Mandar Apte

UI/UX Designer from Mumbai, Maharashtra, India.

Category: Mumbai

Mumbai (also known as Bombay, the official name until 1995) is the capital city of the Indian state of Maharashtra.

  • Why typing Devanagari Alphabets (Marathi, Sanskrit, Hindi) on a personal computer is so difficult? And why typing Devanagari in Latin is so easy and preferred by many?

    Introduction & Background

    I have been planning to write this blog post for many years. I have been facing this issue since I had my first Microsoft Windows Operating System-based computer in 2002. After that, it was partially solved on a Mac in 2008. I faced the issue of Marathi on the web when I had my website mandarapte.com in 2010 and then my community Marathi website chitpavankatta.com in 2012.

    The idea of writing this blog post or writing documentation about why we face the problem of typing Marathi / Sanskrit / Hindi with Devanagari Script on a computer got more critical when some category of journalists or people who started false propaganda to tell the Marathi population at large that Devanagari Script for the Marathi language is no more relevant anymore instead we should abandon Devanagari Script Alphabets and start using Latin Script to write the Marathi Language. These people gave an example of the young generation who are writing, chatting, or texting on their mobile phones using Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram. They use Latin script to write Marathi rather than Devanagari script.

    At that time, I attended a few lectures on Devanagari Calligraphy and Typography, where I met an important person like Mr Mukund Gokhale from Pune, who had done extensive work in building Marathi Typewriter with his two or three seniors in his field. He also worked with famous calligraphers and typographers to bring Devanagari onto the computer, i.e. designing popular Devanagari fonts for Computers. At that time, I was working at IITB as a web designer. After that, I met Mukund Gokhale at his Pune home to discuss why Marathi Typing is so tricky and why it is targeted by anti-nationals with no linguistic background to speak about abandoning the Devanagari script. We discussed it at length. He even showed me software he developed with his developer tech support to design Marathi-based digital artworks and designs. It was his initiative to create an alternative solution to Adobe Photoshop / Illustrator that doesn’t support Devanagari Script in 2014/17. And now it’s the year 2021. Because of these long conversations on the phone or when we met each other personally, I even developed the Devanagari Learning app for iPhone, iPad and Mac.

    When this propaganda started by abusing the Marathi language and falsely showcasing its irrelevance in today’s world, I talked with popular Hindu Orators who were tirelessly working to stop it. People like me were middlemen between famous Hindu orators and calligrapher/typographer Mukund Gokhale to share knowledge and know-how and connect the dots.

    So, I am going to write here my observations that I learned while talking with Mukund Gokhale. Some observations are in my capacity as I am myself a designer and developer who wants to talk and design/develop in Marathi.

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    Mandar Apte
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  • In-depth Review of Matrimony Website by Suyog Ranade Vivaha, aka Shree Suyog Vivaha Mandal

    Background:

    I have written a complete, in-depth review and analysis of the Suyog Ranade Vivaha or Shree Suyog Vivaha Mandal Matrimony website that I used for 6 to 7 months, mainly on WhatsApp groups, because of bad user experience on website format. I reported the following issues to them, but they were not ready or in the right frame of mind to accept it.

    So, I just unregistered myself from their portal and exited their WhatsApp groups.

    Following are the points that I noticed about their matrimony service:

    Point 01:
    No or Failed Business Model. The matrimony section mainly runs on WhatsApp Groups of 250 people. The group is unmanaged sometimes; people post their profiles multiple times. Some people even post political or comic forwards. Because all members are in an open WhatsApp group, there is no contact number security or number privacy. Sometimes, admins or business owners post repeated WhatsApp Messages asking every user to register and pay a fee to use WhatsApp groups or websites. Admins even warn users they will remove everyone who never pays the matrimony section fee, which showcases the main point that there is no thought behind Successful Business Model or Revenue Generation.

