As a travel blogger who is constantly
on the move and has an innate need to capture all big and small travel stories in photos
and words, I often find my enthusiasm marred by lack of effective gadgets that are easy
to carry around. More importantly my laptop – it’s a bulky piece and more often
than not, I prefer leaving it at home rather than lugging it all around in my backpack
that any-ways remains stuffed with other sundry travel requirements. My laptop
is not just bulky but has battery issues too. So rather than carrying a burden of a laptop on my back, I prefer to come back from the travels and then transfer all the data on it once I am back. This of course, takes the surprise elements out because by the time I am back home after days of travel, old photographs begin gathering the proverbial dust and the old fun stories too have lost their charm.
It's because of these sad after-stories that I am almost always on the lookout for news of newer and better gadgets and computer devices. And today when a tech-savvy friend introduced me to a couple of ASUS netbooks, my curiosity got piqued - for they indeed look like what I have been looking for! I have specially been taken in by the charms of the sleek and powerful ASUS EeeBook X205TA, the stylish and lightweight, netbook, perfect for someone who's always on the move and needs a powerful portable computer device.
The ASUS EeeBook X205TA is not just compact and elegant, but also boasts of an great tech specs, has Windows 8.1 OS, comes with 11.6 inch screen, and is super lightweight - weighs less that 1Kg! And since battery life in current laptop is my particular concern, I looked up the battery details on this one and found that X205 comes with a 2-cell battery that is equipped to provide up-to 12 hours of battery life. Also the ASUS WebStorage allows a user to sync all personal files between the personal devices, making file accessing and sharing easier.
Another ASUS product that has got me tempted is the ASUS All In One PCET2040. The brand is promoting it as a simple, versatile and powerful personal computer, and from the looks of it, this device indeed looks like a must have for people like me, who want their gadgets to be simple and easy to use and yet be super efficient and savvy.
Here's a look at it's technical specs -
Intel Pentium Quad Core J2900 Processor
2.41 GHz with Turbo Boost upto 2.66 GHz
2GB RAM
500GB Hard Drive
19.5'' HD 1366x768 LED-backlit Non-Touch
Windows 8.1 BING 64-Bit Operating System
Intel HD Graphics
1 x 3-in-1 card reader
1 x audio jet
65W Adapter
Besides the fact that ASUS All In One PCET2040 is an incredibly fast and powerful device, the innovative Gesture Control feature too has got me excited about this one! One can control the multimedia players or even browse the internet from up to five meters away from the computer. Now that would be fun!
So battery eating, bulky laptops - your time is up! Make way for the incredibly sleek, powerful, versatile and fun ASUS instead! Way to go!
Malcom MacGonal, a history professor at Stonewell University was his usual pepped-up self, as he got ready for the day ahead, though today the reason behind his upbeat mood was different. It was his son Calvin's 10th birthday. Exactly 10 years ago, on the 14th of September, 2020, God had blessed him with this beautiful gift and with each passing day, he and his wife had cherished this gift more than ever. Today being Calvin's birthday, he had taken a day off from work and had plans to spend the entire day with his son, while Calvin's mother stayed at home, decking up the house for a surprise kiddies party planned for the evening . Day's itinerary included a leisurely tour around Funland Children's Park and then the kiddies' party in the evening with all of Calvin's friends in attendance. Just as he stepped out of the house, with Calvin holding his hand, his phone beeped. 'Oh no, hope it's not someone from the University looking for me,' he uttered, mentally scanning the faces of all the curious students of his modern history class. Owing to his interactive teaching sessions, he was one of the professors who was always being sought by students passionate about all things historical. He checked the phone and was visibly relieved to see that message was not from a student but from Clarks & Sponsors, his favourite departmental store. The message read: Dear Mr.MacGonal, you shopped for undergarments from us on this date, a year back. You must be in need of replacements now. Here's your personalized catalogue to help you with the choices. Have a good day.
Oh yes, indeed. He needed replacements. As he sat in the bus headed towards the children's park, he typed in the requisite details and ordered for new stock of undergarments. It was as simple as that. Fill in your order form, key in the payment and bang, whatever you wanted would be delivered at your doorstep in no time. He knew that by the time he got home, his order would have been delivered.
