Tulsi Zindabad in Afghanistan

If you thought that the “saas-bahu” serials,which despite their misrepresentation of women are a rage only in India, you were seriously mistaken.
Don’t telephone an Afghan at 8.30 in the evening. That’s when the Indian TV soap opera Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi, dubbed into Dari, is telecast on Tolo TV, and no one wishes to miss it. It’s the most popular television show in Afghan history, considered directly responsible for a spike in the sale of generator sets and even for absences from religious functions which clash with its broadcast times.(TOI )

The fever there is almost similar to what it was in India a few years back. UN Undersecretary of state Shashi Tharoor reports from the Sunday Times(dated 28th Jan,2007)“Kyunki has so thoroughly captured the public imagination in Afghanistan that, in this deeply conservative Islamic country where family problems are usually hidden behind the veil, it’s an Indian TV show that has come to dominate society’s discussion of family issues. I have read reports of wedding banquets being interrupted so that the guests could huddle around the television for half-an-hour, and even of an increase in crime at 8:30 pm because watchmen are sneaking a look at the TV rather than minding the store. One Reuters dispatch recounted how robbers in Mazar-i-Sharif stripped a vehicle of its wheels and mirrors recently during the telecast time and wrote on the car, in an allusion to the show’s heroine, Tulsi Zindabad“.

So despite there bring an Orkut Community called I Hate Ekta Kapoor consisting of 51,384 members and growing everyday,we can still be thankful to her for bringing together a community that has suffered years of strife. Well if she could only improve the content of her sitcoms and not depict most Indian women as evil and master conspirators, we would watch her shows without hating her,and it’s here where the irony lies. We watch what we hate, and can’t stand missing out on a single episode either.Sorry Ekta but there ain’t gonna be any Tulsi Zindabad in India anytime soon.

Salaam-E-Ishq – A Marathon Saga of Love

Ek Sawal Jo Zindagi Badal De

That in short is the new catch line of KBC,which is back in a new avatar with Shahrukh Khan as the host. So what’s the new KBC like,well for starters it begins with a 5 minute long video song, a snapshot of which you have seen above.The format and prize money is the same as last time,but the selling point is definetly the new host who tries his best to do something different.

SRK tries hard to add his own touch to the show so as to avoid any comparisions with the Big B,but sorry to say that comparisions are unavoidable. So “Namaste”,”Aadab” gives way to Hi- 5′s and “Let’s rock “. “Computerji Lock kar Diya jaye” gives way to “Mr.Computer Freeze It”. It’s very apparent that khan’s using all his experience and skills to make the audience feel at home, so he speaks a few lines of bengali to a contestant from Bengal and a few lines of Tamil to a contestant from Andhra.

While the Big B could attract audiences of all ages with his natural charisma and charm, Shahrukh tries to potray himself in a more cool and hip form so as to attract the younger generation. Some of his new methods seemed a tad too much, like when he asks a contestant to say “pucca,pucca-kucha,kucha” instead of sure-unsure. A novel innovation on his part was to ask the contestants to say ” main aapko gale lagana chahta hoon” instead of saying “I Quit”, it’ll be interesting to see if he does the same with the female participants.

On the whole,the show was average,although Khan did whatever he could. When it comes to KBC,you automatically tend to picture the Big B so it would take some time for the audiences to get used to SRK. All said and done,Star Plus is definetly raking in huge amounts of money and today’s show would take the cake for the most viewed tv show for the month.Now what would the kind of viewership that the show would get if the Big B were to come in as a contestant, is something that’s gonna be playing on our minds.

Btw readers of this post are most welcome to submit their answer to the question posed by SRK above,people getting the right answers would get a “jadoo ki jhapi”.

Ashbhishek, Shilpa Shetty, Big Brother – Indian News is Losing It !!

The past few days have seen intense activity on the media front starting with the Aishwarya Rai,Abhishek Bachchan Engagement and now the controversy regarding Shilpa Shetty being racially abused on the British TV show Big Brother. All this bombardment of the same news by the tv channels and the newspapers just makes you think that the 4th Estate is essentially losing it. They are certainly doing a terrible job in their bids to outdo each other and in the process are feeding the viewers with senseless and incorrect information.

Take the Shilpa Shetty row for instance, it’s a simple case of her being bullied and being treated shabbily because 90% of the other contestants on the show are just jealous of her beauty and fame. The world of YouTube is flooded with the Big Brother videos and this one actually gives you the real story,the fact being that there was hardly any racial abuse.

The Indian Channels are sure to come up with a few debates regarding this where “supposedly” intelligent and famous people would spend more than hour discussing this whole issue. Big Brother is a show where the aim is to oust your housemates in any manner possible, so technically everything is fair. There are people who would actually kill to earn money, so calling someone a dog ain’t really racial abuse,especially when you have a couple of women fighting and arguing.

So the Indian News Channels really need to do a little bit of homework before they come out spreading the news and they need to ensure that they aren’t hyping one piece of news too much. Ditto for our “great” politicians who issue statements at the drop of a hat without finding out the actual reality first.

Maybe it’s time we had some Citizen Journalists reporting some news,after all most of the news in the papers these days is straight out of some blog or website.

FMC-The Next Big Bang,Are You Ready!!!

How many times have you missed an important ceremony of an event just because you got late ?
How many times have you found yourself chatting to a friend who happened to be quite close to your location ?
How many times have you looked at your phonebook and wished that you could know what you’re friend was doing at this very instant ?

