It is a fact every parent would recognize that not even the world’s best story teller can excel the fantastic tales that children so easily create. No fantasy writer can match up with the flights of fancy that comes so naturally to every child. The fancy that very conveniently takes place of the information that their inexperienced brains lack and that the parents are too busy to supply.

It’s so sad that the wings of this delightful fancy get weakened as the knowledge of the world fills the mind and pushes the imagination away. I so wish I still had the delightful and super active imagination that used to be my steady companion when I was a little girl. The imagination that made me see rainbows in a puddle, an old man in the moon and wonderful creatures in the masses of the clouds. They don’t appear to me now, but back at that time, they were all real and existing.

Unfortunately, the super active imagination that stayed with me at all times didn’t always show me things happy and cheerful. It showed me ghosts too! And let me tell you, if I go by the ‘sightings’ that I had when a child, the ghosts at that time were more abundant and of many different varieties than you can even imagine. And each one of them was scarier than the other.

Too bad we didn’t know anything about the festival called Halloween at that time. Otherwise, I tell you, I would never have felt short of getup ideas. What a pity that now, when i know about Halloween, I have lost the remembrances of all those wonderful specters that I used to see as a child.

Of course, I can still celebrate Halloween. I can still dress up as someone dead or deadly and go prancing out in the night. But from where would I get the super fertile imagination and the ready sense of thrill that’s a special property only of childhood? And without these, I can’t see dressing up being even half as much fun.

On the other hand, when I was a child, I could never have imagined ghosts ever being fun! Ghosts, at that time, were only something terrifying that parents didn’t want us to know about. That was why they kept on telling us that ghosts weren’t real. But of course, being a smart kid, I knew better than to believe in everything that the grownups said. If ghosts weren’t real, why would my mother say that it was not a good idea to sleep under a tree at night? She may give whatever reason, but I knew well. It was only because ghosts lived on trees.

That, actually, was not really a good thing to know. Ignorance really is bliss sometimes, you know. But what to do? I was a smart and intelligent kid, and I knew everything.

So, ghosts lived on trees, that I knew for a fact. And we had a backyard where there was a whole clump of banana trees. And banana trees have big and shiny leaves, you know. And when light from a street lamp falls on them, you can sometimes very clearly see a ghost sitting and swinging on those big leaves.

Well, as I told you, I was a smart and intelligent kid, I knew well not to go near the trees or look at them at night. I didn’t want the ghost to catch me looking at it! But then, one night it just happened that my mother left my elder sister and me to our means and went to do some emergency shopping. Father, that day, was out on official tour. So it was just my elder sister and me at home alone. I was five years old at that time, and my sister was two years my senior.

Here is another fact that all parents would recognize. Children, when left to their own devices, always delve into their store of courage and become more daring. And it was the result of just that daring perhaps that my sister and I agreed to play in the backyard.

Okay, so I was smart and intelligent and all that, but my turn at the game we called staapoo somehow never lasted as long as my sister’s. So there I was, sitting on the doorstep and waiting and waiting for my elder sister to get out. And as I waited, I just happened to look towards the banana trees. Maybe, it was the ghost that forced me to do so by its magic. But whatever the reason, I looked at the trees. And there, right before me, I saw it! I saw the ghost! It was bright and shiny and shapeless, but I could see its big teeth. And of course I knew instantly that it was staring at me and would come flying at me any moment.

‘Bhooooooooooooot!’ I shouted immediately. ‘Didi, bhooooooooooooooooot!’

‘Bhooooooooooot!’ my sister shouted, without even bothering to look where I was pointing at. But then, as I said, I was smart and intelligent, and she trusted me. If I said there was a ghost, then there was a ghost, no doubt about it.

In two steps she was back inside the house, and I was right there beside her. And together, with our two heads and four hands, we pressed the door shut against the ghost.

‘You hold it shut, I’ll pull a chair, climb on it and lock it,’ suggested my sister.

‘No! If you let go, the ghost would push at the door and I won’t be able to hold it shut and then the ghost would open the door and enter the house and eat me and then it will eat you too and then when mummy comes, it will eat her too!’ I hissed back.

We couldn’t have risked our mummy getting eaten by the ghost. So we decided to keep holding the door shut and to keep shouting for help.

‘The ghost would eat us, surely,’ I mumbled as I strained all my might against the door,

‘Ghosts don’t eat. They drink blood,’ said my wise and knowledgeable elder sister, in between her cries for help.

‘Why? Blood must taste bad!’ I said.

‘They think it is sweet,’ said my sister.

Well, I have already told you how smart and intelligent I was. The word ‘sweet’ set me thinking instantly. If all the ghost wanted was something sweet to drink, I knew exactly what he should have. And thank God my mom always kept a store of it in the kitchen because we loved it so much.

‘Kissan squash! Let’s give the ghost the orange squash. It is also sweet. If he drinks it, he won’t want to drink our blood,’ I put forth my brilliant idea.

‘I know! We can also put out Kissan tomato sauce! It is a little spicy, but it is red in colour, like the blood!’

I nodded. Our plan was set. But there was still a major problem. Our saviours were in the kitchen, far away from us. Of course, they were our saviours. The Kissan sauce had often saved us from the torture of tasteless food. And the Kissan squash had been a lifesaver in times of killing thirst after a particularly rough round of play. And now, the two were to save us from the ghost! But how to get them?

‘I will have to go. There is no other way. Hold on tight!’ my sister whispered in my ear. Then she ran over to the kitchen. In one minute she was back with the two life saving bottles of orange and red liquids in her hands.

