Author: The Metrognome

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Film

Restored ‘Pyaasa’ will be screened at Jio MAMI this year

Mumbai-based company Ultra has restored the yesteryear classic and will present the new print in Mumbai film festival next month.
by The Editors | editor@themetrognome.in

Pyaasa, a 1957 cult classic, will be screened in the restored section at the 17th Jio MAMI Mumbai Film Festival in Mumbai on November 1 and 3. The film will be screened at PVR ECX, Andheri and PVR, Phoenix Lower Parel respectively.

The ‘Restored classics section’ in Jio MAMI this year will screen six more films. This particular section has evoked a lot of interest amongst the festival goers and common public in general.

Produced and directed by Guru Dutt, this classic features an ensemble star cast comprising Guru Dutt, Waheeda Rehman, Mala Sinha, Johnny Walker, Rehman, Mehmood, Tun Tun etc. The movie boasts of one of the best musical scores put together by SD Burman, Sahir Ludhianvi, Mohammed Rafi, Geeta Dutt and Hemant Kumar, featuring such evergreen songs as ‘Jaane Woh Kaise Log’, ‘Yeh Duniya Agar Mil’ and ‘Jaane Kya Tune Kahi’.

The film was restored by Ultra which will also re-release the film theatrically worldwide after MAMI.

How Pyaasa was restored

The most challenging part in restoring Pyaasa was sourcing the authentic materials to complete the preservation. After much effort, Ultra found the original camera negatives of the film at an archive in India; however a lot of the parts of the negatives were either damaged or lost.

They decided to use as many parts as possible from the original camera negatives and a few parts were used from 35 mm prints. A new digital transfer was created in 2K resolution on the ARRISCAN film scanner. This in-house technology helped in applying a multidisciplinary, data-centric approach to the entire film’s restoration process.

Once the complete film was digitally transferred, came the most challenging part of restoration. Thousands of instances of dirt, lines, scratches, splices, warps, jitters and green patches were manually removed frame by frame under careful supervision by experienced artists.

The in-house talented professionals used a specialised film content mending and defect removal mechanism in their repair process. They carefully selected the best way to restore this priceless classic to its original quality.

The original monaural soundtrack was remastered at 24-bit from the 35mm optical soundtrack. Clicks, thumps, hisses and hums were manually removed frame by frame.

Says Anupama Chopra, Festival Director, Jio MAMI, “We at MAMI are indeed delighted to screen Pyaasa. There are some masterpieces of the bygone era that a lot of people have not seen, either due to their poor condition or inaccessibility. These films when restored the right way can give it a completely new life and also can help not only to be screened but also as a strong reference material.”

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Uncategorized

Builders go for broke to sell empty flats

Interest free finance, free electrical appliances on booking the flat, free building amenities…builders are trying every trick to entice buyers.
by The Editors | editor@themetrognome.in

For most Mumbaikars, buying a home is a once-in-a-lifetime task but due to a lack of budget and high prices of properties, it becomes impossible to buy a house without taking a bank loan. This brings in the dreaded EMI nightmare.

Elsewhere, too, the situation is no different. India’s other metros are also seeing a high increase in realty prices, pushing buyers to borrow from the bank to finance their home dreams. At the same time, there are many unsold housing units lying vacant all across the country. Thus, developers are coming up with innovative ways to attract buyers into investing in under-construction and ready possession flats. The biggest indicator of a slump in real estate is the scores of advertisements that developers put out in popular media – as is happening in the metros at the moment.

A builder in Delhi recently announced a ‘no pre-EMI’ clause till possession of the property. Customers are asked to pay 10 per cent as the booking amount, followed by 80 per cent of the amount within 45 days from bank funding. The remaining 10 per cent can be paid on possession. In effect, all the EMIs on the housing loan taken by the buyer are paid for by the builder and the buyer starts paying EMIs only after possession.

Earlier this year, for its upcoming commercial project, another leading builder from Chennai provided an option where consumers paid 40 per cent in three months and took possession of the house, while the balance was to be paid in 15 months. This move pushed sales of commercial premises substantially.

