Saturday, December 27, 2014

How I ruined my cousin's date

To Err is Human. And sometimes to hide this errr... we lie. Because the truth can get us into trouble.

But "There comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but he must take it because conscience tells him it is right." Very rightly said by Martin Luther King Jr. Our conscience is the voice of our soul and very few have the courage to listen to this voice and do as it says.

I live with a chatterbox of a conscience. I left home in 2003 and like any other Indian parents, my parents worry every minute for me. But they know they can always trust me, because I (mostly) never lie about my plans or whereabouts or late night parties or the company I'm out with. But the incident I'm going to narrate is not about them.

Back in 2007, when I was in my Engineering final year in Chennai, a cousin had joined the same college as mine. Let's call her Rhika (Name changed for privacy). I was like an elder sister to her in that new city that she had just moved to. And being from a small town, she wanted to experience a discotheque.

The problem was that the closest good disc allowed only couples. I had a friend to go with, but she didn't. It was semester break time for college and only very few final year students were in the city who were doing their internship in Chennai. In the end, we requested a batchmate of ours to accompany the three of us, in spite of knowing that the guy holds the reputation of a playboy. We never gave it much thought as the plan was only for few hours. And of course, we warned Rhika about him. What harm could have come of it?

So we entered the disc without any hassle as two couples, spent good time there, had a few drinks, danced and left as planned. There was no Whatsapp in those days. So the mishap happened over text messages during the next 24 hours. To cut the long story short, Mr. Playboy proposed to Rhika before sun rose the next day. She had probably fallen for his charms and was naive enough to accept it. And then he told her, he would like to take her to Pondicherry next weekend. 

Tell me if I am wrong, but I do not believe that love happens overnight. What happens that fast is lust. And when a love-lorn Rhika told me about this getaway plan, I freaked out - out of care for her. So I gave a call to an elder cousin of ours and narrated her the incident of the past 24 hours, hoping she would talk Rhika out of it. Instead, she went hyper and told everything to Rhika's family. 

Result was that we both got verbal bashings over the phone - from her family and our dear broadcaster cousin. Yes, I got it too, as I was blamed for taking her out to party and introducing her to that guy. Rhika was angry on me for outing her. It was like hell breaking loose. In the end to avoid further shit, I vouched to her family that she broke up (even before they had started). 

Surprisingly, my parents weren't angry on me even after knowing about the incident. The habit of 'not hiding' had saved me, as they knew I was partying that night with friends and was taking Rhika along. And the trust factor that had grown between me and my parents, made them believe me when I told them that I was not at fault here.

That affair went on for 3 months in a hushed up way, until the day the boy left Rhika for another girl!!! A heartbroken Rhika often says, "I wish I had listened to you and not wasted those 3 months!"

May be things could have turned out better for them, proving me wrong and making her live happily ever after with him. But back then, my conscience told me that telling the truth was the right thing to do, though I had to later lie to everyone to save my relationship with her.

Till date I have not asked her whether she went to Pondicherry or not :D. I keep the 'telling the truth' practice restricted to my life. Others can decide what is right or wrong for them by themselves. If they make a mistake, they'll learn from it. We all do.
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This post has been written for Kinley, in association with Indiblogger. Watch this video and you'll thank me for the happy tear you might shed.

Monday, November 24, 2014

Review of Lucky 6 - A game by Fat Cat Gaming

(Image Courtesy : www.indiblogger.in)

Lottery without a lottery ticket! I thought, "Seriously?"
Logo of Fat Cat (Image Courtesy : http://fatcatgaming.com/)

So there is this brand new mobile app called Lucky 6, launched by Fat Cat Gaming , a British crowdfunded campaign by SHM Entertainment Ltd., which is an innovative lottery style game app. 
How to download Lucky 6?

The game is not available on Google Play or App Store. Here is how to download it -

1. Go to www.fatcatgaming.com. You'll see this screen -
(Image Courtesy : www.fatcatgaming.com)
2. Depending on whether you have an iOS or Android, download the .apk file.
3. Run the .apk file to complete installation.
4. In case, you get a notification saying only Google Play apps are permitted, go to Security settings and check the "Unknown sources" box and press Ok. Then run the .apk file to download the game.

(Alternatively, you can download the .apk file to your PC and then transfer it to your phone, like I did.)

How to play Lucky 6?

Once the Lucky 6 app is downloaded and you have registered, all you need to do is select 6 brands from the list. When you select 6 brands and confirm, a ticket for that entry is created. If the brands you selected match the top 6 brands on the Game day, you win. How they decide which the top 6 brands are? Stock market gains of course!

Prizes - 

The prize is a jackpot of Rs.25 Lakh for the winner.
If there is more than one winner, the jackpot will be shared.
If there is no winner, the top scorer gets an all expense paid holiday trip (for two) to an exotic location.
If a player you introduced wins the jackpot, you get a bonus of Rs.6.25 Lakh.