Mobile-Commerce : Shopping on the go!
Shopping was all about a smartphone and a good internet connection now. And of course money too. But from paper money to plastic money, it was now all about mobile money - for all the monetary transactions now happened on the smartphone! How different this was from the days of yore, he tried to recall. How the concept of shopping has changed over the decades. Take the fridge for example! Now one does not have to go the grocery store to trudge home carton full of stuff. As the stock goes down, the in-built memory chip updates the registered grocer's data and lo and behold, fresh supplies arrive. Milk, eggs, veggies...everything is on weight mode and the moment the quantity goes below what's required, the stock is replenished from the grocer's.
Down & out, well almost
In business again!
Of course technological innovation and cut throat competition in the e-commerce domain has worked out best for us shoppers, he thought. 'I am hundred percent sure of the things I buy online, so much so that I can even have a feel of the things I shop for, all thanks to the 3D imaging of the products, my needs and probable shopping list is personalized and above everything I have the liberty to walk around virtual stores without the palpable embarrassment of walking out without making a purchase.' he smiled inwardly at his own musings. Of course he was right, the meteoric advancement in the field of e-commerce had made shopping such a comfortable and convenient experience. For all his needs, he had his favourite websites bookmarked on his smartphone, and that gave him the power to shop from anywhere at anytime. A single click of his phone and there was a personalized virtual store right in front of his, a virtual store that did not close in on him and that catered to his demands and accorded personal assistance 24/7.
Personalized catalogue
Not just a personal assistant, the high flying customer savvy e-stores also see to it that they keep registered customers up to date about the things they might be interested in. If you browsed through one SLR camera section, within minutes you will have a neat collection of cameras matching the specifications you are looking for. Likewise for a million other things. And to top it all, a single point payment partner across websites too took care of the woes online shoppers had decades ago. Just one payment partner now ensures that a buyer does have to share his bank or credit details with every Tom, Dick and Harry on the internet. Plus, this single point collector also guarantees your purchase, in case of any disputes that a buyer may later have regarding the transaction or the quality of the product.
One payment partner across websites
These technological advancement in online shopping again got Malcolm recalling his shopping plights in the past. Ah, those were the days, when shoppers would crowd the shopping centres and the many malls to buy big and small things. What a pointless waste of time it was - trudging from shop to shop, trying to find that perfect fit, that perfect colour, scanning the numerous shelves in the endless stores! And then came mobile commerce and changed everything! Mobile commerce that made museums of the the shopping malls! Suddenly an idea crossed his mind. Why not take Calvin to a tour of the deserted malls instead! The malls that were once thriving and crowded with shoppers, but were now deserted, some converted into museums, standing as a relic to the era gone by, while some standing as anonymous markers of the past.
A deserted mall
Another casualty of M-Commerce - empty stores
And Calvin, being his father's son, agreed! So off to the museum he went, hand in hand with his father, curious and contemplating what a shopping mall was. This futuristic post has been written for eBay's Future of Shopping drive in association with IndiBlogger. To make your online shopping experience more satisfying and secure, you can install the official eBay India Google Chrome extension, called eBay Check. This extension helps you keep updated about the best prices on eBay.in for any products that you may be looking up.
My father was born and brought up in a small nondescript village in Punjab. I say nondescript because compared to the fancy houses and Scorpio/Bolero/Tata Safari flaunting villages of today, Punjabi villages around 60 years back (I have been told) were more about seemingly endless expanse of farmlands with clusters of houses doting them. Most of the houses had cattle-sheds for the cows and buffaloes they reared and all sorts of smells wafted from those kucha-pucca houses - smoke bellowing from the open chulhaas, smell of tandoori rotis, corn being roasted somewhere, all these mixed with the pungent smell of cowdung and drying cowdung cakes. Father spent first sixteen years of his life in one such village, before moving out to the city to pursue higher studies. Today, after all these years of living in small, big and metropolitan cities, every time he smells a tandoor being set up, or smells the powdery smell of freshly ground atta (wheat flour) or the smell from a cow-shed, he says that it reminds him of his home, his village. I cannot agree more. Research says smells have an almost mystical ability to bring back memories even with their slightest whiff. Nothing elicits memories with the same emotional punch as odor, opine experts.