In Mumbai, the developers helming a housing project in Goregaon East decided to offload a series of their unsold flats in Goregaon with a ‘Ready Possession’ clause. The buyers do not take a home loan for the property, and can immediately move in after paying a small percentage of the total cost. The balance can be paid in EMIs to the builder directly, without an additional interest being charged on the same.

Says Dilawar Nensey, Joint Managing Director at the firm, “Since the realty market is down we thought of working out a way for people to be able to buy their permanent dream home as also offload our inventory. We prefer to pass on price benefits to our customers rather than pay heavy interest burden on term loans.”

Another builder in Thane has just announced a housing complex that charges customers as per construction costs, minus the profit margins. “This brings down the cost per house, so more people can buy houses,” the developer explains. Yet another developer in Thane is promising free household appliances like refrigerators and TVs on booking the flats.

But are buyers really buying?

“I am always sceptical of these ‘Ready possession’ claims,” says Shyam Borkar, an architect. “Maybe it is because of my perception that builders are not to be trusted blindly, but I always feel there must be a catch somewhere.” Shyam is about to close a deal on a flat he has booked in Navi Mumbai. “I purchased a re-sale flat because one can never know when the builder will stop construction on a project,” he explains.

Raja Mathur would agree. The garment exporter invested in an under-construction property in Goregaon three years ago, but the work was stalled mid-way owing to permission issues with the BMC. He says, “There is no clarity on when the work will start again and the builder has stopped responding to our calls and messages. I have paid almost 40% of the cost but I don’t know when the project will be completed. I wish I had waited and gathered enough money to invest in a re-sale flat.”

Always examine what the builder is promising, cautions Deepak Vaidya, an investment banker. “Many flats are lying unsold in the city and builders are getting desperate. Some of them will go to any extent to offload the flats. But one must be careful about believing their claims of interest-free payments, paying after possession, etc. They spend crores of rupees on their projects, why will they let the customer use the houses without recovering the cost?”

(Picture courtesy www.topnews.in. Image is used for representational purpose only)

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grey space

Why senior citizens must keep mentally active

Writing, trading on shares online…there is nothing that a senior citizen cannot learn to keep alert and in prime wellness.
by Nagesh Kini

The rapidly changing dynamics of the population profile have resulted in an increasing addition of elders, those in the 60+ age bracket.

This has brought about the urgent need to seek the active participation of these presently mentally and physically stable senior men and women into the main stream of the society. Not doing this can make them prey to debilitating ailments like Alzheimer’s, dementia, Parkinson’s, vertigo, spondylitis, diabetes, cardiac conditions, strokes, hypertension, and vision and hearing losses, among many others. Their consequences can be minimised by preventing the feelings of isolation and marginalisation by making them independent and fruitful members of society, by changing social attitudes to keep themselves mentally alert to keep potential serious neurological disorders at bay.

It is essential for those after 60 to keep both mentally and physically agile rather than succumb to lifestyle diseases. According to a recent study published by the reputed British Medical Journal, The Lancet, physical inactivity or peoples’ failure to spend at least 150 minutes a week doing moderate exercise such as brisk walking for 30 minutes five days a week is responsible for 5.3m of the 57m deaths globally. This causes about 6 to 10% of major non-communicable diseases including coronary heart diseases and type 2 Diabetes.

Another team from Brigham & Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School estimated the global impact of physical inactivity by calculating population attributable factors – or how much of the diseases could theoretically be prevented if people were sufficiently active both mentally and physically if inactivity decreased by 10-25% translates to 533,000 and 1.3m deaths potentially averted worldwide. Life expectancy could rise by 0.68 years if physically eliminated.

Post-retirement activities – both mental and physical – can go a long way in retirees maintaining their own mental equilibrium by contributing to wellbeing of the society at large. They can contribute their valuable hands-on experiences in profession and industry and provide vital intellectual inputs.

These days one of the most intellectually stimulating mental activities is writing by contributing to columns in publications of repute. This requires the writer to undertake deep study of the subject both on and off-line and keeps the brain busy by keeping constantly updated on the subject before putting the matter in print.