‘But how would we give it to him?’ I asked. I was sure that since my sister had fetched the bottles from the kitchen, she would put the rest of the work on me. ‘I will not take them to him!’ I protested before she even began to forward the suggestion.

‘Don’t be stupid. If we go to give these bottles to the ghost, he will just take us along with them too,’ said my sister.

Well, that made sense. We obviously would have tasted better with the Kissan sauce and the Kissan squash. Anything tastes better with such accompaniments.

‘What should we do then?’ I asked.

‘We’ll just open the door a little. I’ll roll the bottles away towards the ghosts,’ said my sister.

So that’s what we did, or rather, tried to do. I opened the door just so much to let my sister peek out.

But the ghost must have heard us! He must have been lying in wait for us. For as soon as my sister peeked out and tried to roll the two bottles towards the ghost, the banana trees started rustling loudly.

‘The ghost is coming!’ I shouted.

‘Aaaaaaaaaghh!’ shouted my sister.

And instead of rolling the bottles, she threw them away. We heard them crash on the floor. At any other time, we would have been terrified of the result of breaking those bottles. I mean, I had had one such small mishap some days ago, and so I knew well that mother didn’t like it. She didn’t like it at all.

But that didn’t matter now. We all were going to die. The treat for the ghost had fallen down. And now the ghost had nothing else to drink but our blood!

So once again we pushed our might against the door and shouted out for help.

‘Bhoot! Bhoot! Mummy! Bhoot!’ the cries echoed from our house. And they were loud enough to reach mummy when she was still half a block away. Down went her shopping bags and she ran to save her darling daughters.

‘What’s the matter? What happened? Why are you crying?’ she asked, bursting in through the front door.

‘There’s a ghost in the banana tree,’ my sister replied.

‘And it has seen us, and it was showing his big teeth to me, and it wants to eat us all,’ I added, giving the full information.

‘Nonsense, there are no ghosts,’ my mother replied. That, of course, was a lie. If there were no ghosts, why had she come running to save us upon hearing us crying ‘bhoot?’

‘There is a ghost!’ I cried out, feeling insulted at being told a lie even in such a situation.

‘Yes, I saw it too,’ my sister added, even though she hadn’t even dared look.

‘Yes, didi saw it too,’ I turned my sister’s lie into a truth. If my mother could lie, so could my sister. She was, after all, a fellow sufferer. ‘It is big, and ugly, and it has big teeth, and I saw it clearly.’

‘Well, I’ll go and see for myself,’ said my mother.

“Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!’ my sister and I shouted in unison. There was no way we were going to let our mother go out and risk her life.

There really are times when grownups behave in most foolish ways. That was one of those times most surely. And despite our screams, shrieks, screeches and howls, mother pushed us aside and went out. Worse, holding our arms, she dragged us out too. There we were worrying about her life. And there she was, dragging us right into the mouth of a ghost!

‘Where?’ she asked, getting angry without reason. We had a reason to be angry, but we weren’t. We were only pleading to her to be sensible. But she again shouted, ‘Where is that ghost?’

My sister looked at me, and I pointed out the leaf where I had seen the ghost sitting and grinning at me.

‘There’s nothing there,’ my mother said.

‘It was there. It must have become hidden,’ I said.

‘Well then, let’s bring it out,’ said my mother. And then, beyond all sensible reason, she walked up to the tree and starting slapping the leaves!

Well, I was proved right and she was proved wrong! Out flew the black ghost!

‘See? See? There it is!’ I said, pointing to the flying object. Fortunately, I think the ghost didn’t like mummy’s slapping the leaves. So it went away and didn’t bother to even taste us. Which was a good thing, of course.

‘It was only a bat,’ said my mother, lying of course, as I knew very well.

‘No, it was a ghost, and it had big teeth and it even showed its teeth to me,’ I said.

But what to do. Mothers are mothers, and when they decide they don’t want to listen to you, they won’t listen to you no matter how much sense you talk.

So I was made to shut up, my sister was made to shut up. And we did. We stopped crying. And we agreed with her that it was just a bat and that there are no ghosts. Though we knew too well it was a lie. Our own mother was telling us to believe a lie. But then, she could only make us nod our heads to her words. But our beliefs were our own.

We knew we had seen a ghost.

We believed it. It was real to us.

And nothing else mattered.

Written for The Kissan 100% Real Blogger Contest on Indiblogger.com

Thank you, Kissan, for  bringing  real goodness of real fruits and vegetables to add taste to our meals, without compromising on our health.

Images from Webweaver : A huge collection of totally free clipart! No pop ups, trick links or registration required.

Wisdom, To understand a man

Love, To forgive him and

Patience, For his moods

Because, Lord, if I pray for Strength

 I’ll just beat him to death.

 Last year I upgraded from Boyfriend 5.0 to Husband 1.0 and noticed a slowdown in the performance of the flower and jewelry applications that had operated flawlessly under the Boyfriend 5.0 system.

In addition, Husband 1.0 uninstalled many other valuable programs, such as Romance 9.9, and installed undesirable programs such as NFL 7.4, NBA 3.2 and NHL 4.1.

 Conversation 8.0 also no longer runs, and Housecleaning 2.6 simply crashes the system.

 I’ve tried running Nagging 5.3 to fix these problems, but to no avail.

 What can I do?

Signed,

Desperate

‘How did that happen?’ my friend asked.

‘Don’t know. Will have to call someone to re-install it. I’m a writer, I can’t work without Microsoft Word!’ I said.