    Point 02:
    No Privacy or Security: Because of the open group with visibility of contact numbers to everyone, users are prone to scammers and fake profiles or spam calls

    Point 03:
    Suyog Ranade Vivaha lost complete user profile data and even registered account data three times while upgrading their website and transferring the website to their new domain. They had to ask every user individually to reregister for their website repeatedly—a failed system.

    Point 04:
    Website owners had to change their Web Domain as a similar web domain was used by its competitor with a slight name difference. This shows no thought about branding or company structure. Because of this exact domain by competitors, Suyog Ranade Vivavha’s Matrimony users were registering wrongly on competitors’ websites, thinking competitors that they were the original company. This shows a loss of identity and company branding, and a loss of revenue.

    Point 05:
    As you can see in the screenshots, the website structure is broken and faulty, with buggy coding and development.

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    Mandar Apte
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  • Art & Design Competition in Maharashtra, India – ‘State Art’, Maharashtra State Art Competition by Directorate of Art Maharashtra State

    This competition is famous for the name State Art.

    Competition Information & Admission Forms are issued in the First Week of November Every Year & Submission of Admission Forms & Artwork for State Art are collected & submitted in the next Month i.e Every 3rd or 4th Week of December.

    Results are declared in January’s first or second week or so, and the Exhibition is scheduled for seven days, i.e., a Full Week in February or March.

    Submission Requirements & Rules

    1. You, i.e. Participant, must be in Residence of the State of Maharashtra for the last 10 years or so.
    2. A Domicile Certificate signed by the concerned authority as proof of residence in Maharashtra for the last 10 years has to be submitted with the form.
    3. Well Framed artwork should be submitted with submission as an entry
    4. Image (JPEG or JPG Files) files of respective submissions have to be submitted on CD (Compact Disk) with form
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    Mandar Apte
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  • Why India Loosing at ‘Brain Drain’ on International Level to America (USA)

    Being Indian, Student, Graduate, Employee, Business Man Myself & Friends of People who are just like me I have seen closely why India is loosing battle of Brain to USA – United States of America,

    Here are few thoughts that I can sum up to determine why India is Facing ‘Brain Drain’ at highest level than any country on planet called ‘Earth’

    Falling Indian Rupees Value

    Today Indian Rupees stands 55 Rupees per 1 Dollar

    So when ever you earn your sallery in Dollars you earn 55 times more than American Dollar

    So it is easy choice for any Indian Student looking for Job opportunity prefers always Salaried Job in America where he get paid in American Dollars for same amount of work he would do in Indian subcontinent

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    Mandar Apte
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  • An Appeal through Synopsis by Madhav Ghule about his work to awakening brahmans

    An Awakening Call to Brahmans

    Beware: Danger to the Existence and Challenges to our Self Esteem

    Date: 9th July 2012

    Some of the Anti social elements of non-Brahman community, represented by persons like Purushottam Khedekar, A.H.Salunkhe, Madan Patil, Shreemant Kokate, Dr.Balaji Jadhav, M.M.Deshmukh etc. are nowadays regularly engaged in maligning the image of the Brahman’s. They are publishing Articles and Books, containing malicious, baseless, non-historical, insulting & palpably wrong writings full of hatred. It appears that a big campaign is being run to destroy the Status and Goodwill of the Brahman community. All this is being done under the name of Right of Freedom of Expression.

    To give an idea of the kind of disgusting comments that are made against us, some of them from the book titled “Shivarayanchya Badanamichi Kendre” and other books are quoted below.

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    Mandar Apte
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  • My Traveling Experience through Mumbai – Pune Expressway & Remembering Pixar’s Movie Cars

    Last week I travelled to Theur near Hadapsar & Pune (India) just to visit & have blessings of Shree Chintamani. One of the Ashtavinayak Temple.

    Today When I started to wrote down my experience of traveling through Mumbai Pune Expressway & bypassing Old Mumbai Pune Highway, It is just in resemblance to What Pixar Movie Cars stood for…!!!

    Mumbai Pune Expressway is just opposite to What Slow moving traffic you will find on Mumbai Local roads or even on Pune roads.

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    Mandar Apte
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