A Mutual understanding between Parents and kids and the need for Parental Control apps(3-9 years)

(This is an article I wrote a year ago related to my work. I had lost the motivation to write an article and was more concentrated on other important things. But here I am now, trying to revive my blog again. Considering this article, I hope it will help some parents and children to understand each other. Hope y’all have a nice time and hope to write more soon.)

The cyber-world where a lot is happening around might be safe for adults like us if we surf through it cautiously. For growing kids, the whole scenario is different. These days, as the kids grow, they feel curious about their surroundings and get attracted to things, especially something with a dazzling screen like our smartphones, etc.

It’s hard to keep gadgets like these away from the mere sight of the kid. No matter what, phones and laptops are still very important devices in our lives. Kids of this era tend to pick up the knowledge on how to use the devices very early and their eyes eventually are glued to the screen, before it’s too late. Normally, some parents tend to leave their gadgets with kid-friendly content and learning games in their hands. They feel that the kids will be occupied with funny animations, nursery rhymes, etc and they can work in peace. But, as I said before, as they grow every day, they become more curious. They might have noticed how parents interact with the device to open an app, which they try to imitate and eventually succeeds in doing the same.

For those moments, not to happen, that’s where parental control kicks in.

Parental control software is a solution to help prevent these incidents from occurring. When an adult does not use the device, they can turn the parental control on. They will feel safe, that the kids won’t wander off from what they are shown or given to do. If the kids try to open the apps restricted to them, they will not be allowed access. They will not have any choice, but, to wait for their parents to switch back to the activity, they were given or know enough to do it themselves.

The scenario mentioned till now, seems relatable for parents and kids from the age of 3. Nowadays, you might not know, to what extent each kid grasps knowledge of using gadgets like this. Some kids may not be as curious as others seem. They may tend to get accustomed to the outside world, i.e., nature. They may feel unattractive to these gadgets and tend to spend their time playing with their toys. These cases seem to provide a healthy environment for the kids. But unfortunately, these cases are rare in the modern world.

Let’s move on to the age where kids can tend to move their hands into wider space and handle big gadgets like laptops and even computers. Laptops are the modern and trending form of computers. They are easily portable, easy to handle, and much cheaper than PCs. The kids might still be attracted to tablets and phones. The required configuration for the parental controls even matures with age. The kids start getting into schools and get introduced to study life. Due to the ongoing pandemic and in the upcoming era, the whole schooling system is being made more digital. Studying without a digital factor seems improbable these days.

When the lockdown started, the whole education system went digital. Kids started learning through online classes, submitting assignments, and even taking tests online. But as the online study seems to be trending, so do other online activities like social media, gaming etc. Google searches on each topic seem to become higher in numbers. And the curiosity rate of kids keeps increasing with age and online involvement. Let’s start from the age we left off.

Kids of age 5-8 may let themselves explore deeper into the digital world, and learn one or a few things more about smartphones, tablets and laptops. In laptops, some may learn to google search various stuff and even from a smart device, they just ask Google assistant anything. When kids get more involved with web activity, parents may need to be careful about their kids’ web activity. Not that they may learn of restricted content in this small age, but they may be led inadvertently by clickbait and spams in and around the websites they visit. In this case, parental control comes to the rescue.

The Parental control software provides an option to enable Safe search so that it will prevent kids from going to restricted websites. The safe search filters the restricted adult contents and provides a variety of matured contents. Blocking restricted websites is another option that doesn’t allow access to a set of websites. One can set screen time and app usage time for their kids to follow. They won’t be allowed to use the screen after a certain amount of time, assigned by the parent. They can even block apps when the kids are having their study time or when they’re given a task. Let’s assume that at this age, the kids won’t be sending explicit texts and photos. But one can’t take chances, on receiving them. So, if the kids receive such content, one would be alerted at the moment, and possibly block the content and even the app itself. This is more effective when the parents are working away from home.

For parents who are working at home, the rules might change a bit. Most of the rules given above may be applied in this case. But one can lower the configuration and handle the situation by themselves. Explicit sites and apps will remain blocked. Safe search will be present too. But for screen time and app usage time, one can set them up and be notified, if the time is over. They can ask the kids to take time off the screen and have some non-screen time for themselves. They can be reasoned with and help them understand why they need off-screen time. If the situation persists, then you can manually lock the screen through the parental control app, with just a finger. One can approach their kids if they receive some explicit content and tell them to close the chat immediately or block the person.

What actually inspired me?(Part-2)

The continuation of the previous part of the 2-part post. Remember, there are no bad people in any story. People think they are a hero in their story.