‘Oh, you can very easily go for other alternatives. Microsoft Word isn’t the only word processor in the world,’ said my friend. ‘Just look at the alternatives available and download the one that you like best.’

‘Okay, I’ll google for it and try and find something that suits me,’ I said.

‘Why waste time googling? Just go to TechCular.com and see what they say. It will save your time and you are sure to find a good answer for your problem there,’ said my friend.

‘TechCular? Strange name,’ I smiled.

‘I think it is nice, maybe it is short of spectacular technology. At least, that’s what I’m always reminded of when I take that name. And that’s perfect, I think, because the website showcases the best and the latest in upcoming technology,’ said my friend.

‘Nice,’ I said. ‘I’ll take a look at it.’

I did take a look at TechCular.com. And believe it or not, I spent two whole hours going through the various articles posted on it.

It was not my fault though. Because every time I reached the end of the article, a small window popped up from the bottom suggesting another article which I somehow always found an absolute must read. TechCular has information and latest news about Iphone, Mac, Android, other cool gadgets, Telecom, Internet, Technology, Computer, Software, Gaming and also hosts fantastic giveaways.

All these various categories are listed clearly on top. That’s nice, I think, and a big time saver too. if someone needs some information about iphone for example, he need not sift through the articles about other categories too. He can go straight to the Iphone category and look for what he needs.

Of course, to make things even quicker, there is Google Custom Search box right at the top right side of the website. And that is what I used to find alternatives for Microsoft Office. Well, I did not just find one alternative, but a whole list of top ten choices!

This is what I like the best about TechCular, the Top-Ten lists. There are lists for top ten most popular software, top ten alternatives for Microsoft Office, Top Ten Android games etc. You can find these lists in the Software category.

I have already downloaded three new games after reading about them on TechCular. And now, I’m going through the list describing the top ten alternatives for Microsoft Office, hoping to find something that would comfortably replace my soon to expire Office trial. You go ahead and take a look too. Who knows, you may find something fun and interesting too.

DIALER

Omnia is, of course, a phone. And the primary feature of a phone is to make calls. In Omnia, the number dialer can be accessed by tapping on the tile bearing your service provider’s name. Tapping on this tile first opens the page listing call history that has all the missed, received and dialed calls. There are four action buttons at the bottom of this page. The first one is for accessing your voice mail, the second is the dialer, the third leads you to People Hub (where all your contacts are) and last opens up Search,

The dialer Settings gives you the option to adjust the visibility of your caller ID. You can choose to make it visible to everyone, to no one or to only your contacts. Other settings include activating call forwarding, and activating International Assist. Turning on this feature helps in automatically correcting some common mistakes while dialing internationally or dialing while abroad. You can also set SIM Pin lock from Settings.

Tapping the missed or received call number leads you to the profile of the contact. From here, you can choose to save, call or send text to that number or check the history of all your communications with that contact. This includes calls, messages and even emails.

People Hub

As I said above, all your contacts get listed in People Hub. You can access it from the button in the Dialer Hub mentioned above. Or you can access it from its dedicated tile on the Start Menu. People Hub has several screens offering your different options. These are:

Screen 1: People

The first screen (seen in the picture above) in People Hub has three components. They are:

             a. Link to Me Hub: on the top of the contact list, I have my profile pic and latest update from Facebook or Twitter. Clicking on my profile pic would takes me to ME HUB where all my communications are centered. (Thus we see how from Dialer Hub we can go to People Hub, and from People Hub to Me Hub and even Picture Hub. Everything is inter-related.)

             b. Groups: Below my Facbook profile pic are listed the groups I have created.

             c. Contacts: Below the groups follow the list of all my contacts, including the ones on social networks. Contact are, of course, listed alphabetically. This list is indexed with coloured squares bearing individual letters. Tapping on any of these coloured squares opens up the whole alphabet grid. Here, you can easily tap any letter and reach the contacts indexed under it. Tapping on a contact’s name loads a screen with all the contact details like contact’s  phone number, email, option to write on contact’s wall and the contact’s birthday. Slide the screen to left and you can check contact’s latest updates on social networking sides. Next slide takes you to contact’s albums on these social network sites (thus taking you to Picture Hub in the phone). Slide even further and you can check the history of all your communications with the contact. All the contact’s calls, texts and emails get listed here in dated format.

Screen 2 OF PEOPLE HUB: What’s New

The second screen in People Hub is titled ‘What’s New’ and it shows you the latest social network updates like Facebook, Twitter, and Linkedin. From here, you can reply, retweet, Comment on or Like any update.

Screen 3 OF PEOPLE HUB : Recent

The third slide or page in People Hub is titled ‘Recent.’ It shows you, in tiled form, the contacts you have communicated with recently. Tapping on any contact’s tile would lead to his or her profile page with all the communication options available and access to their updates, pictures and communication history.

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GROUP HUB

In the previous post, I also mentioned how customized inboxes can be set up on Omnia. You can combine two or more of your accounts and give them custom labels as Personal, Work etc. But even better than that is creating Groups. You can easily join a particular group of your contacts (for example family members) in a group. You can then pin the group to the Start Menu, thereby getting a separate Start Menu Tile for your group. This tile will display the pictures of the group members (extracted from Social Netowrking Sites), their latest status updates, and the count of unread sms, mails or missed calls from the group members.
Thus, a Group you create would keep you updated with the Social Network activities of all members in your group. And you can send sms or chat message to all group members at the same time. Like ather hubs, Group Hub has several screen too.

