The Avengers: Age of Ultron Review

I am a huge Avengers fan and it was with great excitement and expectations that I went to watch The Avengers: Age of Ultron. And.... they didn't disappoint as usual. With a pow-wow mix of comedy, action, a little bit of romance thrown in and also a great deal of emotion clinchers, this movie was just AMAZING!

The movie plot revolves around how Tony Stark, with the help of Bruce Banner uses  Loki's scepter to kick start his peacekeeping initiative to protect the world and maintain "Peace in our times"- Ultron. Things take a turn towards the dark when Ultron emerges as a super villain bent on destroying the world. The Avengers assemble to take down Ultron. But backed by his superior artificial intelligence and access to systems worldwide, Ultron seems invincible. But Ultron wants one more thing to make him complete - a proper invincible body akin to a living being. Once he has that no one can stop him.

Avengers get more amazing characters to help them in the face of this huge threat to mankind. And they are all Kickass! (atleast one of them was "Kickass" **wink wink**)

**** ALERT!! : SPOLERS AHEAD****

Best Scenes:

The Enhanced twins Pietro and Wanda Maximoff attacks the Avengers in a South African shipyard - 

While running at super speed Pietro sees Thor's hammer flying past and he's like "hey that looks cool" and grabs it. He's no match for the power as he is taken several miles away with the Hammer. Epic moment. 

Wanda brainwashes Bruce who becomes Hulk and runs amok in the nearby town. Iron man uses his "veronica" Armour to subdue him. Superb action sequence of Hulk vs. Iron Man showdown.

Scene where all of the Avengers try to lift Thor's Hammer. No one could and Thor is smiling smugly. Then Captain America tries and the Hammer moves a little. Thor's face - hilarious. 

Fast forward a little and we are introduced to The Vision (I absolutely LOVE him!!). We are all hanging on to our seats , trying to determine whether he is good or bad. End of his speech he turns around to Thor and the others saying "There's no time, lets go", and hands Thor his..... HAMMER!!! As easy as that he wields Thor's Hammer! That was one HUUUGE moment. The Avengers' faces! Hilarious! The audience - stunned silent and then we were all like "Ohhhh shit. Ohhh wow" Lol.

There are so many more such amazing moments in The Avengers: Age of Ultron. You simply have to see it for yourselves. I think I'm going to watch this one again and again. :D

Review of Flipkart Women's day offers : The Discount Drama

Happy Women's Day people! If we women were not here on Earth, how dull and drab would it have been, right? Here's to all women who bring laughter, joy, support and inspiration to everyone's lives. Cheers!


Now onto my interesting discovery of the day. Flipkart has put up an amazing sale for women on this day as a Women's Day gesture. Yayy! all good. B.U.T..... anyone with an ounce of sense would cringe at the faux pas they did with the discounts :

( Click on the image above to enlarge )

Notice anything my wee little lambs ?

We customers aren't lambs and we aren't fools. Studies show that women make up a majority of online shoppers. And we women are extremely good at evaluating the price range of a product, have math skills, and also know what a product is worth on different markets.

If Flipkart puts up MRP of a mediocre saree as 5,99,999/- (Imagine that! lol) and with discount of 99% ..... do they think we are brain-dead to be so awed by the discount alone and go buy the product?
I mean, c'mon people. Does Flipkart actually think that if they quote an impossibly high MRP on a product , slash it write a huge discount and then put the original price next to it, they wont be caught red-handed? I had a saree in my wishlist which was 1,899 bucks. When I checked today, its MRP on the offer page is 3,99,999 and after discount .. voila! the price is 1,899/- only! Such a great discount offer! Rofl. This has been done to all other products like accessories, seasonal wear, other clothing items, etc. Extremely tactless. Tch tch!

Anyways this was worth a good laugh. Online shopping websites should be reasonable when they are playing the online marketing game since they should realize who their target audience is and approach in an "intelligent" manner.

Online Shopping - The Jabong Experience

I'm a serious online shopper. Name a website and I'd have bought something from there.. lol - I must admit , that is a slight exaggeration. :D

I follow the golden rule of never paying by cash in the first purchase , but opting for COD, so that I can analyse how they deliver, the quality of products, delivery lead time, customer service, etc. and not lose money and time on some scam. On well known websites which do not have COD (most websites have them, but there are good websites like Purpple.com, fashionandyou.com, Mirraw etc which do not have COD) I buy something which is less priced so that again I don't get to lose a lot of money even if the product is bad , and thus, I can decide on which websites to trust and be a loyal customer to and which to ignore and put in the blacklist.

