Entertainment
‘Victoria & Abdul’: Bolstered by superlative performances (Review)
By Subhash K. Jha
Film: “Victoria & Abdul”; Director: Stephen Frears; Cast: Judi Dench and Ali Fazal; Rating: ***1/2
There has been a lot of flak aimed at this enchanting film for it subversive look at colonial relationships.
For all those who refuse to take history’s lessons lightly, here is some unsolicited advice: Get a laugh.
And I do mean, laugh. For, in spite of one very moving tearful moment, sunshine and smiles are the dominant forces in Stephen Frears’ look at the very strange yet extremely noble and dignified bonding between Queen Victoria and her young clerical Indian friend Karim, who is sent to assuage her royal ego but is soon her closest confidante and only friend in a royal household teeming with opportunists and gold diggers.
This is not to say that the film trivializes history or, as suggested by some revisionist reviewers, that it turns the relation between the conqueror and the conquered into a soppy soap opera.
There is nothing soppy or sloppy about the friendship that grows between the Queen and her royal, if somewhat self-serving servant. Divided by cultures and continents, the two come together for a platonic friendship that defies all protocol and even basic logic. I mean, as one of the bitchy royal householders mutters under his breath, “What does she see in him?”
A lot, apparently. As played by the affable Ali Fazal, Abdul Karim is persuasively charming, cocky and irreverent yet attentive respectful and compassionate. Just what the Queen needed in her twilight years. And let us be honest, Abdul is not above being a manipulative opportunist. But then as the shrewd Queen retorts, who is not an opportunist in the royal household?
Director Stephen Frears, no stranger to cross-cultural romantic conflicts (who can forget the tumultuous passion between the Pakistani Omar and the British Johnny in Frears’s “My Beautiful Laundrette”?) here unravels with carpet-like imagery, the burgeoning fondness of the Queen for the tall handsome Oriental subject with a mixture of amusement and wonderment.
Looked at as a telescopic transcription of colonial hearsay, “Victoria & Abdul” renders itself handsomely and elegantly to the theme of ambivalent passion. Make no mistake. This is a world of unspoken but unmistakable passion. The Queen may whitewash her feelings with as much decorum as she likes. But there is most certainly a dark unexpressed and inexpressible frisson between she and her unlikely brown Muslim friend whom everyone at the Buckingham Palace refers to as ‘The Hindoo’.
Judi Dench drenches the Queen’s Victorian propriety and dignity in the colours of irreverence and iconoclasm. Queen Victoria as played by the actress, eats sumptuously (we see her at the meal table quite a number of times), drinks, burps and probably farts too. And she is not averse to snoring during ceremonial meals with aristocrats and other stuffed shirts (and stockings).
This is a fun queen, living her last years on her own terms. And Ali Fazal’s Abdul Karim provides the Queen with that impetus to be naughty and wild. Their relationship is impetuous and bridled by the Frowning Glory of the royal household. The disapproving brigade of British peers is played by a fine team of English actors, all of whom appear ridiculous only from the outside. I specially liked Eddie Izzard’s Bertie, the Queen’s neglected and petulant son, who cannot stand the sight of her embarrassing new Indian friend.
“A brown Mr Brown,” as someone describes Karim with a colourfully colloquial cluck of the tongue, referring to Victoria’s earlier scandalous liaison with a certain Mr Brown that we’ve seen in another (superior) film. The Queen’s association with Karim in this film is far less scandalous because there is no sex between them. Though I am sure she would have liked it to be.
Watching Judi and Ali sink their collaborative teeth into “Victoria & Abdul” provides us with a delightful, if somewhat iconoclastic insight into what the colonial relations would have been like if they had not been encumbered by protocol. There are moments of great tenderness and understanding between the two actors, almost echoing the tender but troubled relations between Adela Quested and Dr Aziz in E.M. Foster’s “A Passage To India”.
Imagine what life for Karim Abdul would have been like had the Queen turned around and accused him of unbecoming conduct. This is as hypothetical as wondering what life in India would have been like if the British had stayed away. Or what the British royalty would have been if the Queen was really as fey, feisty and irreverent as Judi Dench makes her out to be in this delightfully subversive view of royalty.
“Victoria & Abdul” has a beautiful heart and body. It feels and looks fetching. It is a work born out of sincere feelings and therefore, worthy of the respect that it so flippantly solicits.
–IANS
skj/rb/vm
Entertainment
Casino Days Reveal Internal Data on Most Popular Smartphones
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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