1. Group Members: When you tap on the Group’s tile and enter the group hub, the first screen shows you tiles of all the contacts added to the group. Here, if any member has sent you an sms, mail or miscalled you, it would be indicated as ‘new item’ on the contact’s tile. From this screen, you can tap on a contact’ tile and reach the contact’s profile. From any contact’s profile page, you call, email, text or even write on their Facebook wall or mention on Twitter. And of course you can see all relevant details like their brithday, address, company address, names of children, significant other etc.

2. Latest Updates by group members: The second screen in a Group Hub shows you the latest Social Network updates from all group members. While the What’s New screen of People Hub gives you social network updates of all contacts, the Group Hub sifts through the bulk and shows you updates of only the group members. This way, you can stay updated about people who matter most to you without wasting time sifting through updates of other casual contacts. You can respond to these updates by just tapping them.

3. Latest Pictures: The third screen in the Group Hub shows you latest pictures posted by the contacts in the group with a ticker of groups pictures running on top. You can click on any picture and reach the contact’s album on Facebook. I found it a very convenient way to stay updated about any new photo posted by a favourite contact. I wish my android phone had this feature too.

The best thing about the Group Hub is that you can check all the communication made by the members of a group in the same place. That is, suppose Contact A sends you an SMS and an email and also mis-calls you, all these would be indicated on the group tile. Tap on the group tile, then tap on the Contact’s tile that shows ‘new items’ and you can check the sms, the email and the missed call all at the same place.

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Messaging Hub

The first thing that you will notice about Message Hub is the cute smiley on the tile. The Smiley winks when you receive a message. The messages appear in threaded view, with a different thread assigned to different contacts. When you tap on the contact’s name on top of the message thread, you are taken to contact’s profile from where you can call, mail or write on contact’s Facebook wall. In the Message Hub, and within a single thread, you can respond to text message, IM  and social messages. Whichever platform you are communicating in, it would be indicated clearly on the upper left side of the message whenever you jump to a different platform. The text input box would always remind you the platform you are using. The messages can be copied and pasted elsewhere.

There’s also the option to send text messages using voice input. All you need to do for that is to press Start, say Text, Contact’s name and the speak the message and send.

 

Pictures Hub

One thing I liked a lot on Omnia was its Picture Hub. Picture Hub is displayed on Start Menu by wider tile that extends all across the screen from left to right. And if you choose some favourite pictures, they would be displayed here on this tile in a ticker form.

What I liked best about the Picture Hub was how easy it was to stay updated about the latest pictures posted on Social Networking sites by favourite contacts. Unlike the Gallery in my Android phone, the Picture Hub on Omnia didn’t just show the pictures in the phone’s memory or the picasa album, it also gives an easy access to the pictures of favourite contacts.

Clicking on the tile labeled Pictures loads up three screens.
                1. The first screen in Picture Hub allows you to choose the category of pictures you want to browse through. The options available are as follows:

                1.a. Camera Roll: shows you pics clicked by phone’s camera. You can view these pictures, share them via email, or on Facebook, add them to favourite list, Auto-Fix them, or set them as wallpaper.

                1.b. Album: If you choose the option titled Album – it further loads up three screens. The first one has your albums on phone, including Camera Roll, followed by photos stored on SkyDrive, followed by your albums from Facebook. The next screen shows you pictures as per the date they were added to your phone. The next slide shows your Favourite pics. And the fourth slide is labeled People and it of course shows you albums of your contacts. here you can choose which contact’s photos you want to see and stay updated with. You can also long tap on any of these pictures and set it as Lockscreen wallpaper without even downloading the picture.

                1.c. Date: This is the same Photos displays as per date of addition list that can also be accessed from Album as mentioned above.

                1.d. People: Same as People list that can be accessed from Albums as mentioned above.

2. The second screen in Picture Hub loads up your Favourite list showing the pics u have selected as favourite. These pictures would appear in ticker form on the tile dedicated to picture Hub on Start Menu.

3. The third screen in Picture Hub shows  recently posted photos of your contacts on social networking sites (if you remember, you can also view these from People Hub, along with other updates by the contacts), mainly Facebook. Tapping on any of these pictures would lead you to the contact’s album or wall on Facebook. Long tapping on these pictures gives you the option to set them as Lockscreen background.

The background of the Picture Hub can be customized in two ways. You can either set a single photo as the wallpaper of the Picture Hub, or you can also choose to shuffle several photos in the background.

The Picture Hub also has Video Player integrated in it. So any video you add your your contacts add on Facebook can be played right inside the Picture Hub.

ME HUB :

The tile titled Me and bearing your facebook profile pic is one stop to stay connected on all the social networks you use. As other hubs, Me Hub also has several screens. Let’s see them one by one:

1. Profile: The first screen in this hub is titled Profile and shows you your Facebook profile picture on top, along with your latest status update. You can change your profile pic or visit your Facebook profile from here. You can also post a message to all your social networks from here at the same time. And you can also set your Chat Status from here.

2. Notifications: Second screen in Me Hub provides you with Notifications of your social networks. By tapping on any notification you can Like or Comment on your friend’s update or if it is a notification of a photo, you can Save to Phone, Use as Wallpaper or Add or View Tags of the phote.

3. What’s New: The third screen in the ME HUB is titled What’s New and shows you the your latest updates on social networks. A tap on any of the update gives u the option to comment, like or save photos, tag photo or if a link is given, access it directly on Internet Explorer.

