Airtel Customer Service

I have been using Airtel from the day I got my own cell phone. That should be 5 years now, I guess. Yeah.
Though I have always appreciated their service in NCR, which is the reason i still stick to them. You know at the end of day, all you need is a decent strength of those waves so that you can make and take calls anywhere and anytime. Nevertheless, Airtel's customer service still sucks big time. I remember the first SIM I got was with my cell phone. There was an offer at that time, where you used to get a free connection for purchasing Nokia cell phones. Anyways, the story goes like this. After I got the SIM activated, I realized that no one from a landline phone was able to call me! Strange and f***ing irritating. What was the point of me having the cell, when not even my mother can call me from our landline! I dialed 121 and they told me that there must be some problem with my cell! WTF, tell that to someone who is pulling a rickshaw and he may be fooled by this shit response! I on the other hand being a technology follower and obviously a Computer Science student was not willing to be tricked by such comments. I told the guy that it's impossible that something like that can happen due to my device. May be that guy was not having his manual something like this. So, I will not blame him or mince bad words to him. Instead, I have sympathy to him as how he must be thinking that I might be cursing him as soon as I disconnected the call :D. So anyways, even after 3 more calls with different executives my problem remain unsolved and mom still had to call on Nitin's cell :( I got a new number. Again Airtel. I remember the reason behind deciding for Airtel again. Nitin was the first one of us to get a cell and he was having an Idea connection. Idea had some problems with the network in those days at times, when we were in LT or hostel, sometimes the signal will just die! So I went again for Airtel.
Time and again I had to call customer support 2-3 times for different reasons. i don't remember any such instance which can be such gross! But yes, I was always cribbing about their customer service due to one or another reason.

Last year, when I was in States, I forgot paying bill for one month and those freaks deactivated my cell :( I wrote many mails and asked for clarifications about why this was done, when my pending amount was far less than 1200 (which was set for my account). The height of all this was that they were expecting me to pay the pending bill which was somewhere near 300 and they had already deactivated my number for no good. i penned down a long mail to the nodal office asking me how and why about this and letting him know that I am not at all going to pay up the pending amount unless my number is activated again. I even warned him that i might see customer court in this regard :P That guy wrote back to me saying that it's no possible for him to re-activate the number but I need not pay the pending amount :D. At least, I got the due cleared off my shelf.

this year, back in Feb, when I reached India, i again got Airtel. Last month, I called 121 and asked them to activate international roaming on my cell to which the lady on the other side replied that I need to shell out 6K as security deposit! I told her politely that I am having corporate connection and I am damn sure that I need not pay any security as last year also, I had paid nothing for activation. But she insisted that I will have to pay up, other wise no international roaming for me. Go to Hell is what I mumbled in my mind and thanked her for her generosity :) I sat down and typed a mail to 121 asking to activate international roaming on my cell. The very next day, I got reply that this has been activated on my cell, no security deposits asked! I was like, dude why can't the people on phone know this! Are there different manuals for people who are attending calls and those who are responding to mails? If that is the case then of course it sucks!

Till this day customer service is not Airtel's forte!

Throw shoe at opponent parties and win Cash!

A new game will soon take its toll over cricket in these election times in India. The game is Shoe Throw.
Political parties in India, are already in a frenzy for proving which party is composed of most rude, illiterate, criminal candidates and which party will do something which will make it to headlines for all wrong reasons. We have seen, Varun Gandhi, who looked like a decent fellow to me till he gave that mindless statement in Pilibhit. I am still in a fix as to whether that was a political stunt to gain political mileage (which at this point seems very much logical) or this is what Varun's ideology has always been and its only that it came out in recent past.
Today, one of the journalist did what an Iraqi journalist did to Bush! Delhi based journalist, Jarnail Singh, hurled a shoe at incumbent cabinet minister, P Chidambaram. You know what was most unfortunate outcome of this incident? Shiromani Akali Dal, a biggie in Punjab politics announcing a cash reward for INR 2,00,000 to Jarnail for his "courage & bravery. What irks me most is the mindset and ideology of the people behind this pity thought! How and Why are such people in power, making laws for us when they don't deserve to even hold a post in a city municipal corporation? No wonder, in future they can pass laws making it legitimate to throw shoes on others, if you are unhappy with something!
God help India!

Google India Elections Center Bug!