Review of Lucky 6 game - 

Cons (Let’s start with areas of improvement…) - 

1. Platform issues - It is only for iOS and Android users – what about Windows and Blackberry users?

2. Download issues - It is not available on Google Play and that makes the download process a little confusing.

3. Betting on Brands - For those not aware about stock market movements, it can get a little tricky.

4. Some brands listed are actually sub-brands belonging to a parent brand, e.g. Chevrolet of GM, Goldflake of ITC, Kitkat of Nestle, etc.

5. Bug issues - The game logs me out every time my screen gets locked.

Pros

1. Fast download! You’ll say - just now I said it’s confusing to download. Well partly yes, because Google Play doesn’t allow reward based games. But once you have figured out that all you have to do is download the .apk file through your browser and install it, it’s a pretty fast process.

2. It is free to play. Yes you heard it right – Free!!!

3. It is a simple and user-friendly game.

4. Fast winner declaration – Announced within 2 hours of the end of contest on Game Day.

5. You win cash! Not coupons! Not vouchers! Hard Cash it is!

6. Sharing is Caring – You can share your score with your friends on social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus, etc. and challenge them to compete.

7. Luck hierarchy – If the friend you shared with get’s lucky, you get double lucky and win bonus cash. So if you read about 'Lucky 6' on my blog, please mention referrer name as 'Sanghita'. 

8. Last but not the least – this is E-lottery. Gone are the days of buying lottery tickets. All you need to do is download and play and get Lucky.

As it is obvious, that the Pros beat the Cons, this game has potential to create a storm in India. If it’s shared well through social media among gamers, it will capture the market like no other game has ever done before. I can already imagine people ‘brand betting’ throughout the day. 

Now this is what I would call as intelligent gaming. Nothing ever came out of crushing candies right?
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I'm saying it again in case you missed it, please mention referrer name as 'Sanghita' if you read about 'Lucky 6' by Fat Cat Gaming on this blog :) Thank you!

Monday, October 20, 2014

Sweet my child, I live for thee

Home they brought her warrior dead:
She nor swoon'd nor utter'd cry:
All her maidens, watching, said,
"She must weep or she will die."

Then they praised him, soft and low,
Call'd him worthy to be loved,
Truest friend and noblest foe;
Yet she neither spoke nor moved.

Stole a maiden from her place,
Lightly to the warrior stepped,
Took the face-cloth from the face;
Yet she neither moved nor wept.

Rose a nurse of ninety years,
Set his child upon her knee—
Like summer tempest came her tears—
"Sweet my child, I live for thee."

- Alfred Lord Tennyson

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A child has a special way of adding joy to a family. The same child also instills a healthy fear in the parents - a fear born out of realizing that the new life is fragile. Even when the parents hold their baby for the first time, they do so with trembling hands, scared that they might hurt the baby if they are not careful enough. Though this healthy fear never dies out throughout the years, it is at its most when the child is young.


"A healthy child makes a happy home". Everything seems to be perfect till the day that child falls sick. That's when all hell breaks loose. Caring for a sick child doesn't only cause physical stress to both the parents, it also affects their mental health. This mental stress is not only due to their nagging fear about their child's condition, it is also because when a child falls sick, it disrupts the family's regular routine. They are more likely to miss their work. They are less likely to sleep at night. They are likely to even skip their meals during the day. The child's deteriorating health in turn affects the parents' normal functioning and lifestyle. I have seen similar effects in my own family when me or my sister had fallen sick. It had caused turmoils in my parents life.


All said and done, what I said above is the most obvious inference that we can draw from the one liner "A healthy child makes a happy home". But when I had a conversation with a cousin last night regarding this, she made me look at it from a different angle. Here you go -

One fine day a girl child is born and over the years she matures into a woman. But that woman is reborn as a mother only when a baby is born to her. 

It is said that a woman-turned-mother loves her child more than she loves her better half. Once she becomes a mother, she lives more for her child than for her husband (No offence meant men!). It's the glow on her child's face, that makes her happy and proud. A child has the power to instigate myriads of emotion in the mother, like in the poem at the beginning of the blog where the woman is able to cry over the dead body of her husband, only when her child is placed on her lap. 

A healthy child is a happy child. A happy child means a happy mother. But if her child is sick, under no circumstance would she be able stay happy. A woman - wife or mother - holds the family together. She is like the pillar of the family. If the woman of the family is not happy, it would have a devastating affect on the entire family. In such a situation, how do we expect the entire family to be happy or healthy? It's like a vicious cycle.

But when the child is hale and hearty, the mother can put all such worries on the back burner. The family life runs smooth, without any hitches.

I though personally don't know what being a mother feels like, but I totally believe any woman who says it was her happiest day in life when she held her child in her arms for the first time and said 'Sweet my child, I live for thee.'


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This post is written for Dabur India for 'A HEALTHY CHILD MAKES A HAPPY HOME' campaign, in association with IndiBlogger. Click here to know more - https://www.liveveda.com/daburchyawanprash/