January 2024 recommendations

 

I decided to list down the things i liked and would like to recommend to others. It may be podcast, youtube videos, Movies , Songs and writeups. 

Movies : 

I had some good free time this month due to holidays and less work. I liked Salaar,Irugupatru, Hi Nanna, Mission Impossible Dead reckoning,  How is it for a Monday(Telugu- English) , Awe (Telugu). 

In Salaar, Prabhas got one of the best role for him which utilizes his cutout (i like how he is named that too in that movie for a while :P ) and the Kateramma fight was brilliantly executed , the high of Shreya Reddy shouting on top of her lungs screaming "Salaar Devaratha Raisaar" are some peak points, for me and Prashant Neel is probably the best SSR school topper now in India .

Irugupatru deals with married couples , so may be not everyones cup of tea but i liked how simplistic the topic was dealt. Hi Nanna, kudos to Nani for doing it and director Shoryuv for ensuring an emotional movie had enough high points to be hooked to . I watched Mission Impossible so that its checked off my the list and it was fun and as expected. 

One movie which i liked how a acquintance of mine , Sripal Sama executed and made such a wonderful film called " How is it for a Monday" , intertwining Telugu customs , Telugu NRIs and a very very good message . I even tried to nod like Kaushik ghantasala in that "Nenu Nasagaadina " scene quite a few times. 

Awe was another movie wanted to watch since long time and i now understand why it was so highly critically rated . Brilliantly made right from start to end with enough cues to keep hooked and some loose ends too. 

Music :

I am now hooked to Guntur Kaaram (Dum Masala, Mawa enthaina) and Hi Nanna albums . 

Podcast: 

Iam now commuting to office more due to new rules and have more time to finish pending podcast episodes. 

My favorite Telugu podcast "harivillu" by Nag Vasireddy where he is back with a review of 2023 movies with guest Yaswant Aluru. I am mind blown by the analysis and thoughts of Yaswanth and out of those 23 movies discussed, i had similar thoughts about 20 movies. 

I am a fan of Amit Varma podcast and i finished the KP Krishnan's one (probably the longest one i heard till now ) which is just great for anyone to understand the inner workings of a govt servant. Another one of India's pension crisis where as usual Ajay Shah keeps you hooked on to the subject. Another one with Pritika Hingaroni on citi planning . Lately, i think iam getting more interesting in cities planning and public safety. 

I heard couple of episodes from Ideas of India by Sruthi Rajagopalan , the year 2023 in review, Rahul sagar on hidden 19th century India  ( where he discusses some interesting things about how Indian monarchs did public policy in British Raj and lot more on Madhav Rao, the Diwan of Travancore ) and listened to a bit of Alain Bertaud episode too where he discusses some interesting points of city planning) . 

As usual , i finished Decoding Democracy episodes as soon as they are out. This is a treasure for every folk out there interested to public policy. Available on Spotify and Amazon too .

And finished all pending episodes of Morgan Housel podcast. I do think i am reading the book at free of cost.

I noticed that my org has now tied up with linkedin learning and also has some good book summaries available. 

On Youtube, i started watching Eco India series by scroll Link  . I do think we are getting over scared on Climate Crisis and doing so less on mitigation front. And Along with Waning Antibiotic resistance and Plastics, Climate Crisis will change lives so soon that when it hits the fan, we will be in a pandemic . 

I was so much fascinated by credit card and became a junkie recently that i started exploring credit cards for no particular reason, more on that later. 

Paytm payments bank going down has impacted me a lot and currently in mitigation efforts. 

I ordered a new fastag from ICICI and it arrived . 

I changed my UPI credit card linkage to Phonepe ( It already gave me decent cashback for this linkage than paytm ever gave me ). 

I am in process of changing my mutual fund auto pay mandates to my ICICI account . 

I am now looking for a digital account and if you have any suggestions, please do let me know. As of now, i am looking at Kotak 811(suggested by a friend) and Jupiter app ( Federal bank- i liked the jupiter app and their philosophy)  

The Tech Magics

 Recently i came across the Paytm audio announcement box where it announces to the merchant that a payment has been received. This is so indigenous solution to avoid fraud , give a confirmation without much effort to the merchant and is a brand advertisement every time it speaks. And i marvelled at the people at Paytm for thinking such an awesome solution.

I was thinking what all other similar things i loved seeing in the tech world where it solved a problem with an awesome thinking.

My first on the list is Chromecast . I was blown away when i heard of it and experienced it in person. It was a simple thought that you can just use a small hardware piece and stream almost anything to the TV and make any TV connect to Internet. 

Next is the PayTm QR code payment and also its Audio announcement box. You can transfer the money by just scanning an QR code. It has decreased the transaction time , no touch and made it cool.

Next is the Airtel WiFi calling , this solves a bigger problem of cellular network availability using the Internet at home and is probably the biggest factor for me to continue with Airtel . 

Next is the UPI transfer mechanism ; This is mindblown . It is easier to remember an emailid than a number which is unique and be used for transferring the money. And that thought to implement the communication feature which revolutionized the world has been brought to be used for financial transactions. 

Next is the OneNote software from Microsoft. The most underrated and awesome software Microsoft has produced after Microsoft Excel. You dont need to save anything and it does tons of Auto formatting.

Next are the voice assistant devices, I know lot of work has to be done for these to work but whatever the progress done till now has been remarkable. 

What are your favorites ?

I got some answers that Google Docs . True. It has truly revolutionized the way we could collaborate.