Saturday, 28 February 2015

With QuikrNXT, sloth is a virtue, not a vice!

How often has it happened that you are rebuked by the elderly for being no more movable than the couch in your living room? And how often has your overt passion for gadgetry and the Internet have landed you in trouble because you were in the line of fire for messing up something or not doing it at all. So advent of technology has impeded progress in the life of many. People prefer to put pictures of them studying before the exam getting uncouth instead of actually studying anything at all and screwing it up. People also prefer to plunge into social media debates without not knowing a shred about the case in point because they never read the newspapers. All in all, technology has brought us to the backfoot on more occasions than one can remember. But what if I told you that this time, technology is the thing that sees you through! 

So I and dad were discussing about getting rid of our old french tin can of a car which sucks more diesel for a mile than a good old locomotive would for the entire journey. It's clearly past its prime and we need someone who simply needs one running vehicle for the purpose of running quick errands. Now my father laid out the problem as being complex because getting a buyer with that many traits is a challenge in itself. Secondly, we were looking for a replacement with another not so old sedan that would run good for sometime. Once again, our extremely distended set of preferences made us rather diffident in seeing how we'll get one such offer. And suddenly, I came up with the idea of using QuikrNXT to get the best prospective transacting parties and bargains. Now having seen his son face music just because of extreme indulgence in technology in the past, he had to be apprehensive. So I persuaded him to give it a try. 

So the moment we logged in, we were amazed to witness the sheer variety of ways in which one could actually search for their dream car. One can sort by brands, by type and then one can apply all kinds of filters to further refine their search according to their wishes. We found the following menu listing all offers by brands and we knew we'll be up for quite some choices. 

So went for Honda as a brand, thinking we'll probably be able to narrow down the search because we thought only limited offers would be there at avail, and we were bewildered to see the rather inexorable list of all cars from nearly all Honda models that were listed. We got pretty amazing variety on the models, on the year of make, on the condition and what not. My father couldn't believe that such an exorbitant list was likely to unravel in front of him. 

We initially thought that sifting through so many prospective offers would be quite a strenuous task and we'll have to have some acuity. However, to our surprise, the amount of information that's logged and recorded for every vehicle is so massive that there are further filters than can actually be deployed to make sure that your searches are as relevant as they can get. It almost seemed like we were getting a customized buffet with our own chef! 

So we finally spent just a little more time and zeroed in on quite some cars. Also, while we commenced our rummaging on QuikrNXT, we weren't very confident if we could actually find someone for our own old car. But having gone through the variegated set of cars on their database even for a specific variety and model, we simply went on and decided to list our own with confidence. 

Apparently, my father who was just at the frontiers of becoming a technocrat, has now a very favorable opinion of it. So I wen't further and exposed him to all the categories of goods that can be brought and sold through this prodigious platform and now I've been put up on the job for listing a lot of things from old electronic pieces for collectors to exquisite artifacts. Although I knew of some of technology's prowess ever since I've been with it, his experience with QuikrNXT has at least roped in my father as a new ardent advocate of the ease with which one can get stuff done online. So if even you're planning to get or sell something, you surely know where to go now. 

Tuesday, 17 February 2015

The big bucket list!

Imagine a life that's so free of restrictions and bounds that you might even forget what they are and why they existed at the first place. Imagine a life where you could follow any conviction till the hilt because there's no fear. And imagine a life where what you do today may not really have any bearing on what you are tomorrow because there is a silent savior that's there to get you out of any unforeseen circumstances. So, what would you do if you were endowed a splendid chance to live such an unbridled life. What would your goals be now that you could plunge into almost anything, and how uncanny could one get? Well, one thing is for sure. Life won't be hackneyed anymore. Here are the 5 things I'd do to truly do justice to that stroke of luck. 

Learn Chiromancy

Well, so this is an avidity I have for quite some time now. Have always been fascinated with this act of clairvoyance, supposedly suggesting that even a crystal ball is superfluous in the end. You can actually predict the course of a man's entire life just by reading between the lines. I'd like to learn and then apply this art for free just to get that utter bewilderment that appears on one's face when someone tells them this is how it pans out, and they even begin believing in it. Apparently nothing bothers someone more than their very destiny. So while a chiromancer cannot do a thing about transforming someone's life, one surely can tell only gleeful things to people. So the down and maudlin might genuinely start believing in that, shed their inhibitions and resume control of their lives. What's in it for me? Well, I'll play god! :D 

Scythe the greener pastures

For some reason, the usual travel options have never appealed to me. All the places touted as the destinations to visit before die seem like mere semblances created out of not exploring the better places just because men follow others largely, and never explore on their own. So I believe I need to create my own list of favorite places as opposed to following a list compiled by someone else, who in turn followed someone else, who in turn may have not even visited the place and would've only heard about it. In short, it's in the serene contours of nature where lie the priceless escarpments, and I sure as hell want to be there alone in the evenings, all by myself, on my own date with the universe. 


