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Showing posts from November, 2009

Farmville: A Speculative Appreciation (?)

Farmville – A Speculative Appreciation (?) Kartik KJ 22 Million! That’s the number of people, according to the creators of the game, that log in at least once a day to check their farms and/or harvest it. No other game in the history of online gaming, has seen such adulation, admiration, and may I say, addiction. The thought behind this blog originated from two things – one, the incessant friends’ updates on FB which are all about Farmville, and the ensuing curiousity that lead me to reading an article online about Farmville that asked this question - Has Farmville got anything to do with user’s inclination towards pastoral lives and is it serving “this” intrinsic need in the virtual world? It has been ages since I saw most of my online friends so engaged in a game! What is it that pulls people towards Farmville? Why is it adding one millions new users per week? What makes people share passwords with friends while travelling just so that their virtual crop is harv

Have we no sense of humour?

Kartik KJ When one of my friends posted on facebook that he really misses Sarabhai vs Sarabhai and Khichadi, I couldn’t agree more. So this is in wonderment if (and why) comedy fails to find prime-time viewership in India. Have we no talent to write humour? Worse, have we no sense of humour? Yes there have been the occasional comedy series – Dekh Bhai Dekh, Zabaan Sambhalke, Khichadi, Sarabhai vs Sarabhai. But they have been few and far between. And lets be honest, how many of these got ‘prime time’ audience? Even sarabhai vs sarabhai, arguably the best sitcom, won more critical acclaim than TRP per se. What’s with the obsession of seeing depressed women? Our primetime is but a spectacle of the agony of being a woman - the oppressed woman, the sacrificing woman, the ugly woman, the dark complexioned woman, the everliving woman (read Baa). It’s almost like our primetime has been held hostage by the Saas Bahu drama. There’s nothing that makes you sit up and watch. Yes, I know the next