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Music + Video Hub

Music + Video Hub is what you have to access to listen to music, podcasts, radio or to watch videos. It also gives you convenient link to Marketplace from where you can download media. The Music + Video Hub is represented on Start Menu by a tile bearing the Zune logo. The music + video hub has following three screens:

You can sync all your music, videos etc to your PC using the Zune software. However, Omnia does not allows file transfer using Bluetooth. Another thing that you may mind the lack of is Equalizer. And you can’t scrub through a song with your finger either.

Office Hub:

Omnia comes pre-loaded with Microsoft Office Mobile. Using it, you can view, edit, and share Office files anywhere, anytime. When you add your Windows Live ID to the phone, the Office Hub gets automatically synced with your SkyDrive. Thus, any file or document that you have stored on SkyDrive can be easily accessed, viewed or edited on Omnia. Not only that, you can even pin any document int the SkyDrive to the Start Menu for easy access.

1. Onenote: Microsoft Office Mobile includes Onenote which offers a very convenient way to jot down quick notes and bulleted and tick mark lists. The notes can also be added using voice input and can include any picture from the phone’s albums. Best of all, any of these notes can be pinned to the Start Menu for easy access. Moreover, all notes remain synced with SkyDrive. This means that they can be accessed and edited even from your computer. OneNote Mobile also syncs with shared notebooks on Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010.

2. Documents: The second screen in Office Hub displays all your documents (Word, PowerPoint, Excel), including the ones stored on SkyDrive.

3. Locations: The third screen in Office Hub lets you choose the location you want to access. The options available are:

                a. Phone – to access your documents stored in phone’s memory.

                b. SharePoint – to access your SharePoint account for documents you have there.

                c. SkyDrive – to access your documents stored on SkyDrive. You can quickly search through the document using the Search feature.

                d. Office 365 – to access Office 365. Setting up Office 365 account enables you to access your Office documents, email calendar and contacts

However, beside the Hubs, Omnia has several other features too that deserve mentioning. Let’s take a brief look at them too:

1: Camera and Photo Editing: Omnia has a 5 MP, 2592 x 1044 pixel primary camera with LED flash and autofocus. The camera settings give you the option to adjust the AF Balance, White Balance, Contrast, Saturation, Sharpness etc. You can also apply Mono, Negative, or Sepia effects to the pictures you click. Many more special effects can be found in the Photo Studio and FunShot that come pre-loaded on Omnia. Omnia also has Geo-tagging, Image stabilisation and face recognition and tagging features.

As a video recorder, Omnia is capable of shooting 720p @ 30 frames per second.

Omnia also has a secondary camera to enable video chat.

The images and videos shot by the 5 MP camera are nice and clear. The colours come out looking natural too. But honestly, after experiencing the 8 MP camera shots of Samsung Galaxy Note, the pictures and videos shot on Omnia failed to give me any WOW feeling.

4. Omnia has Gmail, but not Gtalk which is another thing that I love on my Android phone. However, an app can be downloaded from the Market to connect to the Google Talk.

7. Last, but not the least, Omnia does not have flash support.

Conclusion:

(Inspired by my experience when I tried downloading free songs from internet)

As if the world already wasn’t too divided between various groups and classes. Here comes yet another category to divide us further. So far, there was division between rich and poor, black and white, man and woman, Hindus, Muslims, Christians, and so on. But hold on, here come the Iphonists, the Androidians, and the Blackberry worshippers to divide the world still further. There are other creeds competing in the race too, those that favour Symbian or Windows platforms in their mobiles. But these are just a minority as yet.

I consider myself a firm loyalist of Android too. I love the freedom that Android brings to mobile devices. However, recently, I had the opportunity to review a Windows phone. And my, Windows is not bad at all!

At first, I found the phone, Samsung Omnia, too simple to be much interesting. I even wondered if it had anything at all worth writing about!. But I must admit, as I explored it further, I found in it a lot to admire and like. Some features are so good that I really wish my Android phone had it too! As a result, while first I feared I would have nothing to write about it, I now have so much to describe that one blog post simply won’t be enough.

But anyway, let’s take a look at the phone now.

LOOKS AND SPECS

With black back panel, black Super AMOLED screen and just one physical button in front, Samsung Omnia has the three S factors that I like in a phone’s appearance. It looks Sleek, Stylish and Sophisticated. In size, it measures 115.9 x 58.8 x 10.9 mm and weighs – 115g.

Samsung Omnia W 18350 or Samsung GT 18350 runs on Windows 7.5. Mango which adds several very interesting and convenient features to the phone. The phone is powered by 1500mAh battery, has 8 GB internal storage, 512 MB RAM and runs on 1.4 Single Core Processor. (For more specification, visit http://www.samsung.com/in/omniaw/specs.html)

Honestly, the memory and processing power of Omnia did not sound much impressive to me after using Samsung Galaxy Note. But when I started using Omnia, no where did I find it lagging or being slow. Whatever feature I tried, I found Omnia to be totally smooth and swift in its functioning.

DISPLAY

Omnia has 3.7 inches Super AMOLED display with 16M colors at 480 x 800 pixels (252 ppi pixel density) screen resolution. The display is bright, crisp and classy, and the screen is very sensitive, smooth and responsive. For example, when I access Facebook on my Android phone or tab, I often have difficulty in choosing Like or Comment buttons under the posts. But using these features on Omnia was a breeze.

I especially liked the various transition effects that the phone displays. The Lockscreen bounces if you raise it less than halfway across the screen. The menus and hubs open up with smooth slide, flip, and swirl effects. Even the effects that appear while deleting or sending mails are delightful.