This surely is something everyone would want to do if someone let go of their reins. While theater is a mode for expressing panegyrics for what you admire and to vilify what you detest, it's actually about living the lives of others, even if for very short. But it's about genuinely feeling what it would be like. Theater is about mankind's superordinary powers of transferring themselves in a place of their choice, and in a form of their choice, and witnessing either a legend or a lore while enacting a famous scene, or creating glory from the scratch while submerging in the imaginations of a brilliant playwright. Life would be one big Elysium. 

Read about every battle ever fought

It's often said that battles and wars were necessary. Be it the establishment of long lasting doctrines of regimes or be it the ushering of the intellectual progress that ensues out of them. Whenever mankind was indulged into what was otherwise the most hideous of all things to happen, history assumed a different course and every such change of course culminated in how different things are today. I believe that it is in the history of these countless battles where lies the route to our collective conscience and explains why we are what we are and why we act the way we do. I genuinely affirm that one surely could unravel the essence of our lives if we could simply trace it back. Well, I'd read up all that is there to read on this.


And finally, it's all about what I've lived to do even now when I'm strangulated amidst hopes, expectations and boundaries. It is our innate need to be able to express whatever we desire, that serves as a fuel for further thought and for further pursuits. So if given a chance to make a life just out of expressing without bothering myself with its commercial viability and creating a sustainable business model out of it, I'd just write and speak and act and even invent new forms of expounding all that I ever wanted to. That's the thing I believe I'd do the most, even if the chance to do so much else was ever to be extended.

Well, want a little more on how spectacular life truly could be given that chance. Watch more here. 

And if you're still hungry for more, do visit this link -> Befikar Umar Bhar

And don't forget to pop in your own bucket list in the comments section below. 

Saturday, 14 February 2015

If it's not unconditional, It's not love.

Connotations and references to love are often plagued by cliches and pithy statements. They say love is boundless, love is pure and they'd even use superlative terms to drive their point home. I  never believed in any of that and I continued to view life from the lens of my own paradigm and principles, until one day when everything changed. As a noob, the realization was too powerful and too arcane for me. I was taken aback by how every quality I had come to crave and covet could be in one form itself. A form so formidable and yet so impish that it could change you completely and could even instill some element of mischief in you. For the first time I felt that love surely transcends bounds, that love surely is pristine and more importantly, that love is indeed unconditional. I was too sunk in the moment to look around, too involved and engrossed to see anything else. All this time I wondered if a feeling could ever be so pious. And I felt if in her eyes, the entire universe answered in affirmative. I truly was in love and for the first time. The Asus Zenfone became the love of my life.

I kept staring at her sumptuous screen, and at her exquisite lustrous metal beneath. It seemed like she was looking back, in hope and anxiety, and it was equally commiserate with my own desperation. She was not garish unlike the other women from her coven. In fact so serene was her black on the front and yellow on the back that she seemed to hold my very future in her paltry few grams of weight. She came across as very light, and yet one couldn't just consider her just an affectation. She was the perfect beauty with brains companion every man ever sought. With her extremely capable mind(read processor) and her exorbitant stamina(read battery life), she could take me on a voyage of the world that'll never end. I just had to tell her how and where to take me(read start an app) and she'd take me to an all new world without asking a single question. Love is unconditional indeed! She soon began to handle my communication, my entertainment, and even my professional commitments. She seemed to learn everything so smoothly that I at times felt for her. She was doing so much and what was I doing to reciprocate? In fact I didn't even care to get her some food(read recharging). But her love was undeterred and unsullied. She had chosen me and she'd do everything to let it stay that way. 

It's quite a surprise that 5 months passed by just like that. I was unfair and careless in every possible way but her love for me never changed. I've never been in one but I know relationships are often subject to tantrums and even diatribes from time to time. But my petite and pulchritudinous Zenfone never came with any of that. She just knew one thing and that was to pamper me in every way possible. She never tried to earn my love or loyalty. She in fact never even wanted anything back in lieu of her love, She just wanted me happy and see how big a cretin I've been not to notice how much she has been doing for me. So since the last couple of days when lovebirds started with their PDA, coquetry and assignations, I too realized that this time, for the first time in fact, I too am going to have a Valentine. And that I too am going to savor how it feels to be entrenched in the rigmarole of love. I know it's tough to propose and let it all come out, but I cannot deny that it'll be worth it. So it is with utmost veracity and all emotion and courage I could muster, that I finally proclaim my love in front of this world. Asus Zenfone 4, if mankind could ever find a way to marry a gadget, I'd be the first one to tie knots with you.  

