11 everyday ironies

1. The costlier the product , the lousier is its service.
2. The louder  the promise, the lower is the probability of keeping it.
3. The more things change, the more they remain the same.
4. The bigger the ad-size, the lower is the sales.
5. The more one gets, the less one gives.
6. Lower the knowledge,  bigger is the lack of judgment. 
7. Higher the education qualifications, the lower is the ability to take risks.
8. Higher the inflation,  the lower is the growth of income.
9. More the aspirations for peace,  larger are the conflicts & wars.
10. Higher the money supply, larger is the inequality of income.
11. Higher the sophistication of automation, the  dumber is the society.

10 reasons why ISL scores over IPL in Indian sports

A panoramic view of the Salt Lake stadium, Kolkata; one of the 8 venues for ISL

Indian Soccer League , ISL (abbreviation of India Super League) has just  commenced with much fanfare ,excitement and addition of  more-than-incremental doses of commercialization , professionalism and quality to the decades-old Indian national soccer league that had been long characterized by slow, mediocre games with very localized fan following. 
Eightteams are in fray in ISL with each team playing the other twice (home & away) in a group-format until four qualify for the knock-out stage in another 8 weeks. Eight key top world-cuppers & European League players who have quit the game a year or two back have been roped in as marquee players for the ISL teams along with existing players from the lower division leagues across the world. The format allows fielding maximum of 6 foreign players . Since majority of the players are from the European leagues (unlike the flood of second-grade Nigerians that dominated  Indian soccer for 2 decades); the game also has  acquired the pace & tactical flair of the latter.
A fortnight into the league, the games in ISL  have already picked up a new breed of fan following across the eight places in Kolkata, Delhi, Chennai, Pune , Kerala, Mumbai, North-east &  Goa. Interestingly these fans were so long monopolized by  IPL, the premier T20 cricket league & its association of film stars and entertainment. For sure ISL will have to compete with IPL for the sporting bucks of the fans and here are ten reasons  why ISL should have the advantage over IPL when the fans make a decision to open their purses.

Chotushkone (The Fourth Angle): Review of a film by Srijit Mukherjee

Srijit Mukherjee  , the ace film director from Bengal, not only ensures that he gives his benevolent producers box-office hits after hits but this time in Chotushkone  , he puts forth the tribulations & pains of producers in the Bengali film industry.  However boring that concept may otherwise be for the audience, it is entirely Srijit’s mastery of  craftsmanship that transforms an unappealing concept into a thriller of a movie.  However one still doesn’t feel emotionally beside the producer; even notwithstanding Trina’s (played brilliantly by Aparna Sen) tearful breakdown in the end.
Chotushkone is about the fourth angle , literally, although the excellent narrative sketches out not an angle but a  hidden perspective that unfolds dramatically,  after the triangle has been etched out to perfection , and finally goes on to engulf it.  Since Chotushkone is a thriller till the last of its 157 minutes it’d not be proper to go into the storyline except to say that powerful performances from stellar actors , whose real lives have been blurred with reel lives, make it  literally a thrilling experience to sit through.

Parody of Seventeens

Seventeens come and go
one after another
till there is one to show
and no sight of dear mother!
Three have been left behind
right in the beginning;
you'd know, that life has been kind
and what exactly I'm saying.