Are we going to be like this only, for ever??

Not infrequently, while you are driving or walking or just idling, watching the goings-on in the vicinity, you observe some uncouth, uncivilized and senseless behaviour and wonder `Why are we like this and why do we do this??  Don't we realise that what we are doing is causing problems to the others'??  Your mind automatically clicks back to somewhat similar situations you have encountered in another country and wonder why there is this manic desire in most Indians to knowingly and willingly abuse our public spaces, inconveniencing people around us and themselves, more often than not.  We are not talking about the age-old issues of spitting, throwing waste or urinating in public spaces but many other ways of offending sensibilities.

There should be a strictly enforced rule that small restaurants, tee/coffee shops and the like should not operate out of any street-corner site.  How often do we see cycles, auto-rickshaws, motor-cycles and even cars parked haphazardly on narrow roads which the joint straddles?  They occupy 70% of the space meant for movement of people and vehicles, forming some unbreakable `vyuha',  just so that the owners/drivers of these vehicles enjoy their cuppa, a smoke and leisurely chit-chat?  All this, while just a few yards from them, there is mayhem and people are milling and jostling to squeeze past the parked vehicles.  When tempers flare and  fights break out on the road among road-users, these worthies snigger and stare insolently at the scene, relishing the commotion they have caused.  If you expected some semblance of regret or apology, forget it.  Obviously you cannot put this down to thoughtless behaviour of the juvenile variety.  There is this deliberate desire to cause offence and pain and that is what is galling.

Take the case of getting into elevators, buses etc.  While 15 people are waiting patiently for the elevator/bus to empty out, the first few people who rush in from the sides are the few mad men who have just arrived on the scene.  Not only would they push through, but also park themselves at the entrance of the elevator/bus, blocking the way for the rest.  Why?  They have to get out earlier than the others!  This could be in/near a hospital, where there are the sick and the elderly waiting to use the lifts/buses, but these offenders dont care.   For some reason, a well-intentioned queue, which had formed before the bus arrived, dissipates into a melee immediately on its arrival and a free-for-all follows, in which the ladies and the infirm are absolutely helpless!

What about this?  Every day, when we drive from home in the morning, we are treated to the sight of two small trucks involved in a messy transfer of stuff to a larger truck, right on the road.  What kind of commercial transaction is being done?  The smaller trucks are transferring all the garbage collected from about 2000 houses in the locality to the bigger truck.  It is bad enough that people without even the protection of gloves go through the garbage, sifting for useful nuggets; but this is done in full public view, with the accompanying stench violating your nostrils.  You get a full demonstration of this activity as you wait to overtake the parked trucks to proceed on your way. It should not be difficult to move the offending trucks to a remoter location where all the sorting is done, but do you think they care??  Their thought process seems to be that `if we have to dig into this mess for a living, you prudes should not be too sensitive about having a glimpse'!!

In case you thought this `offensive' tendency is individual, think again!  Institutions dont lag far behind.  Corporation's workers are laying some pipes or repairing something on the road.  Familiar scene, happens daily.   Knowing fully well that the narrow road has to have at least one way traffic flowing without hindrance and they have to manage this well, what do they actually do??  With a supervising engineer around, the mud, debris, pipes to be laid are all stacked on the road in such a way that the road is just not usable in any sense.  And to add to this misery, they just refuse to regulate the traffic, with the result, on about 40% of the normal road, two way traffic tries to edge past everything and you know what happens!  Men and women in a continuum of  snarling matches; frayed tempers and abusive language; some fisticuffs and general despair -  while some radio is providing musical entertainment - `abhi na jaao chodkar' is playing, ironically - to the 5-6 people digging deeper, with the sole intent of causing incremental grief.

I am sure you have experienced this while driving or riding in a car.  You are at a signal-less, unpoliced busy intersection, trying to turn right.  Traffic is coming from your right and you have to get past that stream to turn right.  You have waited at the intersection for more than 5 minutes, hoping for a gap in the traffic.  You nudge the car forward slowly, hoping to break through eventually, because the traffic from the right is just not stopping.  (I used to ask my driver why he has to slowly insert the car into the oncoming traffic and risk the possibility of being hit and his wisdom was simple - you cannot wait for the waves to abate if you want to have a dip in the sea!). You have come most of the way and just a bit is left before you can heave a sigh of relief.  You look to the right and see three cars coming about 100 meters away, switching on their headlights, firmly indicating their intent not to let you clear  the next 10 feet, so that you can do your turn.  Those cars will go further right, to move around you, almost hitting a couple of vehicles coming from the left, but they will not let you pass.  If the traffic from right stops for one mintue, you and the others waiting with you could turn and be done; but no, that would be far too simple and equitable,  you see.  What causes this??  Ego or something else?  And all the people indulging in this thuggery are not uneducated drivers!!

Similarly, if it is a junction where four roads are converging and the traffic police, in their infinite wisdom, have switched off the lights (that is another mystery I have not cracked yet - why, for heaven's sake??), you can bet your bottom rupee that within 15 minutes there will be a situation where cars, buses, two-wheelers and other assorted vehicles have all come to a halt, with no space to manoeuvre.  The vehicles are at all kinds of weird angles, making it impossible to guess which one was heading  in which direction.  It will take a policeman some 45 minutes to untangle this mess, while all those who created the mess in the first place generate more chaos by blaring their horns and yelling belligerently.  Why did they get into this situation?  Because they did not have the patience and good sense to wait 10 seconds and let somebody else pass and move in an orderly manner.  They would rather waste the next hour, struggling to get out of the ensuing unholy mess!!