As the odd behaviour showed me some hint about what’s going on, It slowly unravelled. Storm started slowly ignoring Ash and kept her ‘over-attitude’ friends who supported her relationship. After observing all this, I finally found my answer and revealed it to Ash and my other friends who stayed beside me. The spider web, which I talked about, was spun by Alvad.

Remember the whole hate that we both shared with him and vice-versa. Well, he wanted to secretly remove the people who he hated from Storm’s life and that included me and Ash. He was able to deal with me easily. He over-exaggerated and told lies about me, just to worsen the matter and successfully removed me. Ash was a tough one for him. But in love, some just aren’t in their right senses and eventually, he was able to remove her from the equation.

We moved on after knowing the truth and making peace with it. We reformed our friendship and made a whole new gang of friends. It was because of them, I eventually recovered from depression, alongside YouTube and writing quotes. The whole experience which I had from this incident, inspired me to write more and more.

Lately, I and Ash revisited this incident in our talks. I had told her before that I hated her for a long time for not believing me. I was in pain. I was not able to forgive her, until a few days back. I came to realize something. When this whole incident happened, I was the first victim. Only I knew the pain and sorrow. She was nowhere near to experience what I was experiencing. She was jolly and happy in her own world because there was no problem in her life, related to that incident. She just didn’t know what I felt. When she became the victim, she came to realize the truth and the pain I faced and felt sorry. And from what I learned from my past, you just can’t be angry with someone, who just didn’t know.

And so, the passion for writing quotes increased, along with the experiences which I had and am having at the moments. It’s hard when you’re going through troubles like this in your life. But you’re not alone. You should never feel alone in hard times. Just talk to your friends, your close ones. It’s OK to let out what you feel to someone. There is always hope in every trouble we face.

There are no bad people in any story. People think they are a hero in their story. They do what they can, to gain benefits for themselves and their loved ones. The rest of them, may or may not get hurt, in what they do. Others do get hurt in their stories. So, just think the whole story in this way. But some aren’t able to cope up with pain caused by what’s happening around them. They are the ones who need help.

Yeah, I know, I have a lot to improve in writing. But nobody is perfect. I try my best at what I write. I am trying to improve, the more I write. Even though I am working in the software field, this is what makes me happy. I started the blog to elaborately write about how I feel about myself and incidents happening around me. I want to inspire people and help them. Because there are some who can relate to the articles I write. I just want to say, there is always hope for everyone.

Based on a few incidents that have happened in my life, I have a few ideas to write some novels. Time will tell. With more creativity, I will be able to make something up. Maybe, a franchise.

In my next post, I will be writing about the pain, depression people bear, and how do they cope up with them. I will elaborate on how to cope and break out such conditions, with some references from a series which I have seen lately.

What actually inspired me?(Part-1)

The origin of my inspiration for writing….

Hmm… I am back with another one. Yeah, I know, I am late. To be somewhat good at this, I need to write more frequently and keep on updating this blog. But alas, I am a human. I have my own limits in all aspects. And currently, my conditions are not well in these times. The fear and safety concerns just bring a hostile environment around us sometimes. But it’s pretty normal, and we just need to have a strong mind to cope with it. And for this article, I needed some permissions and agreements from my fellow friends, for their inclusion, but under different names. After talking with them, I decided to disregard some of their advice and stick to my opinions, related to their inclusion (Reminds me of Sheldon). The thing is, the truth needs to be out there, no matter how bitter it is and how much we try to hide it.

Speaking of troubled times, let’s dive into mine. What inspired me in the first place to write quotes, which led to this? Well tbh, those quote images from my FB feed is one of the first things that made me like the world of writing. I still mark them as my ‘See first’ preference. I just get to relate those quotes, to whatever happened in my life at that time. It was a natural coincidence. But for every inspiration, there happens to be a deep incident, which becomes a strong force for things we do. And for me, an incident happened.

First, let me describe myself. I am just a scrawny guy, who is a huge nerd in superhero stuff and especially Sherlock. I am the type of guy who overthinks and that’s just not good when you have trouble around. But I use most of my overthinking skills for the good and in good times only. I hate people keeping secrets from me, which brings out my ‘that’ persona, and most of the time I end up finding the truth. Blame it on the genetics from where I earned this characteristic. But as I said, I only use this persona for myself and to help others, reveal secrets and truths. (No, I am not over-justifying myself. It’s just me). And being a huge fan of Sherlock, I kinda know the science of deduction. Because of all this, it has helped me a lot in my job as a software developer.

