Why not Bangalore?

A question I encounter very frequently but I don’t know how to answer is “Why do you stay in Pune rather than Bangalore?”  At times I just say I got a job here. At times I say my hometown is equi-distant from here so it doesn’t make a difference. On some other days, I ask people if they can get me a job in Bangalore so I can move 😛  But mostly I am confused why is it that people ask the question. I am away from home in either case. In fact it is the same national highway that I’d take from both destinations to go “home”, just in opposite directions. The only difference is when I go home from Pune my phone is in “roaming”.  Oh ya that is there. Bangalore is in the same political boundary as my hometown! But I don’t feel the same kinship with Bangalore that others want me to feel. Reason? Because although it is in the same state the language (actually dialect) and the culture is quite different. I don’t feel at home!

Well that was a pretty long segue to what I wanted to speak about today. Language, the culture and interconnection! Since I am a recently converted insomniac I don’t know what to do in those wee hours. And I end up binge watching YouTube videos. In one of those videos, Sudhir Mishra, the film-maker of “Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi” fame, says Women and Dalits take to English much more easily than others because English words or language is not as exploitative to them as their native tongue. That explains why I can’t bring myself to read a lot of Kannada literature inspite of being quite proficient in the language.  That extends to Kannada movies and newspapers even. And consequently I can’t feel the connect to Bangalore that others feel or atleast expect me to feel. He says “Bhasha is attitude”. On the same lines, another script-writer Jaideep Sahni (Chak De India) says “Bhasha is behaviour”. They couldn’t have been more correct. Thanks to them now I feel validated. All these days I felt like I was cheating on my mother tongue! Hail YouTube and the hail the Internet! I have been on the receiving end of quite a few jokes and taunts because of my love for English language. I still love Kannada but I just can’t enjoy the literature as much.

The dystopian novel, 1984, explores this brilliantly where the Oceania government has introduced this new language Newspeak. Newspeak has a very limited vocabulary and no negative terms. It is a language designed to remove even the possibility of independent thinking or a rebellion. Orwell said ‘If thoughts can corrupt language, language can also corrupt thoughts.’ Very interesting theory indeed.

There is a reason the current Government of our country wants to impose Hindi on us. Because without imposing the language there is no way they can impose the morality that comes along with it. And that precisely is also the reason why some others are opposing the move. Anybody familiar with the South-East Asia can attest, here  English isn’t just a language but a class. If you can speak English well, it immediately puts you in a different league. French is a language synonymous with class, luxury, sophistication and fancy.

However, there is one thing. Because of colonization and subsequently the emergence of the Internet now we have a large population of the World that speaks English but thinks in a different language. The other language can be any Kannada, Chinese, Spanish and the list goes on. English can be called the lingua franca of the World. Well almost. Culturally also due to capitalization we are becoming pretty similar. You can find a McDonalds and a Starbucks be it Denver, Dubai, Delhi, or Denpasar! Is it a good thing? I don’t know and anyway that is a topic for another day. This cultural melting pot has created another language for us which could very well become the lingua franca of the World: Memes. Have you been following them?

And while I am thinking all this on a Saturday afternoon, here’s my brain to myself.

So I’ll go eat something while you ponder on what language you think in and and tell me how can I ask for biryani in that language  😀

 

Spot the Ravan

Hello everyone! Here’s wishing you a very Happy Dasara on the occasion of Vijayadashmi!!! Today is supposed to mark the end of Raavan, the King of Lanka, who abducted Sita. It also marks the triumph of Good over evil.

Here is the story of her abduction/kidnapping for some background. The couple Ram and Sita are staying the forest as a part of their vanavasa with Ram’s brother Lakshman. Ravana is the king of Lanka who has his heart set on Sita. So plans to kidnap her. He takes help from Mareecha, who is his uncle and has the power to transform himself into any form. Mareecha transforms into a golden deer and walks into the ashram where Sita, Ram & Lakshman are staying. On seeing the deer, fascinated by it’s beauty, Sita asks her husband to get it for her. The brothers have their doubt as they had never seen such a creature but Sita has her heart set on it.