Will we ever change??  Or are we destined to be like this only??

One more on Mosquitos!!

Another one on mosquitos; it is revenge, pure and simple - they are not letting go of me and I am reciprocating!  In the context of mosquitos revisiting our community, Vista!!

Varad

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Those unwanted visitors, who intermittently force Vista residents to turn hostile and keep their doors shut, are back.  Theyhave invaded the community in hordes and seem intent on doing a limited Taliban on us by enforcing a stricter dress code.  While there is no official communique from the assailing force about the edict, people have been coerced to abandon their shorts and tees in favour of trousers and full-sleeves even during evening walks.  That seems to be the only way of keeping the attackers at bay.  Vista residents using open spaces are also forcibly taught a few nifty dance steps due to the absolute need to keep shifting their feet to avoid damage; and sources indicate that such coaching, imparted in short bursts in a few minutes, is far

more effective in teaching Waltz, Bollywood, Bharathanatyam, Odissi and other rather unknown dance forms, than all the classes regularly conducted in Vista put together.  

The surprise is in the fact that this is happening in October, after the routine, first dose was administrated in the summer! Are mosquitos getting agnostic to seasons??  It appears so and obviously there is a crying need for some defence which the hapless Vistaites can use to protect themselves.  I searched high and low and have identified a brand new, as-yet-not-on-the-market product which the manufacturers claim will help people ward off the buzzing menace effectively.  They have not found a suitable name for this wonder-antidote yet, so let us tentatively name it BuzOff! Read on!  The substance is from the manufacturers, but in a synopsis of mine.

BuzOff is a Coil for the outdoors.  Unlike other coil-remedies (at the last count, the number of such products in the market being only slightly lower than the number of mosquitos in the neighbourhood!), this one scores with its mobility!  A mobile coil??  Yes, and since it is designed to protect you, mobility is supported by, what else, you!  These coils come in different sizes and shapes; they can be worn on your arms, legs, waist or head (this flexibility should score high in the mind of the users, since it provides them with the option of using

it closest to that specific part of the body they feel is the most vulnerable in a particular location).  Don't fret, the ergonomically designed coils do not burn the body (during the initial phase of usage, as is the case with everything else in life, one may get a couple of scalds, but the discerning would appreciate that is part of the learning and a small cost one pays for a bite-free future).  One can buy these coils of mixed sizes (the closest packaging we can think of is the multi-shaped-and-sized adhesive plasters) for various parts of the body.  After this the only trouble you need to take is to attach the coils to the body, light them up and go for your outdoor activity, glowing all the way. Once you are decked up properly, your childhood fantasy about being a miner deep down in the womb of mother earth, will also be partially fulfilled. You will look like a miner, only better, because you will have lovely glows emanating from the multiple coils.  So, obviously, the more coils you use simultaneously, the merrier!  The operating manual clearly states that lighting the coils should happen only after all the coils have been attached to the body; otherwise the number of scalds you suffer in the process will be proportionately higher.  Avoidable!

When you are in open spaces, the coils start behaving like chimney exhausts - they are designed to.  A good volume of smoke is generated to envelope you.  This is the primary defence mechanism and the idea is to hide you from the offending mosquitos.  They cannot bite you ifyou are behind a thick pall of smoke, right?  For full effect, the manufacturers recommend that you walk in `unlit' open spaces, thereby rendering the task of the mosquitos even more difficult in the dark.  If some egregious ones dodge the smokescreen successfully and break through to identify you as a desirable target, don't worry, they will have to locate some part of the body open for business, to apply proboscis to skin, that is, to bite, very quickly while you are on the move. Since your body is covered by the coil straps at various locations, the mosquitos will face a challenging task and will have to really earn your blood. Hence the recommendation to attach as many coils to your body as possible,

so that the reduced space limits your exposure.  The fumes are not noxious, actually they are just plain fumes and you can enhance the experience by choosing one of the premium coils aptly named RL (for Ralph Lauren), JL (for Jennifer Lopez)  or DO (for Davidoff) to enjoy a medley of smells (the word `fragrances' is eschewed by the manufacturers for some reason). 

As everyone knows, mosquitos abound around stagnant water bodies.  So, if you have purchased a `luxurious' villa located close to what was earlier a beautiful lake and has since been converted by criminally indifferent humans to a cesspool of sewage (this does sound like Vista!), the company offers you something more exciting.  By fitting a few boats with higher-capacity, heavy-duty coils (the quantum of smoke produced equals that from mid-sized factories) and by automating their movement across sections of the lake during evenings when people are likely to be outdoors, temporary eviction notice can be served on the abominable creatures for a couple of hours.  It is absolutely incidental that hardened individuals with fully blocked nostrils can also use the boats for rides on the lake, in a spectacularly miasmatic ambience, at no extra charge!!

You have surely heard about collateral damages like the kind Afghans suffer daily due to the war on terrorists.  Here is an opportunity to reap some collateral benefits from BuzOff. 

 -- If a good number of residents take to using BuzOff regularly, all the lights used for open spaces can be switched off for two hours or so, thereby saving electricity charges for everyone, since the collective glow will be adequate for people to stumble along without permanent bodily harm.  And, do recall that the overall effect of BuzOff is enhanced in the dark.

