Seshadri's Musings

After the recent changes mooted by WhatsApp, I have decided to move on from WhatsApp and shift to Signal.   Over the past couple of days, I have stopped using WhatsApp and have instructed all my contacts, who I frequently interact with, to stop contacting me on WhatsApp. The recent changes mooted by WhatsApp is not anything new.  They have just started saying that they will do these things from now onwards.  It is another matter that they had been continuously doing these same things since they got acquired by Facebook.  They just wanted to “inform” the users of the same now so that in case anything untoward happens later, they can always say that they had informed all the users about this 😊. Now Facebook is a company that is owned by a person who had cheated his colleagues while starting Facebook.  He had to pay them off with huge sums when they approached the courts mentioning that they too had collaborated to start the company.  What can you expect ...

While watching cricket, many people have different superstitions, including the players themselves.  Why not, after all they too are humans 😊 ! If you have sat at a particular place while an Indian partnership is taking place, you are prone to be there only as long as the partnership lasts!  Of course, what happens in the cricket field can never be “governed” by your antics, but such antics are followed very frequently without acknowledging the merits or demerits of the same!! I used to do the above-mentioned antics earlier and when the Indian team started doing well, I stopped doing such antics.  However, during the recent series in Australia, I started it again 😊 !!  I had to see the suffering of us completing our innings at 36 for 9 at Adelaide.  I sat through the entire session hoping for a miracle that there would be someone who will stay the course and score runs.  However, it was not to be and I was reminded of the “antics”.  When the Sydney...

More web-series reviews… Suspects – Suspects is set in a London police station. DS Jack Weston, DC Charlie Steele and DI Martha Bellamy investigate murder cases, missing person's reports, drug overdoses etc. Within every episode a crime is solved in a documentary style. The actors don't have a script. The plot is described roughly, and actors improvise the dialogue and their reactions. The series hardly deals with the private lives of the investigators, it is about the police work. The main cast prepared for the series by taking a police workshop with a retired police officer for several weeks. They learned interview techniques, police terminologies and general day-to-day lingo. A good series with 23 episodes in 5 series.  Was broadcast between 2014 and 2016. Father Brown – Father Brown is a BBC One detective period drama that began broadcast on 14 January 2013. Mark Williams stars as the eponymous crime-solving Roman Catholic priest. The series is loosely based on the ...

More web-series reviews… Transparency: Paardarshita – This documentary chronicles chase of a common man from offshore to India. It explores India Against Corruption movement or Anna Aandolan along with backstage scenarios that led to subsequent birth to the Aam Aadmi Party. The first episode is an introductory episode. After that, each episode focuses on a particular theme. The web series takes us to the background of Anna Hazare Movement, famously known as Janlokpal movement and the ideological basis of a new political party that came out of that. The concept of Swaraj, governance and political funding are examined. It shows Arvind Kejriwal in a poor light and how he deviated from his earlier stand.  It also shows him as a dictator in his party. You can safely give it a miss 😊!! The Surgeon’s Cut – The Surgeon's Cut profiles four doctors from around the world, each with a visionary approach to their craft.  The 4-part documentary follows four surgeons as they per...

Over the past few years, there has been a surge of ads in different mediums.   It is so much prevalent that it has started popping up in even in mobile phones in whatever apps you use.   Some of them are innovative, some run-of-the-mill and some you immediately remove from the screen.   There are some ads that compel you to buy the product, even though you may never need it.   The urge to buy it is so much that you don’t think about the cons on having bought the product. During my childhood days, there was an ad for a fire extinguisher – Ceasefire.  It was small and a handy product that could be placed anywhere in the house or office.  During the product launch, they bombarded the ad on TV so much that everyone wanted to have that product in their homes.  Now, what would be the reason why someone would buy a fire extinguisher?  It will be for a place where the chance of the place getting on fire was most, like a cinema hall, hospital, factory et...