Ram sets out while leaving Lakshman behind to protect Sita. The deer takes Ram deeper and deeper into the forest. In a few minutes, Lakshman hears Ram cry out for help. Ofcourse, it isn’t Ram but another of Mareecha’s trick. Lakshman not knowing what to do  stays put. But Sita is worried about her husband and makes her BIL go look for Ram. Lakshaman agrees, draws a magical boundary around the hut which would protect Sita in his absence and leaves. Now Raavan disguised as a hermit asking for food comes to the hut. Obviously Sita offers him food. When she offers the food he can’t reach for it so he asks her to step out of the boundary to give the offering. After all, what harm could an old hermit asking for alms pose, right? Wrong! Once she crosses the boundary, voila there he is – The mighty Raavan, laughing away at the Sita’s folly and happy for his prize.

Now this is a very familiar story and anybody related to the Indian subcontinent remotely already knows the story. The point of me reiterating it here is we all have been Sita at some or the other point of time. We fail to recognize the threats and fall into the trap readily. So it is important, we be aware no matter how benign the threats look.

Be careful the next time you open the door for a stranger or give out information to a random person on the phone or the Internet. Look before you leap!! Don’t let the golden deer entice you.

Hope you all have a happy and safe celebration!

Tring Tring Tring

That is the familiar sound of a phone ring. All the 90s kids would know 😛 Actually not just the 90s kids. Anybody who has heard EDM music and wondered what it is, would know. Nowadays we have these fancy smartphones in which you can load fancier ringtones like “Pardesi pardesi jaana nahi” and “Baabuji zara dheere chalo”.

The latest entry to this is the iPhone X. Some people point out that it is pronounced “ten” and not X. It costs the same amount as what at once Ratan Tata promised to give us a car. If I am paying that much for a phone I can call it X,Y,Z whatever. Hell, I should also get an option to rename Siri to Ramu kaka for that kind of money.  It supposedly has a glass front and back. So now when you drop your phone and break the glass, you can not only hear your heart break to a thousand pieces with amazing clarity, you can also see reflection of you crying on both the sides. And if your imagination is any good you will also hear “Sheesha ho ya dil ho toot jaata hai..” play in the background.

Our phones these days are not just communication devices, they have a wealth of information – our contacts, personal photos, to do lists, notes with bank account numbers, emails, digital wallets, bank apps and what not. So now if we lose our phones, we just don’t lose our phone we lose all that data. And if this reaches the wrong hands we also run the risk of id theft, misuse of our personal data and possibly money from our bank accounts and digital wallets. I know the pain of losing a phone having lost it once and another one just drained in a bucket of water and committed suicide! Blue whale was not even a thing back then! I still mourn both the devices and the data in those devices all the more.

I went to the Koramangala police station and told them I lost the phone in front the police station. They said that road comes under the Adugodi police station! Like the road in front of the police station. Our police require a separate post altogether. There isn’t enough space to talk about them here. I had this option on my Samsung phone where on changing the SIM, my chosen contacts would get a message.  So as soon as the new owner changed the SIM we got a message and we called. Of course he was in no mood to give the phone back and the fact that my phone had reached from Bangalore to interiors of Andhra Pradesh made it even more difficult to recover.

A friend of mine who bought an expensive Samsung Galaxy also bought insurance for her phone. So at least  money wise she is covered. And when she lost her phone she claimed for the insurance. It was rejected because she had kept the phone in the back pocket of her denims in a market area which constitutes as reckless behaviour. This is the same company who advertisement shows a girl leaving her phone at a restaurant while out with her friends as the case for buying an insurance. Now apart from her phone money my friend also lost the money she paid for the insurance.

Another friend of mine lost his phone while he was boarding a bus at the Anand Rao circle in Bangalore. And not a city bus but a VRL bus where the seats are reserved in advance and only relevant people are getting in. Or so you think. He was speaking on the phone while boarding the bus and the next moment he is speaking into nothing and his hands are empty. By the time it sinks in, the phone is probably half a kilometer away.

Well why am I telling you all this? Losing your phone is easy but we can still do a few things to avoid the grief.

