Mobile Games: An Addiction worse than drugs.

Mobile Game Addiction - an unwanted gift of technology

Early this week, after the completion of my University examinations, I have started finding a lot of spare time all of sudden. There arises a burning question, what to do with it? My coaching class for CAT came to my rescue by arranging extra classes for 8 hours each day for 5 days straight. Still out of 16 hours, it was difficult to manage all those minutes. Some people would have preferred giving few bonus hours to sleep but to me, sleep has priority only when I have loads of work to do. Miraculously, sleep parts with me when I am free. So, to pass some more time, I was inspired from one of my friend and downloaded an online pool game to kill the time. 

Now let me tell you how these online mobile games works wonders on your psyche. Initially I enjoyed potting few balls. Call it beginner's luck or whatever, I won first three bouts in a row. It wouldn't have been a problem if it was just a game with nothing at stake at all. But these cunning game developers make you bet your virtual coins they provide you with initially on each of these games. All of a sudden, a greedy devil who had been in hibernation all these days rises up. In lure for more virtual coins, I started betting more of those and stakes started rising with each passing game. And then one ominous moment, an unknown opponent from the other corner of the globe got better of me and robbed me off what seemed like the most valued treasure of my life. I was totally broke on that game. It felt like the world has come to a still. It also set a fire burning within me and I was totally inspired to win back all those coins which I lost. So I watched a video online to be awarded few free coins enough to enter in the bet again. I started by placing smaller bets and was overly cautious not to commit any blunder this time around. By the time I had gathered about half of what I had lost, it was early morning. I forced myself to sleep then, woke up next day with teary eyes burning like hell, got ready for coaching class and attended it with minimal concentration just thinking about nothing but rushing back to my hostel and winning more.

Unfortunately when I came back, the net was down. Without giving it a second thought, I started playing it on my data packet. Now, some real money was indirectly getting involved as data packet in phone costs much higher than hostel Wifi network. When I knew, I can't afford to spend anymore Mbs on this game, I gave up for the day. Still my mind was not at rest. To divert it to some place else, I went to the common TV room to watch the ongoing IPL match. 

The scenario there was not to different. People up there sat with all their hands and eyes focused on the mobile phones rather than on the game and were shouting and cheering. I was taken by surprised that why are they watching the game on cell phones while it is running right there on the screen. Then I came to know about the reality. They were more interested in playing online game than they were in the match. The only thing different here was the game. Instead of pool, they were playing 'Clash of Clans', another strategic game where you have to defend your castle and attack others. They were so engrossed as if that virtual kingdom was a reality and catastrophe would befall if they didn't do whatever they could to save their silly castle.

All were discussing different strategies to fence the opponent's attacking army and were celebrating jubilantly if they were successful. It would be right to say that, the cricket match had taken the back seat. That night again I played the pool game. It was literally a deja vu of the previous night. I won a few initially before losing a game where stakes were very high. This time instead of being stubborn about winning those coins back, I thought I would not give this game the power to rob me of my peaceful sleep. But still in two days, that game took a total control over me. 

I had previously also seen people walking the road with eyes and fingers stuck to their cell phones and PDAs, students waiting in mess for their dinner while playing various highly addictive games like Candy Crush, Teen Patti, Temple Run, Subway Surfer, etc. Some people counter my views by saying that they help a great deal in increasing one's concentration. OK. Agreed. But, doesn't is distract you while you are doing other useful work? Are there not other ways to improve your concentration like solving puzzles or doing a Sudoku? 

It is not that I am against all the games. Some games are really a marvel like 2048. It really forces you to use all your brain with utmost concentration to unlock the 2048 tile. Also it doesn't have any false incentives like these silly virtual coins or rankings. It works on simple principle- If you do it, well and good..You may now find an optimum way to unlock it. If you fail, you can always try again without losing anything at all. 

