Malta Trip #3 – Day 1 – Landing in Malta

 

 

We left at 0725, our flight was only 3 hours long but we still landed there at 1125, how?

 

It’s simple really Europe time zone is one hour ahead of UK time so when you travel East  you lose that time. Coming back you gain that much time. We were two of the first few passengers out so we got to the immigration desk quickly. Then we waited near the top of the queue while we could see immigration officers in their little glass cages, also waiting. After about twenty-five minutes one guy came around and handed each of the officers a print-out. Then they were ready for business. Paperwork even before our paperwork. Fun, right?

 

I have this weird habit of wishing “Good morning” or “Hello” to the immigration officers. I want to see their reaction, if they acknowledge with a smile or say it back or just ignore it. This lady gave a slight smile so that started my impression of Maltese people on a positive note. The paperwork didn’t take time. One benefit of Brexit that Roberta pointed out later is that you get stamps on your passport.

 

There are two things you should always look for when you arrive at an airport – where the toilets are and is there public wifi. After collecting our suitcases we went on search for both. The toilets were clean enough and the wifi was free. Score on both points. I use a VPN when connecting to public networks like that so I fired up my SurfShark mobile app and found that they don’t have a server in Malta. But they had a server in France and in Italy. The app connected through the Paris server and I checked the speed – 25 Mbps. I could live with that.

 

In case you are curious why I use Surfshark
when there are so many choices of VPN providers, consider this a lazy choice. I have tried several before and this is the one that’s the cheapest, keeps no logs, works on PC, tablet and smartphone and basically is totally hassle-free. If you decide to check them out, use my referral link, this will get us both free time on the Surfshark account.

 

https://surfshark.club/friend/uHhT78zz

 

Once I had the VPN connected my first task was to search for an electronics store. I usually have a project when I go on a trip. Last time the project was to find a spanner in Copenhagen (long story, another time.) This time the project was to buy a keyboard in Malta. Recently I have started fancying myself as a kind of writer and I wanted to keep doing some writing while in Malta. I had my Samsung tablet with me and I planned to buy a keyboard to use with it just while I was in Malta and then discard it before going home. I found a few stores online, one of them had a good selection of keyboards as well.

 

But we first took time to feed ourselves. Thanks to the KFC and Burger King in the basement of the airport that part was easy to accomplish. I remember my food was about 8 Euros for a burger, soft drink and a bottle of water. Not bad for airport prices. Generally, we found the prices normal in Malta. Good restaurants had London-equivalent pries or sometimes cheaper.

 

Roberta had done a lot of research and even made a call while we were in the Immigration queue to find out how to buy a travel card. By the way, our UK phones worked in Malta, both of us had mobile plans that gave us free roaming in Malta and 12GB of data roaming. It sufficed for our stay and we had WIFI in most indoor locations. There was a Public Transport counter in the airport so we stopped there to buy a travel card. There were many options and we chose the one that gave us full access to all buses and ferries. I had read online that in Malta buses you need to have either the travel card or exact change in cash, you can’t pay by bank card on the bus. It did not prove to be true. The buses now have contactless readers and you can pay how you want.

 

I am sorry to we did not get our money’s worth from the travel card for which we paid 21 Euros each. We found that the buses were a little too crowded and we did not enjoy standing for long journeys. So, we often ended up using the Bolt taxi app for such journeys. But at that time, we wanted to have the travel cards to have the freedom of choice and 21 Euros was not a bad price to pay for that.

 

The card were fast and easy to acquire on the spot. We paid with contactless payment and went out into the sun to find how to get to the electronics store I had found.

Malta Trip #2 - Day 1 - Journey Starts

 

Goes to show you what lengths I would go to for photography, I had slept a few hours in the evening so I could leave in the early hours of the morning. I am one of those people who can sleep at any time, you will hate me. The flight was at 0725 but as I live in Oxford I needed two hours to get to London Gatwick airport as well as some buffer time. Roberta and I agree on that, always get to the airport earlier than you need to. There is a bus that goes from Oxford to London airports called Oxford Airline. It's a nice, comfortable coach that costs between £23 and £28. It used to cost me much less when I was a student but...sigh. Moving on. I took the bus service that picked me up just before 0300 and deposited me at the London Gatwick airport North terminal just before 0500.

 

Roberta had deliberately not picked the cheapest flights this time. She had gone for the flights that could give us the maximum time in Malta for our travel dates and also worked with our accommodation choices. More on that later. We checked-in and dropped our suitcases then directly went to the security rather than hang around.