 -- During festivals like Deepavali, Karthigai and Halloween, people with coils can be manoeuvred into any creative configuration, to mirror the effect of arrangement of diyas, lights etc.  Imagine using intelligent diyas which will move when you so order.

 -- For any occasion involving firecrackers, BuzOff is especially useful since it makes candles, agarbathis etc redundant for lighting up crackers. You would love the unmatched convenience of lighting up from any of the coils attached to your body.  Smokers will also benefit in the same way, but this is not being advertised to    prevent the anti-smoking lobby from derailing the product.

 -- BuzOff is an admirable tool to help you jostle through crowded areas to have a ring-side view of any road-side activity (a very Indian trait).  But manufacturers caution that this be not used hyperactively.

One thing I dont understand is why the manufacturers are bent upon adding an absolutely useless footnote to their packaging - that `only female mosquitos can bite'.  This does not seem to have any relevance to their aim and could actually be counter productive.  But they insist.  Suicidal, you think??

Contemplating retirement, are you??

You are around 55 and nowadays frequently you find yourself lapsing into reveries of post-retirement possibilities, even as critical meetings you are supposed to be chairing are afoot.  You seem to care less and less for corporate shenanigans and many things official which you thought formed the fulcrum of your life, no longer seem to hold the same significance.  The year-end bonus number does not exhilarate you any longer. Well, you are beginning to contemplate retirement, are you??

You began a career at the age of 23 or so and have worked your backside off (happens if it has always been a desk-job and all the flesh seems to shift gradually and inexorably to the front during this period of sedentary existence) for nearly 35 years.  A reasonably hard diurnal toil for 12 hours or more all through.  You have provided for the family well and have accumulated more wealth than you imagined possible even midway through your career.  Your progeny is educated and employed well; daughters have married nicely.  You have a lovely house to live in and all the material comforts you need at this time of life.  And you believe you have adequate resources to protect  your current standard of life without killing yourself with work.  You look around and ask yourself the fundamental existential question as to why you need to slog any further.  You wonder why you cannot take it easy now and make time to do all those fantastic things you wanted to do, but could not because office work always cast a huge shadow over your life.  You also know that your colleagues have not started wondering when you will go, not yet.  Remember, the maxim in this context, as in cricket or films, is `go when people ask why now' - as against doing it when the overall sentiment is `good, about time'! or `long overdue!'.  You mull over this for a few months and consider all the pros and cons of bidding adieu to full time employment.  You bring your rich professional experience and personal judgement into play in making the decision in ripeness of time - 'yes, it is time to walk into the sunset'! But, my friend, it is not so simple; your decision is just one small step in the direction you want to go.  Getting those around you on board is going to cause some sleepless nights for you.

`What?  Are you nuts?  I know something in you was coming unhinged since you have been sporting that cross-eyed look for the last couple of months' - is the mild, initial response of the spouse.  You wish you had a camera on hand, that could have captured for posterity the look of absolute horror on her face, as if you are proposing a `streaking' venture during lunch time, along MG Road, with a couple of pilot cars blaring their sirens to announce the spectacular event!!  But then even if you had a camera, you may not have either the courage or the astuteness to get the job done because the response would have frontally assaulted you into a state of inaction, because you were pretty confident that you had covered all the angles well.  Now, the spouse's riposte could have been prompted by the mortal fear that she might also be forced to quit her job, thereby depriving her independence, financial and otherwise .  Or if she is not employed anyway, the prospect of the painful conversion of a part-time bug (in terms of limited exposure to you) into a full time pestilence could have justifiably produced that reaction.   Any amount of persuasion about spending more fun-time together, travelling the world etc is not going to pass muster with the wife when weighed on the balance with having you like a permanent millstone around her neck for the rest of her life.  If it was earlier the very logical argument that you `have to work till the kids are all settled', now it is a more emotional bleat - `what will you do sitting at home all the time?' that is popped at you.  That the `settled' in the foregoing sentence actually meant all your children successfully going through life towards grand-parenthood, with the expectation that you would continue to slog till then might have been unspoken but if your fuzzy brain did not register such subtleties, whose fault is that??

Given the above realistic scenario, your only choice is to retire from full time employment, but simultaneously enter into that banal world of part-time consulting work.   This single stroke of genius, never associated with you normally, enables you to position your `retirement' as something less sinister than what the spouse is conditioned to perceive.   This way you continue to remain a part time bug as far as she is concerned (actually this is not true; there is a small shift in the status to part-time pestilence, since your wife knows that the time available to you for causing inadvertent hardship to her and the society at large is much more). You continue to bring home some bacon  - not a whole lot, but that is never a serious bone of contention in this context whereas your being a permanent resident and homebody is; and the enigmatic world of consulting is so pliable and agnostic to age that you never have to contemplate full time retirement ever again!!  There are nonagenarian consultants hobbling around on crutches or carried to their assignments on stretchers in ambulances, simply because the world has forgotten how things were done 50 years ago.  This vanishing knowledge is in such stupendous demand, just to facilitate comparison with the current state of affairs and to help people gloat on the technological and other advancements achieved!  Bottom line is that you need to soften the blow on the wife by becoming a consultant, holding out the promise that you will not be a permanent fixture at home.  While this ploy may not ensure permanent peace on the home front, it will give you a temporary reprieve and enable you to get over the huge hump of the spouse's intransigence in the face of your imminent and disastrous `retirement'.

