Waching daily Jan 31 2018

Our whole focus at Southwest Hearing Center is to make sure that our patients

who have hearing loss are able to participate actively in their lives as

if they never had a hearing loss. So in order to do that we need to find out

what is the patient's lifestyle like. What are their relationships like with

family and friends, and how is their hearing loss impacting their

relationships with others? Is it a challenge with hearing and understanding

family members? Do you like to travel and you're having difficulties hearing and

understanding others around you? And from there we also find out what types of

health issues might be impacting their hearing loss. After we obtain a complete

case history of the patient and also receive input from the patient's spouse,

significant other, their children or friends that may be attending the visit

with them, we then evaluate their hearing so that the hearing evaluation results

combined with their specific challenges that they're encountering, and also their

financial situation. All of that plays a role in determining what type of

technology would be best for a patient. When we perform the hearing evaluations

in a sound insulated environment in a sound booth, we're able to determine what

is the type of hearing loss that the patient has. What is the severity of the

hearing loss? How well are they able to recognize speech sounds? How well are

they able to distinguish between speech sounds? We will perform a tympanogram and

acoustic reflex measurements. This gives us an idea of the integrity of the

patient's middle ear system. After we do that, we perform a pure tone hearing

evaluation by both air conduction with the earphones over their ears and by

bone conduction. That's by hearing the tones through the vibrations of their

skull. That gives us an idea as to whether or not the hearing loss might

have medical causes. Additionally we will verify the pure tone tests by conducting

a speech reception threshold evaluation. That's the softest level that the

patient is able to detect speech to be present. We then

perform an auditory speech discrimination test or word recognition

test, and that gives us an idea on how well the patient is able to distinguish

between speech sounds, and it will enable us from there to determine what type of

device would be most appropriate for them. Is the hearing device too small for

them to be able to insert in the ear on their own, or do we need to have a device

that's larger for them? There are now hearing devices that will connect with

our smartphones without any other accessory. They'll connect with our

television set enabling us to connect to the outside world. Not every hearing

device is the same. Over the past 30 years that I've been an audiologist, I've

had an opportunity to work with nearly every manufacturer of hearing device as

far as technology, as far as repair records, there are many types of hearing

devices. Some types of devices are more appropriate for a person's hearing loss

than others, so when we take a look at the patient's individual needs we will

always select a hearing device from a manufacturer that is reputable, that has

technology in it that will enable the patient to hear clearly and distinctly

in their various listening environments. When you come to either of our offices,

whether it be in Phoenix or in Scottsdale, you can rest assured that

you're going to be working with university-trained audiologists who have

Doctorate degrees in their profession. Your hearing will be evaluated properly

and help you select devices that are best for your lifestyle and for your

pocketbook.

For more infomation >> Which Hearing Aid is Right For You? | Scottsdale | Southwest Hearing Center - Duration: 4:02.

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Vicky Kaushal: Love Per Square Foot is a situational comedy - Duration: 11:13.

Vicky Kaushal: Love Per Square Foot is a situational comedy

Even though Vicky Kaushal is just four films old, he has been able to make a mark in Bollywood. His intense performance in Anurag Kashyap's 2016 directorial Raman Raghav 20 had left me impressed.

And now, I am surprised looking at him in an extremely light-hearted role in Netflix's upcoming Hindi feature film, Love Per Square Foot.

The film is a contemporary love story in which the protagonists, played by Vicky and the new entrant Angira Dhar, are in search of their own house in Mumbai, and how getting married could make their dreams come true.

But as they say, 'Ladka ladki kabhi dost nahi reh sakte', the relationship of convenience soon turns into love and gives birth to many complexities.

In an exclusive conversation with indianexpress.com, Vicky opens up on how it was different to play Sanjay Chaturvedi in Love Per Square Foot. "Everybody is saying that they are loving to see me in such a light-hearted role," said Vicky.

He continues, "The light-hearted role wasn't a cake walk. Comedy is difficult to do.

It is all about the moment and how you have grip of the moment. I have learnt a lot on the sets and I thank Anand Tiwari, who himself is a fantastic actor, which worked as a boon for me.

He guided me quite well. With such a great ensemble cast, it was amazing to work on the film be it Pathak sisters, Raghubir Yadav or my co-star and newbie Angira Dhar.

So, the team pushed me to do well and of course, the director brought the best out of me. He is the director of the future.

He is too good He has an amazing comic timing. He was my reference point for the character. We bonded really well. It was quite a new process of learning for me. My sense of humour has become better.".

As we start conversing about the film, he told me how he can never be in a relationship of convenience like his character from Love Per Square Foot. Vicky said, "I don't believe in relationship of convenience, personally.

