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Tuesday, April 16, 2019

Browsers, Netflix, books


Google’s Big Brother-type surveillance of all my activities on the Net has begun to bother me seriously. I don’t know how aware my readers are about what they do, but believe me, ‘intrusive’ does not begin to describe it. And even if they are doing it for a very innocuous purpose, like profiling me so they can send me ‘tailor-made’ ads only, I don’t like it at all: it seems I can’t call my life my own any more, they don’t want anything called privacy to be left in this world.

Others – many others, including a lot of canny as well as savvy people – are beginning to be equally worried. And they have begun to take remedial steps, and advising us about it. I have started listening to them.

For starters, I am using the Mozilla Firefox browser along with the Duckduckgo search engine on my computer now, and the latter browser on my mobile phone for choice. These promise a higher order of privacy, at least, if not something perfect. I haven’t uninstalled the Chrome browser yet, but I might, and soon. 

If you subscribe to Netflix, I would urge you strongly to watch the new documentary series Our Planet, with voiceover by the redoubtable David Attenborough. Even oldtimers, who like me hugely enjoyed his old BBC presentation The Living Planet should love it, for the truly spectacular visuals if nothing else. And I was glad to hear the few words of commendation that India received for her efforts at wildlife conservation in Season One, Episode Five.

Summer has set in in right earnest. Can’t complain: it was balmy right till the beginning of April, thanks to a spate of nor’westers. Today is the second day of the Bengali New Year, and my swimming session began today. Thank God for swimming pools and airconditioners! The older I grow, the more I hate the heat. If I were lucky, I would be able to spend the whole summer in the hills…

New academic session, too, and I have my hands full, as usual. Not far to go before I am sixty, and I can finally, officially declare that I am a senior citizen and ready to go into semi-retirement! More and more old boys are accosting me on the street, asking with great concern ‘What is going to happen to my kid?’

The general elections are round the corner, but there seems to be a strange apathy in the air this time: only the media are crying themselves hoarse over what the public has apparently decided to be a non-issue. I wonder why.

My old boy Sayan Bhattacharya has just published a new book, Ancient Cities of India. You can locate it here. I wish him luck with his readership.

I am amused to see that the old post on Rani Rashmoni has climbed back into the most-read posts list, after briefly vanishing. Who knows what brings so many readers (back?) to it!

5 comments:

Sayan Bhattacharya said...

Dear Suvro'da,

At the outset a big bunch of thanks to you for the mention of my book on your blog. It means a lot to me when you read and review my work and so does this mention. You were one of its first readers when the stories of Ancient Cities of India were being published on my blog as posts, and I am grateful for the feedback that you had shared. I hope that your students, ex-students and readers of your blog take interest in reading the book as well.

My current piece of writing, the series 'My Land Across the Border' is being published in daily episodes on my blog this month, and I am happy to see that my blog features in your list of 'Blogs I read'. I will look forward to your feedback on this series as well, when I sit down to work on the manuscript once the blog-series is over.

Thank you once again Suvro'da, best wishes and regards as always...

Sayan

Tanmoy said...

Dear Suvroda

Good luck to Sayan. I will try and grab a copy when I am in India next. Hopefully, it will also be available in the Auckland library - I may send a recommendation. It is indeed a great achievement to write and publish - a lot us dream of doing that and I am glad Sayan has succeeded.

I hardly get time to watch television but recently our internet service provider have given us free acess to Netflix. I may try and watch the series you mentioned.

Hope you are well. We are setting ourselves up for the winter.

Regards
Tanmoy

Tanmoy said...

Dear Suvroda

My second comment. I feel glad that I had some contribution in you writing the post on Rani Rashmoni. I may have read it so many times.

Regards
Tanmoy

Suvro Chatterjee said...

Thank you, Tanmoy. I am sure Sayan will be heartened if he reads your comment. And as for that post on Rani Rashmoni, it's you who deserves thanks. But I do keep wondering what keeps drawing people to it, so many years after it was written.

Suvroda

Sayan Bhattacharya said...

Dear Suvro'da,

I came back to check my emails and blog post comments after completing a marathon spate of writing in the Blogchatter A2Z and found your note.

To Tanmoy - Thank you very much for your kind words of appreciation and encouragement and I hope that you get to read the book soon. It is available on most global Amazon portals and also in Kindle eBook format, so you may wish to check it out. Also, my blog is listed under Suvro da's blog reading list, so request you to take a look.

Suvro'da,
Thank you once again, and I shall write separately to you on email on a few things which I have to update you.

Best regards,

Sayan