Magnet Voice | News Opinion Analysis And Fresh Updates Everyday: December 2016

Friday 30 December 2016

5 Fun- facts About The New Year!

New Year is just a day away! As the clock shall strike 12 tomorrow midnight, people will be seen celebrating with food, wine and even kisses amidst joyous company.

But how well- informed are you about the holiday itself?

Well, if you're in for a binge read to know more about that event called New Year, here are 5 fun facts about the special holiday:

1. The first New Year’s celebration dates back to about 4,000 years from now. Julius Caesar, the emperor of Rome, was the first to declare Jan. 1 a national holiday, naming the month after Janus, the Roman god of doors and gates. Janus had two faces, one looking forward and one looking back. Caesar felt that a month named after this god would be fitting.

2. Make sure you consume leafy greens on New Year's. According to tradition, the more leafy greens a person eats, the more prosperity he or she will experience in the coming year. Tradition also says that legumes bring prosperity because beans and peas look like coins. Maybe that's why so many people eat black eyed peas on Jan. 1.

3. Like Christmas and Santa, New Year's also has an associate in the form of Baby New Year, who is often seen in a diaper, black top hat, and a sash showing the numbers of the new year. According to myth, he matures into an old man during the course of the year.

4. On New Year's Eve, make sure you're around family or loved ones as it is believed that the first person you come across in the new year could set the tone for the next 12 months. Also, if a couple celebrating New Year's together does not kiss as the new year begins, the future of the relationship is believed to end with a break- up. So make sure you plant one on your significant other.

5. Gift your loved one a ring on New Year. In many cultures it is believed that anything given or taken on New Year, in the shape of a ring is good luck, as it symbolises "coming full circle."

Thursday 29 December 2016

TO HINDUSTAN TIMES: I Refuse to "Be Chetan Bhagat"

This is going to be blunt.

It might even hurt you.

But I am going to put my question anyway.

However, before that, I'll give you a context:

Last night I came across this e- paper article penned by a certain Suveen Sinha, the content of which has something to do with how readers of romantic fiction subconsciously envision the writer as the narrative's protagonist. Well, it might hold true for the audience you meant to target, the likes of which are obsessed with reading romance that occurs on social media or college campuses, or in a typical Bollywood- ish manner. But not for me, a person for whom romantic fiction has always meant Pride and Prejudice, Wuthering Heights, The Time Traveller's Wife, or The Great Gatsby among scores of other volumes that give readers the freedom of envisioning characters and scenarios that goes way beyond picturing an IIT- or IIM- graduate, or a business analyst posing before the camera; or for that sake, the "Punjabi hunk"- like appearance you made sound so mandatory.

Anyway, I kept reading on, ignoring the subtle fallacy of sentences like these:

"Their positioning, ever so subtle, is that they express the reader’s emotions in the reader’s language."

I carried on, until I came across this blasphemy you so nonchalantly seemed to have fed into your computer screen.

"HOW TO MAKE YOUR OWN BESTSELLER"

The short answer is, be Chetan Bhagat.

And this is where my question comes in: Why?

Have the minds of our promisingly intellectual generation become so punitive that their hopes of penning down a profound narrative telling the frolics of a romance free of cliches shall be dictated by someone who has given literature nothing but sheer mediocrity?

Pray, tell me why you didn't bother to elucidate the fact that why a promising penman will fail to hit your ever- rocketing sales unless he transforms from a masterful story- teller into a blunt "writer" whose tales and narratives are fit solely for that massive host of young lads and ladies who are in desperate need of a caption to accompany their social media photographs.

You will need to listen to the likes of me, good sires, for you can not afford to answer potential talents by quoting something so blasphemous to the idea of good literature, something which at this hour our country is in dire need of.

And owing to these arguments, I refuse to be Mr. Bhagat, who, of course is as honourable a gentleman as a certain Brutus was to Mark Antony as the latter mourned the Caesar's demise. I, for one, have mourned the assassination of Indian literature for long, stabbed more than twenty- three times by hands that garner undeserved praise while greater story- tellers, playwrights, novelists and poets are shunned into obscurity.

As for those who choose to walk on unbeaten path, I clamour to you to deny being a mere writer like the very honourable Mr. Bhagat, or other honourable men like Mr. Durjoy Dutta and Mr. Ravinder Singh. I urge you to follow something I once read somewhere, which I herein rephrase for you:

"Stop being just a writer. Be like the playwright. He isn't spelled p-l-a-y-w-r-i-t-e, and there's a reason behind it. The playwright goes with the likes of the cartwright, he who makes carts; the shipwright, he who builds ships. So, go on and be like the playwright. Make some stories. Build some tales."

Wednesday 28 December 2016

Miracles of Kindness: How a Charity Worker Rescued a Starving Nigerian Boy

When charity worker Anja Ringgren stumbled upon Hope on the streets of Nigeria in January 2015, the two- year- old seemed barely alive. Naked, abandoned, and starving, he could hardly keep his frail figure upright.

Something human in Anja compelled her to approach the miserable heap of flesh and bones and offer the little boy some water to drink. A little more of her kindness saw her taking the starving child to a hospital, where she learned the sad history of the abandoned two- year- old: believed to be a witch, the boy had been forsaken by his family- a practice not so unusual to many people in Nigeria.

Our little fellow, however, was lucky enough to meet Anja, unlike many other children in Nigeria who are deserted by their families under the blight of superstition. And with Anja, the little boy, who was just days away from death found a new haven, and (not to forget) a new name: Hope.