 

I was really nervous about airport security, I always am. Most of my worry is about holding up the queue behind me. Quick tip, when you get to security, turn left if you can, most people turn right as its their dominant side and as a result the queues are longer on that side. I carry a lot of electronics so I am worried about taking time to take them out of the backpack. No problem this time. I had packed my liquids (just lip balm) in a plastic bag already. My electronics were also packed in small travel boxes with transparent tops. My strategy is to put everything that I can, including my phone, in my jacket pockets before getting to the security conveyor belt. After putting the jacket in a separate tray I walked through the metal detector. I winced as I went through it as I remembered I was still wearing my smartwatch. Then I worried that my expression might trigger an alarm in the security lady watching me walk through the scanner. None of that happened. No beeps or alarms and she didn't pull me aside for personal manhandling. On the return journey, when I was taking my smartwatch off, the security agent there told me not to do it. So, I guess they don't trigger the alarm. My watch is a Ticwatch Pro 3 which is mostly a plastic body anyway.

 

After we went through the security and immigration checks, we still had about half an hour to hang out. So, we had a coffee and shared our Etsy shops with each other. Roberta and I are both new Etsy sellers and didn't know that about each other. Links for our shops in case you want to check them out:

 

Sunny: https://g7printables.etsy.com

Roberta: https://chromaticautomatic.etsy.com

 

The flight was almost full but we got lucky that we didn’t have anybody sitting in the third seat in our row so we had some extra space. Photos from the flight are hardly ever worth the trouble but the views are so amazing that you have to try. I think the ones I got this time were better than I have had before, partially because of my new phone Samsung Note 20 Ultra which has a great camera module, but I am also becoming a better photographer with practice. Some examples here from the airport and the flight.

Malta Trip - Why Malta?

[Photo courtesy: me. Real photo taken from my camera on this trip.] 

I will be honest, Malta was not high on my list of places to visit and I didn't know much about it except that there is a fruit by the same name. But just about the time when I was feeling cabin fever from not having done any travel since December 2019, my friend Roberta was making a travel plan to Malta. She is great at planning such trips and my last trip in December 2019 was also with her to Copenhagen for the Christmas markets. Since she was planning the trip it gave me an incentive to look up Malta. 

For those whose geography is as bad as mine, Malta is an archipelago, which means a group of islands, in the Mediterranean sea. Roberta had chosen it after her own research which showed that this was one of the rare places in Europe that still had sunshine and warm weather in November. I had very few leave days left because I had taken most of them for my studies earlier this year so I told Roberta that I would like to tag along but I could only go for 5 days including a weekend. She agreed to that. We both regretted that later because...you will see. 

Travelling in 2021 has its own hassles and one of my main reasons for not travelling even after lockdown opened was that I didn't want to wear a mask on my travels and I didn't want to take photos of people in masks. But I give some of the blame to my friend Ania who had recently travelled to London and some blame to myself for staying too cooped up during lockdown until it became too depressing. In the words of Anais Nin 

“And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.”

So, I took the hassles. Malta was one of the few countries that was accepting UK visitors. But the condition was that you had to be fully vaccinated and bring evidence of it. The evidence in our case was to get the NHS app on the smartphone and get the "NHS Pass". I had to jump through so many hoops to prove my identity before I got the Pass. But I got it. You can save it on your phone as a PDF file or print it out. Both are acceptable at the airport. We also had to fill out a Passenger Locator Form on the Malta govt. website. Again, we could keep it as a PDF on the phone to show when asked. 

Roberta is an expert in finding cheap flights and accommodation so I left those details to her and only insisted on one thing - advance seat booking in the front part of the plane. In case you don't know, the front seats get less turbulence in the plane. My research had warned me that Malta being an island gets a lot of winds and the landing can be a bit shaky. I am a coward when it comes to turbulence, and other things. You will see. 

Movie Review: Hum Do Hamare Do - Rehne Do

*** Some spoilers in this review ***

While this is not a toxic movie or one which I would need to warn you against, it's not really a great movie either. It's bland like last night's pizza that you didn't bother to heat up. 

The story is extremely predictable which is not bad because you know this going in so there's no disappointment there. Performances are good by all actors.

From my point of view, there are two big issues which make this movie a bland snoozefest rather than a feel-good formula movie. 

One, the screenplay is bad. The story itself while predictable, is quite promising. It's the story of Dhruv who is an orphan and meets a girl who wants a family to marry into. He arranges a pair of fake parents to get her to marry him. From there, even a child of five years can tell you every single twist the story takes. 

As I said, I did not mind that, but I feel that the screenplay misses out a lot of good spots where nice moments could have been created. You might have heard the expression "It's not the destination but the journey." The filmmakers here have been in such a hurry to get to the destination that they missed out a chance to take the audience on an interesting journey. 

For example, Kriti Sanon and Rajkumar Rao's romance has been done at Shatabdi Express speed. They go from first meeting to falling in love to marriage proposal so fast that there is no opportunity to create some heartwarming romantic moments. You see, marriage and the hassles of marriage, the Indian people have that in their own lives. They go to the cinema to see the romance and to feel not just entertained but inspired. Nothing for them here. 

When Kriti comes to live with Rajkumar's family before the wedding, that situation while highly implausible, is ripe for many opportunities to create comedy, romance and drama. It has been completely wasted. Remember Hum Aapke Hain Kaun and the sweet moments between Madhuri and Salman? That's the kind of thing they could have created here but missed it entirely. 