It is just my opinion and as an adult everyone knows what is good for them and what not. Still these games have potential to divert all your stable mind's attention to itself without even one knowing it. Before you know it, it becomes an addiction. Addiction which is worse than drugs. For drugs, you need money and bravado to do something that illegal. For games, they are available free of cost on the play store and well it is not even in the vicinity of the illegal vices. Also one can be a teetotaler after rehabilitation and medical help. Who but the victim himself can help him in the case of a game addict ? It needs a great deal of self control to press that uninstall button on the phone. Not everyone is strong enough to do that.

So be careful and play judiciously.

The Nervy Minutes Before the Exam.

Examinations always taking a toll on my psyche.

It's that time of the year when the collective heart rates of 229 million students across the nation palpitates in an agitated pattern out of the fear of a recurring four lettered demon- EXAM. It is that inevitability of the student life from which everyone wishes to keep a long distance. They try to pull every ruse possible from the hat to circumvent or rather to minimize the turmoil they have to pass through during this most hated phase of 15 days in the year. 

The funny fact is we students are the very champions at the skill of procrastinating. It matters very little to us if they give us 5 days off, 2 days off or 18 hours between two papers. We do most of the mugging just 4-5 hours before embarking our 150 minute battle. The primary reason behind this perilous living-on-the-edge fire play is our silly ego. We are not engineers if we do systematic planned study for a fortnight before the exams. Doing that would be too mainstream schoolboy stuff. 

It all starts the night before the exam. It takes around 3-4 hours to get me into the groove in mentally preparing myself for the hard slogging. Before I know, the clock already shows 10:00 pm. I now start counting number of hours vs. number of chapters left to find the fake solace and try to pacify my mind. By the time, I have picked the book, its already 11 and the ongoing match in IPL has reached its final slog overs. Miraculously, some of the most exciting matches of the season are just on the night before my exam. I always fail to resist the temptation and fall for it. So finally I start studying at around midnight. The first few chapters of the subject takes most of the time and they weigh for hardly any marks in the exam. By 2 am in the middle of the night, panic grapples me and my mind starts wandering about how will I face people if I screw up tomorrow and how badly my already mediocre CPI will take a hit if I flunk 1 subject. By 3, I force myself to sleep out of fear of dealing with burning eyes and banging head during paper. 

Before sleeping, I make sure to set a series of alarm ranging from 4.30 in the morning to 7. I always miss the first few and come to sense at around 6.15. Again the game of counting hours start and I take a breather that I have 3 more hours to ensure that I know enough to garner 23 marks in the paper. After 2 more hours of high intensity mugging, I give up on rest of the chapters and start revising the part which I have already studied to safeguard the knowledge which I already have. 

Now interesting things start to happen when I reach college. In college I meet people and the more I meet them, the more my anxiety fluctuates. Some are super confident, some just put on a confident facade and are on the breakdown point actually from within ( Yeah, that's me.), some unsatisfied bastards and bitches are never contented even though they have slogged for like a million hours before the exams. They still pull out their humongous reference books and last minute notes like for them the university has set the passing criteria of 100%.( This is the specie I despise the most). 

The cruel vice of taking exam from GTU ( Gujarat Technological University) is that they have this system of reporting half an hour before the actual exam time. Those 30 minutes are actually the crudest 30 minutes to sap all the mental peace. You are absolutely allowed to do nothing rather than just sitting on your most uncomfortable seat ( Sometimes you feel the Iron Throne of Game Of Thrones could be more comfortable compared to your exam desk.) and looking around flashing awkwardly nervous smiles to all the fellow victims with whom your eyes meet. Sometimes they extend their sympathies by giving you a thumbs up. I have never figured what does it mean.Is it intended to make mockery of my misery? Does it convey that they are too in the same orbit as I am in? I just smile back and imitate it just because I don't want to be rude. 

Some goes even a level further and start discussing the theories totally unheard about if they find the invigilator a little mellow as if they had an epiphany and the theory they are discussing at the eleventh hour will be right up there in the question paper. This is when a new tide on panic rushes in and I do every thing possible to divert your mind. Sometimes I commit a blunder there and let the lease loose on my mind and some random stupid song starts playing in my mind on a loop.Sometimes I just think of all the pleasant things to come in my life after the paper like food, relentless sleep or the impending CSK game where victory is a certainty. 

