Latest news with #Ammu
News18
09-07-2025
- Entertainment
- News18
How AI Helped This Dadi Reconnect With Her Late Husband
Last Updated: The AI-generated clip shows the grandmother walking hand-in-hand with her late husband A heartwarming video has taken over social media, showcasing a grandma being surprised with an AI-generated video of walking hand-in-hand with her late husband. The emotional clip was created by Apoorva Vijaykumar as a birthday gift to her grandmother, who was visibly moved to tears. She posted the touching video on Instagram, which left the internet in tears. The video quickly went viral online, with many users resharing the clip on several social media platforms. The AI-generated clip shows the grandmother walking hand-in-hand with her late husband. The grandmother's reaction is priceless, as she bursts into tears, overwhelmed with emotion. The video ends with a warm hug between the grandmother and her granddaughter. The caption accompanying the video reads, 'Happy Birthday Ammu. I know living without Appupan has been hard. So I made this to remind you…He's still here—in every quiet moment, in every little joy. You may not see him, but he's watching over you, protecting you, and walking beside you always." Watch the video here: The heartfelt video has gone viral and racked up around 2 million views. People are praising the video's use of artificial intelligence to relive cherished memories and honour long-lasting love. Viewers are deeply moved by the grandmother's smile and tears of joy, with many sharing heartfelt and emotional reactions in the comment section. One user commented, 'How many times these two must have forgiven each other to get this far? A person dies, not memories." 'Ammu is a pookie. Her hair clip says it all," another posted. A third user added, 'Oh god please, A love this pure may find everyone… A love for infinity years, A love for this life and next life." 'The void remains, love never comes back. The person is gone, but the weight of the feeling lingers. Is there anything in this world more beautiful & terrifying than attachment?" a user wrote. In another incident, an AI-generated video depicting a future went viral earlier, sparking concern and debate online. The video portrayed how things might be in the year 2100. The video depicted numerous heartbreaking possibilities scenarios, including no food, trees in museums, paid air and rain and an apocalyptic atmosphere. View this post on Instagram A post shared by INDIANS (@indians) 'In 2100, we won't be fighting countries — we'll be fighting plastic. Rivers will flow like garbage, landfills will burn like volcanoes, and microplastics will run through our veins. The scariest part? We'll call it- normal," read the caption. Buzz Staff A team of writers at bring you stories on what's creating the buzz on the Internet while exploring science, cricket, tech, gender, Bollywood, and culture. News18's viral page features trending stories, videos, and memes, covering quirky incidents, social media buzz from india and around the world, Also Download the News18 App to stay updated! tags : ai viral news viral video view comments Location : Delhi, India, India First Published: July 09, 2025, 19:11 IST Disclaimer: Comments reflect users' views, not News18's. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.
The Hindu
04-07-2025
- Entertainment
- The Hindu
Jeet Thayil in conversation with Jerry Pinto on his new book The Elsewhereans
Jeet Thayil's new work, The Elsewhereans (published by Fourth Estate), defies genre, forcing readers to reconsider everything they think they know about literary strategies. The subtitle calls it a documentary novel but it is biography, autobiography, family history, ghost story, travelogue, ityaadi. We meet Ammu and George in a village in Kerala and travel with and without them to Mumbai, Hanoi, Saigon, Hong Kong and Paris. On this periplus, ghosts surface and evanesce, skeletons tumble out of closets, one of which smiles at us from the cover. At the heart of this magnificent and compelling mélange, the narrator, Jeet lui-meme, forces us to decide: is this an unreliable narrator? In my opinion, there is no such thing as an unreliable narrator because there are no reliable narrators; there are only compelling narrators and boring ones. Jeet is a compelling storyteller, descended from an ancient line of mariners — water plays an important role in this story. His first commitment will be to the story and so should ours be. I believe that a family story that leaves the family happy will be boring; the real stories are the ones we hold close to our chests, the family's asps. (The more the writer bleeds, the better it reads.) To bring these stories out into the world, to talk about the failures and the addictions, the desires and the disappointments is to remind all of us that every family is a work in progress. Perhaps the first and most natural question to ask the author who turns his hand with elegance and strength to the forms of poetry, the