Villages have their own smell
Now as I sit and reminiscence about all the smells that instantly take me home, so many smells are suddenly wafting all around me...creating a haze of smells, if something like that is possible. I can smell Rasna's orange flavour, take in the sweet aroma of Roofafza, the heavy smell of ripe guavas....the halwa poori on Durga Ashtami...the smell of kerosene oil...Ah! Like father has the smells of village to transport him back to his childhood, I have all these smells to take me back to the times when I was growing up. And now the big and small whiffs of these smells are taking me along them..to a ride down memory lane, each smell bringing back fond recollections of the time went by.
Rasna, Roof Afza and Spiderman
Every time I see a kid sipping on Rasna, specially the orange flavour Rasna, it's tangy smell takes me back to my school days and the strictly regimented routine at home. School or no school, vacation or no vacation, summer months schedule strictly included an afternoon siesta. No protest or excuse could have let me and my brother escape the punishment/compulsion that this siesta was. Sleeping in the afternoon, something that I am sure can rightly be called a luxury in today's hectic schedule was nothing less than a pointless waste of time for us. Why waste time sleeping, when you can go out and catch dragonflies, climb up the guava tree, chase crows and other birds off the branches, call on the neighbour's door and plan revenge against that neighbourhood bully...but no, all these adventures were sacrificed at the alter of afternoon siesta. And the sacrifices were later rewarded with glasses of Rasna in the evening! More often than not, it was the orange flavor, for mother believed that orange flavoured one had all the vitamins necessary for growing school kids. Occasionally, the Rasna was replaced by the more mature but interesting looking Roof Afza! The dark pink liquid in big transparent glasses! It looked so grown up! And this was enjoyed with the recorded adventures of either Tom & Jerry or Spiderman playing on the VCR! What bliss it was , to relish cool and colourful drinks while watching your favourite superhero thrash the villians! May be it's the hangover of the days of yore, but even today every time I drink Roof Afza, it's exotic taste and the sophisticated dark pink colour brings alive the memories from childhood summers.
Maggie Noodles and Baloo, the Papa Bear
Maggie noodles with Disney cartoons
I believe every one of us (well almost) has a Maggie story to share. This 2-minute noodle has been such a big part of our growing up years. Smell of maggie brings back memories of Sundays at home! For Sunday breakfast for us kids was special, a Sunday treat - maggie topped with loads of peas, onion and tomatoes. The slurrp sound it made as we tried sucking the noodle in through the fork never failed to thrill me and my brother. And this memory also brings Baloo 'the Papa Bear' along. Glued to the TV sets we would eat bowl full of maggie as the bush pilot Baloo, also referred to as Papa Bear, from the Disney series Talespin, would go about his adventures!
New Books and freshly sharpened pencils
Experts so rightly say that smell can call up memories. Every time I smell a new book, it takes me back to the start of new sessions at school, when everything would be new - new books, new notebooks, new bag, new tiffin box, covering sheets, name tags..and this in turn brings in more smells and memories - chart papers, smell of freshly sharpened pencils, ink-pots, perfumed erasers!
Smell of new books & new pencils!
Another smell that reminds me of home and childhood is the smell of kersene oil and the soot that blackens the lanterns! Electricity would be a whimsical thing in those days, and as the sun went down, lanterns would be handy in every room - one constantly lit on our study table as we went about playing pranks under its flickering flame. And more often than not, the pranks centred around ghosts and spirits!
Smell of kerosene oil too brings back happy memories!
Oh, what an incredible sniff down memory lane this has turned into! Our noses really have a way at sniffing out nostalgia. And this beautiful ride has now sparked a flurry of emotional memories! So more on smells later!
Update: This post written for Franklin Templeton Investments sponsored Idea Caravan won a prize on IndiBlogger. Franklin Templeton Investments partnered the TEDxGateway Mumbai.