The heart rate bursts just as the question paper is circulated. I look at the question paper with mixed expressions of triteness,anger, mercy and all the other possible emotions. Quickly at a glance, I judge how badly I am going to be cooked in the massacre. If the paper is easy, I just feel like doing a little jig on the moment as if I have been vindicated from a serious crime. Then the new rush of adrenaline pushes in and the pen starts flowing smoothly. But all the momentum is reduced to nil just after 2 questions. Suddenly I feel all tired and lifeless and feel like not writing a single more word. I just prefer to take oral exams and vivas rather than this written crap. The only motivation of still carrying on after I have lost all the motivation is that I don't have a choice.

If the paper is difficult, I first count the marks in most optimistic manner to see if there is a slight ray of hope or not. If there is one worth fighting, I start gouging out each single mark possible from that. I try to fatten my answer sheet by using my linguistic skills, my extra large font and somehow manage to fill 4-5 supplements and go by the logic that they will give at least 0.75 marks for each page I fill with crap. I just do my best and hope for the miracle.

The last category of paper I probably face is that tricky ones where I don't know any answer entirely to feel confident for, neither I am in total oblivion for giving up the hope. There I start confidently and after 2 - 2.5 pages, what I write is just gibberish.  There I know I will not flunk, but I am never sure what grade to expect. It is even harder to explain this situation to parents when they interview you after the exam. I try to avoid and give a curt reply I don't know how it went. I immediately bite my tongue after that as I know I have been sucked deeper into the fatal vortex of their fury. I am attacked with tirade like "What kind of reply is that? We told you to study harder. How can you not know what have you written? I think you have flunked and you are just circumventing us." Then my mind starts to think alternatives for damage control. And a cliche comes to my help and I end with " I went well but one can never be too sure with GTU. As you know, it has a reputation." 

The fun never ceases after the paper. How everyone around discuss answers as though they can have the opportunity to redeem themselves afterwards is surly bemusing. I enjoy shrieks of cheer if someone around finds that their fluke will actually pass them the paper or the cries of despair if someone else learns the answer they were so sure of turns out to be incorrect. I prefer not to discuss it as I am the one who believe the least in the regret and repentance.

But the best moment in all these pandemonium is the one when I come out of the exam hall. It matters the least whether I have aced it or made mess of it or just done enough to survive by the thin thread, the relief is the knowledge of it having been ended. There is so much happening during  those funny 15 days that no matter how much I repel it now when I am facing it, I will surely miss in my post engineering days.

Happy Exam Seasons. Do well and always look forward to enjoy in your holidays.

P.S. Please don't get inspired from my life. My experiences are to be enjoyed,not to be emulated.

Movie Review: Piku

Piku: A Refreshing Bollywood Movie

One of the few advantages of writing your university examinations from the university as headless as GTU (Gujarat Technological University) is that their schedules are as unbalanced as the economies of some African nations ruled by warlords. Some papers are so squeezed that you hardly find any time to take a breather while in some you are so free that you may want to take a road trip back to your native place and back. So, during my 6th semester engineering exams, I found a window to enjoy a Shoojit Sircar's directorial venture 'Piku' where I had 5 days off before my next exam. Dying of boredom, one fine Sunday morning, I went to kill time by watching this comedy drama.

Put a grouchy, old, constipated man, his extremely rude daughter and complaining relatives together at a dining table, and fireworks are bound to happen. At Piku's table, though, there is only one conversation: on constipation. It's actually amazing how Shoojit Sircar makes grand movies out of simple topics like sperm (In Vicky Donor) or bowel movements (In Piku).

Deepika Padukone portrays the titular character Piku- an independent, Bengali architect living in New Delhi, and veteran actor Amitabh Bachchan plays the role of her senile, hypochondriac father.  Irrfan Khan plays a role of a taxi driver who agrees to take the father daughter duo on the road trip and is trapped between all the insanity that follows.  Mausami Chatterjee and Jisshu Sengupta plays other supporting characters.

