothered me was that the lugs had these extruding parts (sorry, just cant think of a better word) in between them which meant that I couldn't fix a regular strap on it. I know, I know, I should have waited and ordered an original Swatch strap for it, but I was just to excited and wanted to put a NATO on it, so I decided to get rid of them. Arming myself with a pair of pliers and a Swiss knife, I managed to do a decent job in removing them without any damage to the watch.

Unfortunately the NATO I had lying around was not only a size or two too large, but I realized that there just isn't enough space between the body and the spring bar to put one through it. The strap was just too thick for it :(
So finally I had to make do with a thin leather strap, which looks OK, but hey, at least I can wear it on my wrist again :)

Finally a trip to my watch guy and about Rs.200 ($4-5) later, it sprung back to life - everything working perfectly! To think, just a few days ago, I was wishing I had Swatch in my collection, then this one came back to me :)