Many occasions like the big reveal which could have been dramatic dyanmite proves to be Diwali's cracker because of the way they have been written and directed. 

The second issue the film has is its extremely weak dialogue. This is already a predicable, formula story but good dialogue could still make it entertaining and watchable. But the dialogues here are so boring and mundane that you feel like they were written by someone who writes phone directories. 

The scenes that could have been explosive drama are simply yesterday's kadhi-chawal because of the boring dialogue. Rajkumar Rao has tried very hard to bring some drama to such scenes and Kriti has supported him well but if the drama is not written in the screenplay you can't create it out of thin air even with great acting. 

Just like the rest of the movie, the climax is also rushed and does not feel realistic at all. The end is unrealistic and quite unjustified. 

My recommendation is that this is not a movie worth watching in the cinema at all. You can watch it on streaming while you are making dinner or ironing clothes. You would not watch it again that I can already guarantee you. 

Me: Bilingual

Warning: Strong language ahead

The other day I was cooking dinner and instead of using the microwave I decided to use the oven to make some nachos. It was a noble thought. 

I managed to cook them well then put the hot plate on the tray with an oven mitt taking the utmost care. Then being a professional numbnuts, 2.5 seconds later I moved that plate with my bare hand forgetting that it was burning hot. The plate, having a zero-tolerance policy towards all numbnuts, promptly burnt my fingers. It hurt. I screamed like a little girl. 

After yelling "Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck!" for 37 seconds straight, I suddenly had an epiphany. Hey, I am bilingual!

Based on a story read long time ago, the language you use in times of emotional stress, that is, the language that you curse in, is your native language. So, now that I can curse both in Hindi and English when the chips are down, there is no denying the fact that I am bilingual. Hurray for me! 

Are you bilingual? I don't recommend my method of testing though. Save your skin, it's the only one you have. 

Peace!

What resolution is your life?

I have been fortunate enough to live through a period of world history in which technology has gone from a child's play to science fiction level. I have seen the time when mobile phones didn't use to exist and to now when there is one in everyone's pocket. Every year there there are many new models and they fight over features like dogs over a bone. One feature that is usually hotly contested is the camera. Let's forget about the point what is a camera doing in something called a phone and just talk about the state of the art. 

The most popular part of the camera and its improved features is resolution. A quick sidebar to explain - every digital photo is made up of tiny dots which are called pixels. Resolution is just the notation to show how many of these pixels are there in a photo taken by a particular digital camera (phone camera or DSLR). For example 1920x1080 which is lovingly called Full HD or 1080p means that the photo has 1920 dots widthwise and 1080 dots along the height. The more pixels there are the smoother and "higher definition" the photo will be. 

While this is the most publicised metric in a camera, people argue that that's not the best or only measure of quality. There is camera sensor size, image processing software, the glass (a fancy way of saying lens) and a few other things that contribute to the quality of a photo. But I want to ask what is the "quality" of a photo? 

Exhibit A: look at this photo below. 

This photo was taken in the 1990s before google was a verb and youtube was not even in its mother's womb. The "three moustacheers" in the photo are Harry, Fazil and yours truly. This was a time in our life when we had finished high school (we went to the same school) and were doing college. We were trying to find our place in the world and searching for our guiding star. From this search we used to take time, maybe once or twice a week, to go on an evening walk to this park about 2 miles from our homes. 

Obviously, you can see how "bad" the photo is. It was taken on a film camera, degraded over time and then scanned into the computer. [Kudos to my nephew Sagar for preserving and emailing it to me.] 

Exhibit B: This is a picture from a Matheran trip (a 'hill' station in Maharashtra, India) with Bhuwnesh and his family. Bhuwnesh and I became friends in US out of necessity because we were the new people there and all the other Indian colleagues were already settled in their lives. Plus, we got along well despite being very different in personality. That's the reason we stayed in touch no matter how many times he or I changed cities and countries. 

This photo was taken in 2006 from an Olympus camera which was 1.3mega pixels. Don't laugh, that's the best I had then.  

I also have a lot of photos which are taken with good cameras in high resolution but don't mean half as much to me. 

Let's take an exception, exhibit C, taken in 2020: 

This is a high resolution photo taken with a proper DSLR last year. Given the condition the world was in when my nephew Sagar married his girlfriend Harsha, I had no chance to go to attend their wedding in Canada. Had it not been for the technology I could not have watched their wedding ceremony on a  video call and I would not have been able to see their smiling faces in the lovely photos. 

My point is not that "Old is always good". My point is that it's not the resolution in the camera that matters, it's the resolution of your life that matters. Surround yourself with people who enrich your life, guide your mind to thoughts that add meaning to your life and make sure that your actions and words enrich other people's life. That's the resolution that matters the most. 

Cleanliness is Next to Godliness. Not!