The display consists of several tiles or Hubs that lead you on to further menus. The best thing I liked about these menus was how ingeniously they were integrated with various services. Going through these menus or Hubs felt like going through a house where every room is connected with the other. For example, you can access Facebook from People Hub, Me Hub, Dialer and even Picture Hub.

But about that later. Let us first concentrate on the Display.

You can divide the display in three parts, the Lockscreen, the Start Menu, and the Sub Menus.

The Lockscreen

Lifting up the Lockscreen to unlock the phone

 When I look at the Lockscreen of my Android phone, it shows me the time, day,date and missed call or unread message indication over my homscreen wallpaper. Omnia’s lockscreen shows all this (in bold and prominent letters) and also the day’s events in the calendar . The phone unlocks by sliding the screen upwards. If you leave the screen by just raising it a little, it slides down with a very cool bouncing effect.

The Start Menu

The Start Menu consists of several tiles. Tapping on these tiles opens up the Hubs or the menus like the People Hub, the Me Hub etc. You can delete, edit and re-arrange your tiles as per your wish. The best thing about the Start Menu is the information it delivers at just one glance. The Email and Gmail tiles indicate the number of unread mails over them. The cute Message tile with animated Smiley over it shows the count of unread messages. And if you add a tile for a group of your favourite contacts, their latest update on Facebook, Twitter would appear on the Group’s tile. The People tile even displays pictures of your contacts who have recently been active on Facebook, Twitter etc.

The Sub Menus:- The sub menus are what open up when you tap on a Hub tile. They contain all the options and services that the Hubs offer. They appear as white text on black background and have no customization option as far as appearance goes. However, you will find the text bold, crisp and clear. No complaint there.

CUSTOMIZATION

A Windows phone does not offer the freedom of customization as much as an Android phone does. But then, the more customization options you have, the more time you waste perfecting the look of your phone. Choosing the perfect wallpaper becomes imperative, placing the apps and widgets in just the right way becomes an addiction, and adding custom launchers and custom icons and fonts becomes almost a duty. The dressing up of an Android device never ends and a lot of time gets wasted in the process.

On Omnia, you have no scope of such extensive customization. Omnia has been designed to help you get things done quickly so you can be free to live your life. But there’s still some fair amount of quick customization that you can do on this phone.

Customizing Lockscreen:

The Lockscreen can be set with the wallpapers that come pre-loaded on Omnia, plain bold colours or choose any picture on phone. You can also set a picture from Facebook albums of yourself, or even of someone else. And for that, you don’t even have to download the picture. Just access the picture, long tap on it and choose the option to set it as wallpaper. But coolest of all, you can even choose to display the artist and the album cover of the music being played on the phone! This feature can be turned on from ‘lock + wallpaper’ in setting. From here, you can also set password for your lockscreen.

Colour Themes, and Dragging a Tile to a different position

‘Where am I?’ I mumbled, rubbing my eyes and looking around. Strange green people were hovering all around me. They had stubby arms and legs and two antennae on their smooth bald heads. I felt as if I had seen them somewhere but somehow couldn’t recall exactly where.

‘Where the hell am I?’ I asked with more urgency in my voice this time.

‘You are not in hell, Jyoti. You are in heaven. You are in the heavenly Android Universe,’ a voice said. The words were spoken by a good looking green person standing right next to me. He was dressed in sable clothes and was smiling pleasantly at me.

‘Android Universe! But how? And who are you? How do you know my name?’ I asked.

‘Don’t you recognize me? Maybe because I look a little different here,’ he said, smiling again and stepping closer to me.

‘Who are you?’ I asked again.

‘Why? I’m your friend. You never leave me alone, so how could I have left you alone when you came here,’ he said.

‘That’s a good Android talking. What’s your name, my friend?’ a voice rose up from the babble of other Androids that still stood crowding around me. I turned to look at the speaker and my jaw fell almost all the way down to the green ground. He was dazzling, if nothing else.

‘I’m S.G. 3,’ said the Android who had just assured me that he was my friend. ‘And you are?’ he asked, most respectfully. It was easy to see that he knew he was talking to a superior.

‘Well then, we are from the same clan,’ the dazzling newcomer said smiling. ‘I’m S.G. Note. Nice to meet you,’ he said, shaking hands with G3. I, meanwhile, had done nothing but stare at Mr. Note. And my jaw was still almost touching the ground. With great pleasure I saw him turning towards me. ‘Nice to meet you too, Jyoti,’ he said. I grinned mutely, almost splitting my face from ear to ear with that smile.

‘Oh, very nice meeting you, Mr. Note, very nice meeting you,’ I replied when I had finally succeeded in recovering my voice. My voice had returned, by my eyes still stayed glued to his bright and captivating face. I had, by then, realized that all those green people were Androids. I had seen their pictures many times. But I had never seen any Android as handsome as Mr. Note was. And he was bigger than the others too, easily towering head and shoulders above all the rest.

‘Call me Note, I’m your friend too,’ he replied. ‘Come on, let’s go,’ he added. 

‘Where?’ I asked.

‘Well, I had some free time, so I thought I might take you for a tour of the Android Universe. Don’t you want to take a look around?’

I would have gone all over the Universe twice over with him even if I had seen it before a hundred times. So I jumped up instantly and was ready.

We started our jaunt around the land. Note guided me around the place. He walked lightly and smoothly, almost as if he was floating in air, instead of walking.

‘So, Note, what do you do?’ I asked.

