Entertainment
Theatre feels like home: Actor Neena Gupta
By Preetha Nair
New Delhi: Actor Neena Gupta is back on stage after a decade-long hiatus with the play ‘Mera Woh Matlab Nahi Tha’. After receiving rave reviews in the US and Mumbai, the play is to be staged in the capital on Saturday and Sunday.
Speaking to IANS, Gupta said that she felt at home with theatre though she has been away for a long time. “‘Mera Woh Matlab Nahi Tha’ is a sort of my coming back to the theatre. I feel very much at home. It doesn’t feel like I was away from the scene for a long time. Director Rakesh Bedi got everything right,” said the actor.
Directed by Rakesh Bedi, the play is about two ex-lovers, Preetam Kumar Chopra (Anupam Kher) and Hema Roy (Neena Gupta) meeting after 35 long years, to discover the truth behind their separation.
“What is interesting about the play is that the director hasn’t made it very melancholic as the lovers are meeting after 35 years. It’s a pleasant play. There is laughter, agony, happiness, it’s a mix of all sort of emotions,” said Gupta, adding that many would vouched that they have experienced such twists in life. “A lot of people had told me that they could identify with the play as they have experienced it at some point in their life. Talking about me, I never had a chance like that,” she chuckled.
Delhi is more special to Gupta, who is an alumni of National School of Drama (NSD). “We are staging the play for the first time in Delhi and as an NSD alumni, the performance is going to be very special for me,” she said.
Elaborating about the play, the actor said that the Delhi audience could connect with the play more as its set in Lodhi Gardens, where the lead characters Preetam and Hema share their feelings. “The protagonists meet in Lodhi Gardens. They grew up together in the surroundings and the bye-lanes of Chandni Chowk. So, the Delhi audience will enjoy it more,” she quipped.
Talking about her co-actor Anupam Kher, she felt that he brings an element of discipline and commitment to the stage. “We have a perfect equation. Kher is a very disciplined and a committed actor on the stage,” she said adding that she was humbled by the response of the US audience. “We toured the US for more than a month with the play and the response was amazing. Every show was a packed house,” said Gupta.
The actor is also excited about her soon-to-be released movie ‘The Threshold’ where she plays the lead role. “The movie has already opened in the MAMI Mumbai festival and has gone to Goa International Film Festival,” she said.
However, what keeps her busy at the moment is her daughter Masaba’s marriage next week. “My daughter is getting married next week. That’s what keeps me busy at the moment,” Gupta signed off.
International online casino Casino Days has published a report sharing their internal data on what types and brands of devices are used to play on the platform by users from the South Asian region.
Such aggregate data analyses allow the operator to optimise their website for the brands and models of devices people are actually using.
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Desktops and Tablets Lose the Battle vs Mobile
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Xiaomi and Vivo Outperform Samsung, Apple Way Down in Rankings
Chinese brands Xiaomi and Vivo were used by 21.9% and 20.79% of Casino Days players from South Asia respectively, and together with the positioned in third place with a 18.1% share South Korean brand Samsung dominate the market among real money gamers in the region.
Cupertino, California-based Apple is way down in seventh with a user share of just 2.29%, overshadowed by Chinese brands Realme (11.43%), OPPO (11.23%), and OnePlus (4.07%).
Huawei is at the very bottom of the chart with a tiny share just below the single percent mark, trailing behind mobile devices by Motorola, Google, and Infinix.
The data on actual phone usage provided by Casino Days, even though limited to the gaming parts of the population of South Asia, paints a different picture from global statistics on smartphone shipments by vendors.
Apple and Samsung have been sharing the worldwide lead for over a decade, while current regional leader Xiaomi secured their third position globally just a couple of years ago.
Striking Android Dominance among South Asian Real Money Gaming Communities
The shifted market share patterns of the world’s top smartphone brands in South Asia observed by the Casino Days research paper reveal a striking dominance of Android devices at the expense of iOS-powered phones.
On the global level, Android enjoys a comfortable lead with a sizable 68.79% share which grows to nearly 79% when we look at the whole continent of Asia. The data on South Asian real money gaming communities suggests that Android’s dominance grows even higher and is north of the 90% mark.
Among the major factors behind these figures, the authors of the study point to the relative affordability of and greater availability of Android devices in the region, especially when manufactured locally in countries like India and Vietnam.
“And, with influencers and tech reviews putting emphasis on Android devices, the choice of mobile phone brand and OS becomes easy; Android has a much wider range of products and caters to the Asian online casino market in ways that Apple can’t due to technical limitations,” the researchers add.
The far better integration achieved by Google Pay compared to its counterpart Apple Pay has also played a crucial role in shaping the existing smartphone market trends.
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