Listening to Silence

Vampire Bat: What are you doing here? This is rather too early, don’t you think?

Vampire Owl: I am listening to the voice of silence and making an attempt to communicate through it.

Vampire Bat: By which, you mean to say that you are standing on one leg and looking at the sky.

Vampire Owl: What? No. This is just what you see. It is just an external feature, and what you see on the outside is just an illusion. Internally, I am making connections with the other world, to the land of the dead. Lady Death will be contacting any moment now. Please go and return with a chair. A wooden one will be nice.

Vampire Bat: Oh! In that case, you should have done it at your place. Why did you come to my home instead? Don’t you have open spaces there?

Vampire Owl: Because I needed silence. It is a little crowded at my house. Can you please stop talking? Only by connecting with the voice of silence can I send my message to the other world. Wait! What is that noise? A cat? Tell it to stop.

Vampire Bat: It is Simona the Kitty. She is one year old now and takes her own decisions. She won’t stop until that squirrel on the tree stops making faces at her. That thing has been bothering her for many days.

Vampire Owl: I was concentrating so well on the voice of silence! This cat is so evil!

Vampire Bat: Wait! Is that lady in black on your right the side the person you were looking for? I think that she needs a visit to the dentist soon.

Vampire Owl: Oh! Yes, it is Lady Death. She made it here, and that too so quickly.

Lady Death: I received your message and roasted two souls in hell-fire.

Vampire Bat: You didn’t tell me that you were having Soul Fry these days, Mr. Vampire Owl?

Vampire Owl: I don’t understand what you are talking about. I don’t try new types of food these days.

Lady Death: I was working according to your message about the noise of violence. Don’t you know that I have always been violent? Your message came to me as a case of special inspiration.

Vampire Owl: It was the voice of silence! But how do you know about my method of connecting with you?

Lady Death: There was this message with the connection – “this connection is made through and for the noise of violence”. So, I started some burning a few souls.

Vampire Bat: Bloody advertisements!

Vampire Owl: Stop talking about violence. It is the voice of silence. And also stop thinking about burning souls all the time. Here, we don’t even get LPG and the gas subsidy is going to removed. I always wonder how you manage the hell-fire out there. Is it true that it burns forever? The idea of perpetual damnation is very popular among the zombies.

Lady Death: We burn the souls which create certain energy which is converted into fire and then we burn the souls in the same fire. Souls are replenishable energy. There are so many new ones arriving there and we often have so much extra fire that we sell some of it to the Dwarves for their gold and special engineering products. It is a secret pact, just don’t tell anyone.

Vampire Owl: The other world is indeed strange.

Vampire Bat: I told you that she is a bad underworld queen. You should be very careful; you know how it works after you cross the gates of the dead. You are going to be fried too.

Lady Death: So, where do you keep the fire in this side of the realm?

Vampire Bat: Feel free to show her your version of hell-fire at your place. I am not part of this pact.

This post is a part of Write Over the Weekend, an initiative for Indian Bloggers by BlogAdda.

***The images used in this blog post are from the Official Facebook Page of Hotel Transylvania.

TeNy

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Combo: Airtel 4G Day V

The Day Five is a combination which belongs to #Airtel4G and Samsung Galaxy A5 – these two surely make an interesting team. With 13MP back and 5MP front camera, this dual SIM 4G phone is the biggest phone I have used until now, and it was a lot like getting Nokia N95 at at its peek – well, there are phones bigger than this one, but the Galaxy A5 is also very much more than just a satisfying thing. It should be a master phone to use when you are using #Airtel4G or the same from any other network operators later.

The day’s test once again started with a journey, and this time to the Mattanchery-Fort Cochin area – well, there is this superior phone and high speed, and so it had to be seen what happens with the same at a tourist area around Cochin. There won’t be 4G at any of those places close to nature outside the Cochin area, and so it had to be chosen from somewhere around those islands – Fort Cochin and Mattanchery had to be the obvious choices even as I had visited the place so many times!

So, this will be just another visit to test the strength of Airtel 4G and Samsung Galaxy A5 – what is life when you have these in your possession and haven’t used them well enough? That should surely call for a small trip, right? Well, Kochi Biennale meant that we would visit this much visited place a lot more, and add another time to that list. The 4G started appearing at the Thottumugham area just before Aluva as before, and remained there all the way until we reached Mattanchery through Padma route.