Now that your status in life has changed to that of a `semi-retired' person, how do those people who have only seen you as a workaholic all these decades deal with you??  Invariably, it is a mixed bag.  Those of your colleagues who have never really `worked' in life but are well-versed in ensuring their own longevity with exemplary `survival skills', will look down on you for seeking retirement outside the office instead of following their shining example.  They would believe you have made a bad bargain of a good situation by letting go of the monthly compensation which could have been yours for the next few years, with virtually the same `retiring' kind of life!  Other hard-working colleagues, would tend to feel envious of the fact that you could afford to retire while they still have to continue their struggle with sour-faced and bloody-minded bosses for personal financial reasons.  But the question that would surface every single time you meet an incredulous old colleague would be `But, tell me, sir, how do you spend your time'?  What they are actually asking is `what on earth do you know other than office work?? You have never had a hobby, were never involved in sports or games, did not have even nodding acquaintance with music or books; so their concern is probably very genuine.  You will be hard pressed to convince them that you are actually going to indulge in all those esoteric activities  from now on.  The odds are in your favour, though, because the prevalent belief is that you are going to vegetate out of real existence within the next few years thereby merging with the woodwork at home. When you tell such friendly souls that you are planning to be a consultant, doing some part-time work, the looks you get should realistically be interpreted to say `Ah! That! All we need is one more ruddy consultant'! 

Don't rejoice yet over your retirement.  You have only crossed half the hurdles and some of the toughest are yet to be conquered.  The immediate need, after you have given yourself reasonable resting time, is to first snag that consulting assignment without further ado.  This is the single crucial step that will redeem your retirement and prevent it from going over the precipice down into the cluttered valley of doomed and failed retirements.  Why?  Because this is the one talisman that is going to help ward off all those schemers in the family and neighbourhood from invading your time and space on the pretext that you have nothing to do and so are generally `available and at their disposal'.   With the 'Part-time Consultant' halo around you (evidenced by the presence in your vicinity of one or two mobile phones, a land-line, a lap top which is open all the time, a couple of tomes on the subjects you 'specialize' in and a pen poised on a half written page of a notebook), you can create a forbidding defence around you, which will deter people from trying to take advantage of your time with inane requests.   And if you add to your repertoire a couple of hobbies like reading or listening to music, gardening or community service (if you are a decent actor, for the short term it may even be adequate if you can pretend well to be doing any of these, but I would suggest truly cultivating some hobbies for the longer term), man, you are set!  Your wife cannot then send her full-time housekeeper or driver away to her uncle's brother-in-law's sister's cousin's friend's relative to do some chores; citing your endearing presence at home as the only reason).  Nor can the young couples around your home expectantly seek your help in entertaining their whining and snivelling two year olds for a few hours while they catch a movie or a concert.

Soon people will start wondering how mysteriously you are so much busier after retirement that when you were full time at work.  If this happens, yes, you have arrived as a successful retiree. Once you have crossed this rubicon and have survived about 6 months without descending into the pits of depression or hurrying back to full time employment to salvage self-respect, sense of purpose etc, of course goaded by jealous family and friends, you can start the celebrations!!  As a dignified retiree! Do it quietly though, lest people take notice!   






 

Customer Service

Euphoria should have been apparent in me when my phone company sent the ubiquitous sms, victorious in celebrating the resolution of my complaint.  Euphoria, because they took a month to deal with what was, in my opinion, an absolutely asinine situation wherein my internet was working but my fixed line, which was a prerequisite for the internet connection, was not!!  But, unbeknown to the service provider, my reaction was one of anger and astonishment.  Why??  Simply because nothing much had changed and my phone was stubbornly refusing to be the enabler of communication it was supposed to be.  The petulant voice of the Voice Response System repeatedly and indifferently informed whoever cared to listen that both outgoing and incoming calls from/to the number were barred.

Unwittingly, two months earlier I had sowed the seeds of the problem, which had come to haunt me now.  When we were going away from home for an extended period, I had asked for the number to be placed in an invitingly named facility called `Safe Deposit'.   The service screamed out to me: `Hey, leave things with me and everything will be hunky dory when you want them back'. When I had paid the charges for this in advance after filling a form, I specifically demanded to know whether I had to fill another form for reactivation.  I was being guided by past experience, when I was forced to travel 22 kms to sign a sparsely worded form to resuscitate some other service.  This representative looked at me exactly like a Six Sigma black belt would look at a certified moron and condescendingly explained that another form would be a waste of time, wouldn't it be, sir??   Any novice, wet behind the ears, would have been misled to believe that customer service in India was improving in texture by leaps and bounds.  When we returned home after a prolonged trip, we found that internet was working on the designated date but the phone line was not.  I did not realise that the `safe deposit' they advertised and I fell for did mean returning of things to you when you wanted, but not necessarily in working order!!  Thus began my tryst with the customer service function of the phone company, which was going to provide me with one month of non-stop entertainment in many ways.