I am an introvert, not that much now after getting into acting, but in a relationship sense. I believe in becoming friends first and in knowing each other.

It is very old school way of getting into a relationship, even if it is a love at first sight. Relationship of convenience has never happened to me, so I cannot talk much about it.

In the film, we have explored both – negative and positive side – of being in such a relationship.". So you believe in Karan Johar's idea of romance – Pyaar dosti hai?.

Maybe old school than Karan Johar too," he quipped. While one aspect of the film is romance and all that jazz, other aspect explores the life in Mumbai.

On being asked how Mumbai has treated him, Vicky Kaushal quipped, "I am lucky that I was born and brought up in Mumbai. But I would like to share my father's journey.

I was born in a chawl, 10 feet by 10 feet, in Malad. Soon, we shifted to another chawl, which was bigger.

And then we moved to a 1bhk, 2bhk, 4bhk and now, on a 28th floor flat from where I can see all the places I have ever lived in. So, I see his journey and hard work.

I have seen people who come to Mumbai with big dreams, one of them being a house of their own. I see people struggle to find place in every 11th month.

My father came to Mumbai in 1978. His parents would always force him to get married and his answer would be – let me buy a house.

So, I guess having your own house is also a huge dream here. That I have seen.".

But Vicky's dream is different. He wants to be able to live on film sets forever. "My dream is to always live on film sets. My beautiful moments are between action and cut.

It is a different rush and there is no better feeling that that," remarked Vicky.

The actor rose to fame with his character in Masaan. Despite being a newbie in a film that had a stellar star cast, Vicky was able to grab eyeballs.

Masaan was a love story too but extremely different to Love Per Square Foot. So, how did he treat both the films? The actor averred, "Both the films had their own complications and charm.

For Masaan, I was not familiar with that kind of world it was based in while in Love Per Sqaure Foot, I was living in the same world.

The characters in LPSF are street smart, knows the ways to get a job done while Masaan had a poetic pace, language and romance. Masaan ki khoobsurat baat yeh hai ki humne pyaar me padna dekha.

Otherwise you experience love stories which show story after the protagonists fall in love. It was a journey similar to how food gets cooked.

LPSF is more practical and talks about the things you see around. It shows how couples take to the city in order to spend some personal time in Nariman Point, Marine Drive and so on.".

With such different film experiences, it is natural to improvise during the shoot. However, Vicky admits while Masaan had more situations to improvise, it wasn't the case with Love Per Square Foot.

He said, "Every film has its own demand. Some films have scope (of improvisation). It also depends on direction. Masaan had more moments to improvise because it was more about expression and not dialogue.

Neeraj Ghaywan would give us space to perform. He would not say cut even after the dialogue would be over because he would want us to experiment and react to the situation naturally.

There's a scene in the film where I cry after my girlfriend dies. That entire scene was not in the film. I wasn't supposed to cry or be with friends, nothing at all.

Vicky continues, "I was supposed to be drunk and after some dialogues, the scene was supposed to be cut. The fact is to trigger myself for the scene, I had taken help of alcohol.

Now, when the scene was being shot, I was over with my dialogues but I noticed that a train was passing by on the pull nearby, which made me recall girlfriend's poem "Tu kisi rail se guzarti hai main kisi pull sa thartharata hoon" and other sweet things that she said, which naturally made me cry, how and when it happened, even I did not realise.

In the film, the director chose to show this scene only. Love Per Square Foot is a situational comedy.

Everything is so measured that rarely you would get a scope to improvise but nothing more because you can spoil the scene by overacting or underacting in this genre.".

A still from Love Per Square Foot.

Another aspect of Love Per Square Foot is marriage, so has Vicky thought of settling down anytime soon? "Well, I have asked my parents for 3-4 years. I am just 29 after all and have a career to make.

But I feel very positive about the institution of marriage. Laddu abhi khaya nahi phir bhi laddu toh laddu hi lagega.

But I feel it always work as a strength to have a companion in life who you can depend on. I like the thought of it.

Jab Shaadi karunga tab ek aur interview karunga and I will tell you if marriage is La La Land," said Vicky.

Love Per Square Foot is going to be Vicky's first film in 2018. The actor has been quite busy with multiple projects that would release this year.

"2017 has been a very good year. I have shot for many films and all of these would be releasing this year.

I have shot with Karan Johar (Bombay Talkies 2), Rajkumar Hirani (Dutt Biopic) and Meghna Gulzar (Raazi). Also, on sets of Manmarziyan for now, which is directed by Anurag Kashyap.