• Don’t keep your phone in your back pocket! For that matter even your wallet or anything important. It is way easier for a pickpocketer.
• Avoid talking on your phone while walking at the busy junctions or even on empty roads or while boarding a bus or when you have other things as well in your hand. Basically anywhere where it is easy for another person to flick it from your hand.
• When you are sitting in a cafe, airport or anywhere with the phone on the desk or the table, keep an eye on the phone or even better keep it in your pocket/purse/bag.
• If you are going to the washroom, keep your phone in the bag instead of keeping it on the counter. Much lesser chance of somebody else taking it or you forgetting it there.
• Store some ICE(In Case of Emergency) numbers in your phone, which will not only help in times of an emergency but also in case of loss. If it reaches a good person he/she knows how to get in touch with you. In case you did not know your ICE contacts can be called even when your phone is locked. That’s how it can be used in an emergency. Screenshot below in case you don’t have them on your phone yet. Please do this for your own good and for the family who loves you. If you are the kind who only Jesus can love and nobody else, then it’s okay.
• If at all, you do lose your phone you can still do a few things to ensure your data is safe. I know iPhone erases the data after some wrong password retries. Not sure of the details. If some iPhone user is reading this please comment on the details.
• If you are an android user, there are many apps most of which are freemium apps. Checkout the Google Play Store. You can use the Android feature even if you don’t have any apps. This helps you track your phone or delete all the data if required. Go to Settings -> Lock screen and security -> Device administrator -> Find my device and activate it. Refer screenshot.
• In short stay alert stay safe and keep reading my blog 🙂
• 

  Adding ICE contacts

  

  Find my device. Android feature

Et tu, target?

I was talking to a friend the other day about the scam series of posts I am doing on the blog. And she mentioned how the poor tech illiterate folks get duped. And my reaction was NO. Not really. Yes it is very easy to scam someone who is not very tech savvy that especially includes the rural folk, the senior citizens etc. But here is a list that’ll help you assess whether you can be scammed:

• Are you Human?

End of list. If you are a human being with aspirations, fears, insecurities, dreams, or just a human body then you qualify. While most of the scams rely on psychological tricks some simply work because you are tired, sleepy, or you have to pee and things like that. And mind you scammers target people of all walks of life, age, gender, background and income levels. There are retired policemen who have been victims of scam. Somebody who has spent a lifetime getting into a criminal’s minds and catching them. They have the information of the most common conman tricks. This is somebody who is professionally trained to questions each and everything around them, look for details, investigate and analyse things! Then what chance does a layman have?

• Some of the simpler ones like a pickpocket relies on you being temporarily distracted for a few seconds. The modus operandi is usually there is one person who distracts you with a question like what time it is or do you know a particular address or just bump into you on a busy road and while you are processing this information your wallet has quickly reached his accomplices hand who in turn passes it on to a third person.
• Some others like a telephone call saying your card has been blocked and needs to be reactivated using your PIN is preying on your fear & anxiety of you not being able to access your own money.
• Fake modeling agencies and casting agencies makes use of your aspirations of becoming a famous film star , pop star or a super model.
• Scams like ‘signed cancelled cheques’ use your ignorance of banking procedures.
• Love scams target your need for a companion. Lonely/single people are the target.
• Fake police and post scams rely on your social compliance and conformance to people in uniforms or Government agencies.
• Fake crying baby sounds and the fake accident victim scams exploit your inherent human compassion and good Samaritan nature.
• Scams targeting old people rely on their slower mental reflexes and their lack of knowledge updation.
• Most scams like Nigerian scams exploit simple human greed.

Now that we know anybody can be scammed what do we do about it

• Rule of thumb that applies to EVERYBODY(Unless you are Eklavya!) – If it is too good to be true, it probably is!!!
• Beware of strangers! Stranger Danger isn’t a myth. Don’t let strangers into your house. Don’t give out information to strangers on phone or in person. Don’t trust strangers easily.
• Be Aware of your surroundings and try and keep yourself updated with the happenings in the World. Difficult! I know! I myself haven’t read a newspaper for  ages now.
• Question things! Try and keep your calm and think logically even in difficult situations!
• And after all we are only human. We cannot be hyper alert all the time. We falter and when you do seek help! From your friends and the concerned authorities. Report the scams and make others around you aware too.
• And lastly keep reading my blog! Check out the other posts in the same series. I won’t bore you. Promise!!

#JaagoDearJaago!