I began by calling the given number and baring my soul regarding the issue.  Without even pausing for breath, the omniscient representative pleasantly said `sir, you may not have paid your bill'.  That was pretty thick indeed, as an initial response to a peeved customer! I asked the lady whether she was sitting a-la-hermit in some Himalayan cave, without access to my account.  Couldn't she look at the screen in front of her to see what the position is??  Oh yes, she said and after a break gleefully announced `sir, you have a credit balance for this line'!  Actually the tone suggested that I lacked basic intelligence to be leaving money on the table for a fixed line.  So, now, why was the phone not working??  She probed for another minute and triumphantly diagnosed that the line was barred.   Despite the entertainment value of such a conversation with someone who seemed to have a lot of time at her disposal, I testily said  `yes that is indeed the problem, I am looking for a solution'.  She scratched around for a few more minutes and then finally did what all these people have been trained to do - sound the death-knell to customer service by handing out to you a complaint number, while emphatically declaring that the problem would be resolved in the next four hours.  Just to ensure that the customer's transactional experience is enhanced even further and he smiled in the midst of all these trials and tribulations,  a message arrived on my registered email address, restating that `your complaint will be resolved in four hours, that is, by 2:22:46 (the last two numbers denoting `seconds') pm on August 16th of 2011!!  I was floored; one does not quarrel with that kind of precision!

After the lapse of 24 hours, the stony status quo was well-preserved and my moribund phone connection gave the impression of having lapsed deeper into coma.  I decided to resume my enjoyable conversation with the customer service rep.  This time a male of the species took my complaint number and details and probably scrutinized the unyielding screen in front of him for some clue before telling me `but your problem should have been resolved yesterday'.  Such unshakeable faith in their own system of problem resolution was very heartening, but I bristled with that heavy dose of salt on the open and throbbing wound.  I assured him I had better things to do than chatting with him if I had no problem.  He put me on a hold and probably had a chat on the evening's possibilities with his neighbour before coming back to me.  Then he did what I believe is a master stroke in the way all these service providers monitor their outstanding complaints.  He casually told me he has registered the complaint again and here is the new complaint number.  A brand new complaint number for you to be so pleased, sir!!  Attaboy, had I discovered the most efficient complaint resolution process devised by companies? The ingenuity of the simple mechanism used to keep the slate squeaky-clean was breathtaking, to say the least.  Just close the aged and unresolved complaints and log new ones as outstanding for less than the desired length of time?  Again, I was given the morale-boosting 4-hour time-limit hogwash and a message followed with the second-specific deadline, by which time one could say 'God is in his heaven and all is well with my phone'.

To cut a long story short, the above rigmarole played out for long and I had some 15 complaint numbers given to me over the next 25 days.  I am sure their own system deliberately omits any linkage among all these complaint numbers, for obvious reasons.   Somewhere between the 7th and 8th complaint, I asked for the supervisor and made her listen to my tale of woe, which was brimming over.  She came up with a startlingly new one - `sir, you should visit an outlet and give a letter for us to reactivate the service, have you'??  When I protested that their own people had confirmed that no further written instruction was necessary since the end date of the `safe deposit' service was already agreed upon in writing, she said brightly `sir, that is not the procedure our department follows'.  This is another regular ploy used by service providers - all their internal compartmentalization comes into effective play and it is deemed to be your good fortune to be dealing with multiple stonewalling departments to resolve an issue.  I refused to budge and told her to get things done or lose my custom (a fairly sizeable business for an individual, what with 3 mobile phones, fixed line and broadband) and she did not like that kind of a threat one bit, simply because now she had to do something!  Her assurance that she would treat my case as a special one and get the needful done predictably did not translate into any life-giving potion for my phone and it happily continued its dormant status.  Multiple visits by technicians ensued and hushed discussions amongst experts followed (a casual observer would have thought my personal nuclear reactor had sprung a leak and these guys were trying to fix it, without creating panic in the community!) in and around my house, while the phone continued to be comatose!

When I had enough of this entertaining charade, I got the number of the person responsible for fixed line phone business in Bangalore and called him on a Saturday at 5 pm.  He listened to me and gave me the number of his Customer Services Head, with a very polite request I call the other gentleman on Monday morning.  What about the fact that I have been without service for 30 days and had spent about 5 hours in talking to various reps of his company??  He said he understood, but the Customer Services Head would not be available till Monday morning.

I called on Monday; the problem was indeed resolved in 4 hours.  My demand for an explanation as to why
that took 30 days to do, elicited a cute reply `Sir, I shall call you and explain'.  That was about 15 days ago and I am still waiting for elucidation.  Now, the next chapter of this story is playing out - I have sought refund of charges for the period the fixed line was not functional.  I hope this one gets resolved in the next year or so, because by then I will have to (shudder!!) go through the safe deposit route again.  God bless me!

If you think that took the cake, listen to this - another bathroom fittings company gave me a complaint number for a problem and said their representative would come around the next day.  Two days later, I got an sms `Thanks for contacting us.  We are happy to inform you that your problem has been resolved and the complaint closed'.  That was phenomenal, how did they resolve complaints remotely, without anyone ever even looking at what the problem was!!  When I asked them to explain that conundrum to me,  they promptly tried to give me a new complaint number!!

Another puzzle in this whole process is that after many futile and nerve-wracking interactions one gets an sms asking for a rating for the transactional experience one had gone through!  Generally, I am usually lost for words and do not respond.

I am wondering whether Customer Service should rather be `Complaints Service'??  Worth suggesting, I think.

Deviated Septum (DS)

One has lived in this weird world long enough to say that one has seen or heard of all kinds of deviant behaviour.  Nothing is so deviant that you are shocked  by something, actually anything.  Having spent the best part of one's life in corporate world, one can also feel that very little remains to be seen of devious people.  Such characters seem to be inevitable fixtures in the lives of most people, like villains in the movies.  While one has taken all the above in the stride with the philosophical outlook that it is all part of life, something physically deviant has spooked me from unexpected quarters in the past few years.  A small bone which should normally have grown straight, has decided to take a short, side trip on its own volition, without any provocation from anyone and thereby hangs this tale. 