Information Technology played a key role in recently held Presidential elections in USA. Democrats had a technically suave team which harnessed every IT medium possible!
Some political parties here in India are trying to follow this path this time for General elections. I have come across ads from BJP promoting its Primer Minister candidate L K Advani! If you are in India, you must have seen the ads for his website in Google ads on various websites or would have received an SMS for the same website!
Today, I was going through Google Blog and came across a post that Google has released Google India Elections Center in partnership with HT Media! Thanks to Google and HT Media for this as the site has good features where in you can know about your constituency, the incumbent MP and latest news going around in political circuit.
What prompted me to write this blog was one bug which I saw on the site. The Member Parliament 2004 widget actually shows the incumbent MPs from your constituency and adjoining ones. When I was searching for nothing in particular but just browsing through, I stumbled upon an MP from Arrah, Bihar, Mrs Kanti Singh. I know her name, at least I know that she is a female! The widget shows her incorrectly as a Male!

I know the widget search is powered by a third party service provider but Google is hosting the site so it can affect its credibility! Google India, please step up and get it corrected through the service provider!

Satyam and the corporate scam!

B. Ramalinga Raju, Chairman of Satyam Computer Serveces has admitted today of huge accounting frauds in Satyam. In a letter addressed to the board of directors, he admits that the accounting books were inflated to show higher operating income and profits than the actual. He admits that, what started as a minor gap between actual and shown, the gap consistently widened as the company grew and now it has become unmanageable! NY Times article can be found here.
This revelation comes at a time, when Indian IT industry is already facing heat of the global slowdown. Now, in light of this revelation, it can have negative repercussion on the Indian IT industry as a whole as the customers, esp those coming from a financial domain. will rethink and will investigate in the innards of the outsourcing provider before committing on a deal. This will and should also spark an investigation and overhaul of corporate governance and accounting practices at other Indian IT giants.
B.Ramalinga Raju has resigned from his post, which is mentioned in the same letter. Infosys founder, Narayan Murthy has lamented on this situation and has attributed failure of governance to this sad situation. He has always been an advocate of corporate governance.

Satyam was already under close scrutiny after it was banned by World Bank from all future contracts last October after World Bank found that spy software was installed on some desktops in its Washington headquarters.

Updates
On Bloomberg
On Wall Street Journal

India's Union Commerce Minister, Kamal Nath has commented that Indian Government will not take over Satyam. His comments can be found here. Securities and Exchange board of Indian (SEBI) also said that it was horrified after the findings and is in touch with Ministry of Corporate Affairs for coordinated action. NASSCOM also commented that this is failure of corporate governance.
The apex chartered accountants’ body ICAI will seek an immediate explanation from Satyam Computer’s auditors, PriceWaterHouse Cooper (PwC), on the financial fraud unearthed by the software company’s chairman B Ramalinga Raju, before taking any action.

Rab ne bana di jodi

Just returned after watching Rab ne bana di jodi at the Loews Theater in Secaucus. I loved the movie. Not a moment which bored me or anything which pulled me away from the movie. Throughout the 2.5 hours, I was glued to the screen.
It's a sweet romantic drama, which will keep you attached to it from the very first frame to the last frame, when you see the YRF banner :). Aditya Chopra has written and directed a very good movie. Lyrics were terse, music was a perfect mix of eastern and western instruments and choreography was also very good. I would like to specially mention the Dance pe Chance song. So beautiful are the lyrics, that you can learn to dance (and remember the steps too) if you listen attentively to the song :) The last part is very good, when the credits are coming and Sharukh is telling about his and Tani's Japan trip. Picture postcards are coming on the left part of the screen, and Shahrukh is telling about he pictures. Really funny and humorous dialogues :)

Shahrukh has performed well and the newcomer Anushka (who is a model and just 19 years old) has also done a great job here! And she is beautiful :)


All and all, a good movie and I will say go for it! 4 stars from my side.

How to Wrap a Sari!

Recently, while watching a Hindi flick Sorry Bhai, I got a kind of reaffirmation that an Indian female (don't want to use lady, women, girl for the obvious reasons :)) looks best in a Sari! Now, don't think that I am one of those fanatics who want to create a hue and cry about dressing code! No way! I am with you in bashing those idiots. Ok, let me come to the point. So, while watching that movie (which I really loved), I was completely in awe of Chitrangada Singh.


Wow, she is beautiful,and in that black Sari (remember the party!) she was just amazing! I have noticed this that a female looks amazingly beautiful in a Sari and has a definite appeal! At times, I have found some of them more appealing in a Sari :)

For the curious sorts, here is a link, kind of illustrated steps to help you wrap a Sari!

Happy Holidays!

Venus, Moon and Jupiter shine together

Yesterday, that is on Monday night there was a rare event in the sky. Venus, Moon and Jupiter were shining together in the sky forming a smiley :)


When I saw these three shining last night, I did not knew that this event is not gonna occur again till November 18, 2052! Whoa! I am lucky! These kinds of events are rare in evening sky.

