Saturday, May 2, 2020

FILM REVIEW: Angrezi Medium


FILM NAME: Angrezi Medium

GENRE: Comedy, Drama

RELEASE DATE: 13th March 2020

DIRECTOR: Homi Adajaniya

IMDB RATING: 7.4/10


STAR CAST: Irrfan Khan, Kareena Kapoor Khan, Radhika Madan, Deepak Dobriyal, Dimple Kapadia, Ranvir Shorey, Pankaj Tripathi & Kiku Sharda


REVIEW:

Angrezi Medium is the spiritual sequel of Hindi Medium released in the year 2017. The story is about the lengths and bounds to which our parents are willing to sacrifice for our own dreams.

The story portrays the life a single father Champak Bansal (Irrfan Khan) who is a businessman in Udaipur, Rajasthan and runs his Misthan Bhandar after his famous great grandfather Ghasiteram. He believes in leading a simplistic lifestyle and doesn’t have any great dreams as such. His daughter Tarika Bansal (Radhika Madan) is the world to him.
His daughter, on the other hand, has contrasting attributes i.e., she dreams of studying in a foreign college and traveling the world. She leads by the principles that one should live life on her own terms.
The story revolves around how Champak being the possessive father he is, tries to fulfill his daughter’s dream by hook or by crook along with his brother and business rival Ghasiteram Bansal (Deepak Dobriyal) and the challenges they face in the meantime.

Negative Aspects-

1.      Although some parts of the story have been written well, yet the story fails to maintain consistency and at moments get overboard

Positive Aspects-

1.      The acting by the entire ensemble cast has been great, the best being by Irrfan Khan & Deepak Dobriyal
2.      The punches and comic timing are undoubtedly hilarious
3.      The chemistry has been formed well be it between Irrfan and Tarika or be it between Irrfan and Deepak

I would like to give the film a rating of 7.5/10



#MAR
#MAKAUT
#FILM_REVIEW

Wednesday, April 29, 2020

Overcoming Addiction ...



·        Causes of Addiction:
1.      Any addiction occurs because that activity releases dopamine in our brain cells, which causes in us a sensation of happiness. This dopamine is responsible for any motivation of doing work, if dopamine is completely removed from our body, we wouldn’t even be able to eat our food which is kept in front of us, just because we lack motivation.
So, when one tries to resist an activity that causes addiction, the amount of dopamine that our brain was previously getting from that activity is stopped, as a result, our brain retaliates causing in us cravings.

Getting Back to Basics of Drug and Alcohol Addiction | Cornerstone
2.      So, even if one consciously tries to resist addiction, his subconscious mind causes in us cravings for that activity from time to time in different forms, this makes it very difficult to leave an activity.

·        How to overcome addiction?
1.      Period of Subconscious effect (21 days): To changes the neural connections we must actively resist the activity, in whatever ways possible.
                                            21 DAY REFLECTION CHALLENGE | Reconnectfully Yours

2.      Goal: Choose a goal why do you want to leave the habit. Our body is very lazy, it always wants to maintain stability, changing a habit involves thousands of changes in the body, which body doesn’t want to do unnecessarily; you have to thus give it enough reasons to consider that decision. Without a proper goal, it’s impossible to leave an addiction

3.      Factors involved in Addiction:
                                                              i.     Trigger: Any environment, or situation or time that particularly incites you to do the activity of addiction
                                                             ii.     Pre-Requisites: Things that are required to complete your activity of addiction, in case of smoking it is the cigarette itself

4.      How to deal with factors of Addiction?
                                                              i.     Associate that trigger with some other activity, for e.g., let's say hanging out with friends who smoke cigarette motivates you to smoke a cigarette, stop hanging out with them, not for much long but continuous 21 Days. Or be stubborn about not doing that continuous activity for 21 days at whatever cost.

                                                             ii.     Increase the cost of pre-requisites, let’s say you have an addiction to smoking, and there is a shop, just out of your place. Make yourself a pledge that even if you buy a cigarette, you will buy it from a shop which is at least 2 km away from your place and that too just one, not a full packet of it. Why? Because this increases the cost of activity, and our lazy brain will try resisting activities that need hard work.

                                                            iii.     Try giving your brain some other source of dopamine, do or eat anything that makes you happy except that activity, eat chocolates, do some dance, play some music, or even reading a book, try doing anything but that activity for continuous 21 days.
                                                                      What is Dopamine and What Does Dopamine Do? Where Is Dopamine ...

