what happens when Thala walks into bat !!

"Lucknow" is the anglicised spelling of the local pronunciation "Lakhnau". According to one legend, the city is named after Lakshmana, another  hero of the Hindu ithihasa Ramayana. The legend states that Lakshmana had a palace or an estate in the area, which was called Lakshmanapuri, the    settlement came to be known as Lakhanpur (or Lachhmanpur) by the 11th century, and later, Lucknow. 

Sound is measured in decibels (dB). A whisper is about 30 dB, normal conversation is about 60 dB, and a motorcycle engine running is about 95 dB. Noise above 70 dB over a prolonged period of time may start to damage your hearing.  What would 95dB mean and can you imagine where you would heat that ?  

On 6^th Nov 2018, the stadium hosted its first international match, a Twenty20 International (T20I) between India and the West Indies, becoming the 52nd stadium in India to host an international cricket match.  Yesterday Chennai Super Kings played Lucknow Super Giants at Ekana Cricket Stadium [Bharat Ratna Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee (BRSABV) Ekana Cricket Stadium] having a seating capacity of 50,000, and is the fifth largest international cricket stadium of India.  

Team CSK is not known for chopping or changing its order or approach much.  Yet this time Sir Jadeja walked in at no. 4 surprising many though the situation was bad.  Put in, CSK  lost Rachin Ravindra for a golden duck and, three overs later, Ruturaj Gaikwad edged a Yash Thakur outswinger behind. Losing two wickets in the powerplay, perhaps, made CSK save Shivam Dube for later and send  Jadeja who played responsibly meaning quite slowly.  Ajinkya Rahane,  made efforts to keep the score card ticking with a regular flow of boundaries.  Sooner  LSG bowlers stifled Moeen Ali and Jadeja - they went 34 balls without a boundary. Jadeja broke the drought in the 16th over, and reached his fifty in the 17th with a six off Mohsin Khan that Deepak Hooda should have taken but only managed to tip over.

 

Moeen set things up for Dhoni with three sixes in a row off Bishnoi in the 18th over, and Dhoni came out to a rapturous reception when Moeen holed out attempting a fourth six off the same bowler.  After a single off his first ball, Dhoni was facing two inexperienced bowlers in Mohsin and Thakur. He first bashed Mohsin to the extra-cover boundary for a one-bounce four, and followed it with the most un-Dhoniesque six you'll see: walking across because Mohsin had been bowling them wide outside off and lapping him over the keeper's head. It was a 14-run over that included three wides.

 

The fans - almost entirely yellow - were having the time of their lives. Dhoni got the strike in the last over, he clobbered a six over cow corner. Thakur attempted wide yorkers that resulted in two more fours off the last three balls and Dhoni finished on 28 off just nine balls that helped CSK smash 63 in last four overs. Clearly the score was not enough though. Throughout the current IPL season, Dhoni has been in formidable form, maintaining an undefeated streak and amassing 87 runs with an extraordinary strike rate exceeding 255. His sustained excellence and ability to control the game’s rhythm affirm his status as one of cricket’s all-time greats. 

The Ekana Stadium crowd in Lucknow was served the perfect buffet on Friday night: spectacular MS Dhoni fireworks that powered Chennai Super Kings to 176 for 6 and then the home team Lucknow Super Giants chasing it down with KL Rahul making  82 off 53 from captain. 

The stadium was awash in a sea of CSK yellow perhaps thinking that this could well the Thala’s final appearance here.  Capturing the moment’s intensity, Sasha, the wife of cricketer Quinton de Kock, shared an Instagram story that spoke volumes. Her post featured a snapshot of her smartwatch alerting to “Loud Environment: Sound levels hit 95 decibels,” a testament to the roaring support for Dhoni that could potentially lead to temporary hearing loss after mere minutes of exposure.

 

The Noise app on Apple Watch measures the ambient sound levels in your environment using the microphone and duration of exposure. When Apple Watch detects that the decibel level has risen to a point where hearing could be affected, it notifies the users with a tap on the wrist !!

 
With regards – S Sampathkumar
20.4.2024 

Here comes the Lioness !!

 

விழியிலே மணி விழியில், மௌன மொழி பேசும்

 

‘Nants ingonyama bagithi Baba Sithi uhm ingonyama.

‘Nants ingonyama bagithi baba Sithi uhhmm ingonyama Ingonyama Siyo Nqoba Ingonyama Ingonyama nengw’ enamabala’ 

‘Here comes a lion, father, Oh yes it’s a lion.

‘Here comes a lion, father, Oh yes it’s a lion. A lion we’re going to conquer, a lion, a lion and a leopard come to this open place.’

 

‘The Circle of Life’, the opening call in The Lion King, marks the moment the young Simba is held up by Rafiki for all the animals of Pride Rock to see.

cyclone in Arab desert land !!