 

Going Global

You had a good night’s sleep and you wake up refreshed in the morning. And as the millennial routine goes you pick up your phone to check messages/feed even before you brush your teeth. You see a burst of missed calls and you wonder what happened. Who called you in the dead of the night, what is the emergency and why is it that you did not hear the call? In a state of panic you call back to check.

What you do not realize is that the number is an International number usually starting with an international code of +3xxx or +2xxx and at the end of the month you get a bill with a large number.  +381 and +375 are the ones I have seen on my phone. But there are quite a few countries where these calls originate from. Russia, African countries – Nigeria, Burundi, Malawi, Mali…,  USSR countries – Serbia, Azerbaijan, Pakistan even. Egypt, Iraq are the latest entrants. US is there in the list too. Obviously, I have no friends and family staying in the Serbia or Belarus so I didn’t call back. But why would they call? Why wouldn’t I hear the call?

This is a phone scam called ‘Wangiri’. Wangiri is  Japanese for ‘one ring and cut’. This scam originated in Japan, hence the Japanese name. They usually give a single ring and cut the call which is why you wouldn’t have heard the ring or received the call. These numbers are international premium rate numbers (IPRN) so when you call back you are charged call rates which are higher than the regular rates. What do the callers get? A share of the call revenue.

Sometimes they also text a number asking you to call back. Usually on the lines of “Urgent, Please call!!”

When you call you either hear some adult content, hold music tone, silence or some recorded voice. The longer you stay on the call the more money they make.

Apart from this it is also supposedly used for  voice recording and using it for making calls to your bank and impersonating you. Some of them also apparently copy your private data or download trojan to your device. Although am not sure of these claims or the technology that can be used to do this I am just adding the info. Please verify this from a credible source before believing or passing on this information.

What can you do to avoid being scammed here:

Do not call back or even receive calls when it comes from an unknown International number. If it is your friend or a family member exchange the number before-hand through email or text message or Whatsapp.

Google for country codes when you get calls from unknown International numbers. And also search for phone scams and avoid numbers from those countries.

Report these numbers to operators and also block those numbers. You an app like truecaller to identify callers.

Losing money from calling back may be a one-time thing but if you lose personal data that may be more damaging. Stay safe!

This is part of my custom ‘Jaago Grahak Jaago’ series. Do check out the other similar post and leave your thoughts in the comments section below.

Prince charming calls

We have all waited for our Prince charming some or the other time in our life. I didn’t have to wait for it long. No sooner had I opened an email account, I got an email from a Nigerian Prince. Whats more he was offering me money. Large sums of it. In dollars no less. And he was so polite! He was slightly bad at English and grammar but hey you can’t have it all! However, Prince is a bit much for me. I’d prefer a commoner to be more honest. My insecurities told me so. So I just let it go.

A few days later, Coca Cola told me I won some prize for a lottery that I never purchased. This time in GBP. The next time it was Hero Honda and oh my God the emails just kept pouring in. They all told me how they found me in some directory and how they found me trust worthy and how my credit score just shines! I was wondering why I don’t I meet these people in real life. I should have shown some of these emails to my friends! Once I bought a phone I got text messages with similar prize money. Then when I went online for searching something and even these websites started offering me money. Lucky me!

But am sure I ain’t the only lucky person. Anybody who hasn’t been living under a rock has been this lucky sometime or the other. This is what is called a Nigerian scam or a 419 scam based on the International code for Nigeria. Most of these emails originate from Nigeria. About 60% of them, hence the name. This is THE MOST common scams around. Apart from being the most common, the variations of this scam are the oldest as well.

The older form of this scam called ‘Spanish prisoner scam’ is from the 18th century. Individuals are contacted and offered a part of somebody’s fortune in exchange for a bribe money you pay to get the person out of the prison. The newer one offers you a prize money or it says someone wants to transfer a huge sum of money and needs an ally. In exchange you get to keep a percentage of it. They always have a story of why they need your assistance. Sometimes they are also you a job. This is used to get money from you and also for identity theft. Just Google for Nigerian scam and you’ll find a wealth of information.

You might have thought who’d fall for such a scam but as per one study, in 2013, an estimated $12.7 billion was lost to these scams worldwide. That means somebody is still falling for this trick even almost a century later. The reason is pretty simple. Lure of easy money and also the fact that this is a big industry in some poorer countries and done on a large scale as a full time job with proper training. They keep updating themselves and come up with newer stories and tricks every once in a while.