Writing is an extremely low cost, challenging and stimulating exercise. It can take place in the confines of one’s home. It just involves accessing facts and figures on-line and putting flesh on to the skeleton to bring out a well authored output that can initiate mind-boggling debates from readers far and wide. Writing can be financially rewarding, too – publications these days do remunerate columnists handsomely.

Writing need not necessarily be on professional issues; one can even write, among others on matters of common interests like hobbies, spirituality, food, nature and health, like benefits of walking!

Being basic computer literate can go a long way for the elders in helping their writing forays. It no longer requires putting down the matter in long hand and then having to transcribe it on a typewriter to manually post the hardcopy. All that one does is to punch a few keys to put it down in the Word format – edit, add, delete and amend the matter at will and mail it across. And hey presto you’ve conveyed your thoughts miles across! More and more senior citizens have become computer savy and learnt to keep in touch on Skype not only with their offspring, grandchildren and siblings, friends and even distant relations staying in the other end of the world at any hour of the day. I have a 75-year-old aunt at Bengaluru who picked up computer skills from her granddaughter and now merrily trades online – making a lot of money in the bargain!  This helps get her over loneliness by keeping in touch just punching the keys sitting at home all the time!

A happy retirement with activities like writing can make for a lot of difference to prevent isolation and loneliness!

Nagesh Kini is a Mumbai based chartered accountant-turned-activist. ‘Grey Space’ is a weekly column on senior citizen issues. If you have an anecdote or legal information, or anything you feel is useful to senior citizens, caregives and the society at large, feel free to get it published in this space. Write to editor@themetrognome.in or on Facebook at www.facebook.com/Themetrognome.in and we will publish your account.

(Picture courtesy www.samopportunities.in. Image is used for representational purpose only)

Categories
Enough said

The scary times I live in

Must we now think twice before eating food that ‘looks non-vegetarian’ or listening to music by our favourite Pakistani singers?
Humra Quraishiby Humra Quraishi

I have been on a visit to the Kashmir valley to study the situation at Ground Zero, where floods ravaged the area one year ago. The situation is as grim and heartbreaking as ever, with relief money still not reaching a majority of the intended beneficiaries.

Kashmir is more than furious at recent goings-on: with incidents of Right Wing goons attacking two Kashmiri truckers, Zahid Rasool and Showkat Ahmad and ink and paint thrown on MLA Engineer Rashid and the relatives of the two truckers who held a press meet in Delhi. Anger then gave way to rebellion after Zahid succumbed to this injuries later.

If the rulers of the day think they can get away with throttling voices of dissent, they must think again. Kashmir is on the brink of unprecedented chaos and there will surely come a time when one more incident will be the proverbial last straw.

But through the gloom shines the work of several NGOs and community outreach projects that have sprung up in the valley, trying to help the people in need. One of them deserves special mention: Nighat Shafi Pandit’s H.E.L.P. Foundation. It is doing a tremendous job holding programmes and workshops for women and children here. Also, the community itself is reaching out to each other. At least the floods have broken down the rich-poor divide.

And I returned home to find that the series of blatant, illogical attacks against Muslims – whether Indians or Pakistanis – continues. If it’s not the Shiv Sena trying to upstage a little-known Pakistani who has just released a book, then it is the Right Wing hooliganism at play against what their own countrymen say, eat or believe in. I, an Indian Muslim, am now terrified of being branded a Pakistani if I listen to the music of Ghulam Ali and express my outrage against the way we treated him in Mumbai. I am afraid to eat my soy nuggets lest some nut think I am eating beef and decides to attack me. I love Urdu shayari, but if I am caught humming it somewhere I might be attacked for promoting my mother tongue.

I have never before even thought of these things, but I think of them every day now. This is the state the current Government has reduced me to. If anyone wishes to witness how the 1947 Partition may have come about, I think current circumstances are a good reminder.

Humra Quraishi is a senior political journalist based in Gurgaon. She is the author of several books, including Kashmir: The Untold Story and Dagars and Dhrupad, among others.

