It's WAR!

haha... LOL!

What is that one thing that has become a common headache to all the bosses around the world?

Angry Birds.

The game is something you do not need introduction to. It is a game with the simplest of objectives one could think of; the birds are desperate to retrieve their eggs, which were stolen by a group of Evil Pigs. The birds decide to have an all-out attack on the various structures where the Pigs are hiding, destroy the pigs, and claim the Eggs. The birds are flightless, and the player has to force them towards the structure using a slingshot, on which these birds jump rather excitedly…

The game was launched in December 2009, by the Finland-based mobile app powerhouse Rovio, for Apple’s iOS. The whole concept started off when senior Game designer, Jaakko Iisalo submitted his design of very angry looking birds for the new app the company was developing, in March 2009. As the concept developed, the team realized that Angry Birds needed some enemy. And guess what, the news of Swine Flu in 2009 initiated the idea of Pigs as the villains for the game!

Who would have thought this game would become such a phenomenon? It is 2011, just a year and a half after the launch, and the company has already sold 12 million (!) of the game! And as all of us will agree, that is just the legal number. I don’t even want to think how many of us have the pirated versions and the cracks downloaded via torrents or DC!! The Wikipedia page on Angry Birds declares it ‘one of the most mainstream games out right now’.

Looking at the success charts of the app, Rovio also released Angry Birds Android app and the PC version too (phew!). The office hours are now no longer boring, and the bosses too are less angry. Who would want to waste energy shouting or sulking, when you can simply release your pent up frustration on a group of Ugly green Pigs troubling our cute little (and really angry) birds? The game was intended to be easy to comprehend, and yet interesting enough to captivate every person playing it. And as we can all see, the team succeeded. What a bliss it is, watching the small birds fight their way to get back their beloved eggs? The game does not require skill, nor does it require any sort of planning as do many other games in the same fame league that it is in now. No wonder it has become such a wave in such a short time!

I wouldn’t be surprised if tomorrow, I see a +2 student practicing projectile motion with angry birds (:P). It would be awesome watching people sitting with rulers measuring all the distances on their computer screens… the other thing I can imagine is military practicing aiming in a virtual reality version of angry birds! Imagination is running wild… very wild. But as they say, everything starts with an idea, doesn’t it?

Latest to fall into the vicious trap of the birds and pigs are the housewives! Those boring days of solitude spent alone at home are now shared with the over destructive birds… It is fun watching mum and dad play angry birds; the excitement in their eyes, watching that twinkle that had gone missing due to something or the other is priceless… but once they are stuck, it is very difficult to get them moving! And now the game has become so famous, that recent cartoons on the Facebook/Google plus squabble are using the angry birds’ idea too! It is hilarious, the ideas people come up with… human brain is just brilliant!

I was talking about this!

 Rovio’s statistics say that people across the world spend a hundred million hours a day (!) playing angry birds! Commendable, isn’t it? It really shocks me how much time we can spend on things we get addicted to. This drives me into deep thought about human behaviour, but I am quickly, very quickly broken out of it, just as my brother announces he has got a gen mobile game version of angry birds! I’m seriously hoping I manage to convince him to *send via Bluetooth*! :D

Who can stop playing when the yellow bird shouts “oye hoye!” as you sling it into the air?! Not me, for sure…

Is that all?

After a decade of entertaining readers with the story of an orphan, a boy wizard who gives up to fate and defeats the Evil to bring happy times to the world, the Harry Potter series has now officially ended, but not before dividing the world into three categories of people: 

• The captivated (my type!! ;)); 
• The bored (something has to be wrong with these people :P); and  
• The blissfully unaware (:D)

I consider myself fortunate because I belong to the first category. I am one of those people who have been left enchanted by the boy and his magical world. But belonging to this first category has its drawbacks. The most prominent among these is frequent stalkers from the second category, with just one question on their minds, “what does the Harry Potter series have that is new to it?”

I used to prevent answering that one almost always. But now, when I’m really done with a decade of being bugged by that question, and after re-reading the whole series for the hundredth time, I thought I must look for an answer.