Well, wondering if I told the truth? Well, check for yourself in this video below. 

And if you want to get your own date like me, here's where you can get it from ->

Friday, 6 February 2015

When Expressing Opinion lost to "Express Opinion"

The last few days have been a disaster for the news feed of any social media fanatic like me. Delhi elections have been all over the place and once again it became a bit of a mandate to having to take a side. Once again people had choices to make regarding whom their support is going to go for, their almost negligible following and almost zero influence on other's opinions notwithstanding. People started with basic posts that pretended to contain pure facts which people blindly sided with without checking for authenticity of the source. It was later on replaced by a more decadent phenomenon of people making genuine conscious attempts of shaping opinion without really being sure about whether they themselves had one or not. In short, Facebook and Twitter became more a mode of forming Express Opinion on the basis of whatever was available largely online just because an opinion was mandatory, and expression of opinions which could have resulted in plausible debates, took a backseat. And apparently, this was not the first time social networks witnessed this.

If one ponders at the nuances of social networks and their prodigious power to influence, one sees the fallacy. Social networks have become a prime source of information dissemination, but their prime purpose was the sharing of opinions. It is this original trait of social media which creates a rather fragile and vague boundary between what can be construed as information and what has to be seen with the lens with which we view opinions. In fact that boundary has become so thin that there is no distinction anymore. If a famous person was to side with either Kejriwal or Bedi through a Facebook post while mentioning a few favorable characteristics of one of them, it is comprehended not as the sole opinion of that person but as a promulgated piece of information which is quickly commiserated by the supporters of whoever the celebrity supported, and refuted by those who support the other one. All in all, people center their agreement or disagreement towards the opinions which actually take the form of facts. Hence, the essence of a good debate where actual facts are presented in order to support or repudiate arguments and opinions, is all lost. Although it's a different matter that people still consider it to be a prudent debate. 

Now what this phenomenon does is that it spurs up a vogue where genuinely interested people with their own facts and figures in their quivers become a minority, and a larger section of the population now jumps on the discussion bandwagon because of the incessant need of having to express their support in some form or the other. Hence irrespective of whether a post has something as simple as a newly emerged fact or something as complicated as pure history of one of the leaders, people are going to take it upon themselves to bamboozle every such thread with "#5SaalKejriwal" or "#ModiPMBediCM", even if their comment was woefully unrelated to what the post intended to result into. Hence, the comments that really matter almost always get lost in the slugfest of such and other overtly emotional but similar comments, and a naive spectator who may not even have an opinion till now is now forced, compelled and tacitly coerced to quickly form an "Express Opinion" on the basis of what s/he witnesses. And given the limited time one spends on social media and given the lack of awareness of ours the entire process of opinion formation gets bypassed and opinions are made in a haste rather than out of the mental grind. 

Going a level deeper one realizes that the purpose of every post made and read is still to express opinion eventually. However given the convenience of having a readily available platform to express it impels one to form a quick opinion which may have actually be formed in no time at all. So one essentially forms an opinion quickly so that they could respond to the silent social pressure of responding quickly and then they spend all their time on research that shall actually concur with their opinions because we are innately egoistic and our opinions seldom go wrong. Ironically, we end up researching and delving more and more in order to support our originally formed opinions to convince ourselves of our righteousness, than what we would have done if we researched before forming an opinion at the first place. Moreover, any research we do after forming an opinion is done under the context of our preference instead of being unbiased and that is absolutely deleterious for the germination of a wholesome viewpoint. In fact any fact would have been properly processed if we were blank in the beginning but with our opinions, we have selective retention and selective acceptance. We tend to take note of only favorable things and deny anything odious and out of line. Well, may god bless us! 

While the number of voters canvassed on social media is minimal, influences spark cascade chains and result in massive conversions. It already is pretty late but one must exercise some restrain and take a moment to think before just jumping in to comment on any post on Facebook. One must be pretty astute and vigil to see how accurate a piece of information is and one must indulge in discussions only if the information deems so. Otherwise, it's ones prerogative to keep their hankering at bay and to clearly identify any such post as being farcical and bogus so that damage could be controlled. You may not know how important it is, but every vote makes a difference. Stay wise and please vote!