Piku doesn't feel like a movie at all. It has no elements of glamour, no over the top idiotic romance and definitely no moral wielding harangues on idealistic relationships or preachy morals as one would have expected. It is just like the events unfolding from any neighbourhood house with an ageing parent and the single child taking care of him. The movie presents a very realistic view of a typical Indian family. The film has life in it and thrives on the simplicity of reality, very tenderly tugging to your emotions.

The beauty of the movie is not in its story but the way it has been unfolded to the audience which has always been the strength of the director- telling simple tales in a grand manner. It does not have any twists to get surprised instead it is a narrative which overpowers the predictable storyline by the actors' strong performances and subtleties. The movie ensures that anyone who has lived with ageing parents will connect with Deepika's character. The tantrums thrown by the aged, the scolding of the young yet the care and love in their heart they carry that they immediately wish for the aged to return to their childish ways if there is smallest deterioration in their health.

Bhaskor(Amitabh) and Piku are Bengalis living in Delhi. Bhaskor is totally obsessed over his health specially his bowel movements while Piku is a multi-tasker who manages the household and works at an architectural office managing her active social life. Sometimes she is fed up of his senile father's obsession that she wishes he had some trouble with health for real. The quarrelsome duo never talks. He snarls, she yells. They fight and they scream. The only time they smile together is when they sing a Bengali song. Amitabh Bachchan plays a typical Bengali with a big paunch who is proudly critical of anything and everybody. He says he is "Brutal and Honest". Rana Chaudhari (Irrfan Khan) is the owner of the taxi service company that is reeling under the onslaught of Piku's arrogance as a lot of his drivers have left because of her attitude and caused accidents. Situation puts him in the middle of Piku's family insanity. While he is attracted to Piku, his thoughts vacillates because he is aware that she can be arrogant, rude and adamant at times. Rana's interaction with Piku has a nuance, understated romantic tone. He is much of an outsider in Bengali family and gets involved in their arguments and when he presents his rational viewpoint, he is unwelcomed and asked not to interfere in their family problems.

Another good thing about the movie is that it does not obsess on the romance of the titular character.  The film avoids all of the cliched Bollywood romantic moments.The sheer simplicity of the silence between them and the charming banter makes the romance identifiable. 

Deepika Padukone does not disappoint with her bold choice of non-glamorous, refreshing role. The kohl-eyed actress steals the show with sincerity and deep concern writ on her perpetually-angry face. Amitabh Bachchan is real in his portrayal of 70-year-old man, dependant on his daughter. He sounds a lot like Auro( from Paa) in his efforts to be an ageing man turning progressively childish. Irrfan Khan stands out in his role of a non-eccentric, regular middle class personality with his facial expressions and ensures that your eyes are glued on him. 

The only disappointment in the movie was Irrfan's family was not given full exposure. They are introduced but not given a closure. 

Piku has no masala or romantic escapades but neither does it bores you out with preachy monologues and gyan on how kids should be responsible towards their parents. Looking forward for more such movies in Bollywood.

Dreams

Dreams- truly an occult world.

DREAMS-This very phenomenon of psychology has never failed to intrigue me. They, I suppose, occur to everyone once in a while. Some people forget them the moment they open their eyes, some remember them for an hour or two before getting busy in their hectic, monotonous scheme of the day. But there is one more category of people who cherish their dreams for much longer period of time- people like me. Some of you may consider me a weirdo, but the fact is , I have a very strange fetish of noting down the dreams (Only the pleasant ones as nightmares I encounter are usually strong enough to send chills down my spine) in my digital diaries so that I may never forget them. These dream notes, I am very possessive about them and I have never shared them ever with a single person in my life. 

Now you may wonder what is the use of this meaningless exercise? I will counter that by saying that what is wrong in cherishing some more happy moments of the life rather than ignoring them as just a psychogenic successions of images, ideas, emotions, and sensations that occur involuntarily in the mind during certain stages of sleep. 