[Photo courtesy Cottonbro at Pexels.com]

There was a very popular example that my parents, teachers and other grown-up's used to overuse when I was a boy. "Even the dog wags its to tail to clean its spot before sitting down." Every single grown up used to love this example.  Any sign of laziness or untidiness spotted, and they would whip this out like the cowboy in the wild west whips out his six-shooter. 

If I were as much of a smartass then as I am now, I would have said "Yes, he does but he also runs around naked all day and drinks from the toilet. Will you please choose my role models more carefully, mom?" 

But I wasn't. But now I am. So, here I am to prove that cleanliness is NOT next to godliness, it's quite the opposite. Dirtiness is the godliness. What happens when a clean thing and a dirty thing come in contact? Who wins? The dirty. One rotten apple can ruin the whole basket but one good apple can't make a rotten apple good. What's more powerful?

And dirtiness is indestructible? When you are "cleaning" things, you are not cleaning anything, you are just transferring dirtiness from one place to another. Think of any activity where you are cleaning something, you will realise that you are making something else dirty. Dusting? You dirty the duster. You wash the duster. You make the water dirty that you wash it with. There is a whole cycle of dirtiness that's unbreakable and unescapable. Dirtiness like the soul is indestructible. "Nainam chhindanti shastrani..." Weapons cannot kill it and fire cannot burn it. 

What is the dirtiest topic in the world? Sex. But without it the human race could not survive or propagate. So, dirtiness is essential in this world. 

I hope I have made you feel better about not doing any cleaning this Easter weekend. 

Loved and Lost but Why?

Shakespeare has this famous quote (among his many quotes) "It's better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all."

Other than the general principle that having experienced something is better than not (not always true) have you ever wondered why it's better to have loved and lost? I will tell you. 

If you have never loved than you would not understand 100% of the world's songs, plays, music, TV shows, novels, stories and films. Okay, I might be exaggerating by about 1.7% but generally it is true that if you have loved, ever, you can understand how a character behaves, in real life or in a fictional world. No matter how stupidly a character behaves you would be able to understand why they are doing it. You may have done that exact stupid thing in your life when you were in love or maybe something even stupider. My money is on the latter. 

By having lived through that kind of intense emotional experience you can understand how someone can be so short-sighted, petty, jealous, insecure, unreasonable, illogical, or loyal, committed, determined, selfless and devoted. You may or may not agree with their logic, but you get it. 

These days I am totally in love with this Hindi TV show called "Mere Dad Ki Dulhan" (My Father's Bride). It's the story of a father and daughter - Amber Sharma and Niya Sharma. They lost her mother 8 years ago and now they have the most co-dependent, emotionally stunted co-existence two people ever had. After a few preliminary incidents, Niya becomes convinced that her father should marry again so that he can be happy and they can both be emotionally independent.

Varun Badola and Shweta Tiwari are in the title roles with Anjali Tatrari playing the daughter. Because of the star cast, you know right from the beginning what the end is going to be. But it's not in the destination, it's in the journey. And the journey of this show is delectable. The beginning episodes can be a bit frustrating because of so much fighting and emotional drama going on but there are quite a few good scenes and episodes in them also, and the show gets better and better as it progresses. I found it on Youtube and watched it all the way through. It took a three months' break when the Covid-19 lockdown hit India, but I found the show after it had already finished so I didn't have to wait for those three months. Those episodes have a lot of gaps because it's a Sony show and they cut out all the scenes where there was copyright music playing. Lots of editing jerks, noticeable. Fortunately, I found it on their website Sonyliv.com and now I am able to watch the full versions of the episodes. Yes, it's worth watching, again and again. 

So back to my point. There are many, oh so many scenes in the show where I scream "Amber Sharma, don't do that, man!" at the screen but even when I am telling him not to do something, I can understand why he is doing that or what he is feeling. I would not have known that if I had not felt and done similar things in my own life. Loved and lost.

I might do more posts on this show to discuss some of my favourite things from it. But I already highly recommend it. 

What parlez-vous do you speak?

 

 

Recently I received the Census 2021 form in the snail mail. It said right on the envelope that I was legally bound to respond to it. Don’t you love it when they send you a letter with that text right on the envelope? Well, at least it was not a traffic ticket. But I did go on Google to check that they were telling me was truth and not like the TV licence thing. Oh, that’s a different story altogether.

 

Anyway, I know census is important and I expected that they would be doing this online this time, so I didn’t mind filling out a form. It was slightly longer than I expected but not too bad. I struggled with the educational qualifications bit, no, no, I did go to school, honest. I went to school in India though, and they didn’t make it easy to map it to the British education system on this form. I had to search around a bit on the web to find out which options to choose for that and I am still not 100% sure that I clicked the right buttons.

 

The biggest issue was the language question. They asked what was my primary language and I got stuck. French and German were out, while I do know a few words of those, at most I can say my name and that I am hungry. Spanish is even less of a candidate as my favourite sentence in that has something to do with a tomato that’s reserved for the soup.

