Ten things that came to my mind after reading Half Girlfriend

Chetan Bhagat is one of the prominent writer in this "Bollywood" dominated subcontinent and his novels are best sellers of all the time (Not all of his books are best sellers as the nonfiction "What Young India wants" was hardly noticed). The novelist does it again: the love, relationship, tragedy, misunderstood formula sales like a hot cake with the recent novel "Half Girlfriend". 

Here are the things (more than 10) that came to me after reading the novel. "
Spoiler Warning: Please be warned that reading this may reveal some important plot.

1. The Engineer cum writer (who left his banking career for the full time writing) must have had some serious love relationships in his time, to pen the nitty-gritty of the affair. Either he knows the crux, or he must have done serious drill with the love sides.

2. The negative reaction of the people for the same old formula, no better characterization, no proper reasoning, questions his ability to bring different. But I don't think it will abate the sales of the book. I even felt enthralled to read it and get finished in  two sittings.

3. Another bolly flick will definitely be coming with the novel, which I won't be watching as I don't want to kill my imagination with the sharply twisted script and the long uninvited songs.

4. When you think of Bihari, two persons come to my mind, Lalu Prasad Yadav and Nitish Kumar. Lalu Prasad Yadav is the popular Bihari politician whose English caricature made big funny jokes and makes an impression of the English in Bihar. Madhav Jha, the protagonists is self aware of his poor English as being a Bihari and feels too much afraid to do a speech in English. During learning English, his thought makes a big point: "Not knowing English or speaking funny English is not a crime". He even thinks that if the India had ruled the world, then these Goras would have needed to learn Hindi and it would be exactly strenuous to them. But nowadays even Chinese are speaking  English and they feel it necessary to interact and do business globally. So learning/speaking good English is always better for a person.

5. Nitish Kumar was ruling Bihar as CM in the same era when the novel takes place but it does not mention the various developmental activities there. Is he politically biased, or is reluctant not to get some image for latter entry into politics.

6. Bihari Loktantra/Ganatantra is what our oppositions party mention of the political achievement in our country Nepal. Did Bihari mean the worse according to them... for which I did not get such feeling from the novel. Though  at times, Madhav mentions Bihar state to be backward as compared to other states. 

7. With the book, I came to know that Bihar did not have 3G in 2009, as Madhav and Riya go to cyber cafe for browsing internet whereas he was happy to have 3G for the repeated Navigation in New York city.

8. Bihar, Delhi, New York are the three cities where the novel happens. He misses the comparison between the three cities and a different analogy. Is it there or am i dumb to not get it, which could have been better. Blistering cold of New York is mentioned whereas there is no word in Bihar and Delhi (as Delhi to me is heavily hot, and so is Bihar I suppose).

9. The "I" character changes time and again in the novel between author and the protagonist, that made me confused sometime but realized later. 

10. Madhav made a mistake for making his Bihar proud when he said "Deti he to de, varna kat le" to Riya. The sentence made the novel happen otherwise that half breakup would not have occurred and  there is no reason to extend the story.

11. Guys are pushy to get what they like/love, Girls don't like pushy and don't care unless it helps to fulfill her dreams. Selfie-sh on both sides. 

12. The movie (that has the author as a character) if made, will definitely put the author in the list of actors, that's why he has already started acting with the appearance at the next Comedy Nights with Kapil  (CNWK) show. :D. Now I wonder if they can persuade the world's richest man Bill Gates to do cameo in the movie.

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NTV news channel to be aired from tomorrow

17th OCT, 2014: Nepal Television, NTV (the government run TV) is launching a new television channel from tomorrow (October 18, 2014). In the current herd of TV channels in Nepal, NTV is coming with a sole news channel. There are almost 20 television channels currently running in Nepal, among which only NTV, NTV plus and Kantipur TV are the terrestrial broadcasters. NTV reigned the television arena for almost 16 years until the big print house Kantipur Publications started Kantipur TV from 2003. It was before Kantipur that the popular cable television "Space Time Network" started Channel Nepal Television but discontinued after some time, so technically Channel Nepal is the first private television channel, also the first satellite TV here. Previously majority of the channels used to be entertainment plus the news, but these days there are separate channels for entertainment or news or just for movie (TV filmy).

The third television channel from Government after NTV, NTV plus is known to be named as NTV news and it will go on air from 5:45 am to 11: 30 am in its first phase and the duration will be gradually increased later. I presume that the new channel be a terrestrial TV that could be received with a just a dipole antenna but it is not clear. The independence and partiality of the television channel also seems questionable as the channel being a government owned, but I hope the channel is not brought to make an inflated praise of the ruling class, in this changed context when the awareness/intellect in people is very high.

Nepal Television ( established 30th January 1985 as a project and within the year it was transformed to a corporation) began its regular transmission from 29th December, 1985 with the slogan "Communication for development". NTV launched its second TV channel NTV plus (previously called NTV 2 Metro) on 27 September, 2003.

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Google releases Nexus 6 phone and Nexus 9 tab with Android L.