novel and the anthology is about the risk a genre-agnostic book takes in a world obsessed with categories. Excerpts from an email interview: Q: This genre-shifting is an enormous risk in a world of categories. Did it happen organically or was it planned? A: It was very much an organic process. I started with a book that was twice the size, about 400 pages or more. Which might have been some form of Proustian anxiety, the obsessive compulsive need to record every passing digression. Then, in a moment of clarity, I jettisoned everything that didn't fit the single and singular story being told — and ended up with a leaner, tighter, better manuscript. The form revealed itself three or four years into the writing. It might have been the most crucial stage of the whole process, and the most difficult. Q: But at the heart of this magnificent mélange is Jeet Thayil telling us a story so close to him that we sense the vulnerability of the storyteller. Could you talk a little about the psychic cost of such writing? A: Since my parents are a part of the story, I had to ask their permission. It was only right. My mother gave her permission reluctantly, but there was never any question that she would refuse. She'd probably agree wholeheartedly with the epigraph that begins the book: 'When a writer is born into a family, the family is finished.' I guess the psychic cost is one every writer must confront: by telling your story, which is also the story of the people you have known, are you usurping or co-opting their voices? If there's a sense of guilt, a residual guilt, it is offset by a sense of duty. That it is your job to tell the story however the chips may fall. Q: As readers, we encounter a series of enigmatic and intriguing women: Ammu, Nguyen Phuc Chau, Da Nang, Lijia, Chachiamma, a dead wife, M. We half recognise these women from our own histories and yet they are completely new. Perhaps this question is about the choice of characters populating the book. A: It started with Ammu, and the novel ends with her. She died in January, at which point I knew it was time to bring this novel to a close. It was always going to be her story. Though I didn't realise until I saw your question that she is only one among half-a-dozen compelling women characters, and that the women own the book. This wasn't planned, but it seems absolute and inevitable. I come from a long line of strong women. There's no way to tell this story without acknowledging and honouring them. Q: The poet and the novelist work together here. For me, this is about the lapidary care with which conversations are constructed or events outlined. Would you like to say something about the interaction between these selves? A: It isn't always possible to separate those selves. If you practise, or embody, both disciplines, it's difficult to know where one ends and the other begins. In my case, and in yours, the poet and the novelist bleed into each other. Which is the way it should be. Genres or labels are for book shops. If you are both those things, how do you separate? And more to the point, why should you separate? If the point of a novel is to tell a story only you can tell, why would you discriminate between your separate yet adjacent selves? Q: You take for granted — and expect perhaps your reader to also take for granted — the osmosis between the world of the dead and the living. Our generation, I believe, was trained to be rational. Was this something you struggled with? A: We have been trained to be rational. We are told to believe half of what we see and none of what we hear. And at this point, in the age of AI, we can't believe much of what we see, either. I can't say I've ever struggled with the question of what is rational and what isn't. The rational world would have us endorse the viewpoint that when the dead die, they cease to exist. And yet, and yet. I've never had much doubt about where the dead go. I know they are among us, unable to fully be here or to fully leave. In that sense, the difference between the world of the dead and the world of the living is nothing more than a veil. All we have to do is look past the veil. It's a way of seeing, of believing in the world that lies beyond the waking world. Or to quote from The Elsewhereans: 'This is where the dead go. To torment us in our dreams. They have nothing else to do and nowhere else to be.' Q: Is 'Elsewhereanism' an inheritance? Or is it a choice? A: I'd say it's a state of being, and in that sense, it's an inheritance. But in every other way, it's an ongoing choice. Is it possible to live in the modern world and be of one place? Who can answer with one word the question, 'Where are you from?' Even if you've never left your place of birth, you may feel like a stranger at home. You may choose to believe that your hometown is wherever you happen to be. You are not of single origin, like a coffee varietal. You are from multiple places. You contain multitudes. Home is where you lay your hat. The interviewer is a poet and novelist.