Monday, June 17, 2019

Proud to be a Hindu

So, India, Bharat, or Hindustan, is the land of wonders. Why am I proud to be a Hind? I don’t understand why shouldn’t one be, in the first place?

Related image
Coming to the Hindus itself; Islam, Christianism, Sikhism are all religions which tells us there is one supreme lord before which we should bough. But Hinduism is not a religion it is a “Dharma”, the Sanskrit term for duty, so it is a way of living. Any person living in Hindustan was known as a Hindu. Moreover, Hindustan had more than 200 kingdoms, prior to Independence with various languages, and subcultures back then, so Hindustan was not named because it had certain linguistic, or religious or cultural people residing in it. It got its name, because the country stands between Himalayas and Hind Sagara (now Indian Ocean).

People often criticize Hinduism because it has 36 Million Gods, ranging from Monkey God, to Elephant Head God, to Cow God often do they realize that Hindus don’t believe that they are superior to any animal in nature. So according to Hindus, if there is any supreme lord, there are equal chances that it could either look like any animal or human. Moreover, whenever you belief something there are high chances you will impose it upon other, the forceful Christian and Muslim conversions are not new to us. However, have we ever heard of forceful Hindu conversions, it is so because we don’t believe in God, rather we are seeking whether there is God or not. And till you have this seeking nature, new discoveries, inventions, knowledge are bound to come to you.

Image result for kalaripayattu cartoon

Now coming to warfare, we are now quite well known with the fighting styles, MMA, Karate, Kick Boxing and Martial Arts. We hardly wonder, where these fighting styles came from, well they have the same mother known as ‘Kalaripayattu’, a fighting form which is believed to have been taught to Parasurama (Brahman Avatar of Vishnu) by Lord Shiva Himself. Further through Parasurama, this art of fighting form spread throughout the country. Thereafter Bodhi-Dharman from Hindustan went to China to spread the knowledge among the world.

Coming to Food and Health, a world where Heart Diseases, Obesity, Diabetes, Cancer are at its peak and every other day we come across various other diseases. Even with the advancement in Science after all these years, whenever we gulp a pill, we get various other diseases along with that. But Ayurveda was that one medication field invented in India, where there were no side-effects at all, because it was inspired from nature itself. Surgical Rhinoplasty was developed in India by Sushrut and dates back to 800 B.C. .Ghee was shamed by Refined Oil companies claiming that it had saturated fatty acid which causes obesity. However even after the increased use of refined oils, let alone decrease of obesity levels, it has rather increased. And Now, West had renamed our Ghee to clarified butter and is claiming that it has short chain saturated fatty acids which can rather reduce Obesity. Neem dant, salt, charcoal which once was used by our ancestors to clean their teeth was severely discouraged by West claiming that it ruins teeth. We understood how much of a valid claim it was when Colgate launched its neem, active salt and active charcoal toothpaste.

Brithisers the so called superior race, didn’t even knew to shampoo their Hair until they rule India. The word ‘Shampoo’ comes from the Sanskrit word ‘champo’ (meaning to massage or knead). The first known mention of shampoo is from the 4th century B.C., when Greek historian Strabo wrote about India's practice of shampooing.

Hindus discovered Planets before the invention of Telescope and Atoms before the invention of Microscope.

Related image

The discovery of zero by Aryabhatta; the substantial contributions to analytical theory of numbers and worked on elliptic functions, continued fractions, and infinite series by Ramanujan; the discovery that plants have life and invention of Radio by Jagadish Chandra Bose; The Bose-Einstein Condensate partially by Satyendranath Bose; Geetanjali by Rabindranath Tagore are some of the million Gems that Hindustan has contributed to the world as a whole.

There’s no shame in boasting our culture, next time anyone criticizes Hindustan boast proudly ‘Sare Jahan Se Acha, Hindustan Hamara’.  

Sunday, April 21, 2019

Challenges are inevitable, to Quit or not is choice !


Fight till you succeed, because life is worth fighting, even with all its difficulties.

Ever wondered that, there is nothing left in life to live for, and doing suicide might only be the solution.

A healthy adult male can release between 40 million and 1.2 billion sperm cells in a single ejaculation. Say even if we take the minimum count for sperms released, 1 out of 4,000,000 is lucky enough to reach the egg time, in time to produce a healthy baby.

