A right royal occasion... twice!

I have finally arrived in the land of many after trekking halfway around the globe. For the next month I will be frenetically zipping around India as part of the team that will be bringing the IPL to your television screens. It really is an extraordinary event that captivates a nation and the way the Indian public, with their insatiable appetite for cricket, support it is a sight to behold first-hand.

My first stop is a brief one in Kochin. The Dream Kochin Hotel welcomed me at 4am on Friday upon arrival. It is a 'different' Indian modernistic hotel that seems to have an obsession with lighting. That issue was starkly illuminated when I eventually entered my room and was confronted by a mix of mood lighting of a blue hue combined with bright white wattage. It was an unexpected sight after the relative darkness from the inside of a boeing for the last 22 hours.

I was woefully unprepared for the challenge of hunting down all the light switches but, following a frustrating 20 minutes, darkness was welcomed as my tired head hit the pillow.

Alas, due to the timezone changes, that welcome friend sleep was nowhere to be found.

A bit of channel surfing followed with the surprising aid of the two giant plasmas within my remote control's radar. That also proved challenging as both were operated by the same button-pushing, making individual operation impossible. By persevering I soon realised that if I aimed the remote control at a specific angle towards the door I could get one TV to obey my orders whilst the other was out of remote range. The reverse happened if I pointed the remote out of the window on the other side towards a dilapidated apartment building.

This actually appeared to be a uniquely perfect setup as the interactive TV guide informed me that later in the day, come 3pm, I would be perfectly positioned for an afternoon of dual giggle-box watching.

Some fitful, sleepless hours later I was ready. On the left large plasma was the Rajasthan Royals versus the Mumbai Indians from Jaipur. On the right big screen was the pomp and ceremony of the royal wedding from London. Not being much of a royalist, I found the banter between Navjot Singh Sidhu and Sanath Jayasuriya the more entertaining of the two.

The only part of the wedding that I wanted to focus on was really the exchange of the wedding vows and my eyes kept darting from one plasma to the other with volume switch at the ready to swap focus as the time approached. Navjot and Sanath were deep in discussion about Malinga as the chosen priest was delivering his sermon. At times I thought Sidhu with his Sidhuisms should change places with that priest!

How's my luck? Just as the priest was engaging William and Kate in parrot fashion on the right television, Navjot asked Sanath the pertinent question of the occasion on the left. How do you play Lasith Malinga?

William uttered "I do" and Sanath interjected that he "had many times". I had an immediate decision to make: pageantry or potency? Sanath shared his feelings, so did William. Sidhu added a word or two in agreement, so did Kate.

In essence I think I got the gist of both conversations. Bowling a maiden over later that day was high on the agenda, and stable partnerships were the order of the day.

All comments delivered on both of my television sets predicted that the Royals were likely to have an indulgent day.

It is fair to say that all assessments had a familiar ring to them.