Sandjest Green VividPop Tennis Water Bottle
About Ballary
This city in northern Karnataka, officially spelled Ballari, is the administrative seat of Ballari district. It lies among dry granite hills near the Tungabhadra basin and has long been linked to forts, military garrisons, and road routes across the Deccan. In modern times it has been associated with the iron-ore mining belt around Sandur, Hosapete, and Ballari.
THE INTERNATIONAL REVIEW
Shown in the green VividPop colourway.
A 32-ounce insulated stainless steel bottle carrying a tennis-themed design, built as a court and kit-bag bottle rather than a desk one.
Insulated stainless steel means a double wall with a vacuum between the layers, so there is very little for heat to travel through: a cold drink stays cold through a full session in the sun, and a hot one stays hot through a cold early start.
The lid is a push-button flip-top with a lock, which is the detail that decides whether a bottle can be thrown into a bag with a change of clothes. Locked, it cannot be pressed open by anything packed against it.
It takes either a straw or a direct spout, so it can be drunk from without tipping the head back at a changeover or poured from properly afterwards.
An adjustable strap carries it hands-free from the car to the court, and the base is non-slip silicone, which keeps it standing on a bench or a court surround instead of rolling.
Ballary sits on the granite country of the eastern Deccan, one of the hotter and drier districts in Karnataka, where an afternoon session is a heat-management problem before it is a tennis problem and a bottle that holds its temperature is doing real work.
Specifications
| Capacity | 32 oz |
|---|---|
| Material | Insulated stainless steel, double walled |
| Lid | Push-button flip-top with lock |
| Drinking options | Straw and spout |
| Carry | Adjustable strap |
| Base | Non-slip silicone |
| Design | Tennis themed |
| Care | Hand wash |
The tennis design is the reason this bottle is bought as a gift as often as for personal use — team gifts, coach thank-yous and birthdays.
LET Sandjest Green VividPop Tennis Water Bottle SHOW YOU Ballary
Bottle: ONE HILL. One! Straight up out of the city — and they wrapped it in granite and mud TWICE. Upper Fort, sixteenth century, Hanumappa Nayaka, a feudatory of the Vijayanagara Empire. Lower Fort, later eighteenth, Hyder Ali of Mysore. A French engineer designed the lower fortification and restored the upper one, and I'll say this part straight: when Hyder Ali discovered the fort's strategic vulnerability, he ordered the engineer hanged at the east gate, and the grave, dated 1769, survives there. Citadel on the summit. Deep rock-cut pools inside. Three point two kilometres around and a hundred and fifty metres UP.
Bottle: Right outside the eastern gate of the Lower Fort — the EAST GATE, we were just there — stands a shrine to Hanuman. Kote means fort in Kannada. FORT! The name plants the temple squarely inside the complex Hyder Ali built in the later eighteenth century, ramparts and multiple bastions running along the eastern base of Ballari Hill, and yes, this is the same gate where that engineer's grave of 1769 is preserved. And the powers that rolled through here? Western Chalukya. Vijayanagara. Hyder Ali's kingdom. Then the British, as part of the Ceded Districts. Four. FOUR!
Bottle: Foundation stone 1869 — EIGHTEEN SIXTY-NINE — opened 1896, one of the OLDEST railway stations in all of India. Four platforms, six tracks, 387 metres up. Southern Mahratta Railway once, on the Hubballi to Guntakal line; now South Western Railway under the Hubli division, sitting on the Guntakal to Vasco da Gama section and the Ballari to Chikjajur line. And on 1 October 1921, Mahatma Gandhi spent roughly eight hours at this station during his tour of the Ceded Districts. Eight hours! HERE! Oh — and the city went from Bellary to Ballari on 1 November 2014.
Bottle: A hill. With a FACE. Brow, nose, chin — from the southeast, only from the southeast, so get on the right side and look again. LOOK AGAIN! Kumbara Gudda belongs to the granite that runs this entire landscape, same family as Ballari Hill: 3.2 kilometres around, 150 metres high, one unbroken monolith on its west side. And the rock itself is off the ancient Dharwar craton of peninsular India — older than every empire we just shouted about, combined. Ballari sat in the Madras Presidency until 1 November 1956, then Karnataka took it in the reorganisation. GIVE IT UP FOR THE ROCK.
Jackson Phillips here. Owner of TTT. We are working hard every day to bring you the most useful product reviews in the business. Our goal is putting the right product in every hand. If you have time, shoot me an email at jacksonphillips@thetennistactician.com and tell me exactly what you think of your purchase. The more feedback we get, the better we can serve. Thank you for your patronage. And Burn, Laugh, and Learn.