 But I went wrong somewhere and overlooked a major factor that is easy for anyone to overlook. The following experience I had with Jabong.com is being cited here for the awareness of the general public. Customer awareness is an important factor while purchasing online.

Now, Jabong.com is one such website that I trusted. I have been buying stuff from the big players like amazon, Flipkart, Snapdeal, fashionandyou.com and the rest and had included Jabong as one among them.

Continuously I have faced issues with Jabong.com. They gave me damaged products, I have had to return items multiple times, they sent me a different product from the one I ordered, their quality check was poor and so on. Still I went back to purchasing from Jabong on and off, thinking they had good offers once in a while, especially on branded products. This time however I found out something shocking,  from my order history.

I bought 5 items on COD (Cash on Delivery) with COD charges of Rs. 49. Others like Amazon, Flipkart and Snapdeal do not usually charge shipment and delivery charges (*certain conditions applied, they state all charges upfront, if any), but Jabong.com charges that for all its products. Now the site said 50% off sale, and taking the example of one of the products - it was 650 Rs on the product landing page, then it became 715 rs on the order page (the breakdown was not stated. The plus sign next to the price just shows MRP and the discount deduction).

Same way, the other products also showed one price after discount and when it reached the order page, it showed an additional amount. an overall tax collected was stated, but things didn't really add up. I had initially not paid attention to this matter, since with other similar websites I had not faced such a thing - I was unaware. I had just looked at the final amt and final bill where no such tax was mentioned.

 When my husband asked about the delivery charges I just casually checked my order history and discovered this whole thing. Each item of the order had an additional 50Rs, 30 Rs and more added to it and then the total amount was calculated, and added to it all is the COD charges. The breakdown is not clearly stated anywhere.

To find an answer to this confusing billing process I called up the customer care. The executive explained that a "tax"is added to each product. One item had tax 50/- , one had tax 29/- etc ans supposedly it varies product to product . Now where the hell was it mentioned separately? He said it is mentioned in the billing page - but there is no clarity on tax per product beforehand. This is a hidden charge.

To check, I added one product to the cart it shows tax collected  xyz, add one more, still it shows same tax - rs. XYZ in the overall bill. But once in the order page, tax is different for the two products.

Point to clarify - I am ok with taxes if there are any. What I'm not ok with is if these additional charges are not clearly stated, and I'm not aware of what additional costs I'd be paying for my purchases. If I knew about the taxes beforehand I would have opted for other websites which do not have such "taxes" on the same products and are offered on similar discount. I guess this is why this additional cost wasn't put anywhere on the product page in Jabong or clearly mentioned in the order page. These additional charges should not just show up when we are paying for it, but beforehand so that the customer can decide whether or not to buy the product based on price.

The product price listed is different from actual price of product shown

Other websites like amazon, flipkart, etc. clearly state all their charges - MRP , Discount, shipping charges, Taxes per product, COD charges if applicable and so on . There are no hidden charges. I repeat :  it is mandatory that these additional charges in whichever form, should not just show up when the products are being billed and we are paying for it, but beforehand in the product page, so that the customer can decide whether or not to buy the product based on price.  As a customer I want to know how price of each product I am buying is affected by the tax. Not a round figure in the end of the order billed.

Jabong.com having such charges which customers aren't easily aware of and which are not clearly stated upfront, and placed in such a way that it can be easily overlooked, is indeed an unethical practice. Why should the customer have to go to FAQ's page if you just state the tax upfront? It is a more transparent and straightforward way of doing business if you include additional charges while the customer is on the product page, or if the product is added to cart then if it is at least shown in the cart directly next to each item. But no, that has not been the case here and overall, I am a highly dissatisfied customer who has decided that she is never ever going to purchase from Jabong.com again - it is a matter of trust once broken. 

High time they changed their policy and if they have various "taxes" they should mention that in the product landing page and not vaguely in a corner while billing (at least an accurate one should be provided) and try not to take their customers for a ride. Dear readers, kindly watch out for such things when you are buying from such online websites.

Happy Shopping!

Captain America 2 : The Winter Soldier - A Review

Hey guys! Its movie review time! lol . So last weekend I watched Captain America 2 : TWS , I had been eagerly waiting for the next movie in the lot aaaand here's what I think about it (this is more like a feedback than a review ) :

Captain America: The Winter Soldier is the sequel to Captain America: The First Avenger and following on from The Avengers. It is the ninth film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The film finds Captain America and Black Widow going up against the assassin codename The Winter Soldier.

Chris Evans, Sebastian Stan, Scarlett Johansson, Cobie Smulders, Hayley Atwell, Toby Jones, Dominic Cooper and Samuel L. Jackson return as Steve Rogers, James Barnes, Natasha Romanoff, Maria Hill, Peggy Carter, Arnim Zola, Howard Stark and Nick Fury.