There's something very warm and welcoming about this woman featured above. I am not too sure how to define or describe it, but there's something about her disposition that makes her come across as a very warm human being. She looks like a typical south India woman from the rural areas - homely, modest, nurturing and very motherly. Yes, she has such motherly aura about her. But I am glad she is not my mother. In fact, the truth is, long ago she had decided that she does not want to be a girl's mother. So much so that when nature bestowed her bosom with daughters - 8 of them - she strangulated every single one of them, and buried the bodies in some corner of her farmland.
The warmth and the motherly disposition is now lost on me, as I watch her giggle and remorselessly gesture how she strangulated the girl child as soon as she was born - all 8 of them - year after year. ALL BECAUSE SHE WANTED A MALE CHILD. And this, I have now discovered, is the just tip of the iceberg, all thanks to American film maker and activist Evan Grae Davis' enlightening and goose-bumps inducing talk on gendercide at the TEDxGateway Mumbai. All this while, we had been hearing and discussing about female infanticide, female foeticide and selective abortion but it was only after watching Evan talk in detail about this horrifying phenomenon, that I was introduced to the word GENDERCIDE. Yes, in all honesty, I feel so ashamed of this, that as a supposedly 'aware' woman of the world, I was never aware that the randomly discussed-and-discarded issue of female infanticide and foeticide has now become a monster called gendercide. A Monster called Gendercide Gendercide is the deliberate and systematic killing of a gender group - usually girls. The United Nations estimates that as many as 200 million girls are 'missing' in the world today. Millions killed, aborted or abandoned simply because they were girls.
200 million girls 'missing' from the world
Census statistics report that in countries such as India and China, the male to female ratio is as high as 120 men for every 100 women. Today India and China eliminate more girls than the number of girls born in America every year. In addition to sex-selective abortion, gendercide also takes the forms of infanticide and violence against female gender at any stage of life. So much so that the girls who survive infancy are often subject to neglect, and many grow up to face violence and even death at the hands of their own husbands or other family members. A perfect case of the proverbial 'out of the frying pan into the fire'.
Evan says he too was introduced to the word gendercide only after he traveled to India. (I am ashamed to write this - a country of snake charmers, magicians, and whatnots and now gendercide too - our country's another claim to fame.) He had spent nearly two decades travelling around the world covering calamities of all kind - war, hunger, poverty, HIV Aids - but no horror of genocide had prepared him for this - standing at the edge of a farmland in southern India, looking at a row of graves and listening to a woman share how she had personally strangled 8 of her own newborn baby girls. Because she did not want a daughter, she wanted a son. And that's when he discovered that in this part of the world the three most deadliest words were: It's a Girl, or as we say it in Hindi - Beti hui hai.
Here's the video where Evan talks about gendercide and how his documentary film 'It's a girl' is educating and coercing people about taking up a more active role against gender discrimination. I request everyone of you reading this post to please see this video, for indeed it will open your eyes to the harsh facts about gendercide.
As we see in the video, Evan has no hatred or derision towards the lady who killed her eight daughters, for he knows that this war against girls is rooted in centuries-old tradition and sustained by deeply ingrained cultural dynamics which push for the elimination of girls. That's the social structure most Indian women grow up in - with the deep embedded thought that the girls are inferior, a burden on the family and the society.
What's ironical is the fact that it is not just the poor and supposedly unaware sections of society that hankers after a male child. The urban class is there too, albeit they do it all very discreetly. I am sure many of us know of family members or extended family members who bowed before the pressure of the so-called need for a male heir to carry forward the family name. And if it did not happen naturally, then there were many ways to work around god's will.
So we see how an American activist comes to India and comes face to face with one of the deadliest genocides of his time, just that this genocide is gender specific - it is gendercide. So what does he do? Make a film out of it, express concern and move on? No, what Evan did was something very inclusive and of course, heartening. He collaborated with concerned Indians working in this field and came up with what is now called - It's a Girl manifesto.