‘Oh, a lot many things. Mainly, I’m a communication expert. In my spare time, I also work as a photographer. See, here’s my camera. It takes excellent shots. Come on, give me a nice pose and I’ll show you,’ he proposed.

I don’t much like posing for camera, but then, this was for Note. So I obliged. Several pictures were taken. And well, I don’t know whether it was the effect of the camera lens or the company of Note, but I felt I never looked better than I did in those pictures.

‘I also make movies, show movies to people, sing and such things,’ he said, when we had wrapped up the photo shoot.

‘Oh, you are Mr. Multitalented,’ I said, smiling at him.

‘Yes, you can say that,’ he replied, smiling. ‘I also draw and paint, by the way. I have this specially designed pen called S Pen with which I can write, draw and paint whatever I want,’ he said.

‘Yes, it is an excellent pen, I have heard about it,’ a voice from behind us said.

I turned and realized for the first time that G3 had been walking with us all the time too.

‘Oh, you are still here?’ I asked a little too rudely, I fear.

‘Yes,’ G3 replied.

I shrugged my shoulders and turned my back to him. Nothing interested me now other than my new companion.

‘This place is so confusing. One might easily get lost here!’ I said to Note, just to make some conversation.

‘Don’t worry, when I’m with you, you’d never get lost. I can help you find your way through any place. So just enjoy your walk. Feel free!’ he replied.

I nodded and lowered my head in an attempt to hide my yet another face-splitting grin. Note must have noticed my smile though for he asked the next instant, ‘What happened? You seem to be amused about something.’

‘Nothing much,’ I said.

‘Come on, it’s always good to share amusing stuff with friends.’

‘Actually, I was thinking something like that, sharing with friends, I mean. I was wishing my friends could see me walking with you…I mean,’ I flustered feeling embarrassed at what I had blurted out. ‘I mean, walking with an Android in Android Universe,’ I quickly added, carefully editing out the words like ‘coolest’ and ‘best looking’ from the sentence.

‘Oh, you want to share your experience here with your friends? No problem. I’ll just click a picture or make a video of you. Then, using my S Pen, you can scribble on them whatever message you want to scribble, and I’ll send your message to all your friends in a second,’ said Note.

‘I can help you share messages too,’ G3 said from behind me.

‘But not as quickly, I’m sure. And you can’t click such awesome pictures and shoot such lovely videos too,’ I shot back without turning.

G3 gave no reply and stayed silent while I and Note enjoyed ourselves shooting some more pictures and making videos. I clicked several pictures of Note too and then he helped me share all those on Facebook.

‘That was fun!’ I said, staring with admiration at his face.

‘I’m glad you think so. But now, you’ll have to excuse me. I have to go away,’ said Note.

‘What? Why? Don’t go!’ I said.

‘I have to. I would gladly stay with you for longer if I could, but my boss won’t like it if I am late in reporting at office.  So I’ll take your leave now,’ he said. And then, before I could utter even a word, he was gone. It was as if he had just vanished away, as if…he had never been there.

‘Now what am I going to do? I don’t know this place? Where do I turn from here? Who will help me now?’ I cried out with shock.

‘Your old friend is here still, with you, as before. But maybe now you would not like having a lowly Android like me as your friend,’ G3 said in a little voice. His face was turned away from me even as he spoke. I could see he was hurt.

A pang of guilt rose up in my heart. I had so mistreated my loyal companion of such a long time. He had always proved himself to be true to me. And here I was, ignoring him because my eyes had become dazzled by a stranger. A stranger who didn’t care for me and who had gone away from me in a second.

Past floated past my eyes. The moment when I had first seen G3 rose up. I knew I had felt as besotted by him as I had felt after seeing Note. And I had almost worried myself sick fearing he would never be mine. But he had accepted my friendship readily, and had always been there with me ever since. He may not be as strong or quick as Note, but he was mine! He was not some stranger meeting on a road and then separating. I knew he would stay with me as long as I want him to. I was so lucky to have a companion like him.

‘Oh, G3, thank God you are here still. Or I would have become lost in this strange place,’ I said, quickly stepping closer to him.

‘Lost? Never,’ he said, ‘not when I’m here to guide you,’ he added with a gentle smile. ‘Come, time to go back home.’

‘Yes, let’s go, but what’s that noise?’

‘That, my dear,’ said G3, ‘is your morning alarm. I hope you won’t put it up on snooze once again. The last snooze brought you here. Who knows where your next snooze would take you!’

This post is inspired by my my experience of reviewing Samsung Galaxy Note as a Samsung Mobiler

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How far can a person go to fulfill the dream’s of someone else?

Read Dream’s Sake to find out. Click on the picture for reviews and free preview of the novel

‘The life of a woman is such that even when the God of Death arrives to take her away, she would say “Wait a while, I have to cook dinner for kids.”‘

That’s one of the most favourite saying of my mother. I guess, not without a reason.

There definitely never is a dearth of things to be done at home. Something always needs to be cleaned, mended, attended to, cooked or cut and so on. My mother did all the cooking, and cutting and mending and cleaning when she was young and pretty and energetic. And she is still doing all this when age has stamped its footprint on her face and laid its weight down on her tired joints. Time goes on, but there never seems to be any free time for her, never a day when there’s nothing to be done, or taken care of.