(Image is used for representational purpose only)

Categories
Tech

Review: Coolpad Note 3

This new phone looks good on paper and performs well too. It is a great device, save for some glitches.
by Manik Kakra | @Manik_K on Twitter

The Chinese company that started its smartphone journey here with the Dazen1 and Dazen X7 is now out with the Coolpad Note 3. While the Dazen1 certainly provided a bang for the buck, we were a little disappointed with the DazenX7. Let’s check out if the Coolpad Note 3 performs enough to take on this already-heated price segment of under Rs 10,000.

The looks. There are two White bands above the 5.5-inch HD screen that sport LED notification, sensors, ear-speaker grille, 5 MP camera at the top; and three capacitive touch buttons – Recent Apps list, Home, and Back (from left to right) – at the bottom. The phone is quite large but doesn’t feel awkward to hold given its sheer screen size and curved sides on the back. At the back, it accommodates the bio-metric fingerprint scanner around the centre, and the slightly-protruding 13 MP camera, which is surrounded by LED flash and secondary mic. The loudspeaker is located near the bottom.

On the left is your volume rocker, which is all plastic and feels just okay in terms of tactical feedback; while the Power/ Lock key is on the right and isn’t difficult to reach. The 3.5mm headset jack is on the top, and the bottom part hosts the microUSB port.

Screen. The phone sports a 5.5-inch (1280 x 720) IPS panel. The screen is great for outdoor usage under sunlight and does a good job of colour reproduction. HD videos look quite nice on it, and I didn’t spot any shortcomings while viewing videos, though high-resolution images may appear a little washed out to some coming from a high-end screen.

Coolpad Note 3Camera. The Note 3 boasts a 13 MP (f/2.0) camera on the back. Here are a few sample images.

The camera does a good job at focus adjustment and capturing colours, but struggles with sharpness. It is decent at handling low-light shots, and the camera app, with a bunch of usual modes to pick from, works really well for taking shots in most situations.

Battery. The phone often lasted around 20 hours with heavy to moderate usage. With light use, it can last you a full day on a single charge. This includes brightness at 20%, some Leo’s Fortune, Twitter, WhatsApp, and EMail (Gmail app) with a single SIM card inserted. The phone takes a little over 2 hours to get its 3,000 mAh battery unit fully charged, and while it supports quick charging you will need another higher capacity charger as the default charger you get in the box doesn’t support it.

Audio. The phone’s loudspeaker at the back is pretty much average and its placement doesn’t help either. It’s fine for ringing and notification alert, but don’t expect good sound for videos and games. The phone has good call quality on both sides, but I did notice a bit of performance deterioration in terms of network reception compared to other smartphones on the same network and in the same areas. The Note 3 supports 4G LTE on of the SIM slots (both require microSIM cards) and usual 3G and 2G on the other slot.

Software and performance. The Coolpad Note is powered by the MediaTek MT6753 chipset (1.3 GHz octa-core processor, Mali T720 MP2 GPU) along with 3 GB of RAM. It runs on CoolUI 6.0 that’s based on Android 5.1. The fingerprint scanner on the back is nicely mushed below the surface and works really well, about 8 out of 10 times. While some might find its back placement a bit odd, it’s not that strange after a few days of use, plus it unlocks your screen quickly.

Long-pressing the Home key brings up Google Now. You can now lock a particular app in the recent apps list, so that it doesn’t get cleared when you clear all apps from the list. The OS seems to have fixed push notifications issue with messaging apps. Performance-wise, the phone seems quite smooth and hardly lagged during use. The OS still looks and feels quite immature, like icons, default sound tracks, etc, and the theme center hardly has any options to choose from. Its basic style of having all your apps shortcuts and widgets on various Home screens is still there, though you can now switch to “traditional style” and have a separate app launcher in addition to your Home screens.