If any of the above bothers you then get ready because all this is going to change very soon.FMC or Fixed Mobile Convergence is set to rock your planet with services you never thought could be possible. Very soon you would be able to share live video with the person you are talking to while in the midst of a normal call,they call it VideoShare. If you are chatting to someone who’s close to you and happens to be in a Wi-fi/Wi-Max hotspot, your call would automatically be shifted to that interface.

Soon you would also be able to use your phone as a Walkie Talkie,where you can talk and listen to a group of people with just the push of a button. Your phonebook would become your chat client as you would be able to see the status,mood etc of all your contacts.

Feeling Excited, well this is just the tip of the iceberg. With FMC, you can choose to be notified everytime someone rings your doorbell.You can choose to communicate with the visitor at your door in any manner you desire(audio,video,text), no matter where in the world you maybe. If the first few years of the new millenium saw the world change with the impact of the internet,the next few are going to see entities that will use the power of the internet to bring the world at your footsteps. The next Big Bang is around the corner, are you ready for it !!!.

Would You GooGle Your Date

The pretty lady in the video seems to think so,maybe because the pretty ladies go on a lot of dates and don’t want to waste their time on the wrong guy. Ask the regular single guy and he’ll say that it’s better to ask her whatever you want to know,there’s really no fun in googling someone you wanna spent time with.

Well this advertisement does have that innocuous piece of Trivia associated with it,it’s the first ever TV advertisement in which Google makes an appearence. Google is one of those few organizations that doesn’t spend any money in TV advertising and completely uses the web for this purpose. It’s surely worked really well for them, let’s see whether that will change in ’007.

Apple IPhone Vs Nokia N-95

2007 is set to see a major showdown in the mobile phone arena with Apple Announcing it’s stunningly beautiful IPhone and the market leader Nokia set to unleash it’s Multimedia Monster the Nokia N-95. While it’s really early to compare the two as neither of them have been launched yet,but the temptation is too hard to resist . So here we go

Apple IPhone

Apple terms it’s new phone as the next big revolution since the mouse,the official description goes something like this The IPhone introduces an entirely new user interface based on a large multi-touch display and pioneering new software, letting you control everything with just your fingers. So it ushers in an era of software power and sophistication never before seen in a mobile device, completely redefining what you can do on a mobile phone.What exactly one means by “multi touch display” is still not clear,but one thing is for sure that the IPhone is going to be completely touch based and without a stylus which means that for a guy with huge fingers dialling the numbers using the touchpad is gonna be a tough job.

Coming to the all important specs they go something like this 3.5 inch widescreen display,integrated video Ipod and ITunes,2 Megapixel Camera,Revolutionary touch technology,Safari Web Browser,Wi-Fi,Bluetooth 2.0,4-8 Gb Storage,Mac OS X as the software powering the phone(source).The Phone weighs a decent 135 grams with the inbuilt Ipod being the major plus,while I think that the much hyped touch technology would prove to be it’s weak point.

Nokia N95

The old warhorse and undisputed leader gives 2007 a lethal device that it terms as “The Multimedia Computer”. There isn’t much required to be said about Nokia, so the wise thing would be to come down to the specs. HSDPA(3.5G),Quad Band,Wi-Fi,Bluetooth2.0,Symbian Series 60-3rd Edition,Web Browser,5 Mega Pixel Camera with Carl Zeiss Optics,Mechnaical Shutter with flash,Auto Focus,Built in GPS with inbuilt maps application covering 100 countries,Dual Slide Design,FM Radio,DVD Qulaity Video Capture,Support for most sound formats(source). The N95 for a change is really slim and sleek and weighs lesser than the IPhone at just 120 grams.

While the N95 would certainly be much more feature rich,owning the IPhone would make you stand out with it’s model like looks and because it’s something new. Well if you thought that making a choice was never tougher ,better think again,cause it doesn’t get tougher than this.

Thank You For the Noodles

.Noodles have been around ever since I can remember,it’s been the one food item that one would resort to when the food cooked at home was something you really hated.One can’t imagine living alone and studying late into the night if it weren’t for those slimy strands of fried and dried flour,and most often than not it is the only thing that a guy knows to cook.

Well the world just lost the creator of the Instant Noodle who created it to solve the problem of food shortage in the War Devasted Areas of Post World War 2 Japan. Momofuku Ando,better known as the “Noodle Papa” founded the Noodle in 1948.At that time he was the Managing Director of a bankrupt credit union and was pained to see the plight of people struggling to get their hands on pieces of bread that was offered by the Japanese government. Although noodles were still available at that time,they had a very short shelf life and had to be consumed almost immediately.

Seeing this Ando thought of the Instant Noodle and converted his house into a small workshop to realize his dream.After 10 years of trial and error he finally succeeded and went on to become the Chairman of Nissin Food Products,and today his invention sells more than 86 Billion servings per year. Here’s a small depiction of his achievements(source).

A New Year,A New Start,A New Look

Delhi Planet wishes everyone a Very Happy New Year 2007,the last three digits (007) making it all the more special. 2007,better known as the year of 2 Bond’s sure promises to be a great and happening year for each one of us .

After it’s launch on 21st December with it’s Christmas Theme,the Planet is back in it’s new avatar and from here on in promises to provide you with the best content to read,view and share.

As Bryan adams puts it,

“Here I am – this is me
There’s no where else on earth I’d rather be
Here I am – it’s just me and you
And tonight we make our dreams come true

It’s a new world – it’s a new start”.

And yes,It’s a New Planet too.