Jupiter was the brightest, followed by Venus and then Moon. Quite a show, it was. I forgot to click it though :(

Photo Courtesy: AP

An ordeal on the road!

Thanksgiving is a bad time for people who are traveling, esp on road! I remember last year also, I happened to be in States on Thanksgiving and I was traveling that time to my relatives place. It took me almost 5 hours to reach DC from City, but while returning back, the bus was late by an hour. Never mind as I was in city by 10 PM and happened to reach my apartment by 11:30, I guess.
This year, things were screwed up very bad. Really bad! Reaching DC was okay, as it took 5 hours instead of regular 4 or 4:30. Well, that's OK, seeing the volume of traffic on the NJ turnpike. It took almost 3 hours just to reach Delaware Memorial bridge, instead of regular 2! Till the time I was in NJ, traffic was horrible, bumper to bumper!
Now lets talk about the return journey. I must say that this has been my worst trip so far in my life! I left my relatives place at 2, boarded bus and then metro to reach DC by 2:50 PM. I was supposed to board the 4:15 bus, but then I thought that let's reach the bus stop early to catch 3:15 so that I can reach home early! Well, fate had some other plans for me! When I joined the line, merely 15 people were standing in front of me. After a while (around 3:30), I came to know that the 2:35 bus has not arrived yet! I was disturbed by hearing that coz I knew that if 2:45 has not reached yet, then my bus is gonna have more delay! Well, around 4:30 a bus came which was supposed to come at 2:45! The bus agent got the people who had reservation for 2:45 on the bus and said to rest of us that the next bus is coming soon! It was raining lightly and was cold. Around 5:30, the fucking agent screwed up and all of a sudden said that those who are on 4:15v reservation should come and stand in a separate line towards the end of existing line! Shit, I said. In moments, I was standing almost towards the end! I was cursing my luck as I knew that standing behind in the line only makes your chance of getting on the bus slimmer! Time was ticking by and frustration was building up inside me, but the bus was not in sight! Another bus came around 6, which was coming from City and was dropping passengers on our stop. The agent told us that this bus will be back in couple of minutes after dropping rest of the passengers at the next stop. Obviously, the bus never came back! After a lot of time passed, a bus finally arrived at 8 PM and boarded the bus! 5 hours is what I spent waiting on that bus stop in rain and cold weather along with other passengers! I was feeling hellish!
When I boarded the bus, I said never mind, I should be in City by midnight and then I will reach home by 1 or 1:30 AM. The screwing continues here as I reached City at 12:30. Ran all the way down from 34th to Port Authority for the bus to my place, only to find that the last Coach USA bus has already left and I will need to board the last bus of 1:40. Crap! I was running here and there to get a ticket as the old machines were replaced by new ones and were asking for new codes for the route and zone! I managed to get the required information and printed a ticket for myself! Now comes the other frustrating part. The third floor level was supposed to be closed at 1:00 AM and there was a notice near the short line bus inquiry window which said that my bus was supposed to leave from Gate 82 on the ground floor! I rushed to the ground floor, but was intercepted by another bus terminal official on the first floor, who told me that no NJ Transit buses will leave from Gate 82 and I should instead go to third floor. I listened to him but on this floor, no one was there to guide or give information and the notices got me confused and I again reached Gate 82! I noticed that there are only Greyhound buses leaving from that floor! I was a bit nervous about the correctness of information but then there was a guy standing besides me, who was also going to Mahwah! I thought that I am standing in the right line and so I waited. Bus was scheduled to leave at 1:40 AM. It came and left, obviously from some other gate at level 3! I kept standing, sometimes sitting at Gate 82 and then at around 3:00 AM in the morning, I finally realizes that the bus is not gonna come on this gate. At that time, I didn't knew that the bus has left from some other gate on level 3. The guy standing besides me, called his girlfriend and checked about the earliest bus to Mahwah in morning. She told him that the first bus in the morning leaves at 06:55 AM! I decided to go upstairs and wait there as at least there are chairs on that floor! I went on Level 3 and waited and kept myself wide awake for another 4 hours. Finally, the bus arrived at 07:15 AM (this one was also delayed due to some accident in Lincoln tunnel) and I reached home at 8:00 AM!

I can say that by far this has been the worst trip in my life! I left my relatives place at 1:45 PM on Sunday and reached my home at 8:00 AM on Monday! Almost 18 hours...in normal cases this should have been just 6.5 hours, including waiting time for the bus!