All in all, the phone that seems compelling on paper also performs pretty well to make it a good phone at this price point. It has a good screen, above average battery life, but while it struggles with sound quality and how CoolUI looks, the OS performed pretty well and a fingerprint scanner that doesn’t disappoint for daily use making it a worthy contender, with the likes of the Honor 4X, RedMi 2 Prime, Karbonn MachOne Titanium and a few others, for those looking for buy a smartphone under Rs. 9,000 or so.

(Pictures courtesy Manik Kakra)

Categories
Hum log

Empowering women through paper

Shalini Datta quit a high-flying corporate job to train impoverished women in Malad the power of self-sustenance through paper products.
by Ravi Shet

It takes a lot of courage to give up a full time salaried job to start an organisation that helps underprivileged women through the sale of handmade paper products. But that is precisely what Shalini Datta did. After working for almost nine years in top IT organisations in India, Shalini started AfterTaste in September 2012, a self-sustaining organisation in Malad, Mumbai. AfterTaste not only trains underprivileged women from Ambujwadi slum in Malad to become artisans, but also boosts their confidence to earn money and support their children’s education.

Shalini DattaShalini’s journey is an interesting one. After completing her chemical engineering from Pune, she got job with a top IT company and in a few years, she switched to another one in Kolkata. “I took part in the company’s CSR activities, which included teaching children every Saturday. These children lived near heaps of garbage and were extremely poor,” she remembers. “Soon, I developed a strong desire to bring about a social change, but I didn’t have time from my Monday to Friday job. So I quit my job to do what I really wanted to do,” she smiles.

The Teach for India fellowship followed soon and brought her closer to the impoverished section of society – it gave her the chance to experience their pain and struggle firsthand. “I was given Class 2 to teach from around 80 students in a municipal school in Malad. I would keep them engaged through various art and craft activities. The fellowship was a turning point in my life, where I would teach the children and also interact with their mothers. These women struggled for basic needs, but they wanted to give their children a shot at education,” Shalini says.

“I found two enterprising women and started AfterTaste,” she adds. “My interest in art and craft helped me and I trained these two women in developing paper bags from newspapers. My engineering background helped me experiment with product design and my teaching experience helped me communicate to these women in a simple way,” she says.

AfterTaste started operations from a small space in a chawl occupied by one of the women who worked with Shalini, AfterTaste_Women working on productbut in May 2015 they moved to a new space with 15 women currently working on 20 different handmade paper products such as folders, mobile stands, lamps, and photo frames. AfterTaste had its first exhibition in Godrej, Vikhroli in October 2012 and from there they have come a long way and it’s still a self-sustainable organisation. Along the way, it has inspired unskilled women to become more confident about running their homes and sending their children to school.

Shalini says, “Each of our products has a personal touch. Everything here is made using paper and is customised by women through decoration in their own distinctive way.”

Kamrunnisa, a mother of three daughters and a son, was confined within the community; however AfterTaste completely changed her life. She says that Shalini’s encouragement helped her step out of her home for work. “I am thankful to Shalini didi for her support and training. I can now support my family, pay school fees and also ensure that my daughters get the same education as my son,” she grins. “I never thought that I would go outside Mumbai and teach underprivileged women in Gujarat how to make handmade paper products. The respect I got from them was memorable for me.”

The women working with AfterTaste are taught teamwork and bonding so that there is no sense of rivalry against each other. Fatima Shaikh, who has been associated with AfterTaste since its inception says, “I now contribute to my family’s financial needs, which makes me feel good and also gives me a sense of confidence to face people. I now want to learn English and also want my children to have access to good education.”

Shalini adds, “Right from purchasing raw material to pitching ideas to clients and creating more sales avenues is a difficult job. But seeing the positive change in the lives of these women and their passion keeps me motivated to push my limits.” She says that she plans to reach 100 women by year 2019 through AfterTaste and empower them so that she can break their vicious cycle of poverty.

To volunteer at AfterTaste or to buy their products, Shalini Datta can be contacted at C/6, Malwani Panchsheel Cooperative Housing Society, Plot No. 62, Near Ambujwadi Rickshaw Stand, Malwani, Malad West. Call +91-9673992618.

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