 

At the moment I speak English most of the time but then I live in England so why wouldn’t I? But I was not born speaking English. No, even though I was born in Delhi, I wasn’t born speaking Hindi either. My first words were probably “ma” and “da” like most children but after that I did learn Hindi because it happened to be my mother tongue.

 

But that was years ago and since then things have changed a lot. In addition to learning English in school, I fell in love with the habit of reading and Enid Blyton, Ian Fleming and Arthur Conan Doyle contributed to my education as much as my English teacher, Mr. Kaushik. Add to that my love for the action movies in English - James Bond, Mission Impossible, Broken Arrow - and you can understand why I am as comfortable in English today as I am in my mother tongue.

 

And that was my problem. The question didn’t call for my mother tongue or any kind of official language but “What language do you use most at home?” So, I tried to sort this out with a few questions to myself.

 

What language do I think in? Both. Depends on which topic I am thinking about but these days is 80-20, 80% English, 20% Hindi.

 

What language do I dream in? Again, both. It depends on the characters in my dream.

 

What language do I speak at home? Hmmm, considering that I live alone that is covered by the thinking language, but let’s say what language do I use with my family? That depends on the family member I am speaking with but the family members I speak to most are bilingual and which language we use depends on which language we start speaking in.

 

Ultimately, I answered Hindi based on the last two questions.

 

What language do I curse in? While I do curse fluently in both languages (and a couple more) when I am genuinely pissed off and need heavy curse words that would be unprintable, I resort to Hindi.

What language do I do my calculations in? I can do maths in English and I can count to ten in French and German, if you gave me a column of figures to add and I had to it in a hurry I would have to use Hindi numbers.

 

Problem solved. But it was quite an interesting analytical trip down the labyrinth of my brain. I usually enjoy those.

 

So, what language do you parlez-vous in?

 

Blowing Your Own Horn

 Some things are so obviously good or bad that they become universally accepted as such. Like humility. 

In the Hindu epic Mahabharat there is an instance when Yudhishthir, eldest of the five brothers, tells his younger brother Arjun (who is the basically the hero of the whole piece) to put down his bow called Gaandeev (yes, they had names for all their bows, these superarchers) in the heat of the battle. Later Arjun is in distress because he had taken a vow to kill anyone who tells him to put his bow down. (Don't ask me why.)  

Lord Krishna who is friend, philosopher and guide to the five brothers comes to the rescue and tells Arjun to speak rudely to the elder brother because to use the word "thou" to an elder is equivalent to killing him. Ok, so that's what Arjun does. But then he wants to kill himself because he spoke rudely to his elder brother. Again, Krishna pitches in with great advice. He tells Arjun to praise himself because according to the Hindu scriptures he who praises himself is as good as dead. Crisis averted. 

This is how bad self-praise is in the Hindu culture. But then look at the Urdu culture. In Urdu poetry, a ghazal is not considered good poetry if it contains an element of "khud-shanaasi" which means self-praise. 

For years, this is what I used to deal from. But while it is good to have a modest, self-effacing outlook in life, (it's crucial for stand-up comedy), it doesn't go so hot in job interviews. I can't tell you how many job opportunities I have missed because I answered the questions from a realistic and more modest mindset. It took me a while but I finally understood that when I used a modesty scale to assess and portray myself in front of potential employers, my humility got transferred to them as fear that I would not match up with their requirement. Once I understood the problem, it was easy to implement the solution. I simply started answering the same questions with 110% confidence instead of my original dose of 80%. 

The moral of the story is - not everything is good and bad in clear contrast, you need to apply a grain of intelligence even before using a concept as inherently good as humility. 

The Time That Spends Us

"We don't see things as they are, we see things as we are." - Anais Nin

I have this movie I watch once every month. It's a Hindi movie called "Yeh Jawani Hai Deewani", translation "The craziness of youth" Youth as in the period of youth in life, not a young person. 

Yes, you did read it right, I watch it once every month. I have seen it more times than I can count. Why? No, it's not like one of those "It's a wonderful life" kind of movie that's a ritual for the world to watch. It's a purely commercial movie about a boy and a girl (aren't they all?). The basic premise is extremely simple - he wants to travel the world and do everything in one life, she wants a simple life. Of course, they fall in love, but at different times. 

Spoilers below if you haven't seen the movie but it came out in 2013 so you have had 8 years. 

There are many reasons to watch this movie so many times but one of the important ones is that every time I watch it, I see different things in it. Now spoilers. In the end, the hero decides to stay in India in order to marry the girl. I never agreed with that decision. I even have my favourite shot where I would end the movie if I were the director. No, I don't turn it off there, I still watch it fully every time. But I always think he's wrong. Ambition over marriage? Ha! Until now. Five seconds before starting this post I was thinking about this dialogue that he says to her when he's proposing. 

"Beet_ta waqt hai lekin kharch hum hote hain. Aur isse pehle ki main poora kharch ho jaoun, tere saath thoda waqt bitana chahta hoon."