I had a peaceful life in my college with my friends, and everything was going just fine. One day, one of my friends… Let’s just name her Storm, started to behave weirdly. Her routine of hanging out wasn’t the same as before. There was a certain boy named Alvad, who re-entered in her life. (Let’s not go into his entry part, because from the beginning of college year, neither I nor my friends liked him, and vice-versa). Well, he fancied her, and after some consideration on her condition, she started dating him. (Given my persona, I had already figured it out that they fancied each other.) So, on the birthday night of my best friend, José, she messaged me that she is in a relationship with him. I replied that I was happy for her and as per how much I hate him, I promised that I’ll try to be nice and get to know more of his new ‘charming’ persona which attracted her. I told her that I was surprised, after whatever happened in her life that she again wanted to have a love life (That wasn’t her first). And I actually jokingly told her that in an alternate timeline, I would have proposed her long back. But I didn’t because I always considered her as my friend, nothing more than that. Yeah, I messed up here. For me, it was nothing at the moment, for someone it was an opportunity to mess it up further. The next day was a whole new day and there was something strange in her behaviour. She actually wanted to be left alone. I asked about the drama and she pointed out what I messaged. I told it was just a thing which would have never happened or would not happen. But she was not close to reading what I wanted to tell and blocked me. At the start, I thought it was just a misunderstanding, but it was all a part of what someone planned. We can talk and clear the misunderstanding. But it wasn’t gonna happen. Her new bf tried his best, not to let her interact with me. I thought it was the common bf act. But it wasn’t. My friends and I were just going to get trapped in a spider web, and I was the first victim.

The incident spread through gossip among friends and others telling that I have a crush on someone. Even some of my friends believed it. Even my best friend believed her and everyone just had a bad word about me all around. This is the harmful effect of gossip. Once it starts to spew around, it gets twisted in many ways.

A few months passed. I was still deeply disturbed about what had happened and wanted to solve it and clear my name. I was actually alone. The only friend who stayed beside me was José. I then found an app called YourQuote where I thought to write my feelings in quotes. I used to drown my feelings with it and some funny YouTube gaming videos. I just wanted to escape this wretched reality, I was in.

One day, I got a chance to meet her with her bf. I wanted to explain everything. She was leaving for home by bus. But suddenly something came under my notice. Her bus started and she was ordered to go inside her bus. Without any hesitation, she followed his order, never to look back. He wanted me to tell him whatever I wanted to tell her. The hell, I wouldn’t. But the thing I noticed was her obedience. It’s natural, maybe in a relationship. But it was clearly like an order. Where did the independent girl go, who did what she wanted and was a rogue! That was odd to me. I contacted Ash and told her about this strange incident. She told me that was normal and asked me why I was worried about it. Clearly, she still trusted her, more than me. And It wasn’t I who should be worried, it’s Ash.

To be continued.., in the next part.

What inspired me?(#2)

What’s real and what’s not? What’s perfect and what’s not? There is always something around us, which may teach us about life. Spoiler Alert ahead, for those who didn’t watch Love Aaj Kal 2020. If you don’t wanna watch or have watched it already, then go ahead

So, yeah, I am back, still social distancing from my dog. I am back with something to discuss something some of you may not like. But it doesn’t matter for me, I am just here to share my views. So yeah, let’s get on with it.

I was planning to start with writing this one, just after the day, I posted my previous one. But typing isn’t so easy. If something just hits on our feels, on something we are writing upon, directly or indirectly, it just becomes tough to type. So yeah, I just couldn’t type this one out sooner, along with some other reasons.

I had decided on what I was about to type when tragedy struck. Two legendary actors dying on consecutive days. Irrfan and Rishi Kapoor, both master artists. Both of them leaving this world, so soon. As someone told before, the good doesn’t stay long in this weird world. It is just sad, that they aren’t among us right now. RIP legends.

So, a few days ago I watched a movie… ‘Love Aaj Kal’. Not the old one, of course, which was acted by late Rishi Kapoor, Saif and Deepika. I mean, the 2020 one. Even though people liked the old one more than the new one, I would say the new one wasn’t as bad as they say. I just watched it to understand what was there to hate. Yeah, the old one had happy endings, in both stories of ‘Kal’ and ‘Aaj’. But not all stories just end with a happy ending. This one was just different.