The strength remained high as we alighted at the bus station and started from the Mattanchery Dutch Palace. The Airtel users among the tourists who are around should have a nice time with this one. Then, after some small shopping, we reached the Holy Cross Church which is known for the famous Coonan Cross Oath and is also a famous pilgrimage centre. Then we left to have food at Fort Cochin, and there was fine speed there too, but that shouldn’t come as a surprise because it is the big, grand tourist place.

Santa Cruz Basilica remains a beautiful marvel for us even now. One thing I am particularly glad about is that they didn’t paint this one white unlike some of those churches which lost the beauty while being coloured with that particular shade only. This is one of those older and historical churches which you surely shouldn’t miss while visiting this part of the world. The 4G speed was actually the highest around here, right in front of the church, and you know how important it will be for the tourists to have the same around the destinations. So for the tourists, #Airtel4G at Fort Cochin and Mattanchery = big.

You can wander around all the areas of Fort Cochin and see that 4G is almost everywhere, providing the speed to the visitors. We went to the other historically significant church, Saint Francis Church and also that Dutch Cemetery which remained closed this time too. Actually, you can just wander around, and you will just get to some very significant or beautiful place when at Fort Cochin. There are some other interesting churches and temples around which you can just visit along with these to add to the experience. There are also enough buildings around to give you a special feeling too.

We spent very less time at the beach because of the heat, and had masala tea at Vasco da Gama Square to go to Kumbalangi which had absolutely no 4G at all, and that was surprising because it is also part of Cochin and having good tourist inflow as the first Model Tourism Village in the state. But once we got on that bridge to the island, there was no 4G being shown, and there were areas in the route there from Thoppumpady that didn’t have the 4G either. But it didn’t really bother me in the long run. During the return, the 4G just disappeared at the moment we turned to the Pookkaattupady route from Thrikkakkara.

***The images used in this blog post were all taken by me on my Samsung Galaxy A5.

TeNy

Airtel 4G Adventure IV

The adventures with #Airtel4G have been quite interesting so far. I have wrote about it already with two posts, one about the first day and also with day two and three. The fourth day was more like a continuation of the same incidents, but a few more locations were tested. Wherever the test was made, there was no compromise on speed as long as the 4G came up on the top bar. I have already mentioned a number of places in my recent posts, and I am going to add more, with further details here.

On the fourth day of #Airtel4G, I decided to check from where the 4G started at Aluva at least from one side. From the Perumbavoor side, it started from Thottumugham, a few seconds after passing the Mahilalayam stop. Yes, it doesn’t start from Kuttamassery as I had expected. The signal gets stronger and stronger until it reaches the centre of the town. There is maximum strength around the railway station, and it will work very good around the Zeenath theatre. It still needs to be tested inside the theatre.

Then when we traveled to Edappally from Aluva, it remained 4G all the way through, even though it was the Container Terminal Road which we had chosen. I made sure about the main road during the return journey. 4G was clearly strong through the bigger roads, even though there should still be those pockets were there is trouble reaching, especially when inside the buildings. But a usual traveler should have no problems. Imagine someone traveling on the Kochi Metro which starts from Aluva with Airtel 4G – that should be great!

Then the test was done at the most significant centre of Kochi – the Lulu Mall. The signal was very good around there for 4G even though it lowered at some areas of the mall. There was no 4G at all inside the PVR multiplex while we tried to watch Kunjiramayanam on this day as it was often claimed to be the best Malayalam movie released for Onam. Jamna Pyari and Phantom were already finished. It was once again back to 2G inside the mall which make me wonder if I have to recharge with 3G only at times, but the availability should increase, and so may be I will keep that as a later option.

The phone with 4G is surely working better than the Mobile Wi-Fi device and it is a clear thing. I have found the Samsung Galaxy A5 doing better with the connection speed, not only with the direct data transfer, but also as a Wi-Fi hotspot. Yes, the costlier ones have the advantage, don’t they? But the Mobile Wi-Fi device will also do fine. It is the cheaper option, and the right option if you have just bought a new mobile phone a few days, weeks or months ago. You really can’t really let the 4G experience go, right? Especially if you are someone addicted to speed.