October 15, 2014: In the fierce race of smartphone and tablets, Google releases two new devices in Nexus series to rival the existing players like Samsung, Apple and Xiaomi. Like before Google collaborates with other vendors to make these devices. Motorola made Nexus 6 is a 6 inch aluminium Phablet with Quad HD screen (493 ppi), 2.7 GHz Snapdragon 805 processor, 13/2 MP Rear/Front camera and 3220 mAh battery. The 3 GB RAM phone is known to support DC HSDPA, LTE Cat 4 FDD and has two front facing speakers. According to most of the websites, the phone looks similar to MOTO X and has no SD card support either. 32 GB and 64 GB memory variants will be available where the first one costs $650 (without any contract).

HTC made Nexus 9 is a 8.9 inch tablet with QVGA screen (2048 X 1536) screen, 2.3 GHz Nvidias Tegra K1 processor, 2 GB RAM and whopping 6700 mAh Battery. Among the three colors ( black, white and sand), all except the sand color LTE variant will be available to buy this November. This tablet with soft grip and moderate weight, will compete well with iPad Air (though some new device is launching tomorrow), Samsung S Tab, and Microsoft Surface. Magnetic keyboard can be added with the tablet to do some office work. The first 64 bit device from Google also supports HTC's own boom sound speaker technology. The price of the 16 GB device is $400 whereas 32 GB variant costs $480 and the 32 GB LTE variant will cost $600. 

Both of the new devices runs the latest OS: Android 5.0 L (L for Lollipop), also being the first ones to get the new and pure OS. The colorful new OS dubbed as Material Design is known to have new lock screen, new notification bar, new multitasking menu, new ways to access Voice assistant, higher battery efficiency and 64 bit support. The interesting one among others is the kill switch feature that can kill your stolen phone and make useless, the first OS to have this and others will definitely follow suit. As the Android 5.0 Lollipop was already speculated to be the biggest Android release after long, the features says it has live up to the rumors but I could only tell when I get the OS in hand, probably with a new device. Meanwhile I have not even managed to get Android 4.4 Kitkat for my phone though my tablet: Mipad comes with it but I am still waiting the official MIUI 6 for Mipad. If you compare Xiaomi Mipad with HTC Nexus 9 by specs, both lacks the 3G network which is not a big deal if you have WiFi around for most of the time. But 7.9 inch screen of mipad (over 8.9 inch of nexus 9) is perfect for reading with lighter weight to lift for long and the best part of Xiaomi devices being the tempting price of $ 250. Oh I love my Mipad so much.

It seems Google has brought these new devices to compete well with the flagships of biggest players, but the price seems to be more as compared to other vendors as it comes without any new features/innovations. More review when the unboxing unfolds.

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Shoyambhu Temple to get peak tramp.

Shoyambhu Nath Temple is one of the most visited and oldest religious site in Kathmandu, the capital city a.k.a the City of temples. Situated in the western part of the Kathmandu, on the top of a hill, it is also the most divine temple in Buddhist religion. Shoyambhu consists of Stupa, monastery, even museum and library, along with spectacular view of the city. The two eyes in the shoyambhu Nath, facing KTM valley, are known to represent "pragya" (Knowledge and wisdom), and 'karuna' (kindness) whereas there is also a popular belief in people that these eyes shall give equal justice to all.

Till now it has two ways to go up the hill, one from eastern side with 365 steps and another one from western side with mix of road and stairs. Now it is known that there will be one more way to reach the hill without loosing much calories. According to President of Buddha Bhumi Nepal Bekha Ratna Shakya (who is also former mayor to Kathmandu Valley), they have planned to build a tramp or cable car from the eastern side towards the top, which will make the temple tour quite easy, possibly a couple minutes to reach the top. The 65 crore (65 million) NRs project has already completed the survey phase and is waiting for appropriate fund and time to start the construction work.

In a function organized to mark the NRN day at the temple itself, Mr. Bekha showed the plan to the President of Non Residence Nepali, Mr. Shesh Ghale and asked to help later in case the fund falls short. He even mentioned the tramp to resemble the one in Hongkong, where it is used to go up the Victoria peak in couple of minutes. The peak tramp is one of the tourist attractions for sightseeing in Hongkong. Mr. Bekha expressed the tramp or cable car will ease the visit for the old and disabled people at first place. Secondly it will be another tourist attraction to help bolster tourism. There are several such areas where we need to invest to make our sightseeing places easily accessible (or I would say universally accessible). I wish the project not to die due to unavailability of fund or other circumstances.

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"Shree Panch Ambare" to release this Mangsir.

The movie banner that gave us Antaral - a wonderful cinema that got wide recognition but failed business wise, and denounced to make a movie again, has completed another movie entitled "Shre panch Ambare". Now that the post production is complete, JibanSathi films is all set to promote the movie in every possible ways and has announced the release date to be Mangsir 5. The comedy movie is based on the story of a person that wants to be "King" in the society, which is played by Saugat Malla. Other actors in the movie include Keki Adhikari, Priyanka Karki, Bikram Singh, Yama Buddha, Martin Khan, Raj Godailee etc.

Abhimanyu Nirabi has written the movie who is also the writer of Antaral. Likewise Deepa Basnet is the director of the movie. I have this intuition that this movie will be a promising one (i can tell before watching any trailer) from the story to the actor to the director. Apart from the story, actors and the presentation, the movie pixel quality seems to have improved a lot these days due to use of advanced tools and camera. I expect good viewing experience with this movie due to the use of Red camera. 

Here is the first poster released for the movie.

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