Hmmm… So let’s start off. There is a very normal kid, with a very unusual mark on his forehead. He was orphaned when he was only a year old and was left to stay with his only living relatives, his maternal aunt’s mother, who is a muggle. They treat him like filth and barely keep him alive. Their son bullies him around. Usual story. Then one fine day, this boy discovers he is a wizard, and that too a very famous one. This is when he discovers the truth behind the death of his parents and the scar on his head. The villain of the story steps in here. Now equipped with the knowledge of his past and present, Harry goes to Hogwarts, a school for the young witches and wizards, where he discovers ha has an extraordinary nick of falling into trouble. This marks the entry of several characters. There is a poverty stricken lower class family, an extremely talented outcast, a freaked out dumbass, a weirdo who couldn’t care less for physical appearances, a rich spoilt brat complete with really dumb bodyguards, a faithful friend, a great wizard who was once a self- obsessed teenager, a bluff king, an outspoken journalist, brainless beauties, and of course, fortune tellers. 

The story is of trust, betrayal, love, revenge, jealousy, luck, fame, hope, pain, loss… everything. The story is about how Harry just gives in to his destiny. To many, it may just seem to be a mixture of several of Charles Dickens’ books merged together in a very Bollywood-ish way. Looking back, even I wouldn’t deny that fact. Harry’s story is indeed very similar to Oliver Twist’s. This makes me think, is that all? Obviously, the answer is NO.

The story shows how two people with very similar upbringings, can be very, very different from each other, thanks to the choices they make in life. It shows dignity and self-respect is everything you might ever want. It tells that not everything that happens in life is desirable, but whatever happens, happens for the Greater Good. It shows friendship and love can win over any Evil. Most of all, through my favourite characters of Fred and George Weasley, it tells that the important thing in life is not what you are taught, but how much of that you have learnt. Intelligence and genius is not, and cannot be quantized. It makes you realize how all things can be linked to fate. J K Rowling would definitely agree. Who would have thought that yet another story of a destitute orphan would take her from the troughs to the crests of her life? Fate is Magic.

Let me finish this post with a quote I came across in a daily newspaper, the Mumbai Mirror:

'An old belief is like an old shoe. We so value its comfort that we fail to notice the holes in it.'

I think that’s what the problem with all the Harry Potter maniacs. The ‘bored’ category people just won’t understand. They lack the belief. 

Crawford market. :)

I don’t really enjoy shopping trips. I usually accompany my mum to markets, and end up being the donkey, just carrying the shopping bags around, and not talking much.

CRAWFORD MARKET

So as usual, I wasn’t very excited when ma told me we’ll be going to Crawford Market. But this trip turned out to be the most unusual, for reasons I still don’t understand… The place is beautiful! Everywhere you see, you find people. Industry defined everyone’s life. The first thing that I felt about the place was energy. There was so much of it, that you couldn’t help but acquire some of it. No wonder, once you start spending there, there’s no end to it…

They say you get everything here. From pots and pans to food, clothes to shoes, medicine, interior decoration, personal care, woodwork, and what not. This is the place where I heard, “kitna piece chahiye?” when a costumer enquires about costs. It is probably the only place where I saw people selling towels, and also safety pins (!) in kilos, and water melons in scores. There were craftsmen, artists, designers, mullahs, illegal drug dealers, bribed policemen, shopkeepers with pirated CDs, MMS and blue film dealers, everything.

But that all was not what pulled me closer to the place. All that was merely the shell, the cover, a blanket of needs and desires that was pulled over the crazy depths of Human Will. There was an internal struggle, a battle to survive in the hostility of the world around them. There was an understanding among all the locals. We call it tit- for- tat. The good was what was absolutely visible. But there was the bad, which occasionally showed up, and there was the ugly, hidden somewhere in the heart of the place, known only to those who cared to look for it. Somewhere in the air was love that people lost over the time to more pressing issues in life.  There was money, a lot of it, as there was poverty. But somehow, everybody was happy. It was probably this happiness in the mud-pond of the forced life that defines most people in Mumbai, that drew me towards the place. It was love at first site (pun intended)...

People say you get everything at Crawford market. I wouldn't deny.