Entertainment
Been though hiccups personally, professionally: Rani Mukerji (IANS Interview)
By Durga Chakravarty
New Delhi, Dec 28 (IANS) “What is life without a few hiccups” — the tagline of the upcoming film “Hichki” resonates with the ideology of the film’s lead actress Rani Mukerji.
“Hichki”, meaning a hiccup, is about Naina who suffers from a speech difficulty. It is about turning disadvantages into opportunities and staring down at challenges and ultimately winning over them.
Asked if she has faced any hiccups in her two-decade career, Rani told IANS over phone from Mumbai: “Yes, of course. I think hiccup is a normal process for any actor, for any person in their life. Sometimes you have a hiccup in your personal life and sometimes in your professional life.
“The beauty of a hiccup is that you can get over it as well. It’s not like that you have a hiccup and you keep hiccuping all your life… There have been times professionally and personally I have been through hiccups.”
Without elucidating on the hurdles she has faced, Rani said hiccups can be a learning experience.
“We can learn how do we get out of it and how do we come out stronger.”
The actress is making her comeback to the silver screen after four years with the Siddharth P Malhotra directorial, which is produced by Maneesh Sharma for Yash Raj Films (YRF), and is releasing on February 23.
This is not the first time Rani will be playing a character with a disability. In 2005, the actress portrayed Michelle McNally, a visually and hearing impaired woman in “Black”.
In “Hichki”, she plays Naina Mathur, a character with the Tourette syndrome — a condition that forces an individual to make involuntary repetitive movements or sounds.
“I think every role is difficult because for every role, I am trying to take Rani Mukerji out and put the character in it. So, whether it is Naina, Michelle or Babli (of ‘Bunty Aur Babli’), the role has to be distinct from each other. They can’t be the same. I have to put in a lot of thought in every particular character,” said Rani.
She says a lot of research work goes behind playing a character with special needs.
“When you do special roles like this, there is certain amount of research or work behind it because you have to get it right,” she said.
“When as an actor we decide to do a role, it is very important to immerse ourselves and believe that we are one of them. And this is what I have done in my career where I have always tried to understand the aspects of the people who are going through a particular syndrome or a weakness and how are the people around them getting affected, and then we can understand completely about how you can play the part,” Rani added.
For her role as Naina, Rani, 39, took help from a person suffering from the Tourette syndrome.
“I have someone from whom this character is inspired from so I had someone in front of me who is living this life of having this syndrome, and I understand what he went through… These things helped me as an actor to be able to portray the role,” she added.
“Hichki” is the first film for Rani after the birth of her daughter Adira, whom she shares with husband and YRF’s head honcho Aditya Chopra. She describes motherhood as “fantastic”.
“Nothing better could happen.”
(Durga Chakravarty can be contacted at [email protected])
–IANS
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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
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“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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