Entertainment
‘A Decent Arrangement’ – so still , so lifelike…so connetable
Film: “A Decent Arrangement”; Cast: Shabana Azmi, Adam Laupus and Lethia Nall; Written and Directed by: Sarovar Banka; Rating: ***
For a large part of this brief film, nothing seems to be happening. At least, nothing that we can consider dramatic enough to be considered cinematic in the acceptable sense. As I watched Banka’s understated dialectic on the dynamics of the diasporic dilemma, I wondered how he convinced his actors to do the film!
If he had gone to, say, Salman Khan to play Ashok Khosla the American-Indian NRI who drifts into Chandigarh to look for suitable match for want of anything better to do in his life, Salman would have cold-stared at the director (who would by then be cringing) and barked, “Iss mein drama kidhar hai?”
That’s precisely what Saroavar’s sensitivities avoid. As Ashok’s train chugs into Chandigarh, Amol Rathod’s camera trails him with laconic curiosity. There is no desperation here to hold our attention. The background music is at best serviceable, at worst functional. The sparse material is edited with a lack of vigour, as though the director doesn’t want to get ahead of the protagonist’s story.
Araam se….that’s how we move through Ashok’s experiences in Chandigarh. Even when he meets the American gypsy (Lethia Nall) there is no flourish of freedom. For most of the film, the director lets his characters be. Or to rephrase what has famously been uttered by Michael Caine in the week’s phenomenal release “Interstellar”, the characters in “A Decent Arrangement” go gently into the night.
No raging here, thank you. Another almond biscuit, anyone?
The understated almost casual diasporic dialect of narration is a very interesting tonal experiment for Indian audiences used as they are, to being spoon-fed every aspect of the narration.
The search for a ‘suitable match’ has haunted generations of displaced Indians. This film gets it so right without seeming to try. Adam Laupus(why an American playing a Punjabi??!!!)expresses the wonderment, bemusement, disbelief and annoyance regarding the rigid small-town values of Punjab in a series of bride-searching adventures so life-like that they don’t seem adventures at all.
The performances are uniformly minimalist. Shabana Azmi leads the cast. Playing the hero’s somewhat domineering Didi who must find him a match, Shabana merges cultural bemusement and annoyance in equal measures in her performance. She seems to be secretly having the last laugh at the absurdities of the culture of cultural displacement. Laupus is aptly dispassionate. The rest of the actors know what to do.
They are not required to do much. And they do it very effectively. Go gently into the mosquito-ridden night, that is.
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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