By now, I guess it is well clear to you that the dreams here I am talking about is the one we witness while taking rest by a suspension of the voluntary exercise of the powers of the body and mind, and an apathy of the organs of sense or to put in simple words, the array of nebulous images you see, the gibberish conversations you have, the coarse sensations you feel while slumbering. Many people consider that the more important dreams are the ones which doesn't let you sleep and not the ones seen while sleeping. Well please excuse me from that cliche. One of the most rudimentary reason, why I adore sleeping long uninterrupted hours is because I love dreaming. The people near to me consider me clinomaniac and a slothful potato because of this habit but I couldn't care any less. 

Many times I have tried googling the meaning of these hazy dreams I see and enjoy. Each time I do that, I end up spending long hours on my laptop ( more like my girlfriend in this forsaken world) and digressing to topics like recent Hollywood sci-fi movies, new spoilers of the plethora of TV series I binge watch in my idle hours, the next big cricket or football match's pre-match analysis or sometimes even to weird topics on quora like why am I living? or what is the purpose of my life? (You would definitely consider enrolling me into a mental asylum if you see my browser history). And I did it again, I digressed. If there is one art that I have mastered is the art of digressing.

So coming back to the topic, what I have inferred by my pattern of dreaming is that most of the nights where I enjoy dreams are the nights where I have forced myself to sleep. I usually realize it is morning on the nights where I have exhausted myself to sleep. The other nights where I am insomniac and forced myself to sleep out of the fear of the tough day I am going to face ahead are the nights where I witness a dream without fail. The topics varies as per my mood just before I go to sleep. Given that my mind is as restless as a monkey, it takes 40-50 minutes before I lose consciousness after closing my eyes on my very soothing hostel bed. In this phase of 40-50 minutes, I am tormented by incessant thought train which forms the crux of the dream which I will be witnessing ahead. Just yesterday, before sleeping, I watched a Bollywood masala film with all the elements like party songs, a building collapsing in earthquake and some over the top romance. After watching the film, I checked out all the websites for gauging more information about the destinations I will be enjoying at in about a month's time during my imminent vacation to Southeast Asia before forcing myself to my bed. And as I said, I am very possessive of my dreams, I will not share what I saw in dreams but I can assure you that in my dream I was going on vacation, witnessed an earthquake, partied hard and also there were shades of romance in my dream.

This dreaming thing has been going on for couple of years to me. I have evolved in that to keep me entertained. Dreaming monotonously without any music seemed boring to me. So now whenever I force myself to sleep, I make sure to plug in the earphone and play a score according to my mood at the moment. I have faced some heavy criticism from my parents because of this habit of plugging in earphones perennially for the whole night while sleeping, but how do I explain this to them? The music just takes the pleasure of dreaming a couple of notches further and also helps in remembering the details about the simulation I was in more vividly. The demerits of this musical dreaming is that the song you were hearing just before waking up to face the reality of this cruel realm of Earth never ceases to playback itself on loop for the rest of the day. This becomes even more gruesome if you are to write an university exam on the day. During those 150 minutes of torture in the archaic exam hall of the college, your brain is literally ripped apart. You try to remember the equations for Diffie- Hellman key exchange and at the same moment a dulcet song of Arijit Singh plays in your mind with the very precise lyrics and even the background chords of guitar, the notes of keyboards and the percussion of tabla and the banging of the drums are too precise. It's like virtually listening to the song recreated by your brain which works in a funny way. It fails to mug a simple equation related to your academics but is infallible in remembering the song precisely with the background score. I guess you now know one of the reason of my mediocre grades in engineering. I advise you all against trying this while your exams are on.

There is one more thing which I have been trying hard since I heard about it- Lucid Dreaming. Lucid dreaming is a dream where your mind is totally aware and open to the scenarios you are in during the dream giving you the capability of manipulating your dreams. But it requires a good deal of patience and astronomical concentration. Being digressive and restless as myself, I have met little success while trying this. Often I end up having a dreamless sleep or no sleep at all and just simple thought trains creating total artificial scenarios rather than dreaming. May be one day, I will master that arty as well without digressing.Till then I will enjoy just the simple dreams I am in and relax. It totally recharges and rejuvenates your battery of the mind.

So , Happy sleeping and happy dreaming to all the readers.

Thank you.