Initially, about 5 years ago, when I suddenly and repeatedly woke up in the middle of the night after seemingly having slept like a veritable log for hours, I wondered why!  There was no apparent change in anything around me (it was the same wife and same paraphernalia) and I could not figure out what prompted me to wake up time and again with a start.  After a few months of monitoring and analysis (it was tough, because I was too groggy with sleep to instantly shift to `research' mode to identify the causes till the next morning, by when amnesia had set in and I had almost forgotten everything related to the nocturnal episode; anyway, my colleagues never set too much store by my analytical skills even when I was in mid-season form), it dawned on me that whenever I woke up there was one constant -  my left nostril was fully jammed up and completely closed for all incremental traffic.  Pretty much like any Indian road junction during peak hours, wherein everyone from all the four directions have converged as if by invitation for a free lunch and no one could make out who is going in which direction!  Once I had consciously shifted from horizontality to perpendicularity and retained the latter position for a few minutes, status-quo-ante was mercifully restored inasmuchas the plumbing inside the nostril seemed to work a bit and I happily went back to sleep.  But as days passed, the frequency of the nightly disruptions increased manifold and I spent more time in trying to sleep rather than actually sleeping! Then someone helpfully suggested it could be `sleep apnea' (very low breathing due to some block in the respiratory system), with a cheery foot-note that it could be fatal in one-in-a-million cases.  This blessed individual was directly looking at me in the eye when all this was pronounced, making it dispassionately clear what his expectation, nay, hope was!  Now, whenever something like this is mentioned you always believe you are the chosen one, even without any provocation!!  Intuitive perception does not work as well when you are buying a lottery ticket, even if statistically you have a better than an one-in-a-million chance!  So, I ran to the doctor even though there was no perceptible impact on me during the daytime - I was looking as sleepy as I have always been, before this affliction messed me up, people swore. 

`Deviated Septum' (DS)!, the doc enthusiastically pronounced.  Looked like this fella - not the doctor, let me clarify, but the bone - could not even cover a few inches of ground without making a small detour to the right to sniff around a bit to see if he can have a pow-wow with the neighbours.  The result was that the already constrained space inside the nose, reserved for breathing, got further constricted to the point breath threw up its hands and indifferently withdrew!  And this sudden change in my breathing pattern woke me up.  `Not sleep apnea', the doc said and I was so relieved that I was not going to be that powerless pawn in the deadly one-in-a-million game!  Till this point in time, I had never gone to a doctor for anything more serious than a twinge in the shoulder or elbow due to excessive tennis or cricket or whatever.  But now began my travails.  There are about 20 different concoctions inside small spray bottles which `could probably work in about 1% of the DS cases to give some 10% relief'. But as one can divine, the catch is that doctors generally do not know which works for whom.  So, my doc began a well practiced regimen of trial and error (more error, so the trial seems interminable) to see if he can eventually match one spray and my internal mechanism.   In this process I spent a fortune in buying medicines which I never fully used, because somehow half way through the doctor decided that specific spray and I were not made for each other.  All this, while I was sleeping less and less.

After the doctor was satisfied that I had exceeded the target in terms of spending money on half-used-sprays, he told me `let us go the surgery route'.  He did not sound like there was any alternative, so I submissively lay down on the table, while he sharpened the tools of his trade.  He said `you can enjoy the Bombay Jayashree CD you like while I saw off a bit of the bone.  You are being given only local anesthesia'.  After a bit, I could hear only the sound of the saw on the bone and the cheerful banter of those around the operating table, nothing of Bombay Jayashree!! After a few days with a bloody nose and heavy breathing through the mouth, I was pleasantly surprised to note that the left nostril had regained its ability to breath even during nights.  That lasted all of 18 months, when my ego-bruised DS decided to demonstrate that it had a mind and life of its own.   Like any corporate entity facing serious financial difficulties, it changed its own structure a bit and blocked my nostril all over again!!  I have since graduated to general anesthesia during the next surgery, with the assurance that the solution is permanent.   I must admit things are better now, but far from perfect.  For some reason, DS becomes less aggressive after 2 am in the morning and lets me sleep for about 5 hours and I am grateful for that small mercy!!  But I must concede that DS seems unconquerable in spirit, despite all the promises held out by the doctors.  Made of sterner stuff, DS is.

Very funny this - when I was a year old, I had a serious illness, with very high temperature and the doctor had almost given me up, when news trickled in from our native village that my paternal grandfather got suddenly ill and passed away within a few hours.  Miraculously, I recovered (don't sigh, thats fate - who would have written all these blogposts, think!) to go through life, eventually with DS.  Why am I saying this now?......my grandfather's name was, take a deep breath, Desikar Sadagopachariar; that is, DS for short. Has he returned to be with me for a while at this stage of my life, reminding me of what I owe him??  May be!  I shouldn't and don't mind at all.  Thank you, DS.

Banalities and Platitudes Unlimited!!

One is very clear that any further dissection of the Anna Hazare Movement (AHM) is the blogging equivalent of hara-kiri, simply because the topic has been humongously over-exposed during the past few weeks.  There is very little that is meaningful to add to the pile that has already been produced by mouths, which did not close during all the churning.  As for meaningless dribble, well, let us not go there at all, since that is a bigger heap.  My focus in this piece is not the principal event itself; as in the case of modern banking where every primary deal creates a few derivative opportunities, here too, one can perceive some such avenues and I am taking one.  Banalities and platitudes are inseparable from politicians and during the past 3 weeks,  while they were being cornered and made to squirm with uncomfortable questions, many of the tribe obliged with statements of characteristic banal quality.