Now to the important part what to do when you are at the receiving end of such an email/text/call/fax/ad.

Check any email that you get for sender. Most of these originate from the web based emails. and have bad English, grammar or badly made logos. All reputed companies have their own domain and also use the email ids of their own domain. The scammers have off late gotten sophisticated and use legit sounding names and better logos but with a slight effort you can find out the real sender.

In case of doubt, you can Google search and check the senders IP. Check if it is in the spam database.

Don’t respond! Just delete it and mark it as spam. Again don’t click on the mark spam and unsubscribe. You do not even to confirm that such an email id exists and being used.

Do NOT part with any personal details whatsoever. Least of all your bank account details.

If at all, you have given any money or details and are being pursued for more money, inform the police and get out of the situation. The ‘sunk cost fallacy’ makes you act otherwise, counter to your own best interests and you keep giving more money.  Do yourself a favor and stop!

And lastly the usual culprit, if something is too good to be true, remember, it most certainly is! Do not trust random emails/random stroke of luck. Use your judgement. Or rather don’t let your judgement get clouded!

This is part of my very own ‘Jaago Grahak Jaago’ series. The previous post in the series is ”Striking gold“. More coming later. Hope you guys like them. Do leave your thoughts in the comments section below. And have a great day!

Striking Gold

Life has its ups and downs but once in a while you get an offer that you just cannot refuse. You strike Gold! In my case quite literally. I was having lunch with my folks on a peaceful Sunday afternoon and I got a call on my mobile. The speaker said, he is from a remote part of Rajasthan and while digging some ruins for archaeological purposes they found gold. A good number of kilos. I don’t remember the exact number now. This was about a 5-6 years ago. But it was a good number. And now he had to give it to the government which is as per the law. So he proposed a solution, he could sell me the gold at almost half the market rates. I transfer the money and he ships the gold to my house.

Great deal, right? Except I am not a gold enthusiast and more importantly I could tell this was a scam, so I refused. The guy asked me to reconsider. He persisted and also lamented for I was letting go of such a fantastic opportunity.

Then I got talking to my Dad and it indeed was a scam! A thumb-rule that you can apply here, If something sounds too good to be true then it most probably is!! This is just one instance. There are many variations of this call. I plan to write a serious of these posts with the details of scams I have come across or have friends who have come across these instances.

Why is it that people fall for these scams? Well that one is easy. Easy money!! Easy money and the lure of a windfall. This one comes with an additional incentive of being able to screw the Government; Sone pe Suhaga(pun intended!). Irresistible package.

Now how to deal with these people:

Do NOT engage with them. I thought I am the smart one and just wanted to see how the caller responds so I did ask him a few questions on how he got my number, how is it that no one else knows about him finding the gold and the likes. He had an answer for all of them. He had anticipated these questions and had the answers handy. In hindsight, I should have just cut the call. Do not get into a conversation with these people. Just hang up.

Do NOT share any personal information whatsoever. And that includes even your name. It is not a big deal to find a bunch of phone numbers and the corresponding names. Especially not in our country with such lax regard for data privacy both by the Government and the individuals. So even if the caller is able to identify you and rattle off a few details of yours from some list do not fall for it.

Report scam. Actually I haven’t tried this one yet. If you get in touch with the police they should be able to direct you to the cyber crime cell. Registering for DND(Do Not Disturb)  to 1909 is something I have tried and works to a certain extent. You can also call 1909 which is toll free number and is a service offered by TRAI (Telecom Regulatory Authority of India). If you are a frequent recipient of scam/spam calls and messages, there is also an android app “India against spam” which is an award winning app. Not sure if the other OSes have this app. Let me know in the comments if any of you are aware. This helps report the call/message with a single tap.

Last and the most important of all: Be skeptical, be aware of things happening around you and question people before you buy into anything. And remember there is no such thing as a easy money. Anything that you get easily gets squandered easily too. This cliched gyaan makes sense. Think about it!

