Entertainment
‘Tamasha’ – Visually bright, but low on entertainment (Movie Review)
By Troy Ribeiro
Film: “Tamasha”; Director: Imtiaz Ali; Cast: Ranbir Kapoor, Deepika Padukone, Vivek Mushran and Sushma Seth; Rating: **1/2
“Tamasha” is the love story of a storyteller who falls in love with a girl who helps him to rediscover his lost self.
It is the romantic tale of two strangers – Ved Vardhan Sahni (Ranbir Kapoor) and Tara Maheshwari (Deepika Padukone) – who meet in Corsica, France. Wanting to be mysterious, the duo pledge, in the backdrop of a local carnival, “What happens in Corsica, remains in Corsica”.
The dialogue, somewhere in the second act, “Andar se kuch aur hi hain hum, aur bahaar se majboor”, which means, I am somebody else within but helpless externally, lays the foundation of the film, albeit a wee bit too late in the narrative.
Narrated in a dramatic and avant-garde manner, the film evokes a sharp polarised reaction. You either love this “Tamasha” or don’t quite relate to the lives of the characters.
The lead pair, Deepika and Ranbir, are great performers and they charm you in their inimitable style. They are natural and it is a treat to watch them perform with gay abandon. Their onscreen romance is palpable, but unfortunately they do not touch an emotional chord with the audience as their characters are shallow, one-dimensional and poorly etched.
The actor, who plays the young Ranbir, is exceptionally well cast, as he bears a striking resemblance to Ranbir and is a confident performer, who in fact sets the tone of the character, Ved.
Vivek Mushran as Ved’s Punjabi boss in a telecom company, is competent and lives his character, albeit in a miniscule role. Veteran actor Sushma Seth, in a one-scene appearance, was completely wasted.
While Imtiaz Ali’s script is skilfully crafted, the treatment is abstract and the screenplay confusing.
The plot is like a complex tableaux put together. The narration is divided into chapters like ‘Teja Ka Sona’, ‘Ishqwala Love’, ‘Andar Ki Baat’, and ‘Don Returns’. In between these chapters, is the psychological drama laden with messages about following one’s heart and being true to yourself.
With Ved, oscillating between bouts of sanity and insanity, as a freewheeling dude and an emotional human being leading a robotic life, the film vaguely reminds you of Raj Kapoor’s “Mera Naam Joker”.
Mired with repetitive montages to demonstrate the routine and with nothing concrete happening in terms of the story progression, the pace of the tale is slow. Furthermore, with being low on the entertainment quotient, it makes for tedious viewing.
Visually, the film is bright, vivid and dazzling in parts. Cinematographer Ravi Varma’s frames are artistic. He has captured the magnificent locales of Corsica and Shimla with sincerity and aplomb. The music by A.R. Rahman, as usual, is good, but does not leave an indelible mark in the narration. And the film is well-layered by Aarti Bajaj’s crisp and sharp editing.
Overall, the film entertains you in parts. If you have patience for Imtiaz Ali’s serious existential philosophy, then you might like the film. Else, watch it only if you are a Ranbir and Deepika fan.
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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