The film is directed by the Russo Brothers.

Ok, so first off : Chris Evans is as usual the super handsome hunk with looks that'd make you go weak in the knees and maybe even swoon . Him and that Captain America outfit - mamma mia! eye candy! **drool** :D When I initially saw him in movies like Fantastic Four, The Nanny Diaries etc, I thought that he was like any other blond haired stereotypical jock with a fake, too-perfect smile , but aged maturity lends him an aura of the kind of heroes that you imagine belong to romance fiction and/or superheroes - self assured, dignified and definitely hot , without overdoing it.

Secondly - Scarlett Johansson as Black Widow. Her sultry femme fatale appearance was marred to a great extend due to the ramrod straight hairstyle she had taken up for this movie. Her features seemed too broad and hard and there wasn't any sultry siren effect at all. Especially in the close-ups, the sleek hair broadens her already broad face and her distinctive nose gains more prominence . I loved her previous avatars and believe the waves do more justice to her beauty.

All that apart, I would rate the movie 9/10 for the adrenaline-pumped action and mind-blowing stunts, the humor was a bit minimal compared to the other Avengers franchise movies and I would rate it a 5.5/10 . The storyline was good, though predictable. So all in all, the best part of the movie was the action. It is definitely  worth the watch!

Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen is one of my all time favorite classics. 

It is a beautiful love story written with wit and sarcasm and filled with clever conversations and likeable characters. Here is a short review : 

The story revolves around the bennet family. Elizabeth Bennet is the main character and potragonist here.The Bennett family are living a calm and quiet life in Longbourn.  News enters the house that a certain Mr. Bingley, a young man of good fortune, is going to become their neighbour.  Mrs. Bennett assumes this is the perfect opportunity to get one of her five daughters married off well. She is troubled considering things like - Will it be her eldest, the beautiful and charming Jane, who gets all of Mr. Bingley’s attention? Or is it going to be her less beautiful, but very sensible and witty sister Elizabeth, who will make the big match?

With the arrival of Mr. Bingley, his proud and mysterious friend Mr. Darcy, and, later in the story, clergyman Mr. Collins and Officer Mr. Wickham, Mrs. Bennett finds herself surrounded by desirable suitors for her daughters. With embarrassing simple-mindedness and not exactly subtle advances she tries her best to get those men’s attention for her daughters. And except Mr. Collins, she succeeds in having each of them married to one of her daughters by the end of the story: Mr. Bingley finds himself attached to Jane, while Mr. Darcy turns out to be the perfect husband for Elizabeth, and Mr. Wickham, the villain of the story, finally has to settle for Lydia, the youngest of the girls.

Mr. Collins, an unintentionally funny pastor and a cousin of Mr. Bennett’s, who is to inherit the Bennett estate after the death of Mr. Bennett, firstly sees it as his duty to propose to one of the Bennett girls. But after being rejected by Elizabeth, he finally turns his eyes on her good friend Charlotte Lucas, and marries her instead.

Looking at Jane, it seems predictable that she is going to have the least trouble with her man, because Mr. Bingley immediately falls in love with her, and she, too, is very fond of him. But due to her mother’s silliness and stupidity, and unfortunately also to Jane’s reservation, Mr. Darcy gets the impression that his dear friend is only being liked for his money, and that Jane’s only interest is to be married to a wealthy man. For this reason, he gives his friend the advice to leave her. Mr. Bingley follows this advice, and Jane remains heartbroken. But due to fortunate circumstances and the intervention of Mr. Darcy himself, they finally get together.

Talking about Mr. Darcy, there seems to be nothing that he and Elizabeth have in common at the beginning of the story: She has an uncomplicated, funny and witty nature; he is rather snobbish, proud and reserved. Almost each time they meet, things end up in a quarrel, and Elizabeth hates and teases him frankly. But her eyes open when Mr. Wickham, the former centre of her admiration, turns out to be a liar, and she has to admit that she had done injustice to Mr. Darcy, who is willing to forgive her. They finally get married and live happily ever after. So thats the gist of it. Now what exactly is my opinion about the story? Well, Pride and Prejudice was a good read though Jane was kind of feeble minded and weak, and Mr. Darcy is brooding enough to be sufficiently interesting. I must agree Lady Catherine de Bourgh was a really...interesting character .Elizabeth Bennet I find to be very relatable as she is quick witted and intelligent but she isn't perfect - she has a very sharp tongue and hastily jumps to conclusions. The other characters - a tiresome mother, a detached father, two badly behaved younger siblings, and several snobbish, antagonizing women - all make the plot a good read.