Movie Review – Bareilly ki Barfi

One word review of this movie would be – Sweet! I know I am pretty late to the party but fortunately for me the movie is still running in the theatres. In the times when Bollywood is hooked on to Multi-starer big budget movies shot abroad with zero focus on content or acting, this movie is so refreshing, it feels like a fresh lime soda on a summer afternoon.

The best part about the movie are the characters. They are all quirky, real, unconventional and played amazingly well by the actors playing them. That includes the main characters as well as the supporting cast. Special mention goes to Rajkumar Rao for playing two almost opposite personas equally well.

This is a story of Bitti Mishra(Kriti Sanon), a free-spirited girl in the town of Bareilly(a small town in India), who happens to read a book and falls in love with the writer’s perspective. She wants to meet the author but he is nowhere to be found. And of course as all the cliched loved stories go she finds more than just the author in the bargain. She has a lovely set of parents: A father who treats her like a son and a mother is  forever in search for a suitable SIL. Chirag Dubey(Ayushmann Khurana), the author of the book, falls in love with Bitti but can’t reveal it to her and so enters the recitent Pritam Vidrohi(Rajkumar Rao) and the best friend – Narottam.

The story is as cliched as it gets but still leaves no room for boredom. It is the dialogues that put the zing in the story. There is a point in the movie where Rajkumar Rao says “Agar shakal dekhke ladiyan shaadi karti na toh Hindustan mein aadhe ladke kunware hote”. Also a few others like “aastin ka anaconda” and so on. There is one line however, which really got me “Aasaan nahi hai tumse pyar karna … magar tumse pyar na karna usse bhi zyada mushkil hai”. This I thought was incredibly sweet!

The writing is funny and light-hearted throughout and leaves you with a sweet aftertaste. Definitely worth a watch!

Book Review – Beyond The Veil

Beyond_the_veil

Beyond the Veil – The journey of an Indian girl is a novella by Siddhi Palande. Siddhi took to writing the book to get over the grief caused by her father’s death. And she has taken the task of writing and publishing her debut work with a month-old baby.

This is a story about an Indian girl named Janhvi Desai. A conventional Indian girl who has been a good girl and lived a nice conventional life. She hopes the marriage to a Mumbai based engineer Ram would change her life and bring a freshness she was hoping for. But life is never as you expect it, is it? Between the anxiety of being the ideal wife her mother told her to be and trying to getting used to her Bandra based “cool” husband, Janhvi tried finding a foothold in the new city and in a new life.

Chemistry between her and Ram, her career, her relationship with her in-laws especially her inquisitive Mother-in-law, an ashram stay and her brush-off with the typical South Bombay socialite are all part of the story.

What works for me are no loopholes, all ends neatly tied. Nice simple language that convey the message aptly. True to its genre- novella, a short crisp read. A strong plot. Consistent motives and action by the characters. The way Siddhi has explored patriarchy and it’s effect on both Men and Women effectively. The fight-back instances are consistent with the stories of a modern Women instead of the Ekta-Kapoorish take. A nice ending(don’t want to give away the plot) and tales of finding a soulmate. A very good debut work. A take on feminism without being preachy.

What did not work for me: I would have loved it if this was a novel instead of a novella.  That would have given the author some more time to develop the characters. That would have also helped her elaborate the instances and explain Rams motive for his behaviour. A parallel narration of the events from Rams perspective would have given this is a very nice touch. Although that is just my view.

All in all, the book sure would make Siddhi’s father proud.

Title: Beyond the Veil
Author: Siddhi Palande(Prasiddhi)
Publishers: Educreation Publishing Delhi
Pages: 115

Vogue Empower My Choice: What the criticism actually did to feminism

Nailed it!

Dr Sanjukta Basu

The Vogue Empower video titled ‘My Choice’ featuring Deepika Padukone and 99 other women, from different walks of life, has already taken way too much space than it deserved. And yet, I feel the need to defend it. Allow me to explain why.

My first reaction:

The video was released on Saturday and when I first saw someone sharing it, I didn’t even bother to open it, just like I don’t care to open so many other virals the public seem to love. But then as more people started sharing it, particularly my feminist progressive friends, I thought ok lets see what it is all about. So I saw and thought it was just about nice, makes a few bold statements which can be appreciated except that they didn’t really have a large size woman, even when the narrative went, “To be a size zero or a size 15, my choice.”

My second…

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