While still in the womb, some babies have problems with how their organs and body parts form, how they work, or how their bodies turn food into energy. These health problems are called Birth Defects. There are more than 4,000 different kinds of birth defects, ranging from minor ones that need no treatment to serious ones that cause disabilities or require medical or surgical treatment. Every 4 ½ minutes, a baby is born with a birth defect in the United States. That means nearly 120,000 babies are affected by birth defects solely in United States each year let alone the whole world.

Image result for baby with birth defects in womb 

There are chances that even if a healthy baby is born,  he might turn into an orphan in his infancy. According to UNICEF, of the nearly 140 million children classified as orphans, 15.1 million have lost both parents. Remember the time, when you used to cry because you were hurt or  were hungry or even when you didn’t get your favorite toy in your infancy and one of your parents would be there to console and take care of you, these 15.1 million could not even enjoy the basic care that one enjoys in their infancy.  


Remember the time when you first stepped into your school, a new environment, a new lifestyle, lots to learn, lots to do. But according to SOS-USA, there are 168 million child laborers, accounting for almost 11% of children (ILO), who lost the essence of their childhood as a kid, and had to bear the cost of their household on their own.

Image result for child labour cartoon

Of the 131.4 million births every year, no one keeps the count of the number of deaf, blind, dumb, physically challenged or mentally challenged born every year. Not that these people cannot do anything in life.

  • John Nash suffering from Acute Paranoid Schizophrenia fought against it and earned the Nobel Prize in Economics in 1994.  


  • Stephen Hawking was diagnosed with ALS at age 21:  he was given 2 more years to live. He had been paralyzed from head to toe for over thirty years and used a voice synthesizer to be able to communicate, and a wheelchair that he operated through slight movements of the head and eyes. None of this prevented him from developing his activity as an exemplary researcher and professor.


  • Nick Vujicic was born in 1982 with no limbs. He is currently giving motivational talks around the world, has written several books, is a regular on talk shows and TV programs and is the founder of Life without Limbs - an organization for people with physical disabilities.

 Image result for Nick Vujicic
  • Andrea Boccelli was born with congenital glaucoma that left him partially blind. However, at age 12 he suffered a blow during a football game that left him completely blind. He is a Tenor, musician, writer and musical producer of Italian origin and has sold more than 75 million records has received numerous awards of international prestige and even has a beach named after him on the Adriatic.


There are numerous other examples who turned famous defying their current physical or mental challenges, not to mention the millions of unsung heroes who fight every single day to live a respectful life and work hard to earn their living instead of begging, in spite of all the challenges they face.

We can’t imagine a day without proper food and clean water right? Because these are the basic needs to survive. But, there are 820 million chronically hungry people in the world. 1/3rd of the world's hungry live in India. 836 million Indians survive on less than Rs. 20 ($0.29) a day. Over 20 crore Indians will sleep hungry tonight. Over 7000 people die of hunger every day in India. But people  that survive, still fight for their food the very next day, instead of an easy death by suicide.

 Image result for chronic hunger

Let me tell you what motivates them to fight. The glowing warmth of sun that they won’t ever receive once they die; the greenery that they won’t ever see once they die; the curses that they won't be able to give the government for ruining their lives, once they die; the close ones that they won’t be able to hug or kiss when they are down, once they die; the soothing feel of koolfi in summer that they won’t witness, once they die; the drenched clothes that they won’t have due to an unexpected rain, once they die; the burp that they won’t take when they would have a bad stomach, once they die; the shiver that won't happen, when they feel cold, once they die.

Life is beautiful my friend, petty problems like failing in exams, breakups, not getting your dream job or college or school, or any other reasons are not worth enough to end your life. Suicide might seem an easy solution to you, but it isn’t, you life might end in an instant, but people connected with you will suffer their whole life. Always consider yourself blessed for the life you have, people strive to get a life like yours. So, fight till you succeed, because life is worth fighting, even with all its difficulties.




Sunday, April 14, 2019

Life lessons learnt from Python


Python has been an essential part of my life since my Grade 11. It has helped me with personal projects, coding competitions and what not. So, I thought of giving a tribute to python by mentioning the life lessons that can be learned from python. The following are some of them.

