Posted in Muse, Random on December 21, 2016| Leave a Comment »
With the rather quick drain of IMDB top rated movies, the quality of movies watched seemed to deteriorate, and as a result, count of Hindi movies increased.
Here is the list, as of end of the year 2016:
English:
Hindi:
Posted in Random on October 8, 2016| Leave a Comment »
Can anyone imagine if great Indian revolution has to happen one day, what would be the regime to be overthrown?
Everyone almost agrees nowadays that Indian Television is autocratic. Even to the point that those who are ruling it too want to revolt.
Because everyone is running ahead.
While watching travel documentaries on Youtube, I came across an interesting concept in Norway called Slow TV which shows interesting journeys as slow moving experiences. It will show a slow moving train in ice-clad Norwegian glaciers, or a barely moving cruise in distant fjord. In days of decreasing attention spans and mobile apps, isn’t it how Television could redefine itself as an intelligent box.
That brings me to another quite interesting observation: Why did Doordarshan die? (not the bodily death, but death of the soul).
Meanwhile, did anyone observe that Radio, once a medium that was labeled as counting down to its expiry date, has become an entertainment powerhouse with
Radio is back with the bang, and with much more intensity of private sector freedom.
Compare it to the idiot box: never ending melodramatic sop-operas which are post-dated in almost all their source countries, headaches of advertisements, sloganeering newsreaders and ever-repeating video footages.
If TV has to survive modern deluge of short-attention span mobile apps, it has to revolutionize itself, just like new age software community which grows itself through openness of open source, sharing and social media. Content is the king, and one can no longer command content with lawsuit, but instead on collaborating on it. Promotional events on FB and Twitter are just eyewashes.
TV has to go deeper inside every layer of social media in order to understand what type of content is consumed by every living human being. It has to come out of the great delusion called TRPs – where less than 1% of TV watching population decides what 99% watches – most of which is obviously the advertisements. TRP madness must stop if TV has to regain its IQ holding audience.
Unless it intentionally chooses to survive and grow without one, which is definitely the safer path considering majority as fools. But it must not forget that every media has known to tend to its fools, be it radio or social media.
TV now holds the lowest rung of fools as its audience, and it is thinning every day. Smart TVs survive, as long as they depend on media services that are more intelligent and open.
It’s only counting its days until Indian audiences revolt. Sorry, advertising customers. Till then, the dictator lives.
1857-1947-2037? You see – Revolts, overthrow of regimes, etcetera etcetera happen in India every 90 years only. Let’s continue to be an idiot!
Posted in Muse, Random on September 18, 2016| Leave a Comment »
I was an avid reader before I came to Finland, but attention span required to finish a novel started to feel stellar suddenly, after I rejoined an office job. Moving to an entirely different nation had its own set of challenges which drained most of mental energy before dinner time.
Solution? Movies. Intriguing ones. Be it drama, travel, adventure, or action, but they must thrill enough to provide every moment of satisfaction – the sole objective of moving away from literary fiction.
Arriving in Finland inspired this very remarkable change in our lifestyle: Watching classic, cult and popular movies. Sources may vary: Netflix, Mutual Sharing (*rent?), Youtube, anything. We watched alone, we watched together.
List?
Hindi:
English:
The picks were truly random, but gradually they drifted towards IMDB top lists. Their release dates spanned two and a half decade which almost intersected our lives. We didn’t know most of the titles when they were released. IMDB, wikipedia, and Netflix were our recommendation agents – and looking at the list, they did quite a great job.
We watched some of the greatest flicks of all time, in a quite short timespan of our life. It altered our outlook towards life – for sure – and it’s ongoing.
Stay tuned.
Posted in Random, tagged Bhatt, Bhavnagar, Job transition, transition, Work from home on July 11, 2010| Leave a Comment »
Long time no see…:-)
This time it’s the nature of transition that is forcing me to scribble yet another entry after long time inertia. Yes, we moved to our hometown on permanent basis, and it’s this transition that I want to talk about.