It's a Girl manifesto
Here's a clip from Evan's documentary film It's a Girl. The film tells the stories of abandoned and trafficked girls, of women who suffer extreme dowry related violence, of brave mothers fighting to save their daughter's lives, and of other mothers who would kill for a son.
Both this videos give us a fair idea about the plight of women in India and China, caught up in a war against girls. In fact in China, the situation is worse. Government's notorious One Child Policy has had serious repercussions on not just the male-female ratio in the country but also on the mental well being of millions of women who were forced to abort their girl child.
China's ruthless One-Child Policy has had serious repercussions
Studies and surveys reveal that besides the imbalanced sex-ratio, gendercide in China has had far reaching effects on its women and children.
1. Around 500 women commit suicide in China everyday.
2. Violence against women and girls, discrimination in education and employment, traditional preference for male children and birth-limitation policies are the major factors that contribute to the high female suicide rate.
3. Around 8 million women undergo abortions every year.
4. Over 35 percent of women who have had an abortion have another shortly after.
According to researcher Steven Mosher, it is no accident that, “China's women have the highest suicide rate in the world, not to mention the highest rates of breast cancer, all in consequence of having had their babies killed in utero by a state ruthlessly bent on population control.''
Here are some stark statistics that gives an idea about where India and China stand when it comes to male-female ratio as compared to some other develop and not so developed countries in the world.
In the wake of all these stark statistics, Evan's talk and work for the It's a Girl campaign looks like a big ray of hope. For this campaign aims at not just enlightening the local communities of the affected countries about the numbing horrors of gendercide, but is also try to get the support international community in pushing for stringent measures to rein this brutality against the female gender.
What Can We Do for the Campaign?
I believe most of us here come from a different breed of women, women who were proud to have us and who gave us all the freedom to live our lives the way we wanted to live. They brought us up, nurtured us and guided us to make us what we are today - independent, healthy and happy individuals. They made men who love their daughter and respect their wives and see women as strong independent entities whose existence run parallel to them and not just around them. So we all collectively can play a significant and practical role to help mobilize support for the movement against gendercide. As Evan so aptly suggests, we can all be the Culture Changers.
Let's Take a Stand -Just because we are privileged enough to have a life that is largely devoid of the misgivings related to gender discrimination does not mean that we dismiss gendercide as an exception rather than a rule. Let us all talk about it and not just talk about it, let's condemn it with well meaning powerful words. Let us make our friends and families and everyone aware of gendercide, let's make it famous, so famous the every one knows about it, and feels ashamed to be a part of a culture that has for so long supported this heinous cultural trend. Let's Speak Out - Millions of girls in India and China have no voice to demand dignity and equality and need support to defend them. Let's speak out for justice for them, let's stand with them in solidarity in every way we can - petitions, more documentaries, protests - whatever it takes to attract people and government's attention. Let us push the government to make stringent laws against female infanticide, let us relentlessly push for severe punishments for crimes against women. Let's Involve the Men - No girl deserves to die because of her gender, and the good men in our lives and outside of it know that. Let's us involve them in raising a strong voice against this reprehensible crime .
Involve the Media - Let us involve the media in highlighting the horrors of gendercide. Print, broadcast, web - all forms of media should be brought together to work in unison to create public awareness campaigns to increase the perceived value of girls in society. Use Our Creativity - Let us use our creative skills to influence the people to come forward and show their support for this noble campaign. Sing, dance, perform, stage a play, make a film, write, walk, run - let's do whatever we can do, use all our talents to help bring about a positive turnaround. Beside the above-mentioned broad steps, following concrete measures too would go along way in curbing gendercide:
Ensure hospitals and doctors uphold the law against sex determination tests.
Create rapid action task forces to arrest those who engage in violence against women.
Better enforce laws against giving and receiving dowries when women marry.
This post is written for the Idea Caravan and Indiblogger in association with Franklin Templeton Investments. Franklin Templeton Investments partnered the TEDxGateway Mumbai in December 2012. Photo Courtesy: Google Images. P.S It's heartening to see Evan interacting with concerned citizens on Twitter - he's been following people and tweeting back replies to tweeple's questions, thoughts and musings on gendercide. Here's what he had to say on my blog post:
