Chp 537. Mizoram and Pornography

So apparently Mizoram has the highest rate of online porn viewers in India, according to a research by Quartz published today, with data they claimed to have obtained from PornHub

Link - Quartz: Everything you wanted to know about how India watches porn in one map and five charts

And here are their findings -





According to the PornHub website data above, Mizoram has the highest “pages viewed per visit” in India at 8.47 per visitor which is higher than both the national and global average.

Though I am not saying this to defend or deny this bizarre "achievement" by Mizoram (hey, if we are indeed the top most porn viewers in India, then that's all cool brah, peoples do what peoples do) but I'm just curious to know how they reached this conclusion.

First of all, let’s take a look at PornHub and its ilk. For those of you who may not have heard of it, it is a popular pornography website where people can upload and share adult videos, and visitors can view them directly online (known as “streaming”). And that is where my first skepticism comes from. Internet penetration in Mizoram is not only low but the speed is pathetic most of the time. And it is a known fact that in such places where internet connection is bad, it makes more sense to download porn rather than watch them online.

Most of the people in Mizoram that I know who watches porn, do so by downloading them via torrent and not through online streaming sites such as PornHub, YouPorn, RedTube, xHamster etc because it apparently takes forever to buffer on our slow internet speed (which also has a frequent habit of disconnecting).



Yes I know you can download videos from PornHub too, but that means you have to register, which many aren’t willing to do. Plus most of the videos are low quality and if you want to download the ones with better quality, you have to become a premium member (yeah I too did my own "research" to find this out). So that is why torrent clients are preferred at regions with bad internet coverage such as Mizoram. And that may only show that many people watch porn in Mizoram, but this statement also contradicts the very premise of this “Quartz research” since their data is derived solely from only those who visit PornHub and not any other sources.

Secondly, I don’t know how accurate their data is. I know in most cases, one can easily find out which state a visitor is from, but sometimes IP addresses can be unreliable, especially when it comes to the North East. Here in Mumbai, we develop and publish mobile games, and I have downloaded a lot of our games on my friends and relatives’ phones in Mizoram. But those instances never show up on our Google Analytics report! Even when we use our own customized in-built analytics tool, some data from the North East are still faulty. That can be because the region is still developing or due to lack of infrastructure in the NE region (people who visit my blog from Mizoram sometimes show as Kolkata or Guwahati on my blog tracker), so I’m a bit surprised to know PornHub managed to get the absolute correct info (not that I’m saying that is impossible to do so). 

I really hope they are not establishing their data from the registration form where people can state anything they want, whether it is about their sex, their sexual orientation, their birthdays or their LOCATION. After all, how many people actually reveal true information at such websites?



A part of me can’t help but suspect the data is taken from this registration form only, otherwise how can they possibly know whether the user is a male or a female?

In India, a quarter of Pornhub’s users are female, which is 2% higher than the worldwide average of 23%

But then again, I can be mistaken too and there may be other ways in which they managed to obtain such information, so let’s leave it at that.

The North East still lacks behind the rest of India when it comes to online activities, which made me doubt PornHub’s data furthermore since the Northeastern states have some of the highest rates according to their findings. Just take a look at the ongoing ISL football tournament. If you visit their website during a match, you will see an Indian map with two different colours of the two teams currently playing. Those colours are representations of the tweets from respective fans, and you will see close to 3000, 4000, 5000 number of tweets during any match for most of the bigger States. But look at Mizoram or any other NE states and you will see just a handful of tweets. A region that is hardcore crazy about football and hardly any tweets? That's because internet is only just starting to pick up over there.

Having said that, the fact that they used "average duration of visit" and “pages viewed per visit” to come to this conclusion doesn't really hold water. Suppose two guys from Mizoram happened to land at PornHub separately in spite of the bad connectivity and they both visited 8 and 9 pages during their visit respectively, that means Mizoram scores an 8.5 as is given in the graph above. And then say 10,000 people from another state with fast internet connection landed at PornHub and they visited different number of pages ranging from 1 to 10, and the average value comes to 8, it gives Mizoram a much higher rating in spite of the fact that there were just two people visiting PornHub. But to a layman, that may sound like there are more number of people from Mizoram watching porn than other states, even though that is not the case. The population of Mizoram is less than the total number of people living here in Andheri East in Mumbai! There is a big difference between highest volume and highest percentage, and obscure statistic like this tends to mix up the two.

That is why Census India sometimes categorizes India into three different sections while comparing/ranking different regions. They are - “bigger states”, “smaller states” and “union territories” since they know the findings will be skewed or unfair if all States/UTs are compared together using the same yard stick.

By all means I am not trying to shine a positive light on Mizoram just because it is my state. If the research was about the highest percentage of people who watch pornography (the sources being online streaming as well as downloads from torrent, darknet, xxx forums, HDD to HDD transfer etc etc) and suppose Mizoram was on the top of that list, then there’s really nothing I can say about that. I will openly accept that result. I am not a prude :) 

But since this particularly report is based purely on the statistical data obtained exclusively from PornHub, I feel the result is inconclusive. Apart from the fact that streaming is not popular in regions with slow internet connection, the sample space taken also raises a question mark. I mean, technically, it may be correct (after all, even a small number of people has a high rate if the base is also small) but overall, it may not be the answer you seek and it tends to throw a wrong perception. It’s kinda like how your anti-virus detects your “keygen” as a virus even though it is not. “False positives” we call them. It would be more interesting to know the exact number of distinct pings from each state rather than just the rate if we were to truly compare and rank different states. Just my opinion.

Cheers.

Chp 536. Game Developer Conference, 2014

And so last week, Sumeet and I, the two Co-Founders of FITH Media, took a last minute cab ride to Pune to attend the NASSCOM Game Developer Conference held in Pune.

We actually didn’t plan on attending this year due to our hectic job schedule, and also for the fact that we didn’t submit any of our new games for the “Game of the Year” award ceremony, unlike last year when not one, but TWO of our games were shortlisted for the final round of this prestigious award (though we eventually didn’t win, it was an impressive achievement for a new gaming studio to have two of its game nominated on its very first year of existence). [NGDC 2013]

This year had been different, with a lot of ups and downs here and there, not just regarding game development. And then in the last minute, a few discussions took place and Sumeet and I were off to Pune. The cab ride was 1900 bucks, and since we left Mumbai during evening rush hour, it took us almost 2 hours just to leave Mumbai! Once we were out of the city, we took around that same amount of time to reach Pune. :)

The next day, we made our way to the venue. Last year, NGDC was held at JW Marriott’s. This time it was at The Westin. And the best part was, this hotel was just a few meters away from Burger King, but I’ll get to that later.

Since we registered in the last minute, the participation cost was 3500 per head, unlike last year where we not only availed of the early bird registration (2000 per head) but even got an additional 1000 bucks discount because our games were nominated. But overall, the cost was almost the same as this time it was just Sumeet and I whereas last year there were 7 of us attending.

[Click on all photos to enlarge on a new tab]

The place was set up just as beautiful as last year, though it is not a hidden fact that the venue was smaller.

I got to meet Shashank, who was an employee of FITH, until he got an admission at DSK, one of India’s premier International institutes on animation and video game design. His game had been shortlisted for the “Student game of the year” category again, just like last year.

I made him promise that he’ll join us again once he graduates from DSK :)

I had a very fruitful time meeting and catching up with friends and founders of other gaming studios. Since we’ve been pretty much below the radar this year, most of the questions I got immediately was, “Hey how come you’re no longer active at our gaming discussion forums?” :) I had to explain about our upcoming big plan many times.

I also attended a couple of really good seminars.

Since most of the sessions were taking place simultaneously, Sumeet and I split up, with Sumeet attending the Technology related ones while I attended the Game Design topics.

The first session I attended was “Dual Game Narrative” by Josué Monchan, and it was definitely my favorite. Don’t get me wrong, the other speakers also spoke really well, but while most of them were promoting their own games or apps (the ones they themselves had developed), Josua gave a universal reference, giving examples such as Tetris. I mean, I never assumed there could be a narration behind such a simple game as Tetris, but his talk was really an eye opener for me. The importance of narrative in gaming. And being a copywriter for 5 years before joining the gaming industry, I could relate to a lot of stuff he talked about.

After a long day of attending more talks and meeting more people, we left the conference. We didn’t stay for the Award presentation or NGDC official party as we had a very important appointment, the content of which will be revealed later once things are made official.

After the meeting, we stopped at a cozy restaurant near our hotel, and I just had to post this here - masala peanuts. My favorite side-serve here in Mumbai, but the way it was presented in Pune was so different :)

The next day, we visited all the stalls and tried their games. The stalls were regional winners of NGDC’s game dev hackathon competitions and most of them used Unity.

What was truly impressive about some of the winners were that they were just kids, 7th standard students, and you should see how excited and enthusiastic they were while explaining the concept of their games to us. Hope that fire in their eyes never dies out.

We even gave our contact details to these kids, after all, you gotta catch them young right? :) They were able to answer any query we had and they really knew their stuff well.

There were even a number of international stalls, like the one below presented by students from Taiwan. They showcased a very interesting strategy game based around an office setting.

They told us how much they envied us because back in Taiwan, it seems the government does not acknowledge gaming as an industry, and so the people have to set up everything by themselves out of their own pockets.

Perhaps the most popular stall was Shashank’s stall, where his team “Too Mainstream” was showcasing their game called Sagittarius. It is a VR action game which requires an Oculus Rift to play the game. The gaming experience was truly mind-blowing, and we had to stand in a long queue just to try out their game.

And of course an NGDC is incomplete without the CosPlay. Lo and behold - Heavy Metal meets Half-Life Metal :)

Though these guys were good, I was kinda disappointed Niha Novacaine wasn’t hired again this year like the last time.

But the biggest disappointment came after we left the conference venue.

The one thing we really look forward to at an NGDC is visiting Burger King (not the international franchise one) before travelling back to Mumbai. They have one of the best Beef steak burgers I’ve ever tasted, and boy it is huge and scrumptious. Here’s a pic we took last year after attending the very same conference. [NGDC 2013]

This time, I was even more excited because since NGDC was held at The Westin, Burger Kings was just a 2 minutes’ walk away from the hotel. We both even skipped breakfast earlier that day, and when we left the conference around 2 PM, our stomachs were grumbling with hunger and excitement.

Heaven came crumbling down when we reached the place and they informed us that they were out of beef! Aaaaaaaarrrgghhhhhh! Out of freaking beef!!!

“Chicken burger instead?” the man asked us. We laughed at his suggestion, painfully, with tears rolling down our cheeks, and slowly walked out of Burger King dejectedly.

We found a nice restobar nearby playing 80’s euro-dance music, where we finally decided to have lunch. We were both so disappointed with Burger King that we quickly downed a pitcher of chilled draught beer to drown our sorrows in. This was accompanied by momos.

We also ordered Mongolian lamb for starters, which was pretty delicious.

For our main course, I had the “Panthe Khause”, a Burmese style chicken curry served with steamed rice and garnishes, while Sumeet ordered the “Bulgogi”, chicken strips marinated and wok with vegetables served on a bed of sizzling noodles.

Not bad, though we still preferred the beef burger. After our heavy meal, we made our way back to Mumbai.

I was keeping my fingers cross at the Lonavala toll gate because last year, our car broke down at the location, and we had to be dragged back to Mumbai by a Tow truck. It took us 6 freaking hours to travel from Navi Mumbai to Mumbai!!!!

And of course no trip to Lonavala or beyond would be complete without the traditional chikkis, papris and jelly sweets. Anybody want some? :)

So that was it. Overall, it was a fruitful conference. Hope I’ll get to attend this conference next year too. Cheers for now.

Chp 535. North East cuisine in Mumbai

So yesterday was a very fruitful and stomachful day!

Four days ago, I received a mail from Rushina, a very prominent food blogger, reviewer, consultant and owner of APB Cook Studio here in Mumbai. We met at a couple of those Coral Networking dinners I used to take part in, as we all shared the same passion for food, though of course she’s a much more professional cook and foodie than me while I’m just a self-proclaimed amateur foodie. Back then, she was also the consultant for Godrej Nature’s Basket while I was the creative lead at an Ad agency handling their account.

This time, she invited me to this new (and experimental) event called “Demo & Dine: Cuisines of the North East” that she was organizing at her Cook Studio. It was too good an offer to decline, and I was really curious to know what actually goes on at such “cook studios”.

So my RSVP was an immediate yes.

I reached the venue right on time, in spite of being delayed due to the “Equal Streets movement (though I admit it was indeed a glorious sight watching all the kids and artists play and perform right on the entire stretch of Linking Road, Bandra). 





I reached the venue with the help of Google Maps. Shrishti Plaza. Being a Sunday, the commercial building was deserted.



The studio was located on the third floor…



Just a few people had reached when I walked in, and they were just starting to set up the place





The introductions started and I quickly blended in. Some of the other invitees were food bloggers, so I had to keep introducing myself as, “I’m also a blogger, but I don’t write about food” :D

The event was conducted by renowned Assamese cook Gitika Saikia, who changed into her traditional Mekhele Chador before kick-starting the program.



She got right into it, starting with the Dau Jwang Sobai Jwang, a Bodo community dish where chicken is cooked with black dal.





As she demonstrated and taught us how to make this dish, she kept us enthralled and entertained with the history and folk tales of Assamese culture.



For those of you interested, here is the recipe of this dish. 


Dau Jwang Sobai Jwang - Chicken with Black Dal

For 4-6 people

Preparation time: 30 minutes

Ingredients:

500 gms chicken, skinless, curry cut.
100 gms black dal
Pinch of soda bi-carb
1 medium onion, sliced
2 tbsp ginger - garlic paste
1 bhut jolokia or 2-3 green chillies, chopped
Salt to taste
1 tbsp turmeric powder
2 bay leaves
2 tbsp coriander leaves
1 tbsp black pepper, freshly powdered
2 tbsp mustard oil

Method:

1. Boil black dal with pinch of soda bi-carb till cooked
2. In a kadhai, heat mustard oil
3. Add onion, ginger and garlic paste and sauté 
4. Next add bay leaves
5. Add chicken pieces salt and turmeric powder
6. Let it cook till its juices are released
7. Add chillies and cover with lid for 5 minutes
8. Add boiled dal and mix it well
9. Cover with lid and let it simmer for 5-7 minutes
10. Sprinkle black pepper powder and chopped coriander leaves
11. Stir to mix and the dish is ready
12. Serve it hot with rice

Note: Assamese food is characterized by the use of an alkaline filtrate of ash obtained from burning dried fiber of plantain tree. This is used in place of soda while cooking and adds a distinct flavor to the cuisine.

And here is how the dish looked like once it was ready [Pic source: Rhea Mitra Dalal’s food blog]



After that, we moved on to the next item – Dohnaiiong, a special pork dish made in black sesame gravy, a delicacy from Meghalaya. Again Gitika made the dish from scratch, while occasionally pointing out how pork is one of the favorite food of most Northeasterners. Here’s the recipe:


Dohnaiiong - Pork with Black Sesame

For 4-6 people

Preparation time: 30 minutes

Ingredients:

500 gms pork belly, boiled and cubed
100 gms black sesame, roasted and powdered
1 medium onion, chopped
2 tbsp ginger-garlic paste
3 green chillies, chopped
1 tbsp red chilli paste
Salt to taste
1 tbsp turmeric powder
2 tbsp mustard oil

Method:

1. Heat oil in a kadhai
2. Add onion and fry well
3. Add ginger-galric paste and sauté 
4. Add boiled pork, chillies, salt and turmeric
5. Leave to cook for 10-15 minutes till fragrant
6. Add mixture of black sesame powder and water
7. Cover with lid and cook on low flame for 2-5 minutes
8. Occasionally stir in between
9. Dish is ready to be served with plain or sticky rice

And here is how the dish looked like once it was ready - 




After that, we were ready to dine feast!

The rest of the menu had been prepared in advance because you can’t expect someone to make everything right on the spot as that would have taken a lot of time. Here is the entire menu:

Pasa from Arunachal Pradesh: A thin, fish soup with herbs
Mosdeng Serma from Tripura: Chutney made of fermented fish, tomatoes and herbs
Eromba from Manipur: Vegetable with fermented dry fish
Akhuni or Axone from Nagaland: Fermented soya bean chutney
Bai from Mizoram: Dish made by mixing veggies, bamboo shoots and rice
Dohneiiong from Meghalaya: Pork cooked with black sesame in light gravy
Dau Jwng Sobai Jwng from the Bodo community of Assam: Chicken cooked with black dal




For the base, we had sticky rice which is also popular in the North East. This is how it was served -







For appetizers, we were served this delicious drink made from amlakhi (amla) and hilikha (haritaki). 



A very refreshing drink indeed. After that, we all sat together across the table.

First up, was the Pasa, a thin, fish soup with herbs from Arunachal Pradesh.



The taste was divine. The side-serves were also placed in front of us. These include the Mosdeng Serma and Akhuni.





As you can see below, Mosdeng Serma is a fermented dried fish popular in Tripura, and Akhuni is a fermented soya bean chutney popular in Nagaland. We Mizos too have side dishes very similar to these two, with slight variations in taste and method of preparation.



One thing is certain, the preparation of such fermented dishes can be quite… how do I say it… a pungent experience for the untrained nose :) Maybe that was also one of the reasons why Gitika prepared these two dishes well in advance? :D

Soon, the table was filled. Below is Bai from Mizoram. I proudly exclaimed, “Yayyy that’s from my state”, and everybody applauded :P





Yummy food all around…







A POV look of my plate (by the way, click on all photos to enlarge at a new tab).





The white chutney paste you can see is the Eromba from Manipur. There are different types of Eromba, and the one we had yesterday consisted of mashed vegetables, bamboo shoots and fermented fish known as Ngari. 

After many more servings and spoonfuls of scrumptious delicacies, I was stuffed. And once everybody had their full, dessert was served.



Dessert consisted of puffed rice and small portions of Gitika’s own home-made jaggery. This was mixed with Amul fresh cream, and oh the taste was heavenly. Subtle sweetness went down smoothly and settled down with the spicy pork and chutneys I just had.



The ambience at APB Studio was awesome, and there were a lot of sample containers all around the studio, making it a true foodie’s haven.









Rushina also mentioned that APB Cook Studio conducts corporate cooking programs, cooking competitions, and various other cooking related events.

Once we were all done eating, we spent a lot of time sharing and chatting, mostly about the North East, so I definitely had a field day telling the others about our different cultures and practices. The digestion of food also became a cultural digestion as well. (did I just say that? :D )

The discussion topic also turned to some of the ingredients used in preparing the food that we just ate.



The above leaves are called “bahkhawr” in Mizo, but unfortunately I didn’t know the English name. It is a popular veggie dish or veg condiment in our Mizo society.

Gitika too bought her own bottles of pickles to sell.



I bought a bottle each of Pork pickle and Bhut jolokia, aka Naga chilli aka Raja mirchi aka Ghost pepper among many other names. It was the world’s hottest chilli for many years, but recently moved down to third place [source]



Nevertheless, it is still SPICY as hell! To give you an example of how hot this chilli is, here is a real life experience - I was once travelling from Aizawl to Delhi with my friend Michael Pautu. There was no incident on our Aizawl to Kolkata flight. But on our connecting flight from Kolkata to Delhi, the security guard detected a bottle of Bhut jolokia pickle in Michael’s hand baggage. Even though it was properly sealed, they immediately confiscated it. When we protested, they told us that extremely spicy chillis like Bhut jolokias are banned from carry-on baggage in flight because they can be weaponized and made into a bomb!!!! 

And all this time, I though the only explosion Bhut jolokia can cause is in the loo :D

Here is me having this awesome chilli for breakfast today along with home-made dosas and coconut chutney. Ahhhh the flavor blend was amazingggg!



Hoping to see such activities again soon. I had a truly awesome time. Thank you Rushina and Gitika!



Ps. I’d just like to quickly point out here that when I shared about this event on Facebook, a few people, mostly Northeasterners, criticized me because the entry for this event was priced at Rs. 2500 per head. First of all I’d like to say that I am not a part of the organizers and I had nothing to do with the cost :) Secondly, I can see from a Northeasterner’s point of view that spending 2500 for food they can easily make at home is atrocious. However, let me point out that the target audience for this event was actually non-Northeasterners who had never tasted Northeastern food, somebody who likes to experience different cultures, learn new cuisines and explore a less taken path. Apart from that, the cook not only prepared the dishes but taught the participants how to make them and personally interacted with everyone, explaining in detail about what to add and why. It’s not a typical restaurant model. And then there was the cost of infrastructure, manpower, electricity etc etc. I think 2500 is a reasonable cost if you take all that into consideration.