The pride of place in this series is given to our Prime Minister.  A man of very few words even on his best day, he decided to find a place in history with the exemplarily inane `I dont have a magic wand to take care of corruption' and `Just one law is not going to eradicate corruption'.  As if this mind-blowing profundity begged reiteration, Rahul Gandhi stressed on this gem during his epoch-making speech in Lok Sabha.  Many other politicians, cutting across party lines, enthusiastically agreed with the PM, since they needed some defence, any defence!  Very gratifying, but I wonder who from AHM told any of these worthies that when Lokpal bill is passed corruption would be history!  Not even the commonest of common men, in his wildest dreams, ever entertained the notion that this bill is the panacea for that debilitating malady India suffers from; he may not be vocal, but he is not dumb.  So, this bit of condescension on the part of the politicians just adds grievous insult to the festering injury carried by people for ages.   When Dr.Singh took his baby steps in the early 90s to open up the economy, one does not remember him saying `I dont have one sweeping solution to fix our economy and poverty; so I cringe from taking the first logical step'.  Subsequently many initiatives have been taken on that front and Dr.Singh has presided over many of them.  So, why this nervous breakdown for over 40 years when it comes to taking the basic step of passing a solid anti-corruption bill??  When dithering politicians bleat out such a lame excuse, it just shows them up for what they are - a bunch of mollycoddlers of corruption.  But one must concede that as a tactic it is brilliant - if you dont take the first move and stall at the beginning, you have nowhere to go and politicians have successfully played this game out all these years.

Then comes the `Parliament is Supreme' shout.  As if people have been trying to pass the Lokpal bill on Ramlila grounds with a thumping majority!  As if, Anna Hazare was going to proclaim from his fasting area that the ordinance on Lokpal was being promulgated.  No, that was not the concern; the politicos were bristling because, for a change, people who normally elected them and left them to their own conniving devices, were telling them now what to do right and how!! Our politicians are a spoiled lot and they like doing what suited them and their private constituencies.  Status-quo in this context suited their way of life best - `get elected and keep your personal pens dipped in the perennially nourishing public ink-pot'.  Any attempt to change that is offensive to them, naturally. So, they took umbrage at the massive public upsurge not only against corruption, but also their own inaction and indifference.  What they are saying is `We are the elected representatives; we have not done our jobs for 4 decades and will not change; but who are you to suddenly wake up and force me in the right direction, to think about common good enshrined in the constitution?'.  So much for the `sanctity of the parliament'.  We know that these are the very people who cannot even stick to the basic, civil way of doing business inside that august building for a few hours at a stretch and have brought dishonour to the institution in more ways than one.  As I write this, some ruckus has broken out in the Rajasthan state assembly, with shoes being hurled by elected representatives, who doubtless, would otherwise want the public to recognize the supremacy of the legislature!!  That sums up my brief nicely, thank you.

Mayawati, Shard Yadav and few others lit up the horizon with another flash when they chose to take a myopic view of the issue and asked for Dalit representation in the Standing Committee reviewing the various versions of the bill.  As if otherwise,the recommended law would pointedly help fight corruption everywhere except when  Dalits are involved.  And Sharad Yadav went one step further and said that Anna Hazare did not mention the name of Ambedkar even once.  Anna did not mention many names, so what? What does that make him??  A traitor of the cause?  Anna is standing firm on his demand that lower bureaucracy should be brought under Lokpal's purview only to ensure that the poorest and most downtrodden people can get some reprieve from the harassment of minor government officials for bribes.  These politicians who shed copious crocodile tears for that segment of the population refuse to see the big picture but would prefer to ride roughshod inside a casteist or communal tea-cup to perpetuate their vote-bank politics.

Then comes along Syed Bukhari and forbids Muslims from taking part in the protest.  Why?  Because protestors sing Vande Mataram from time to time during the day.  Some other Muslim leaders supported Bukhari.  So, if the bill is passed and its implementation improves the fight against corruption, thereby yielding some benefit to the public, will Bukhari and his band of leaders urge Muslims to forfeit the benefits and continue to pay bribes? Just because the genesis of this bill had some association with Vande Mataram during public protests?  How ridiculous would that be?  Isn't there ever a time for leaders to set aside religious and casteist  overtones and behave like sensible men who genuinely desire improvement at the ground level for people?  I guess not.

Manish Tiwari surpassed himself in the act of casting aspersions on Anna, the way he would have usually done with any differing politico from across the party line.  He has since apologised; but it seems that the somewhat eloquent among the politicians tend to take themselves very seriously just because they have a marginally better vocabulary!!  It is best not to dignify Manish Tiwari further by writing anything about him or what he said.

The suave Salman Khurshid served up this gem at the finale - `we (the government) did not make any mistakes; there were some errors of judgement'.  You are on the dot, sir.  You are never at fault.  People are the fools committing one enormous mistake after another for the past few decades.  May be, just may be, there is some hope of seeing some corrections kicking in now!!