Bhavnagar is both mine and my wife’s hometown. We both relished sweet times in Bangalore reminiscing about the old golden days – our school days in Bhavnagar. To outsiders, Bhavnagar is a laid back town. If seen from a resident’s viewpoint, however, it’s a city of decent people with polite manners who are not yet affected by greed of modern times. Living in it along changing times, there has never been a single thing that we are deprived of – be it cable TV, mobile phones or Broadband.
It is this ‘best of both the worlds’ thing that inspired us to see a dream to permanently make it our home since last three years of urban atrocities. It was only a matter of opportunity that I was dying for. It came in the form of exponentially growing freelance work which rained unfailingly to help me decide.
Finally, after our celebrating our third marriage anniversary (May 14) and enjoying along with parents and my maternal grandparents in Bangalore during rainy May (there are no snaps of any event so I don’t want to recollect all that to blog it – accept it.), I completed my notice period in June 2nd week, and permanently moved to Gujarat. Our move was marked by cross-state difficulties as well the usual urban woes from Bangalore, but it was fine and justified, given the end benefit!
Life@home is cool. Work@home is lazy…but smooth 🙂 I work along with Avani after successfully setting up a shared wireless connection. I & Drashti enjoy the evening cool-breeze outings of our seashore small town. The definition of long-drive is justified here, unlike the cramped urban roads where driving is hell. We relish the Gujju spicy snacks – panipuri, pav-ganthiya, samosas – all of it amid my huge family-tree. Not to forget local icecream brands, sodas, and regional sweet dishes – shreekhand, aamras, kheer and what not! Mom makes them with great enthusiasm. Papa – always silent in execution – has taken on long-pending house restructuring. Our grandma, bed-ridden since 3 years, is finally able to rise from bed and talk incessantly. Guests are too frequent to visit, and too impatient to call. They invite us back – but we are still reluctant to go, as I find it bit hard to even spend 8 hours/day in freelance work. Avani isn’t very much different. We are too lazy to even work from home!
What next? A four wheeler will add to the already grown stack of pleasure – a Santro or a wagonR?
Posted in Random, tagged budget, federer, memories, school bag, tennis on July 6, 2009| 1 Comment »
Today is important for three things:
1) On this day, in 1985, mommy & papa had bought me a metal school bag – the one which is available at utensil’s shop and resembled a mini-trunk. During my study in 2nd through 4th standard, I everyday saw the date 6-7-85 embossed over it, and that’s how I remember it till date.
Contrary to today’s leather bags which children carry like an ox pulling a cart, it was extremely suitable from ergonomic perspective.
Later on, it took many wounds over it, often protecting me from potential mishaps of every kind on my way to & from the school.
I am sure it’s still lying somewhere on the shelves at my Bhavnagar home.
2) The budget released today has disappointed “aam aadmi” – the middle class.
No substantial changes in Incomtax slabs. There are many other things notable, and I don’t think I should mention them.
The trend continues – all goodies going to poors, backwards, minorities, disabled, wounded, and so on – as usual. I can see it how it will be after some years: all of them would refuse to rise. They will be joined by more & more weakened, until everyone will be special. Then they all will demand because they are special, and never worthy.
Even in days of its global reckoning, India keeps alienating its intellectuals who believe in producing all that’s worth. Brain drain isn’t surprising. It will continue, despite of racial attacks and through out thousand recessions.
3) Federer won his 15th grand slam! This kept energizing me through out the day.
Since days of Staffy Graff & Borris Becker (I was in my primary school), I had been a fan of tennis – especially Wimbledon and French Open. But in-between my interest had drained up – largely due to lack of class players and fair competition.
In those drained up days, I missed the marathon struggles between Rafa & Fedex and Samprass & Agassi.
It was late when I woke up. I was looking forward to this final, to see how Fedex revives from his recent defeats and setbacks, mainly the last Wimbledon snatch-up by Rafa.
I wasn’t disappointed.
And what a match it was – 16-14 in the last set…while Federer was at his usual best, Roddik wasn’t behind either.
To me, they both were excellent – result didn’t matter much. Though I was personally with Fedex through out the match – because of his struggle to stand up to the top – and yes, again. That’s something of an impossible feat if you look into human history. His every shot seemed pinnacle of hardwork and excellence.
Such things still keeps our internal flame alive…
No matter if the world turnes upside down – we must excel.
Bhatts' Journel 