Entertainment
‘Kuchh Bheege Alfaaz’: Predictable and soulful (IANS Review, Rating: ***)
By Troy Ribeiro
Film: “Kuchh Bheege Alfaaz”; Director: Onir; Cast: Geetanjali Thapa, Zain Khan Durrani, Shray Rai Tiwari, Mona Ambegaonkar, Chandreyee Ghosh, Saheb Bhattacharjee and Shefali Chauhan; Rating: ***
In today’s world of instant romance and quick formulas, director Onir’s “Kuchh Bheege Alfaaz”, though presented with all the trappings of a modern day, heartfelt romantic drama, has an old-world charm. It is a tale of two melancholic misfits who fall in love.
Set in Kolkata, the tale intertwines the lives of Archana Pradhan aka Archie and Abhimanyu aka Alfaaz.
While Alfaaz is employed at a local radio station as a radio jockey who hosts the late evening show – an episodic series of unrequited love stories called “Kuchh Bheege Alfaaz”, Archana is a young vivacious girl who works as a copywriter in a creative agency called ‘SirKasm’ that creates content for “foot-prints” on the online media.
Alfaaz, despite being a popular and sought-after RJ is a reserved guy who likes to bask in his isolation.
Archana, on the other hand, despite suffering from leukoderma and being constantly rejected by guys, has an air about herself. Though she is close to Apu, her colleague at the agency, she resorts to blind dates on a dating app. After a series of her blind dates going awry, how she meets Alfaaz and how they fall in love, forms the crux of this tale.
The screenplay is suave and quirkily modern, making the film have a fresh feel. As the story unfurls, we realise that RJ Alfaaz has a mysterious past. His guilt is what has moulded him to live in a cocoon.
And like any romance drama, there is pathos written in every scene. The presentation is sensitive and layered, but the narrative trudges tediously. The first half is painfully slow and the pace picks up marginally in the second half.
The film sweetly offers life lessons like, “Life does not give us second chances…”, “Love is in the eyes of the beholder” and many more… and though these life lessons have been oft heard, they seem to snuggly ensconce in the predictable plot. But what is commendable about the writing is Onir’s ability to camouflage the young Abhimanyu in the flash-back scenes, thereby creating a suspense element to the story telling.
Debutant Zain Khan Durrani as the RJ Alfaaz is an engaging actor who is natural on-screen. When he first receives Archie’s call, he has the grace to seem a little surprised and he executes it to perfection.
Geetanjali Thapa is every inch the spunky Archie who internalises her pain with her pragmatic demeanour and smile on her lips. She is aptly supported by Mona Ambegaonkar as her feisty mother. They make a lovely real-to-life, mother-daughter duo.
Shray Rai Tiwari as Archie’s “best friend” Apu is stereotypical. He is the ‘Stepney – a spare tyre in a vehicle’, a bouncing board when things go askew in Archie’s life. You empathise with him and do feel for him when he trots along with Archie, especially in the scene at the shoe store.
Debutante Shefali Chauhan as Chavi the young school girl at the hill station is impressively natural and charming.
On the whole, the film has decent production values and is well-executed. The soundtrack of “Pehla nasha” is effectively used to up the viewing experience.
Overall, credit must be given to a film that delivers the goods, and if you’ve ever liked Onir’s films, you’re likely to enjoy this one.
–IANS
troy/rb/ksk
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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