The film just represents real life, on how a story just impacts the audience and in what way. The film/story is represented by the ‘Kal’ story’s character played by Randeep Hooda (RIshi Kapoor played this character in the old one). The audience is represented by Sara and the respective lover of the audience is represented by ‘Aaj’ story’s character played by Kartik. Sara plays a self-built character named Zoe, who just wants to be successful with the help of her long-term plan by herself. While she follows her mind over her heart, Veer (Kartik’s character) was just the total opposite of her. She is the systematic person, just following the work ethics to be successful, and Veer, questioning everything and following his heart, trying just enough to be with her.

Enter Raghu, who after seeing the couple, tries to convince Zoe about why Veer might be a good choice for her, tells his story. After hearing quarter of his story, which had begun fantastically, she instantly got convinced that her life can be the same as the story and accepts Veer. She defies her own rules and her mom. Well, it’s just sad to say that these kinda people exist in the real world. Well after, everything seems to be going well, Zoe gets to hear the 2nd quarter after she realizes the story told to her isn’t the same as in present. After getting to know the miseries he had caused and losing his original love, to become successful in life, she gets confused. She decides to become her old self and breaks up with Veer. Even though certain circumstances forced her to be like that, the real culprit was her inability to take in some guy’s story. While she moves on with her ‘own rulez’ plans and tries to be successful, Veer tries to do the same. He gets a job, focussing on his life, but not able to move on. She again gets to hear the ¾ part of the story, which explains the whole ‘getting to be successful, without actual love’ part of Raghu’s life. She kinda sees Veer in a similar instance as that of the story and assumes he moved on.

While Veer wants her to come back in her own will, not letting any story define her life While Veer wants her to come back on her own will, not letting any story define her life. He wants the whole Zoe. On the other hand, she still relies on and lives on the basis of the story told to her. She eventually becomes successful and proves her robotic long-term life plan. She again gets confused, when her mom, who is her role model tries to convince her to get married. The decision can make her give up the hard-earned career. She tries to get relief and solution, from none other than Raghu. He eventually convinces her that even though how much one tries to become successful with his/her life, they will never forget the aspect that once gave them joy and happiness in their life. So, she FINALLY decides to be with Veer, whom she thinks is the real source of her happiness and not her job.

While I told the story in kinda large bits and pieces, I will tell how this film had some real case scenarios hidden around. The audience wants every love story to end happily just like the first Love Aaj Kal. But in what way, the story/film should decide one’s love story? Like Raghu told Zoe after ending his story, ‘What are you to me? What difference does my story make, on your story?’ People like us want everything to be flawless. But nothing and no one is perfect, in this real world. Everything and everyone has their own flaws. Whether it’s about a successful career or happy love story, everything comes with baggage. There are social norms, difficulties, parental pressures, internal dilemmas over love or career. They all are part of the baggage. They try to find relief within ‘fairy-tale’ romantic films, but when they get to see the unhappy ending love stories, they try to blame it for being bad.

The director had showcased on how films like this works (as explained above). The director had showcased how films like this work (as explained above). Unfortunately, the audience ended hating this film, because of the inconsistency of the screenplay. I may also tell that there was a hint of over-acting from Sara, too, which the audience really hated.

The flaws are like a glass panel. The glass is so clear and transparent, that only if people walk into it, will they realise its presence. The shattering of the glass or the revelation of the flaws might be weird and sad to live with. But, if you love someone enough, you tend to overlook these flaws.

The director did a good one, to show how a love story looks like in both ‘Aaj’ and ‘Kal’. But if he tries to make another one after a decade, I would love to suggest as Veer tells Raghu in a scene, ‘Please don’t push for it (‘her’, in the movie), otherwise, it will be a mess’.
That’s all folks. Hope you have a great time ahead. Until next time

(The story of the glass and the flaws is referred from ‘How I Met Your Mother’- Season 3, Episode 8-‘Spoiler Alert’, which is a one of the best episode of the series. Do watch it for fun. Cheers!)

What inspired me?(#1)

(This is a suspense-filled article. So don’t jump to the end for obvious reasons. And don’t read it while you’re eating or drinking anything.)

After I typed my introductory article, I just didn’t know what came over me, but I didn’t feel like continuing this. I was running away from it, being burdened by others’ opinions. Lots of thoughts and words haunted me. I started losing my grip over reality. I was thinking, ‘What is perfect for me and what’s not?’ Does it really matter what others say, if I continue doing this… the thing which I really like? I started losing it. In fact, it came to one fine day, when I woke up from my bed, I felt wet around me. I thought to myself, did I wet the bed? Has reality hit me so hard that I have started losing it in the real world, along with what’s going on, mentally?