Time of India
03-05-2025
- Health
- Time of India
Help, my dog needs a therapist
CHENNAI: When freelance writer Lakshmi P's cat Ammu developed patches of wounds, she took her to four vets. All of them prescribed antibiotics and anti-allergens. But the wounds kept coming back. It was the fifth vet who asked the right questions and found the cat was self-harming – from separation anxiety. Lakshmi had left her with a friend with a dog when she moved abroad, which was causing the stress. Lakshmi later decided to take Ammu abroad with her. 'Most vets in India treat the physical symptoms. I have started consuming content by internationally known animal behaviourists now and understand the issues of my family dog better. Also, cats do get attached to humans, unlike the popular myth,' she says, adding that Ammu is the 'happiest girl now.' You Can Also Check: Chennai AQI | Weather in Chennai | Bank Holidays in Chennai | Public Holidays in Chennai In the UK, when pets appear to suffer from a non-physical ailment, the veterinarian refers them to a qualified animal behaviourist. And if something happens to the animal at the hands of the behaviouralist, the licence is cancelled. But no such system exists in India. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like Sudden Ringing in Your Ears? This Spray Might Help Stop Tinnitus Now Learn More Undo While mental health is a specialisation in human medicine, the govt veterinary science syllabus is mostly focused on livestock, and at most, there are a few sessions on how to handle animals ethically. Vets at Tamil Nadu Veterinary and Animal Sciences University (Tanuvas), Chennai, agree that there isn't much in the syllabus about animal behaviour but there is a ''lot of scope'' for it. 'Mostly, we get cases of dog-to-human or dog-to-dog aggression. If the aggression is directed against every stranger, it's difficult to treat. We try anti-anxiety drugs, tricyclic antidepressants and selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors which take eight weeks to start showing results, but more important is early socialisation,' says Dr K J. 'Whatever we learn on small animals such as dogs and cats and their behaviour, is from books and training programmes,' says Dr V Arun, a veterinarian from Chennai. It was during such a programme conducted by the veterinary association that vets like him learned to handle dogs and cats, he says. The trainers in these programmes are invariably from the west, and their insights have been eye-opening, says Dr Arun. 'Cats, for example, get stressed in vet clinics by the presence of dogs. It was this learning that made me decide to open a facility exclusive for cats in Chennai.' Psychological issues in pets are more pronounced now than a few decades ago as people are constantly moving cities, especially post-Covid, says Dr Yamini P Suresh, a Bengaluru-based vet. While animal psychology should ideally be a subject, 'animals can't communicate, and hence pet psychology isn't easy'. 'We do our best to learn their behaviour case by case once we start practising. Each animal is unique, and there is no one-size-fits-all treatment.' What helps her detect signs of depression or anxiety in pets, she says, is that she had dogs and cats growing up. Yamini also refers her patients to qualified behaviourists when she senses there are no major medical issues. Ethology or the science of animal behaviour is still an emerging field in India, and while some vets such as Yamini are open to referring their clients to them, others aren't. 'I'm not against them, it's just that very few are qualified,' says Dr Arun. 'Vets are invariably pressed for time, dealing with 50-60 animals a day, and it is difficult for them to form a personal bond with each dog or cat, and remember their past behaviour, hence many refer them to me,' says Nivedita Prabhukumar, a Bengaluru-based canine behaviourist. But things have progressed a lot, she says. When she started out in 2013, 'animal training' was only about teaching dogs obedience, which often involved punishment, and the use of tools such as shock collars, she says. 'There are still trainers who still do that but in the past decade, the focus has started shifting to the animal's happiness.' For example, an extra five minutes at the vet clinic for the animals to settle down makes all the difference, as it's a highly stressful environment for them, she says. 'I also suggest wellness visits to the vet for puppies for no reason to reduce anxiety.' Dr Sonika Sathish, a former govt vet from Kerala says, in India, 70% of pets need muzzling at vet clinics. When she moved to Canada recently, she found only 5% of the pets there wore muzzles. 'Even cats are calm in clinics here. The vets draw blood from the jugular vein, unthinkable in India because the animal will be thrashing around in fear,' she says. 'Pet parents in the west train the animals from birth or send them to puppy school. They walk them, socialise them and familiarise them with humans, all of which are crucial for their adult behaviour.' In Nivedita's view, the information explosion has gone to the other extreme. 'Earlier I had to request people to take their pets with them outdoors, but now there are many who take them along on every weekend, for every trip. I have to beg them to give the animal some stability.' Dogs and cats manage to survive in most circumstances, but for them to thrive, and live their best life, you need a combination of the pet parent, the doctor, the behaviouralist, even the groomer working together, says Dr Yamini. 'Like for a child, you need a village to raise a pet too. If one misses a sign, the other can spot it and address it.'