Talking about this Mobile Wi-Fi device, it is a nice cheaper option to have high speed internet. This device from Airtel can stand for six hours without being connected to a power source, and we can connect up-to ten users. It can be considered during a journey in a car when we can transform the vehicle into a nice Wi-Fi zone with this portability. All those older and lower cost mobile phone users can be relieved about this one. As I got the broadband modem which works only on power, this has been something which I really needed.

But the device has problems with identifying the IP address on my laptop whhen connected through Wi-Fi. I am still trying to figure out why. Then when I connect it through the USB cable, it provides the internet connection. I will find the reason for that one day, and may be some of those people with more technical information can enlighten me about the same. I will connect with the cable for now. It is still available easily through the Wi-Fi for the mobile phone and so I can continue to use the device.

***The images used in this blog post were taken on my Asus Zenfone 5 and Samsung Galaxy A5.

TeNy

This is Dogville

Dogville gives you an order, and that order is to talk about it which can’t be avoided. The effect of knowing about its mere existence is that you have to feel and talk about it. Dogville is that cute town in the middle of nowhere, where people are supposed to be simple and good. It is that place where civilization has less effect and therefore it should be beyond the evils of modernity. But William Golding’s Lord of the Flies has already taught us about the danger of the same, but this one has some distant contact with people and therefore that problem is not directly visible.

Dogville is a 2003 movie which has Nicole Kidman as the central character of Grace who runs away from gangsters and is provided asylum in Dogville. They do demand things in return, and even as it begins as some physical labour, things get worse and she is turned into a slave. It is not a bloody violent movie, but is still disturbing in many ways, and it strikes a poisonous arrow right at the heart of the innate goodness which is supposed to exist in all human beings. Once we are poisoned with that arrow, it will grow in us, not like an idea in the mind, but like a stake in the heart. I will share just four areas of that infestation.

Grace (Nicole Kidman) among the apples, a shot which stays in the minds of the viewers.

1. Inherent evil in man: The innate goodness in man is replaced by the inherent evil which goes back to centuries while leaving a mark on the way as time flies. This evil can spring out of anywhere, whenever the situation is appropriate. As the Overlord (game character) would say, “evil always finds a way”. This tendency to sin which stems from the idea of original sin is something from which humans can never really escape. It is easy for humans to fall into the abyss of temptation, and it has even happened to saints. The same can be said about the townfolks’ treatment of Grace.

2. Contempt for outsiders: Here, Grace was not one of them and therefore an outsider who was to be treated differently. They can’t show that directly, but there is always the fear of the unknown, and it develops into hatred up-to an extent. These people will never be accepted into the group, but are often considered as an appendage who can be thrown out or even abused. The beginning should be from denying some basic human rights. We can see that certain people in some religions and castes do talk in the same way and only caring for their own people. Such people are just another version of these inhabitants of the town.

3. Biblical connection: The name of our heroine Grace, which can be seen as “the grace of God” is rather the person sent to that world to help them as they give refuge to her, as she does prove herself more than just useful in their daily life. But she would be tortured and abused just because she was not one of them, and there were enough reasons created by random thoughts just to mistreat her. In the end, she will be called back, but she will be willing to offer them another chance, but not for long as another Sodom and Gomorrah awaited.

4. Democracy’s limits: The town depends on votes, and this might be the best form of government. But if their supposed leader could choose by himself, wouldn’t it have been better for Grace? Everyone is so much powered by their own selfishness, and instead of thinking for the common good or about the damsel in distress, they choose wrong. The evil people can always outnumber the good and devastate the purpose of democracy. The people who are lesser in number will never get their rights, even if their demands are justified.

The outsider in chains, as the society turns more and more against the other.

Dogville can be your religion, caste, creed or community. It can be your land, and when you mistreat someone in your world for being an outsider, you are only strengthening that presence of inherent evil. It is okay to fear and take precautions as we know the story of “the camel and the arab” and there will some people ready to do the same to us, but that won’t give the right to hate. There are two things I am sure about; I have never loved a performance from Nicole Kidman like this, and there is no movie that has kept me thinking like Dogville. But be warned that this is not a movie for entertainment.

TeNy.