[Translation: We don't spend the time, the time spends us. And before my balance runs out I want to spend some of that time with you. ]

Suddenly today it made sense to me. Spending time with a loved one can take precedence over travelling, job and even a lifelong dream. I still don't know if I agree with him but at least now I can see his viewpoint. 

"We don't see things as they are, we see things as we are." The movie is always the same, every scene, every shot, every camera angle. That doesn't change. The reason I see different things in it every time is because I change. 

Do you have a loop movie that you watch as many times as possible? I can't be the only crazy person in this world. 

Award Shows and The Divine Plan

 Film award shows strengthen my faith in the divine plan and the universe having a purpose. 

Think about it: 

• The person winning the award is always the very favourite of the person announcing the name. 
• The project they are winning the award for is the one that just happens to be the closest to their heart. 
• Noone ever wins an award for an un-special project. 
• The person who inspired our awardee the most in their life, just happens to be sitting in the first row in the audience. 

You can't explain these things without admitting that there is a god and there is a plan for all of us. 

Et tu, Insta?

Following my post Bye Bye Whatsapp my friend Harsha pointed out that Instagram is also owned by Facebook and has anybody read its privacy policy? 

So, I read it and Insta's data sharing is as intrusive and invasive as Whatsapp is going to have. So, for the moment, I have turned off all permissions for the insta app on my phone and the app still works. I never entered my phone number in that and they will still have my usage data but that every website and their brother do via cookies these days. 

That's where I am drawing the line for the moment. Telling you in case you didn't know that Insta can use your camera for face recognition and use it for their purposes. 

Bye Bye Whatsapp

 Heinlein once said "Don't appeal to a man's better side, he might not have one, appeal to his self-interest instead."

Everybody has a self interest and big businesses have big interests. 

I am answering the question you haven't asked yet. 

Whatsapp is going to start sharing their user data with Facebook from 8th Feb 2021. 

When someone asks "Why?" about anything, usually the answer is "Money."

Facebook and Whatsapp are owned by the same corporation and Whatsapp has phone numbers and other data from their users that Facebook doesn't have. Some of this data may include the location of the users as Whatsapp is exclusively a mobile app. (Yes, I know they have a web client but it is tethered to the mobile app.)

By getting this data from Whatsapp, Facebook will be able to serve more ads and other marketing to their users. 

There are two caveats to this in my case: 

1. I am in UK and the new terms will not apply to UK and EU users. Yet. 

2. The new terms are optional. For now. 

Here are the reasons that I am still moving away from Whatsapp on 1st Feb 2021. 

1. Even though it's not applicable in UK, I have family and friends in India, US, Canada and other non-EU parts of the world. Being in IT I do understand how much data an app can collect on me through those indirect channels even if they can't share my data directly. This is called "Big Data" and  you would not believe the tools that are available to analyse this data and create amazing trend reports. 

2. I already hate FB for how much of a marketing-whore it has become. I plan to move away from it later this year. 

3. The terms maybe optional now but they won't be for long. 

4. This is just an evil trend and I want to dump this app now. 

And, this one is a bonus. 

5. So many of my friends and family are moving to Signal that I can easily move. 

Credit to my nephew Gaurav for bringing this to my attention. Now he's the trendsetter in our family. 

Here is a poll from androidpolice.com on this issue. Apparently out of the 10000 respondents only 30% are still on Whatsapp. 

Android Police Poll

If you are looking to move to Signal, here is the download link - https://signal.org/

It's an open source app, has a proper desktop app that connects with the mobile, same as Whatsapp used to do. Yes, I have read their privacy policy, no evilness so far. It has end-to-end encryption like Whatsapp. 

Finally, I can't resist this quote from "Serenity". 

Coolie No. 1 - Could Not Handle the Baggage

David Dhawan has not done any favours for his son by starring him in the remake of Coolie No. 1 which was already a successful movie. Now the movie itself is okay. It's as mindless as David Dhawan's movies usually are and there's an even a little bit of entertainment in it. But the biggest problem is that when you star in a role that another actor has already done before, you will be compared to him. 

Now Varun Dhawan is an ok actor, not great but ok. He did alright in both the Dulhania movies and even in Main Tera Hero which had much less of a story. But he is no Govinda. Govinda and David Dhawan invented this genre of comedy which was mindless and entertaining with not even an iota of common sense anywhere. Does David think that he can make anybody Govinda? 

The movie itself is ok, not mind-numbing crap but not as good as the original. I watched the 1995 version with Govinda right after watching the new one and the old one is much better. The biggest reason for that is the cast. The new cast is good, David has smartly surrounded Varun with good comedy actors like Javed Jaffrey, Johnny Lever, Rajpal Yadav etc. but the old cast was even better with actors the calibre of Kader Khan, Kulbhushan Kharbanda and Tiku Talsania. And yes, Karishma Kapoor was great in her role, Sara Ali Khan, poor girl. 