And since love and kindness are believed to have worked miracles even when the world is at its darkest, eight weeks from being adopted by Anja, little Hope looked nothing like a dying skeletal figure on Nigerian streets. Have a look for yourself:

Image via LittleThings

Beautiful, isn't he? Well, all thanks to Anja and her husband, Hope found a new life in this world. Moreover, following the miraculous blossoming of Hope, Anja and her husband decided to look for more such children who are abandoned to slowly fade away without an yidentity, or food or water in merciless conditions where only a few pay heed.

PHOTOBLOG: Another Day, Another Series of Beautiful Photographs

"You don't take a photograph, you make it." These were the words of American photographer and environmentalist Ansel Adams, and photographers from all around the world have only added to the deeper meaning of the phrase.

This second photo- blog of the week features the works of another lesser known photographer, who befriended a DSLR some three years ago and aspires to take his photography to a whole new level in the years to come.

1. Pensive

2. Powerful portraiture

3. Young. Wild. Free.

4. "Perched up here, I see you well."

5. A visual travelogue of a falling drop

6. Caught buzzing around in mid- air

7. Macro- liciously elegant

8. Silhouettes of senility

9. A chirpy portrait

The photographer is a Mass Communication student in Delhi, hailing from the town of Nawanshahr, Punjab. He indulges in photography as a small- scale business through freelancing, weddings

and YouTube- ing.

All images are subjected to copyright under

Aashish K. Verma Photography curated and managed by

Aashish Kumar Verma.

Tuesday 27 December 2016

HARAAMKHOR TRAILER RELEASED AFTER MUCH TRIALS AND TRIBULATIONS

After breaking free of the ban implemented on it by the Censor Board, Shlok Sharma's directorial venture Haraamkhor teased the audience with its first official trailer released online earlier today.

The 2 minutes long trailer features an illicit relationship between a village school teacher (played by Nawazuddin Siddiqui) and one of his female students played by Shweta Tripathi.

PHOTOBLOG: Some Vividly Captured Photographs Through the Lens of a Lesser Known Photographer

American photographer Eliot Porter once said, "The more you photograph, the more you realize what can and what can't be photographed. You just have to keep doing it."

There are many who stand true to Mr. Porter's words through their passion in the art of photography. Many have turned out to be renowned through the moments they have captured, while others carry on relentlessly in going about clicking their shutters artistically.

I know of some. Luckily. And I can't help but share some beautiful photographs one of them has managed to capture through the lens of his camera.

1. A tempting romance of the mountains and the sky....
Location: Shimla

2. A toy train in Shimla clicked from a passenger's perspective.

3. A little inhabitant of the Yamuna.

4. Rooftop playfulness

5. A supermoon peeps through the clouds against a November night sky

6. An epicentre of peace

7. Green haven

8. Unperturbed vigilance.

The photographer is a Mass Communication student in Delhi, hailing from the town of Wasseypur. He carries his passion for photography as a small- scale business and through a regularly updated Facebook page.

All images are subjected to copyright under

Jamuar Photography curated and managed by

Anubhav Jamuar.

Monday 26 December 2016

QUENTIN TARANTINO CONFIRMS RETIREMENT PLANS AFTER 10 FEATURE FILMS

The man who gave us the likes of Pulp Fiction, Django Unchained, Inglourious Bastards and Kill Bill besides some other cinematic masterpieces had many a time in the past declared calling it quits on his film-making career after making 10 films. With his last year's work The Hateful Eight being his eighth film, we were left to wonder if we would be privileged with just two more films from the genius that is Quentin Tarantino.

Although the declarations for retirement have been questionable at times, it looks like the film maker will actually turn out as a man of his words regarding the same.

Addressing a gathering at the Adobe Max Creativity Conference in San Diego, the director confirmed rumours of him stopping at 10 features, saying:

"Drop the mic. Boom. Tell everybody, 'Match that shit.' "

Further on, the 53 year old director revealed that for now he is focused on a historical non- fiction project before he gets to work on his full- length scripted film which, according to him could potentially be a "Bonnie and Clyde-esque" tale set in 1930s Australia. However, Tarantino did not seem quite sure about what this project might turn into. "It could be a book, a documentary, a five-part podcast," he said.

Moreover, on being asked about how he would personally define success, Tarantino quoted,

"Hopefully, the way I define success when I finish my career is that I'm considered one of the greatest filmmakers that ever lived. And going further, a great artist, not just filmmaker."

Anyways, this genius of a man, who at times has embraced controversies during his lifetime, has given much to the world cinema, and we all hope that when the time of his calling it quits finally arrives, we'll be left with a couple more of his artistic masterpieces that will continue to enthral many generations to come.

Friday 23 December 2016

Celebrities Heave Glowing Appraisals on Dangal via Tweets

Are you planning to watch the much- anticipated Aamir Khan starrer Dangal sometime soon? Well, although the trailers and the promos have done their job of getting your attention glued and making you wait eagerly for the film's release, these tweets from prominent celebrities will just add up to the excitement you have been brewing inside yourself to go and watch the hugely anticipated movie.

The film itself is an inspirational tale, a fictionalised account based on the lives of amateur wrestlers- Mahavir Singh Phogat and his daughters, Geeta and Babita Phogat. The film narrates how Mahavir, an ambitious father, after failing in the fulfilment of his own dream of winning a gold medal in wrestling for India, aspires to achieve the same through his progeny.

The actors, including Aamir Khan (who plays Mahavir Phogat), Fatima Sana Shaikh (who plays Geeta Phogat) and Sanya Malhotra (who bagged the role of Babita Phogat), underwent some rigorous transformation and training for the making of the film. And the effort clearly shows in both the powerful impersonation of the characters as well as the early reception of the film.

Anyways, here are the tweets: