book review part -2 : God is a Gamer

God is a Gamer no one denies that. No one knows what will be his next move. This is what Ravi Subramanian tried to put and he did pretty well. While reading God is a Gamer you will be never able to guess what is going to happen next. That makes God is a Gamer fun and exciting to read.
If you have read my previous review you may have noticed that I am not a fan of fiction but this fiction has lot of real facts that feel like you are part of the story.

For me this is not a fiction, it is a book that introduces various new and important terms in the fields of computer, internet, banking, social networking, gaming, drugs etc.

While reading the book, I used to often forget that whether I am reading a fiction or it happened or it is happening, there is always thin line differentiating between fiction and reality. This books takes away your breath in the ending sequence. You will be hardly able to guess who did what. This is beauty in the writing.

I would like to recommend this book to everyone whether he is fond of fiction or not. Everybody can get some great findings in it.

Let me introduce each new terminology you can get from God is a Gamer
Bitcoins: I am also a big fan of the concept of the Bitcoins. In India there are few people who know Bitcoins . I am following Bitcoins since its early days. Why didn't I blog about it I don't know. May be I am also afraid of its volatility. Earlier the value of Bitcoins are 50-60$ per Bitcoin and now it is close to 1000$per Bitcoin. I also remember remember the time when it dropped to around 800$ when some countries starting to ban Bitcoins. But regardless of all the idea is pretty cool and world is still searching for Santoshi NaKaMoto

Tor: I used to about Tor since my college days but never used for anything. Using Tor can be helpful if you know that the site you are going to visit is not trusted. It keeps you safe from revealing your personal data. I would also like to introduce duckduckgo.com for those also wants not to be tracked on Internet.

Dark Internet : if you don't surf Internet a lot you are not likely to know Dark Internet as well. In Dark Internet there is a whole new different world. And I would like to suggest to my reader that stay away from this dark matter. For consequences do the book itself.

Magic mushrooms : Do Google or read the book.

Hemlock : Do Google or better read the book.
This is the which made me a fan of fiction. The twists in the plot can make you say wow. How different stories inside this book binds make the reading fun.
The aspects of day to day life described in the book make it total real and details with aspects make you see like movie when you read this.
I was able to extract following extracts from the book.

•  Introduction to Wikileaks
• US diplomacy
• Virtual currency
• Email phishing
• How to/not to get mugged in Brazil
• Online anonymity
• Online gaming industry
• Love, passion and family values
• Drug addiction
• Malwares and IT security
• Betrayal

These aspects make it worth a try. you will be learn many things.
For me it's a 4 out 5 in terms of rating. 1 point is due to my small range of reading in fiction.

Amazon Link 

How the game begun

I use to visit Blogadda very often just to see if there is any contest or event going on. That's how I came across Game of Blogs. I was excited to take part of it but somehow I missed to register. But then I got a reminder call from the Blogadda . thanks Blogadda. I registered immediately and got in the Game of Blogs.

Like all participants I was also eager to know what I have to go, what I have to write what will be the topic, etc etc. After few days a team of 10 people assigned for Game of Blogs in which I was also a part of.

As soon as I got the team n story details I decided to take immediate action on future plans and plot. Meanwhile I was thinking about the story I email to each teammates to collaborate and contribute as soon as possible . Out of 10 I got reply from 6 of them within few hours.

We crossed our first hurdle of mode of communication, for story discussion there was chain conference call in which each person will call another member till all join. And for further discussions we agreed to communicate via Whatsapp.

On the very first day we had a good conference call of 1 hour around 11 to 12 in which we almost decided our plot and we assigned the sequence of bloggers who will write first, second and so on.

In this discussion we decided to give each blogger freedom for the story board. He/she had to pick the story line from previous members and he was free to take the story according to his will.

So our teammates continue to write and post for the game of blogs. I would like to thank Mr Sneh for the team Co ordination as well as communication with Blogadda as well. Sneh was always there for any team member whether it's 7am or 1 am .

For our first round I like to thanks all the team members who took participation in the event. Due to all of the effort we made we successfully crossed the first hurdle and we entered the second round.  But due to personal obligations,certain team members finally decided to leave the contest and not to participate in second round but rest of the teammates didn't lose hope.

We got storyboard for the second round, this time we decided to change our strategy for the event. What we decided was to bind each and every blogger to plot ie starting and end point will be fixed before any post. Thus we decided a common plot and divided into 7 parts and assigned each part to a particular member.

In this way anyone was free to write at any point of time. In second round we got some new faces. Special thanks Blogadda and Sneh for the seamless effort.

After the second round we waited anxiously for the results and yes we got the results. We were 12 th from 30 entries. We just missed 2 positions to get into the third round.

But never mind, we learn a lot from this event. It made me and Sneh very good friends. Besides blogging we now share personal interests. This event taught us Co ordination between persons with different mindsets and interests. For us winning was not crucial, taking part till the end was.

again no gharwaliDiwali

In our childhood diwali was very exciting and now it became some sort of tradition in which you repeat yourself doing same stuff again and again.

Lightning, decoration and crackers are replaced by exchange of diwali sweets(gitfs in case you want to make somebody extra happy - read bribing) .

When we were child I can easily remember in my hometown there was only exchanges of sweets not gifts. And these sweets were only part of the pooja offered to Goddess Laxmi by the commercial shops or home. There was no involvement of Haldiram or Bikano there.

Sasaram being a commercial hub of my district there were/are many shops from where we were excited to get sweets to my home as my father is very well known person due to our own school.

So my diwali or our family diwali always include offering pooja at two places home as well as school.

We are family of 4, mom dad and my younger brother. So we both brothers got two places to crack our crackers until we get know what exactly we were cracking. When I was 12 then I got to know these fireworks are very environment unfriendly so we both bros decided to celebrate it without crackers. Till date we are maintaining the same. There were two immediate advantage of stopping the use of firecracker, firstly environment is preserved and secondly we got to know the our traditional way of celebrating diwali with parents. Since then we both brothers celebrate it by making our house clean, lighting up candles and decorating and cleaning house with light bulbs.

We used to live in Kaccha house before we moved to concrete one . Diwali meant cleaning as well as painting our house with Calcium carbonate (choona) . Now a concrete house only needs cleaning as today's paints are very stubborn to fade.

Things get change once you move out from home. Now I used for go home every third or fourth year due to various conditions (read job). Being from Bihar we got two big festivals side by side one is Diwali and six days later Chhath. For us diwali is a public celebration and Chhath is family celebration. In the job it became pretty difficult to get the leaves for such long period, so most of the time Diwali is sacrificed for the Chhath. I would say I have got very sensible parents to understand my condition to let me complete my duties instead taking diwali leaves but somewhere deep down in their heart they want to celebrate diwali with us.

In today's fast pace life everything should be profitable that's why get only one day official leave for holi or diwali. My journey to hometown takes 15-18 hours to reach home. If you haven't planned your diwali leaves in advance forget to get the leaves on immediate basis.

Being from bihar and UP leads to another problem ie getting your tickets reserved during the season

. Tickets for diwali get booked within few hours of opening whether it's 2 month early or 3 months early for a train. Belonging to a small town like sasaram and living in a metro like delhi leaves only train as mode of transport, you get no planes, buses, autos. Once there I'd a waiting list in train you just keep your fingers crossed to get it at least RAC. Travelling time and suffering in booking ticket made me celebrate no ghar waali diwali.

Just missing again gharwaliDiwali .
Written for https://www.gharwalidiwali.com by heart.

Game of Blogs - Team: Story6D- Chapter 8

This post is next story sequence(Chapter 8 - "Storm" ) of  "A night to remember" for our team "Story6D".

You can read previous sequence (chapter 7) by clicking here by Pushpa.

Tara sat with her eyes closed in a large cozy chair. Shekhar looked worried. He turned around, moved to sit closer to Tara.

“Is something wrong, my dear” he said putting his arms around her shoulder.

Off late, Tara and Shekhar had become distant, each engrossed in their own work. The work pressure kept Tara busy till late nights at ‘Happy Advertising’ while Shekhar too, was occupied in his freelancing writing assignments for host of websites and publication.

“Is this the same Cyrus who has poisoned your mind against me?” she said moving away his arm from her shoulder. She turned to face him. “How dare he spy on me? He has got a nerve to record my movements, to install a camera in my house. How the hell did he manage to sneak inside our house? And that too in my daughter’s room. How dare he accuse me of being a bad parent? You believed him? Did you really believe him? Her voice grew louder and was now a scream.

“Calm down Tara. Please listen to me. Look. We need to handle this thing together.”

Tara was in no mood to listen. Tears trickled down her cheeks.  There was tremor in her voice. Shekhar stared into the space not knowing how to console his wife.

“Mamma, can I wear this dress today?” said Roohi standing at the door of their room with her frilly frock held between her fingers, her head tilted for approval.

Tara looked at her through misty eyes.

“Dad, do you like my dress?” Roohi walked into the room and sat on her dad’s lap.

“Are you okay mamma? Why are your eyes so red?” she asked as she turned to face her.

“Just tired, my baby. Did you get any homework today?”

“I will do my homework later, I am hungry.”

“But you just had an ice cream.”

Roohi smiled and rolled her eyes.

“Mamma, you know we have a new uncle in the building. I forgot to tell you this before, but yesterday while I was playing with my friends in the building compound, he asked me my name. But don’t worry mom, I didn’t tell him my real name. I told him my doll’s name instead.”

“Who is he? Why did you talk to him? I have told you not to talk to strangers.” Tara was immediately concerned, rather more upset than concerned.

“Don’t you worry Mamma, I gave him no information about myself. I didn’t tell him the name of the school I study in, nor my teacher’s name, and not even the real name of my best friend.”

“Whom did he look like?”

Roohi pursed her lips, playing with her frills of her dress.

“Hmmn…I think he looked like ummph…Salma Khan, yes, Salman Khan, broad shoulders, dreamy eyes, and dressed up tip top, like some rich gentleman.”

“I don’t want you talking to strangers, you hear that?  Now go to your room and finish your homework.”

Roohi jumped off her father lap and hopped to the door. At the door she stood, turned to look back at her parents, with a smile on her lips and her hands on her hips, she said

“Oh yes, I remember one more thing mamma. He is our new neighbor and he said his name is Aryan.”

 Read the next part of story (Chapter 9) from here.

"Me and my team Story 6D, are participating in 'Game Of Blogs' at BlogAdda.com. #CelebrateBlogging with us."