Sometimes, when I look at my mother, it is hard to believe that she too was once a pampered child of her parents. She too looked towards her mother to fetch even a glass of water for her. It is hard to imagine her as being anyone else but my mother. But she was once a little girl who lived in a refugee camp in Purana Quila in Delhi because her parents had left their home in what was now Pakistan. She was once a child who threw tantrums at not getting the food of her choice. Then a young teenager who participated three times in the Republic Day Parade in Delhi, a girl who was the sports captain of her school at a time when many girls were not even allowed to play anything that could be called sports. She was a young woman who fought with her whole family to gain permission to pursue a graduation course. And when that was denied her, she studied secretly, aided just by the support of a cousin brother. A young woman who got punished by her father for studying, and yet went on to acquire a Government job. And then, a young mother who left this government job, her pride, just because her ailing daughter needed her more.

And from that moment on, she confined herself into being just a mother.

I have always known all this, but I never thought much about it till a contest on Indiblogger asked me a question. What would I do if I get two extra hours? Well, I would most probably waste both of them on Facebook. But being sponsored by Surf Excel Matic that saves ladies’ time by giving their clothes a quick and efficient cleaning, I believe this question was more relevant for my mother.

So I put forth the question to her. ‘Ma, what will you do if you got two extra hours in a day? I asked her.

She looked at me for some time. I could see she was confused. ‘What do you want me to do?’ she replied.

Now, it was my turn to stare back at her. But then, that’s what mothers are like, I guess. Even when told to do something for themselves, they would still think of what their kids would like or want to be done.

‘No, nothing, I meant what would YOU like to do if you get two hours of free time? Absolutely free, no home chores, nothing for us either,’ I tried again.

She twitched her lips, shrugged her shoulders in still greater confusion.

‘Read a novel maybe? You used to like reading novels,’ I asked.

‘Maybe,’ she said, in a tone that indicated that she probably won’t.

‘Make a wall-hanging? You used to make lovely craft items when we were young,’ I tried again.

‘We don’t need any wall-hanging now,’ she said, looking at the walls around her that were already too full of pictures of her kids and had no spare space now for her handiwork.

‘But isn’t there anything that you enjoyed and would like to enjoy again if you get free time?’ I asked.

I had started feeling guilty now. It was as if we kids, and our thousand and one demands, had robbed our mother of all her interests and hobbies and little joys that she used to enjoy earlier.

‘But how would I get two hours of extra time?’ she asked.

‘Umm…’ now it was my turn to get confused. I could not have proposed that I would cook or clean because I knew very well that if I tried either, I would only end up creating more mess for her to attend to. Then I remembered the reason behind my questions and replied, ‘Surf Excel Matic can free up some of your time. It removes even hard stains while the clothes are being washed in the washing machine. So you don’t have to spend extra time rubbing them. It’s the new and smarter way to wash clothes, and it will save you plenty of time by removing the stains from the clothes quickly,’ I rattled off the information I had read.

‘Okay, I’ll try it,’ she said.

‘But what would you do if you get the free time? You haven’t answered that yet.’

She shrugged her shoulders again.

‘Come one, there must be SOMEthing you want to do if you get some spare time,’ I insisted.

‘Maybe I’d learn computer and internet too. Maybe I’ll try that facebook of yours, and blogging, maybe…’ she started, pretending to be in earnest. But I could see the smile in her eyes, though her brows frowned.

That’s my mother. She knows too well how best to silence me. Computer and internet is my territory, after all. And mother on facebook! I was left speechless for full two minutes.

‘Hmm, well, but she doesn’t have the time for all this,’ I finally recalled, much to my relief.

‘Okay, I’ll teach you,’ the happy recollection prompted me to reply. Of course, I knew full well I would never be required to prove true to my words. But the guilt in my heart was still pricking me a little. I seriously wanted my mother to do something just for herself. Just to enjoy herself, for a change.

Well, when it comes to thinking of fun and enjoyment, my vision usually halts at the nearest gadget it sees. And this time, the gadget happened to be Samsung Galaxy Note.

‘You can access internet on this phone too, see, I’ll show you,’ I said most dutifully.

‘What’s that?’ my mother asked, pointing at an icon on the phone’s screen.

‘That’s a game. I’ll show you how it is played,’ I said.

Well, I showed, and she tried, and the phone stayed in her hand for a whole hour.

‘Mom, it’s dinner time,’ I reminded her.

‘Wait, let me just finish this round. I want to see if I can score 10000 points,’ she shot back, without lifting her eyes from the phone’s screen.

That was yesterday – the day I realized that making of chapattis is really an art that is not quite as easy to master as a new gadget.

And I realized that I was not to blame for being so crazy after gadgets. As I saw my mother expertly guide her car on the phone’s screen, I knew then that the love of gadgets was in my genes, for sure.

My mother may have left the interests of her younger self far behind. But she could still discover new ones. She may never have had time to indulge in the world of computer and internet, but the way she has taken over my smartphone shows me she could give me a real competition if I just show her the entry.

Maybe I would. Maybe, if she does manage to get two extra hours in a day, I would show her the pleasures of the online world. Then who knows, when next time there is a contest on Indiblogger, I would find a post in it written by my mother!

I hope I would. Maybe then I would really find out what she really likes, feels and thinks when she is not being just a mother, and when she finally has time for herself.  Maybe those two extra hours would help her re-discover herself, rediscover the individual in her that she has merged so inseparably into her identity as a mother and a housewife.

And oh, yesterday, she did reach the score of ten thousand. She may have left the sports captain years of her life far behind. But I think, she can still become the gaming captain of our home. If she only gets the free time, that is.

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The post has been written for Surf Excel Matic – Get Smart Contest on Indiblogger. 

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How far can a person go to fulfill the dream’s of someone else?

Read Dream’s Sake to find out. Click on the picture for reviews and free preview of the novel