Time of India
22-04-2025
- Politics
- Time of India
Naval officer on honeymoon trip among victims of Pahalgam terror attack
1 2 3 4 Kochi: A naval officer, who was posted in Kochi, was among the victims of the Pahalgam terror attack on Tuesday noon. Naval authorities in Kochi confirmed that Lt Vinay Narwal , 26, of Southern Naval Command and his wife were on a honeymoon trip to Kashmir. Vinay, who is a native of Haryana, got married on April 16. Gulf returnee killed A 65-year-old Kochiite was among those killed in terror attack on tourists at Pahalgam in Jammu and Kashmir on Tuesday. The deceased has been identified as N Ramachandran, a resident of Mangat Road at Edappally. A Gulf returnee, Ramachandran went to Kashmir along with his wife Sheela, daughter Ammu and two grandchildren on Monday morning. According to the information received by family members, Ramachandran was shot dead while others escaped the attack narrowly. It is learned that some of his relatives also accompanied him on the trip. "It's shocking to hear of Ramachandran's death in terror attack. He had been actively engaged in social work after returning from Doha two years ago," said his neighbour Vijayakumar, who is also the president of Mangat Road Residents Association. Ramachandran was the association's vice-president. "Ammu was in Dubai along with her family. When she returned to Kerala recently, Ramachandran decided to visit Kashmir along with family. They departed Kochi airport on Monday morning and went to Srinagar via Hyderabad, Vijayakumar said. Thrikkakara MLA Uma Thomas said efforts were currently under way to communicate with Ramachandran's family members, who are still in Pahalgam. "It's deeply painful for us to learn that one of the victims was Ramachandran, a native of Thrikkakara. I extend my heartfelt condolences to all those who lost their lives in the brutal attack. The terrorist attack on innocent tourists is a cowardly assault on humanity and the peace of Kashmir. I urge the central govt to respond with a strong and decisive retaliation against the terrorists," she said.
Time of India
22-04-2025
- Politics
- Time of India
Kochi resident killed in Pahalgam terror attack while on family trip
Kochi: A 65-year-old Kochiite was among those killed in terror attack on tourists at Pahalgam in Jammu and Kashmir on Tuesday. The deceased has been identified as N Ramachandran , a resident of Mangat Road at Edappally. Tired of too many ads? go ad free now A Gulf returnee, Ramachandran went to Kashmir along with his wife Sheela, daughter Ammu and two grandchildren on Monday morning. According to the information received by family members, Ramachandran was shot dead while others escaped the attack narrowly. It is learned that some of his relatives also accompanied him on the trip. "It's shocking to hear of Ramachandran's death in terror attack. He had been actively engaged in social work after returning from Doha two years ago," said his neighbour Vijayakumar, who is also the president of Mangat Road Residents Association. Ramachandran was the association's vice-president. "Ammu was in Dubai along with her family. When she returned to Kerala recently, Ramachandran decided to visit Kashmir along with family. They departed Kochi airport on Monday morning and went to Srinagar via Hyderabad, Vijayakumar said. Thrikkakara MLA Uma Thomas said efforts were currently under way to communicate with Ramachandran's family members, who are still in Pahalgam. "It's deeply painful for us to learn that one of the victims was Ramachandran, a native of Thrikkakara. I extend my heartfelt condolences to all those who lost their lives in the brutal attack. The terrorist attack on innocent tourists is a cowardly assault on humanity and the peace of Kashmir. I urge the central govt to respond with a strong and decisive retaliation against the terrorists," she said. Kochi: A 65-year-old Kochiite was among those killed in terror attack on tourists at Pahalgam in Jammu and Kashmir on Tuesday. Tired of too many ads? go ad free now The deceased has been identified as N Ramachandran, a resident of Mangat Road at Edappally. A Gulf returnee, Ramachandran went to Kashmir along with his wife Sheela, daughter Ammu and two grandchildren on Monday morning. According to the information received by family members, Ramachandran was shot dead while others escaped the attack narrowly. It is learned that some of his relatives also accompanied him on the trip. "It's shocking to hear of Ramachandran's death in terror attack. He had been actively engaged in social work after returning from Doha two years ago," said his neighbour Vijayakumar, who is also the president of Mangat Road Residents Association. Ramachandran was the association's vice-president. "Ammu was in Dubai along with her family. When she returned to Kerala recently, Ramachandran decided to visit Kashmir along with family. They departed Kochi airport on Monday morning and went to Srinagar via Hyderabad, Vijayakumar said. Thrikkakara MLA Uma Thomas said efforts were currently under way to communicate with Ramachandran's family members, who are still in Pahalgam. "It's deeply painful for us to learn that one of the victims was Ramachandran, a native of Thrikkakara. I extend my heartfelt condolences to all those who lost their lives in the brutal attack. The terrorist attack on innocent tourists is a cowardly assault on humanity and the peace of Kashmir. I urge the central govt to respond with a strong and decisive retaliation against the terrorists," she said.