Even though a majority of the new film is copy-pasted from the old one including exact copy of scenes and line-by-line copy of dialogues, there is still a lot missing. The characters in the old one were much better fleshed out even with the same scenes. The biggest victims of that are two main characters - the father of the girl where Kader Khan was replaced by Paresh Rawal and the other is the heroine herself - Sara Ali Khan. 

If you take her out of the songs, poor Sara might even be called a guest appearance in this film. I am not talking about screen time, I am talking about character development. Sara has not been given much to do. She almost looks like a young girl wearing her mother's saree and playing "house". 

My verdict is 2.5 stars out of 5. I would not go so far as to say don't watch it, but I won't recommend it to anyone and I won't watch it again myself. 

Still, the film might do well on the box office for various reasons. I don't care. My review is never influenced by the money a film makes or what others think about it. 

The biggest reason for me for watching this film was the promotion episode on The Kapil Sharma Show. Day 2 of the promotions included some of the comedy actors and it was hilarious. If I had to set a percentage I would say the movie is about 20% entertaining compared to the TKSS episode. 

One of the things that struck me as funny was Varun Dhawan having a pity party for himself on the show that his father and brother don't listen to his ideas on the set. That's like crying that you have to go to school in the blue Mercedes when your favourite colour is white. Firstly, he is getting these movies because he is the son of a director. And second, you are an actor, your job is to shut up, dress up and do what the director tells you. When you become so smart that you know better than the director, dare to direct. 

Two examples for these things. 

I like Ranbir Kapoor's attitude on the nepotism issue. He accepts that he is getting these opportunities only because he is a star son. He acknowledges that this opportunity could have gone to someone else. Then he says he tries to do the best job he is capable of to do justice to the role and try to do it better than someone else could have done. 

Prabhudeva, who is a very successful actor as well as director, when he is working as an actor in a film being directed by someone else, he doesn't give suggestions, he just does what the director tells him to do. 

Well, that's all for now and if I don't talk to you before, Happy New Year 2021. 

My Dear Forgotten Friend

 My relationship with my blog has become like that of an old friend you used to meet every day and suddenly there's been a long distance between you two. You haven't talked in such a long time that you don't even know where to start when you meet after a long time. 

मिलते थे उसे हम कभी पल पल के फरक से, 

फिर रफ्ता रफ्ता फर्क ये सालों में आ गया

फिर यूं हुआ की आँख से आँसू निकल पड़े,

चेहरा कभी जो उसका ख्यालों में आ गया 

Milte they use hum kabhi pal pal ke farak se

Phir rafta rafta fark ye saalon mein aa gaya, 

Phir yoon hua ki aankh se aansoon nikal pade, 

Chehra kabhi jo uska khayalon mein aa gaya. 

[I used to meet him every moment 

then this grew into years, 

Then it got so that his face in my thoughts 

filled my eyes with tears.]

(Ha, I made it rhyme this time.) 

I still come on here once in a while and do a movie review or some random post like the friend who never has time to actually talk to you but keeps sending you all these useless forwards on whatsapp. 

But from my side also, I feel like - I am not gonna start telling you my life story just because after six months you suddenly messaged me and said "aur batao"!

So, here's my idea to fill this rift. I will give a very quick summary of some of the things I have done since the last time we actually talked. 

The biggest news is that in September 2019, I moved from Doncaster to Oxford to enrol in a master's degree program. It's called M.Sc. Digital Media Production. Remember I used to be very much into photography, filmmaking and vlogging? Well, that's why. It's going well. It's a one-year program that I am doing in two-years as a part-time student because I still need to earn my daily bread by working full time in IT. 

It's going well so far. I have survived three semesters and need to do 1.5 more. 

I told you this so that we can have more conversations and when I talk about what I am doing for a certain module you wouldn't be lost without a clue. 

More later. Let's keep in touch. 

Baaghi 3 Movie Review: Brawn Conquers all

 If you have 8-pack abs and big biceps you can pretty much do anything you want - that's the message that Baaghi 3 gives you. 

Let me do this review quickly checklist style so I don't have to waste any more time on this movie, oops spoiler alert. 

Music - Nothing memorable or enjoyable. I am really irritated when people "recreate" songs, yes, nobody does remix these days, it's all recreated. If the songs are from new movies it's even more irritating. Some people would like the item song by Disha, I didn't like it. I like Disha, she's supercute, but the song was directed awfully. In a film being directed by a choreographer you expect a better dance number. And the lyrics...wait, there were lyrics? 

Action - The stunts by Tiger are truly impressive, there's no denying that. But stunts are a spice in the dish, you can't make a dish with just red chilli and garam masala. I don't know what gave Ahmed Khan the conceit to think he could direct action but I wish he hadn't. 

This is a general grievance I have with Indian filmmakers. When it comes to directing action they have all graduated from the 120fps school of filmmaking. I agree with Peter Mckinnon that everything looks sexier in slow motion but these directors have taken this to the level where it's not cinematic, it's tedious. I love watching fight sequences but these just annoy the hell out of me. Before this Rohit Shetty did the same thing in Golmaal 3 (or was it 4? Who knows? Who cares?) where the hero would hit 10 punches then 10 goons would fall from the sky and take about 65 seconds doing that. Trés irritable! 

