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)  

My best uses for Alexa

 

I had bought the first generation of Amazon Alexa from US in 2015. I was very excited with it and wanted to explore it more and even code some skills for it. That coding part didnt go as per plan . However, Alexa has been part of the daily life since then . I wanted to list down some cool uses i use Alexa for. 

1. I added my home and Office location and used it ask Alexa how is the traffic every day just before starting from home to office. It would give the time taken and route which helped me guess the traffic without looking at maps. 

2. I had a routine setup ( Series of commands grouped ) to list down the weather, top news on that day when i got up and taking care of morning activities. 

3. I have a 3 year toddler now and i have a lullaby playlist which i play it in loop while he sleeps and there are some outside noises. 

4. In extension to above, we use the skill " Animal sounds" where i play with my kid listening to various animal sounds . 

5. Ofcourse, listening to music from Amazon music with voice commands is the best use in addition to setting up Alarms and Timers. 

6. My best and fun usecase is playing with Smart bulb . I have a wipro smart bulb setup and we play it almost every day with commands , changing colours , brightness and on/off.

Best credit card in India for daily use (IMO)

 There are multiple credit cards out there in market and most of them provide benefits which are not for common man utility . If you are looking for best one for airline miles or best for providing lounge access , this is not for you; Please excuse. This is not a promotion or paid post but an effort to provide better information to viewers.

The recommendation is based on daily usage of a middle class family using supermarkets, e-commerce , fuel usage ,bill payments ,annual fee and customer service. 

The first one is the new American Express SmartEarn™ Credit Card , which has some exciting bonus for utilizing multiple times  in a month, very good reward plans with multiple e-commerce platforms offering rewards at 5x for every 50 Rs spent and 10x on Flipkart and Uber . No fuel charge with Hpcl outlets and a waiver of annual charge on 40k spend in an year. Not to mention American Express has an impeccable customer service team and awesome dispute resolution mechanism. (The author doesnt own it yet).

The Second one is the ICICI AmazonPay Visa credit card which the author holds and is a recommendation if you use Amazon atleast decently enough. It provides 5% cashback on non-emi Amazon spend for Prime members , 2% of Amazon pay usage for bill payments or checkouts on any available app, 1% for all other non-fuel spends . The best part is there is no annual charge and rewards get added to your Amazon account every month and no other redemption process is required. I cant recommend this enough.

If you have a good recommendation, please share it in comments .

My Favorite Alexa Skill for a 2 year toddler

 I have a 2 year toddler and 5 year old Echo . (Bad pun, :P ) 

One of my favorite pastime to engage my toddler since almost an year is to start the skill called "Animal Sound" on my echo. 

Link : https://www.amazon.com/Hugo-Animal-Sounds/dp/B0765D7LGZ/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=animal+sound+by+hugo+fm&qid=1598875864&s=digital-skills&sr=1-1

It gives sounds of animals in a clear plain way and cant recommend it enough. Try it once.