I have learnt a lot from these ace directors," quipped the Maasan actor.

For more infomation >> Vicky Kaushal: Love Per Square Foot is a situational comedy - Duration: 11:13.

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This is the real problem with Sanjay Leela Bhansali's Padmaavat - Duration: 7:22.

This is the real problem with Sanjay Leela Bhansali's Padmaavat

Director Sanjay Leela Bhansali's highly controversial film Padmaavat has found itself in the middle of a raging new controversy. This time it is not the Karni Sena or its lookalikes that are up in arms against the magnum-opus.

But, those who stood by Bhansali and his team and supported the film's release even when a handful of state governments and fringe elements tried to trample freedom of expression.

After we watch the film and return to the senses from the Bhansali high, which is caused due to the insane visual ecstasy that the director supplies profusely through his imagination, we're most likely to be in a state of confusion as we ponder over a few questions: Did I just root for Jauhar? Did I just feel at ease with hundreds of women running into the raging fire because their husbands were killed in the battlefield? Was I really comfortable with the ending?.

You may argue 'come on now, let's cut Bhansali some slack as he has simply based his film on a fictional poem that was written some 700 years ago.' Yes, Padmavaati along with other Rajput women jumping into the fire after Alauddin Khilji defeated the Rajput army is the story.

And Bhansali showed the same on the big screen. It is not what story he narrated but how he narrated it that has led to a new wave of backlash against the film.

Bhansali puts an old woman, who is dressed very unfashionably for a Rajput woman, in the spotlight more than once to register in the viewers' mind that she is a widow and did not jump into the pyre of her dead husband.

We can confidently agree that Bhansali did make his statement against sati in the film. Also read | Dear SLB, Padmaavat's visual opulence can't make up for its sloppy narrative and misplaced glorification.

He portrayed Jauhar, however, as an act of courage, valour and empowerment of women.

I think he wants us to make peace with the idea that it was not the Rajput men who pushed those women into burning fire to protect them from invaders. But, the Rajput women did so by their own will.

Not long ago, Malayalam superstar Mammootty came under heavy fire for acting in a film called Kaasab. In the film, he played a cocksure cop, who grabs a senior woman police officer by her belt and says some horrible things to her face.

Not just this one scene, the entire film reeked of male chauvinism and regressive ideas of treating women.

Here the real issue was not that Mammootty played a torchbearer of misogyny. But, the filmmakers' attempt to show that treating women with contempt was part of his heroism.

And making his fans root for him while he goes on piling up insults on women.

Is it that difficult for the filmmakers to understand that misogyny is a bad quality and they should not make it look like something to desire for through their films?.

The sticking point in the Bhansali controversy is not that he made a film on Jauhar. He stands accused of glorifying the saddest practice of our history that deprived women the right to live after the death of their husbands.

And he's so very guilty of that. For instance, in Thevar Magan, Kamal Haasan's Saktivelu accidentally beheads Nassar's Maya Thevar. Saktivelu becomes inconsolable and overcomes with the guilt of killing someone.

The emotional breakdown that this character suffers depicts the kind of damage that violence inflicts on our society. And let's juxtapose this scene with the interval sequence in Baahubali: The Beginning, where Amerendra Baahubali beheads Bhallaladeva's son Bhadra.

There is thunder, followed by heavy rain, drum rolls, trumpets blow in the backdrop as Baahubali strike a hero's pose after decapitating Bhadra. The same kind of violence here is glamorized.

We clap, whistle and celebrate the violence in the scene because of the way it was presented to us. It was packaged by filmmakers to elicit such positive reaction from us for such a gruesome violence.

Also read | Jim Sarbh is the unsung hero of the larger than life Rajput fantasy Padmaavat.

After watching the ending scene of Padmaavat, I should have felt shocked and sorry for the cruelty that had been meted out to women by such evil practices.

I should not have felt relieved that hundreds of women embraced a gruesome death to avoid being captured by the Khilji army.

A single line gist of the film may read like this: Hundreds of women in a kingdom choose death over the risk of being enslaved by the invaders.

But, what the film missed to show is the fact that they had been the slaves of the system their entire life. The poem Padmavat was written in the social context of the 13th century.

When a big motion picture is made on this piece of literature, the least Bhansali could have done is not to glorify a medieval-age practice that was designed to condition women to believe that they had no life beyond their husbands.

Above all, as one of the distinguished and influential filmmakers of the country, Bhansali also has the moral responsibility to his viewers. Selecting the darkest stories of our history and packaging them with glitz and grandeur.

And presenting them to us without any insight and relevance to the day and age we live in, is not a desirable quality of an artist of his stature.