A desert is a landscape where little precipitation occurs and, consequently, living conditions create unique biomes and ecosystems. The lack of vegetation exposes the unprotected surface of the ground to denudation. About one-third of the land surface of the Earth is arid or semi-arid. This includes much of the polar regions, where little precipitation occurs, and which are sometimes called polar deserts or "cold deserts".  

The word meant  a bag made of palm leaves in the language of the Maldives. A cyclonic storm named as ‘Tropical Cyclone Gonu’ was indeed odd occurring   in the Gulf of Oman and made landfall in Iran, a nation not known for cyclones.  That was considered a thing of the past and a rare occurrence.

The Arab states of the Persian Gulf  refer  to a group of Arab states bordering the Persian Gulf. There are seven member states of the Arab League in the region: Bahrain, Kuwait, Iraq, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. Yemen is bound to the six countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council, based on history and culture.

The term has been used in different contexts to refer to a number of Arab states in the Gulf region. The prominent regional political union Gulf Cooperation Council includes Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. 

For those of us watching Vadivelu, Gulf country is Dubai and includes Apitabi. !! 

The Gulf has been severely impacted by heavy rain  in the Persian Gulf, causing flash flooding across the region. Several states recorded nearly a year's worth of rain in a single day. The floods had a significant impact across the region, with Oman and the United Arab Emirates being particularly affected,  resulting in the deaths of at least 24 people, including 19 in Oman.  Southeastern Iran, Yemen, and the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia, as well as the Gulf states of Bahrain and Qatar, also experienced heavy rainfall and subsequent flooding.

The Persian Gulf region is known for its hot and dry weather, though heavy rains causing flooding have also occurred with greater regularity in recent years.  A  Senior forecaster  of the UAE’s National Centre of Meteorology (NCM) explained that "a low pressure system in the upper atmosphere, coupled with low pressure at the surface had acted like a pressure 'squeeze' on the air. That squeeze, intensified by the contrast between warmer temperatures at ground level and colder temperatures higher up, created the conditions for the powerful thunderstorm".  Meteorologists from the University of Reading stated that the heavy rain was caused by large thunderstorms.

In Oman, at least 19 people were killed due to the floods that  included 10 schoolchildren and their driver whose vehicle was washed away by flood waters in Samad al-Shan on 14 April 2024.  The UAE witnessed a record-breaking rainfall in a 24 hour period, surpassing Emirati meteorological data since records began in 1949.  

In the aftermath of the floods, some news outlets quoted specialist meteorologist Ahmed Habib linking the heavy downpours to the UAE's cloud seeding program. Due to the arid desert climate and high temperatures, cloud seeding has been used previously in the United Arab Emirates in order to combat water scarcity. Dismissing the allegations,   the deputy director-general of the UAE’s National Centre of Meteorology (NCM), said the institution “did not conduct any seeding operations during this event.  Scientists from the University of Reading, whose cloud seeding program is used by the UAE, denied that cloud seeding was to blame for the heavy rainfall, given that the large-scale weather pattern was predicted in advance and was too large to be influenced by cloud seeding. They added that the effects of cloud seeding are typically short-lived, lasting for a few hours.

Recalling Cyclone Gonu that  struck the Gulf in June 2007.  It was  an extremely powerful tropical cyclone that became the strongest cyclone on record in the Arabian Sea. The second named tropical cyclone of the 2007 North Indian Ocean cyclone season, Gonu developed from a persistent area of convection in the eastern Arabian Sea on June 1, 2007.  It  turned northward into the Gulf of Oman, and dissipated on June 7, after making landfall in southern Iran, the first landfall in the country since 1898.

Intense tropical cyclones like Gonu are extremely rare in the Arabian Sea, and most storms in this area tend to be small and dissipate quickly The cyclone caused 50 deaths and about $4.2 billion in damage (2007 USD) in Oman, where the cyclone was considered the nation's worst natural disaster.  

With regards – S Sampathkumar
19^th Apr 2024 

Featured here are damages of Gonu

How many are standing to vote in your booth ????

Indian Elections are the toughest ones to conduct in a country of 1,439,053,844 as of 18.4.2024, based on Worldometer. Election Commission deserves appreciation for this electoral exercise.  It is fully technology as votes are cast on EVM which has to a large extent eliminated booth capturing and mass voting (by hooligans) 

Am surprised that you can find the no. of people standing in Queue in your booth and go to vote, if you have not voted yet.  Check for yourself at : https://erolls.tn.gov.in/Queue/

 

If it less than 30 in queue, it should take around 15 mins only. No Excuse at all for staying away! Please cast your vote without fail.  Do carry approved photo ID card

 

In a city of educated masses, can we take the polling % to higher 90s !?!??! 

 

19.4.2024