Performances: Some of them are good, Riteish Deshmukh, Jackie Shroff a few other characters. Tiger, not so much. He had acted better in Heropanti. In this one, no acting only stunting. But I don't blame him, I blame the director. Shraddha has done ok, but there wasn't much for her to do. Ankita Lokhande, ha, don't make me laugh. 

Dialogue: There are a couple of funny ones in the beginning, but then they go from mundane to pathetic. 

Direction: Very, very weak. Absolutely clichéd from start to finish. In the future if I saw a movie was directed by Ahmed Khan, will it make me want to see it? Big fat no!

I don't know how many people caught it but they stole a couple of scenes straight from "Taken" and one shot from "Wonder Woman". There was a good chance to grab a "I am Spartacus!" scene later in the film but probably Ahmed Khan didn't have that DVD. 

In terms of realism, the movie has stretched suspension of disbelief like chewing gum and taken it past the limits of elasticity. 

Did you notice I didn't talk about the story? That's because you already know the story if you have seen the trailer. If you haven't let me tell you the story now. 

"Action hero goes to Syria to rescue kidnapped brother." Done. 

Full disclaimer: My bias. I have seen Ahmed Khan only on TV in Kapil Sharma's shows. He choreographed Kapil in Kis Kis Ko Pyaar Karoon. Every time he comes on his show he makes fun of Kapil's dance skills. We all know Kapil is not a great dancer but there is such a thing as grace. Ahmed Khan doesn't know it. It irritates me.  

Recommendation: Watch it on the TV screen when it comes to streaming while you have dinner. The 120fps action will fit perfect there. 

Remembrance

 

Change is not the enemy

Change is the only thing constant in life. 

Not a novel thought but what I want to talk about is the type of change. As I see it, change is basically of two types - voluntary and involuntary. 

Let's take an example from the Marvel Cinematic Universe (I mean, why not?). It used to puzzle me that sometimes when Dr. Bruce Banner turns into the Hulk he is the machine of mass destruction. Then other times he is working side by side with the Avengers like they all went to the same high school and ate lunch at the nerds table for years. What gives? 

Thanks to the internet where you can find everything from a tiramisu recipe to the way to properly groom your dog, I found that Hulk's behaviour depends on the trigger that caused him to transform from Banner to Hulk. If he did it himself he was the well-behaved model citizen, but if something, usually an act of violence, forced him into becoming the Hulk then he could be mean as your mother-in-law after you tell her that her thanksgiving turkey was a bit dry. 

We may not have been exposed to a truckload of gamma radiation in our lives (I don't know about you, but I wasn't. In case, you are reading, Dr. Banner) but our response towards change is very similar. Maybe it's the old teacher in me or I just know how much you like examples but I feel like giving you an example. 

Take this case of old Timmy (Or John, or Dave, or Raj) whose girlfriend dumps him. That throws him into a pit of depression which takes a while to fix even after copious amounts of junk food and help from good friends. But if this same rascal dumped his girlfriend, he won't feel so sad. He might pretend to be upset about it, if he is a decent person, but he really won't be that sad. 

Similarly, if a person leaves a job to start his business or just change cities or whatever, they take it in their stride even if things are quite hard for a while. In contrast, if they get fired from the job, they don't like that so much. 

The main reason for the difference in our response, I think, is from anticipation and preparation. And, the sense of being in control. When you do something that brings a change in your life, even if it is a tough situation,  you are prepared for it and mentally ready to face the consequences. But if something is done to you which brings about the change in your life, it's a shock that you have to first absorb before you can deal with the actual, physical consequences. 

Sometimes the change that is "done to us" is not really so bad. That's where the expressions like "blessing in disguise", "silver lining" and "look on the bright side" come into play. Sometimes a change can be a mix of the two types like getting married. You decided to get married, that's what you "did" and then all the future changes are "done" to you by her will. Happy married life. 

My conclusion is that if we can keep this in mind that change is change no matter what type of trigger it had, maybe it will help us bounce back faster and deal with the change better. 

Having said that, how do you like the new layout of the blog? ;-) 

Amazing Ghazal from Nasir Kazmi

 Kya zamaana tha ki hum roz mila karte they

raat bhar chaand ke humrah phira karte they

Jahan tanhaaiyaan sar phod ke so jaati hain

In makaano mein ajab log raha karte they

Dekh kar jo hamein chup chaap guzar jaata hai

Kabhi us shakhs se hum pyaar kiye karte they

Kar diya aaj zamaane ne inhein bhi majboor

Kabhi ye log mere dukh ki dava karte they

Ittfaqat-e-zamaana bhi ajab hai Naasir

Aaj wo dekh rahe hain jo suna karte they

Nasir Kazmi