I started to hallucinate and become insane in a way that I was scared to do anything. The whole world around me was going cuckoo and here I was, sitting and trying to make myself productive. I was doing some course on writing skills but to be honest, it was not coming out well for me. I googled about the condition, about the whole wetting thing. I wanted to know whether I am in such a bad shape, had I started to lose control over my bladder? Am I not the master of my own bladder? I checked what possible sickness I could have, that it had come to this. My nervous system is perfectly alright, but still, how was it even possible? I am not that yet old, to lose control.

So, I continued searching for the unfortunate reason, but none of them made any sense. I hid this fact from everyone around, to avoid embarrassing myself. While I wasn’t sure to continue this blog or my writing and when the ‘incident’ happened, I started becoming unproductive slowly, day by day. I was messing around, worrying about myself, and thinking of how to accept this new problem, by myself. I lazed around, while the days passed. I started watching some funny videos from some content creators out there, to help me escape this wretched reality I was stuck in. This lock-down may have kept me and others safe, but every matter comes with a toll. But for how long, will I be worried?

Days passed, and I slowly forgot about this incident. I always have a productive evening, keeping my body fit, by playing some sports. I hang out with my cousins virtually, in that Android Ludo game. Everything was normal…, until yesterday.

After a normal evening, playing badminton, I came to rest on my bed once again. Sitting on my bed and scrolling through my phone, I felt the wetness again. Oh god, here it is again. I thought about previous incidents and examined the whole scenario that had happened before this badminton game. But I never sat at that particular spot. Even though I sat near that spot, to work on my laptop. I started to think about whether it was my sweat. But no, it was definitely piss. After carefully going through the incidents which took place before badminton, I finally found the conclusion to the whole mystery.

The answer I found was… (drum-roll), It was my dog the whole time. The dog came there while we were resting in the living room, and took a piss and just left happily. I had and have no enmity with her. I loved and cared for her once. But after this incident, I started to doubt her love for me. I started social distancing from her and I just don’t care how cute and innocent-looking she is, anymore. Because deep down there is a cute devil lurking inside her.

So yeah, this particular incident had been a lesson for me, reassuring me that nothing is falling apart. I am the master of my own reality, the way it is coming out for me…, and I am the master of my own bladder. That’s all folks. Have a wonderful time and stay safe.

Until next time.

My First Cold Shot

An Introduction….

(This post is the same as the ‘About’ page).

I don’t need to heat things up. I need to slow them down.
— Leonard Snart /Captain Cold(From the TV series, ‘The Flash’)

Hey there… It’s me, Captain Cold… It’s a chilling pleasure to see you come visit my cold world of words and opinions. I have been observing several incidents around my country and the world that made me think a lot. And trust me, when I start thinking, a lot of theories and words come in mind, and it just won’t turn out good (for me, and for some people too). This implies both the cold reality and the cool virtual world of TV shows and movies.

So, telling about the real me, … I will make it short and subtle. I have been a huge fan of ‘The Flash’ and other Arrowverse shows. Especially the Rogue enemy of the Flash, Leonard Snart aka Captain Cold, under whose persona I will be writing. I love the portrayal done by Wensworth Miller (Prison Break), how he did a villain role and made him the best character ever. Unfortunately, his character was short-lived, but the impact was big, especially for me. I admire his character as whatever villainy act, he did, there was some goodness in him. He is a mere robber with a high-tech cold gun, but with a no-kill policy. His style of speaking, his snarky attitude and cold talking to others, is just a thrill.

Anyways, even though I try to imitate his style, I eventually took up his name as my gamer name, and for every secret thing possible. Before I started to do this, I was and am still writing quotes in a fantastic app called YourQuote. The quotes being poetic and meaningful, I also thought to change my formal gamer name into something in the lines of poetry(which may remain secret).

I started writing quotes as a way of expressing my thoughts, in a smaller way. I was at a time of depression, which motivated me to do this. Writing and reading others’ quotes and with the help of my friends, I recovered from depression and continued writing quotes, to my heart’s content.

I finished B.Tech(Computer Science Engineering) and am working in a startup company. Due to work, I still write quotes, but not frequently as always. Through my quote writing and reading English books and watching movies, I improved my English communication. Watching English series like the ArrowVerse shows and all, in my mind, I used to have an opinion on how each show was telecast. I think about the story, on how they could have improved and on how they did well. So, even though I think a lot about many things, I thought, why not type it down…? After that, I decided to start a blog eventually in the mid-2020. And along with tv-series and movies, there are many things going around in my country and the whole world and especially in my life, which I am opinionated to type or speak about.

So, here I am, posting stuffs about TV shows, movies and current affairs going on in our world. Hope you enjoy my blog.