Entertainment
‘Qarib Qarib Singlle’: A frothy entertainer (IANS Review, Rating: **1/2)
By Troy Ribeiro
Film: “Qarib Qarib Singlle”; Director: Tanuja Chandra; Cast: Irrfan Khan, Parvathy, Bajrangbali Singh, Neha Dhupia, Isha Sharvani, Pushtii Shakti, Brijendra Kala and Luke Kenny; Rating: **1/2
Director Tanuja Chandra’s “Qarib Qarib Singlle” is a typical Mills and Boon fare, a rom-com in the dot com age, where two drastically opposites meet on the dark web and weave a romance that’s difficult to digest, nevertheless, it makes for a perfect fantasy narrative.
Jaya, a young widow after leading a staid life trying to make others happy, decides to add some zest in her own world, by registering on to an online dating site ‘Ab Tak Singlle’. Soon, she is inundated by inane messages, including some obscene ones from fellow singles.
Her online conversations zero down to messages from Yogi and they decide to meet at a coffee shop. The meetings escalate to the duo deciding to take a road trip to three different destinations to meet Yogi’s ex-friends.
The premise is definitely interesting but the plot seems forced and laboured with a verbose exposition, flat and one-dimensional characters with cliched motivation and no shades of grey.
Initially, Yogi appears to be a stalker, but soon that aspect dissipates and he is then seen like a harmless soul in his own world. This is emphasised when the duo have a showdown in a restaurant when Jaya blasts him saying, “Everything is about you”. The showdown appears forced as their equation yo-yos, but the ripple is ineffective. Also, the montage of Jaya breaking from her shackles is unimaginative and lazily presented.
Though the chemistry between the lead pair seems forced and does not touch your heart, it is the brilliant performances and the cheeky one-liners which are delivered with elan that keep you hooked.
Irrfan Khan as the motor-mouth poet Yogi is irritatingly funny, sincere and charming. His character is supposed to be quirky and rich and he portrays this with flourish.
Parvathy is convincing as Jaya, the South Indian executive working in the health sector. She is every inch the workaholic girl who desires to be free but yet is pretentiously tied down by societal norms. She is effective and emotes with apt precision.
In underwritten roles, Pushtii Shakti, Neha Dhupia and Isha Sharvani as Yogi’s ex-girlfriends are perfunctory.
On the technical front, the film is moderately mounted with excellent production values. Though the look and feel of the film seems oft-seen, the production design and camerawork are attractive.
What elevates the viewing experience is the poetry and songs used in the narrative. The old number, “Bade achche lagte hai” is optimally exploited to push the romance between the two forward. But the numbers “Jaane de”, “Tu chale to” and “Khatam kahani” add intense shades to the narrative, giving the film a soft sensitive feel.
Overall, “Qarib Qarib Singlle” is a well-made, light, frothy rom-com that does not touch you emotionally.
–IANS
troy/rb/bg
International online casino Casino Days has published a report sharing their internal data on what types and brands of devices are used to play on the platform by users from the South Asian region.
Such aggregate data analyses allow the operator to optimise their website for the brands and models of devices people are actually using.
The insights gained through the research also help Casino Days tailor their services based on the better understanding of their clients and their needs.
Desktops and Tablets Lose the Battle vs Mobile
The primary data samples analysed by Casino Days reveal that mobile connections dominate the market in South Asia and are responsible for a whopping 96.6% of gaming sessions, while computers and tablets have negligible shares of 2.9% and 0.5% respectively.
The authors of the study point out that historically, playing online casino was exclusively done on computers, and attribute thе major shift to mobile that has unfolded over time to the wide spread of cheaper smartphones and mobile data plans in South Asia.
“Some of the reasons behind this massive difference in device type are affordability, technical advantages, as well as cheaper and more obtainable internet plans for mobiles than those for computers,” the researchers comment.
Xiaomi and Vivo Outperform Samsung, Apple Way Down in Rankings
Chinese brands Xiaomi and Vivo were used by 21.9% and 20.79% of Casino Days players from South Asia respectively, and together with the positioned in third place with a 18.1% share South Korean brand Samsung dominate the market among real money gamers in the region.
Cupertino, California-based Apple is way down in seventh with a user share of just 2.29%, overshadowed by Chinese brands Realme (11.43%), OPPO (11.23%), and OnePlus (4.07%).
Huawei is at the very bottom of the chart with a tiny share just below the single percent mark, trailing behind mobile devices by Motorola, Google, and Infinix.
The data on actual phone usage provided by Casino Days, even though limited to the gaming parts of the population of South Asia, paints a different picture from global statistics on smartphone shipments by vendors.
Apple and Samsung have been sharing the worldwide lead for over a decade, while current regional leader Xiaomi secured their third position globally just a couple of years ago.
Striking Android Dominance among South Asian Real Money Gaming Communities
The shifted market share patterns of the world’s top smartphone brands in South Asia observed by the Casino Days research paper reveal a striking dominance of Android devices at the expense of iOS-powered phones.
On the global level, Android enjoys a comfortable lead with a sizable 68.79% share which grows to nearly 79% when we look at the whole continent of Asia. The data on South Asian real money gaming communities suggests that Android’s dominance grows even higher and is north of the 90% mark.
Among the major factors behind these figures, the authors of the study point to the relative affordability of and greater availability of Android devices in the region, especially when manufactured locally in countries like India and Vietnam.
“And, with influencers and tech reviews putting emphasis on Android devices, the choice of mobile phone brand and OS becomes easy; Android has a much wider range of products and caters to the Asian online casino market in ways that Apple can’t due to technical limitations,” the researchers add.
The far better integration achieved by Google Pay compared to its counterpart Apple Pay has also played a crucial role in shaping the existing smartphone market trends.
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