Ultimate: Here & ThereHaving played ultimate only in the U.S. before, I have found playing in India to be a fun, eye-opening, and a fantastic experience. I have realized what ultimate means: it is more than just a sport. Since SOTG is so woven into the sport, it gives a few other intangibles: a group of people of who are immediately welcoming, incredibly nice and at the same time: very passionate [more on that later]. It gave me, a complete stranger to a new city, a readymade set of friends and network!I have been playing with CUF for the last two months now, and I travelled with them to Mysore this past weekend for the “Chennai tours Bangalore” tournament. Chakraa’s fantastic play with a young (in terms of ultimate age) team was just the icing on the cake for a weekend filled with fun, competition, and unforgettable good times. A couple of differences stood out between ultimate, as it is played in the U.S., and how it is played here:Hospitality: the Bangalore folks took it upon themselves to “host” this tournament, and what amazing hosts at that! I was just amazed that they came to the train station in Mysore to pick us up, had made reservations for where we should stay, had breakfast & lunch on the sidelines, helped with travel tickets and even arranged for (some 100+) bananas when I just asked if anyone had any(not at all expecting that someone will *go get some*). Unbelievable & AWWE-SOME.While tournaments in the U.S. are very well organized in & of themselves – great fields & good facilities there, off-the-field help is normally restricted to a website with instructions of suggestions of where to live, how to get there, etc. I realize that Ultimate is very much a growing sport in India, while tournaments in the U.S. can be several hundred people and hence much more difficult to organize, but I feel that the brilliant hosts personified our famous atithidevobhavaPassion: In the land of cricket craze & film star worship, there is certainly no dearth of passion. This is carried onto the field as well: there’s a lot more screaming & hand-waving than I have been used to previously — confuses me when I’m with the disc! J It is almost a bad thing because it sometimes tips the scale of SOTG vs. must-win onto the must-win side. I’m confident that as people play more & get used to the game & its rules (how does one react to travel or pick calls), this will be a non-issue.I am excited to see the growth of the sport & its spirit as it through the school, college and corporate ranks.

- Kauiiiiiii the Kaushal Sanghvi

The Mysore Tournament is the second tournament organized by Disc-o-deewane guys – 15^th – 16^th august 09. They organized something similar last year at Camp SrishtiThe teams for the tournament

1. Disc-o-deewane (DOD) – Banglore
2. Learning to fly (LTF) – Banglore
3. Chakraa – Chennai
4. Livewires – Chennai.
5. Stall 7 – Chennai

The train from Chennai reached mysore at around 8 am. We were greeted by Ravi (Rambo) at the station. We checked into the Youth Hostel dorm at Saraswathipuram. The hostel was very neat and well maintained. The only trouble was that the toilets were so small I couldn’t do anything after I shut the door except ………(you know what). The weather in mysore was simply superb. The sky was always cloudy with low humidity levels. It was a great day to play ultimate.We all assembled at the field, Mysore Cricket Ground at 9 am had our breakfast and headed to play. We were greeted by the rest of the banglore teams who had already assembled the previous day at Mysore.We went into the game with LTF as the underdogs. Having been beaten by LTF hands down on all 5 of our previous encounters we definitely wanted to break the jinx. We had a very different line up from our previous tournament – thanks to hectic work loads and travel on work issues. Except for Abhinav, Bhajji, Bharani, Vivek and myself the rest of the team were new recruits. It included Harneesh, Rohan, Gopi, T Karthik, Kaushal and LP. We were only 11 for the tournament. It felt a little strange because we usually fielded atleast a 14 member team for the tournaments, 7 for offense and 7 for defense.We hit for the fields as soon as we freshened up. We played at the Mysore Cricket grounds. The grass was pretty good for a cricket ground. Usually in Chennai even the better cricket grounds don’t give us such grass. I guess its more so because of the weather. Rambo was good enough to organize food right at the fields. So we did finish our breakfast and headed off for our warm up and some throws. Our first match was up against L2F; the team which we always looked up for a good game. Going into the game, the only thing I wanted was for everyone to play a good game – calm and easy. We as usual got off to a poor start with L2F, trailing them by 2 before we could even get hold of our game. What followed was something which we at Chennai Ultimate have wanted to see for a long time! We went on to level the score at 3 and then went on to win 9-4. This was a dream come true for most of the Chennai ultimate members. We had been failing to win against the L2F and 15^th august 2009 was the day where we did win against them. Individually everyone played a very good game. On the handling it was Abhinav and Bharani who did a good job. We were without our main handlers – Sukrit Sarkar and Manu Karan. On the cutters we had Bhajji, Rohan, TK, Gopi, Vivek, Harneesh, LP and Kaushal . We eventually had everyone play a bit of handling in all the games. This was something very new at Chakraa. I still remember the last but one point where Bhajji, Rohan and Gopi finished of the point without Abhi or myself getting involved in handling the disc.A special mention about LP – she was the sole women player in Chakraa and she covered one of the most experienced players in that game – Julie Webber. Julie’s a visiting player from Ann Arbor, Michigan. She pis considered one of the better women players in the Ann Arbor Ultimate circuits. LP showed a great level of commitment which was backed by a very good stamina and smart thinking. She played her role to a T. It was a great game to be remembered – it was one of those games which would be cherished for a long time by us.The next game was with Stall 7. Kudos to these college kids to have formed a team from scratch. Their learning curve was pretty sharp and combined with their athleticisms am quite sure they would go on to become one of the most competitive teams. All they need is more of experience. We did have a neat game with Stall 7 went on to win it 9 – 5.The next game was the one with DOD. It was definitely one of the most tiring games of the tournament. It was a game which went all the way up to the wire. We lost the game 8-7 but it was one hell of a game. Of course looking back at the game we had a lot of chances to score – TK, Rohan had brilliant chances to finish of the game but it was not to be. One thing that did cost us the game, was our stamina and fitness levels while compared to the DODs. These guys were rock climbers and outdoor adventurists who formed a team, naturally their fitness levels was a notch higher. We should have won the games with superior skill sets we possessed.The last game was with livewires. Balaji Thulasinathan, the captain, did ensure that we didn’t have to play a game the next day before the semis so we ended up playing the last game under the moon. It was a simply superb game, we never knew whom we were passing it to. We eventually ended having great passes to the opponents.Eventually there were no semis and we had hat games the next day.We had our return tickets booked only from banglore. We had one eventful trip Mysore to Banglore. We had the pleasure of traveling on the general compartment seated on the overhead seats. We eventually landed at 10 40 pm for a 11 pm train at the banglore station. All of us made a dash to the platform. Thanks to Bharani and his uncle who had packed our dinners – that was the saviour.Emotional bros – Abhi and BhajjiMVP 2 – AnujBhajji (Chakraa) was voted the MVP of Chennai and handed over the Team India (5 ultimate) t shirt which was printed for the Singapore Ultimate open. Anuj (Stall 7) was the MVP 2 and was handed a disc from the Singapore ultimate. Oops! Almost forgot that Bhajji became very emotional on being voted the MVP. So did Abhinav on winning the L2F game. Both of them started bawling on the field!One of the most important things we enjoyed this tournament was the fact that the sideline played a very important role in all our games. A special mention of Megha Radhakrishnan – she helped us with refilling the water and electral to ensure that we were hydrated all through the day. This was in spite of her having games and needing to warm up for those! Manu Karan was in his elements, he was a part of the cheerleading group. Though he would have opted to play the game but for his recovery program.Overall it was a good weekend get away and a great weather to have played ultimate.Hoping to see more such tours. How I wish we could get sponsors for the same?

- Mondams the Bulu Thunder