  1. Syntax: Be simple in life, no one wants a cocky complex person in their life. If you are simple, people will befriend you no matter what. At the end of the day, it is the stuff that you contribute for the betterment of the world matters. Being a complex person won’t help in that.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         Image result for simplicity cartoon                                                                            
  2. List vs Tuple: There will be things in life that you can’t change (immutable). So, instead of repenting over it or regretting on it late, focus on things you can change (mutable) and life would be great.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   Image result for focus on things you can change                                                                                
  3. Dynamic: At times life throws you with challenges you have never faced before. So instead of lamenting over it. Try to be dynamic, try to get out of your shell and accept the things that come into your life.                                                                                                                               
  4. Open Source: In a world where everyone has a strict “I am the best version of myself”, try to be that person who is ready to accept honest criticisms, because in the long run that this will make you a better individual.                                                                                                                                                                                                                   Image result for open to criticism cartoon                                                                                            
  5. Modularity: When life throws you with some big problems you can’t solve, try to break it down in small solvable chunks, easy for you to finish and decide what the next step would be.                                                                
  6. Interpreter: It doesn’t matter even if you take time to understand a problem 4-5 times more than others. It’s the way you solve the problem that matters, people will never discourage your slow interpretation, and rather they will always appreciate your problem solving skills.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    Image result for slow and steady wins the race                                                                           
  7. Experience: Never doubt your popularity or demand in the market by the time you approach the market. Even if you are late in the market, still you may be at demand because of the stuffs that you carry.                                                                                                                                                     
  8. Interactive Shell: Before you apply something in your life, always think of the outcomes that will happen after that.                                                                                                                                                                  
  9. List: Instead of being a baby and being instructed how much of stuffs you need to handle in performing a task, be strong and take as much of stuffs you are capable of taking. That will make that difference between you and others.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               Related image                                             

Thanks to ‘Guido van Rossum’ for Python. We are happy that you brought it to us.

Friday, April 5, 2019

TV and A 90's Indian Kid

Phase I:  DD channels


TV has been a part of probably everyone's life. Me being the son of a Cable Operator, TV was an essential part of life. Today there a probably more than a 100 cartoon channels at the disposal of the Kids, but back when I was a kid as of I remember there was this one channel I remember and that is DD National, I used to wait the whole week for Sunday, because after the whole week of boring news and sports, Sunday was finally the day for 'Shaktimaan' and 'Junior G'

Image result for shaktiman

I even remember some verses of the this famous Indian Superhero's intro as of today. I remember me and all my cousins all sitting together on a hot summer afternoon, under the comfort of the table fan and singing the intro together as the show started. 


Phase II: Color Channels 


However, there was this sudden burst of color channels and then 'Shaktimaan' slowly faded out of our lives. Now since, there were so many cartoon channels to watch one need not to wait for that one Sunday afternoon to watch that one superhero show.

As I grew older, my cousin sisters use to gather at my house on a Sunday afternoon but this time it was not for Shaktimaan or Junior G but for the Sunday Matinee Show, where there was this Bengali Channel ETV Bangla (now Colors Bangla) that used to show Bengali Movies and usually the protagonist would be "Ranjit Mallick". 



Image result for ranjit mallick action scenes

I must say, at some point of time I doubted that 'Ranjit Mallick' was stronger than 'Shaktimaan', because his punches would make the bad guys fly high in skies and thereafter, when they used to fall, they used to break through walls. Sometimes, I was like why did 'Shaktimaan' did all the Yagya for, he isn't even stronger than 'Ranjit Mallick'.

On the other days , I used to watch cartoons like 'Tom and Jerry', 'Ed Edd and Eddy', 'Blue', 'Dragon Tales', 'Johnny Bravo', 'Dexter's Laboratory' and the endless list goes on and on and on. The funny thing is I used to watch so much of cartoons, my Tuition Sir, nicknamed me 'Cartoon Network'. 


Phase III: Internet


By the time I reached Grade 6, Internet was a common thing in the market, and all other cable operators were providing broadband services along with cable, so my father decided to do the same. 


Image result for internet

The perks of providing Broadband is you get Internet for free - facebook, youtube, movies and what not for free. I know right it sounds amazing right, let me tell you what's not so amazing about it. In-spite of watching a 50 cartoons my Grades never went low, but this time it did. I came down to grades which I never imagined of falling into. I am not blaming Internet for it, nor am I blaming my father for this new business, I am blaming myself, I was foolish and I brought my own downfall. Anyways, my parents supported me at this time and I was able to recover from this situation and soon my Grades started improving. 

By this day I watch very less of TV and spend more time on internet like most other people. I sometimes do wonder that  the one idiot box, which consumed my most of the time , is no more a part of my life anymore, except for the time of exams when even the most boring of the Daily TV Soaps that your mother watches, seems the most interesting stuff in the world.