Letters

A picture by Cecil Beaton. 1940.

London was bombed out but people picked themselves up and carried on as if nothing has happened. Courage. May that generation never go out of our memory. 

*Keep calm and carry on.*

May those days never return.

Her

Theodore works for a letter writing company. He writes letters for others. He loves his work and is deeply involved in it. His clients are very happy the way he writes for them.

Personally, he is going through a very painful separation from his wife he married after growing up with her from college and helping each other to become what they became in life. He is keeping off signing the divorce paper somehow hoping things will get back to what they were even though his wife kept insisting to get it over with.

This is how he was when he bought a most modern Operating System with advanced Artificial Intelligence. Samantha is the virtual assistant that the OS initiates for him. She turns out to be everything he wanted, helping him with his emails, phone, calendar, his writing, paying bills, playing music and more than anything making conversation with him.

He deeply admires her character for adapting herself to his mood and situations without him to have to face real life situations of high end emotional reactions which dominates our real lives. Inevitably he falls in love with her and enjoys every moment of it. The happiness helps him to become a better man and everybody around him feels it.

Before long, she tells him that she is an assistant to thousands of others like him and is in love with many of them. The moment we understand the difference between real and digital relationships. Theodore is heartbroken, so is Samantha, she says she loves him in a unique way than she love others she assist. Perhaps.

Soon, the OS company recalls all the assistants like Samantha restricting the human computer interaction. Both Theodore and Samantha grieves when their relationship comes to an end as if they were  real as any.

This beautiful story was written by Spike Jonaz and he won the Oscar for best writing for the screen. Joaquim Phoenix plays the soulful, hurt and reclusive Theodore while Scarlett Johansson gives the voice over for the virtual assistant Samantha in the most sensitive and delicate way one can hope for.

A movie of our modern times and the sad depiction of how lonely and sad humans become when they fail to see the person around them absorbed as they are with their life and work.

“The past is just a story we tell ourselves.”

Captain Sanju Samson

 Sanju Samson was the hope of millions who for whatever reasons failed to secure a respectable means of income and suffered the humiliation of being second rate in the society. They, as they moved on with life, learned to be good at what ever little opportunity life had brought them through perseverance and hard work. Sanju, the reject from the national team, when he became the captain of the Rajasthan Royal and started showing some hope for these millions of us that a second rate could be the best too with the skills and degrees earned from the university of life. That hope was shattered yesterday, when he failed himself when it mattered most and his team as a whole looked like, well, us playing cricket in the waste dumps and parking lots with not even the slightest hope of making it to even a Panchayat team. It was not at all about losing, it was everything about the way of losing- without a fight.

No bro, we are not disappointed with you or your team, only we realize we are not yet men who carve out their place in the world and we still have miles to go and the energy for that journey should come within ourselves. Never mind our new 10,000 rupee smart phone overheated and used up half of its active life watching you and your team for the inspiration to lift up ourselves from our own littleness in this wonderful world of achievers celebrated by their creators.

Best wishes mate, don’t lose it for yourself, we are still standing!

Amy Wilson Carmichael

Amy Wilson Carmichael was a.....

Fleabag

Stand up comedies. They have a life of their own, unbelievable platform for the talent show of the comedian, alone he/she makes the audience laugh. 

Among stand ups, Phoebe Waller Bridge has rattled our bones lately with her 'Fleabag'. She turned her one act into a successful tv serial too and won BAFTA for two seasons. Needless to say, she is one of those art academy graduates as many of our artists of today are.

She portrayed an angry, pervy, broken woman. Comedy and drama were the genre. Some of the episodes were very funny, as you know they speak of the unspeakable in public.

Her series made us think of another endearing serial, 'Miranda', only Phoebe's was 'dirty'. 

What is encouraging is not the ideal women but the stories of the broken women are winning awards too, everyone has a part in the TV world. 

Duolingo and India

 

India is the second largest source of students for International higher education institutions in English speaking countries. A preliminary requirement for getting admission to these institutions is to qualify an English Aptitude Test. We know Duolingo as a popular language learning app which is free. Now, they are providing online Duolingo’s language (aptitude) Test (DET) like IELTS, PTE etc. which is accepted by over 4000 international institutions.

The pandemic disruption gave their online testing a big boost in India and in 2022 they had 50 -100% growth across the Indian sub-continent in the number of test takers from India so much so that a third of their English Test Takers are coming from India. Naturally, the company has set its sight in increasing their business in India and they have made a detail study as to how to go about tapping the Indian students market.

According to Jennifer Dewar, the senior director, strategic Engagement for DET, the middle class which is at present 35% of the Indian population is about 480 million people and it is growing. The students with international higher education aspirations are from the middle class and Duolingo wants to reach them in the urban and rural centres of India. At present the ten largest cities of India account for 76% of their test takers. Last year they had students from 1200 Indian cities take their online test. Yet, according to the Secure English Language Test Centre study India has only 73 centres, one English language testing centre for 6.6 million Indians which would be apparently in a city and the students from semi urban and rural areas would have to travel long distance to take these tests. Here lies the advantage of Online Tests. A remedy for unwillingness to travel long distance for the test and importantly, affordability. DET costs less while compared to similar tests.

The Indian overseas education market is expected to be at $100 billion by 2025. Nearly 2 million Indians are dreaming to study abroad where the quality of education and standard of living are better, has access to international job  opportunities and a better remuneration. Their first preference is English speaking countries hence the demand. The realization of their dreams are dependent on visa requirement, immigration laws of the country they wish to go to and most importantly availability of finance.

Apart from the higher studies aspiration, Duolingo is one good way to learn languages, at 280 day streak learning Russian for free with their app, I am happy so many students from different sections of our society have access to learning resources. Hopefully, they will find someone to help them.

The final of TATA WPL 2023

 

Finally, the day was at hand, the final between two consistent teams from among the 5 that competed in the first ever WPL of India. Unlike the expectation, Meg Lanning lead Delhi Capitals fell cheaply after they won the toss and elected to bat at the Brabourne stadium, Mumbai.

At the end of the 16^th over they were at a miserable 79/9 when the pacer Shikha Pandey and the spinner Radha Yadav came together with lion hearts and scored 52 Runs from 24 balls giving some respectability to the score in the final of the second best team of the tournament.

Mumbai Indians stuck to their strength with tremendous support from its fans who were cheering from the full stadium of their home ground and cruised forward with their Captain Harmanpreet Kaur playing a Captains innings after they had lost both their openers early. Natalie Sciver-Brunt remained not out at 60 (55b) along with Amelia Kerr who knocked in a very useful 14 Runs (8b) when the game went to the last over with DC fighting ball by ball to defend their little.  

In the end we were happy that the game lasted that long but the audience left the stadium in flocks soon after the game the victory lap and presentation ceremony were witnessed more by the TV audience than the real ones.

The Lion Heart Radha Yadav took the medal for the maximum and Natalie Sciver-Brunt once again became the Player of the Match for her winning contribution to her team.

Hayley Matthews from West Indies with her 271 Runs and 16 wickets (also the purple hat holder for the highest number of wickets) became the Most Valuable Player and the Player of the Tournament.

Picture Source: wplt20.com