Finally, the post debate outcome in the parliament just makes one smile wryly.  All the political parties generally supported the bill with some riders here and there.  It almost seems that they have all been bursting at their seams to get a tight anti-corruption bill in place for over 40 years and the people at large have been denying them this pleasure all along.  Now that the people are agitating for that, voila, `here we are - completely on your side, despite your deliberate insult to the institution of parliament and despite your blatant attempts at bypassing the elected representatives'!!  Jai Hind.

Another new state in India??

The Telengana controversy has been raging for a while now, even if you graciously concede that lead-time in Indian politics that should be rightly known as `pickling time'.  My grandmother would not permit any of us to so much as inhale a whiff from the mango pickle in a tightly closed porcelain jar, unless the requisite number of days per her own unwritten statute had elapsed.  Our hard-boiled politicians simulate the same tactic when it comes to any issue that is a political hot potato and they find it expedient to kick the ball down the road for the next government to handle. Some issues have been left festering for 64 years or so - the precise number was easy to pick, because prior to that Indian politicians did not have control over governance.  My grandma  was an excellent judge of the mandatory pickling time, thereby achieving outstanding results all the time.  But unfortunately, our politicians through the decades have always been bereft of the skill and the goodness of loving grandmas. So they resort to pickling as a way of avoiding tough decisions.  Not that they are so dumb as not to realise fully that the passage of time would only complicate the process of resolution, but they still sit on their hands because they would rather have someone else bell the cat. Telengana, Lokpal are a couple of issues seething now, after decades of neglect by all governments. This writer just wanted to see what is it that makes the idea of a new state attractive, especially when it is not based on linguistic division of people, given that Telengana is sought to be carved out of Andhra, Telugu being the language of the people in the covered areas.  For the record, this scribe does not really care whether or not the new state is created, ever!

We can be sure that the pickling process kicked in for this case, primarily because the politicians could not use language as the tool to whip up passions.  If Andhra had people speaking two different languages, Telengana would have seen the light of day a bit earlier.  Obviously, only after a few hundred people became martyrs in the fight for 'independence' and 'freedom' from the oppressive tribe speaking a slightly different language; only after a few hundred buses and train coaches were burnt or otherwise wrecked; only after a few student leaders who usually were neither students nor would recognize `leadership' if they were in the same bed with that quality, ignited passions regularly among like-minded non-students to shut down schools and colleges, causing terrible inconvenience to those who want to study; and only after the customary strikes and shutdowns among the already stricken government offices, disrupting whatever little was on offer as `services' to people.  It would have been a cake-walk for the manipulating politicians to split the state, had the issue been language. But that was not to be and Telengana is still languishing. 

If the historically proven primary motivation for creation of a new state in India - language - is out of the equation in the case of Telengana, what is then the argument driving the agitation?  Is it that it has dawned on the people and the political tribe that smaller states are easier to govern and by dividing the state into two, administration and services to people would be enhanced beyond recognition??  The example of Singapore as a state has often been laid on the table to argue for smaller states.  Somehow, that sounds hollow because Singapore would probably have been as efficient as it is even it is double or triple the size because the reliance there is on good political and administrative structures, besides much cleaner politicians with very little corruption to complain about.  If someone wants to provide similarly clean administration in an Indian state, the process can begin with district level implementation (which is small enough in size) and the building blocks will result in mind-blowing improvements in governance overall.  Some smaller states have been forked out of UP and Bihar in the past (Jharkhand, Chattisgarh and Uttaranchal) and one does not hear of virtual Ramrajya in those states due to their smaller size!!   We should not be surprised if the gullible people who were goaded by avaricious politicians into agitating for these states have not seen any change at all in terms of overall governance and still wallow in their pitiful misery routinely created by government's apathy - only the name of the government has changed from X to Y. 

If smaller states fail to achieve better governance and still frenzy is being whipped up by vested interest groups, who stands to benefit from this artificial change??  Let us see.  While outlying areas in the new state continue to struggle to get noticed by the new government, one city will walk away with the glory as the capital of the new state.  Eventually crores of additional tax-payers' money will be spent in setting up new infrastructure for delivering the same abysmal services to people.  Contractors and politicians involved in such projects will, as usual, end up looting public money for personal benefit.  Nothing new in that except that an enormous new opportunity has been created by splitting the existing state.  While the sum total of assembly and parliamentary constituencies in the two states will probably be the same as in the old state, what will definitely change and help the marauders is the setting up of various new government companies/corporations in the new state.  While employees from the old corporations will be distributed, what will be inevitable is all the new corporations in the new state will be headed by new set of politicians.  So, what was earlier a set up of some 35 or so clueless politicos sitting as head honchos in as many state sponsored companies which do nothing but provide vehicles for the CEOs and assorted brethren another avenue of milking tax-payer funds, has now been effectively multiplied to 70 such companies in two states.  And, while logically after the split, the two states together should have the same number of ministers as in the earlier government, usually the post split  total number would always be way higher, beneficiaries being those who struggled for the creation of the new state.  All other assorted hangers-on will be favoured by the politicos  for whatever positions that can be created arbitrarily, in the name of service to the people.   Now, the new state has fulfilled the aspirations of the downtrodden people in the area, without improving anything in their lot but opening up new avenues for politicians to merrily pursue their corrupt ways.

Do we need more new states??  Or should the attempt be to improve governance in the existing set-up?  Unfortunately the voting public is willing to gulp anything fed to them by the so-called leaders.  Until that changes, there will be more Telenganas in the offing.  What next??  South Tamil Nadu and North Tamil Nadu?? Or Uttara Kannada and Dakshina Kannada??  God save India!