Friday, September 16, 2011
Reflections
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
Saturday, June 14, 2008
Cri: 'Insightful' commentators..
With Dhoni and Piyush Chawla batting, how does Chawla's wicket seal India's fate? Oh wait..next ball..SIX! "Game on!", says Aamir Sohail. And as God may have it, just to prove his credentials as a commentator, Dhoni got caught the very next ball. Game on is suddenly game over! "Convincing win for Pakistan." Enough said.
On the other side, you have Ramiz Raja wanting the Pakistani captain to "install" a slip fielder. .EXE file anyone?
Then again, here goes LS with his "Voice of India Sixer!". LS, you really are the 'voice of India' sixer. Himesh, you have competition, finally!
Monday, April 28, 2008
Introspection- The Toughest Inspection
But what if the person asking the questions is you yourself? Under such circumstances you’re defenseless, you yourself are not sure about what you’re doing, your confidence is dented. Introspection can eat you up, it can make your knees go weak. You're pitted against yourself-the perfectionist 'good' in you. Think of it as a bout of boxing, you're battling 'yourself' and your hands are tied. You take it in, punch after punch, blow after blow. It hurts, you take it in. It keeps coming at you, you try to evade it, it still finds a way through. You are no masochist, you feel like flattening your unrelenting, introspecting 'good' self with one deadly blow. But you're incapable of doing so. Introspection has to be the toughest inspection.
At the same time it is only fair to think that introspection to some extent is necessary and that all of us spend some time introspecting and thinking whether we are ‘good’. Over some time introspection is what adds to your steel and gears you up for the tougher challenges ahead in life.
Sunday, April 27, 2008
Retrospect..
It wasn't wrong, I'm sure. It was right, I want to be told, but, I'm unsure. There are some questions which cannot be answered even by a tool as powerful as retrospect. There are some questions, better left unanswered. Yet, instinct tells me, it wasn't wrong. It was right and yet..
And, I end the post as Eric Clapton goes through the final few words of 'Tears in Heaven'. No wonder!
Saturday, June 23, 2007
BSNL Broadband Service Review.
If you're contemplating on getting a new broadband service for yourself, and especially if the BSNL Broadband service is in your scheme of things, this bit might prove to be pretty helpful for your final decision.
Recently, I had one of the most horrific experiences when a bill Rs. 13K turned up for the internet usage.
13K, IS THAT THE BILL FOR THE WHOLE YEAR OR WHAT?!?!?!?
Well, that's what I thought, atleast. Turns out, that the bill was meant for the months of May and June only.
Here's what I made out of BSNL, its 'saste' packages and its features:-
1. No matter how much internet you use, no matter how much you download (the max would be like 5-6 GB), a bill of Rs. 13,000 for just two months is insane. I set out to do my own investigation into the whole matter, traversed my way to the main website and then to the tariff portion. It turns out that for all the offered packages ranging from the Rs. 250/month 1GB Home Plan to the Rs. 1800/month 10 GB Home Plan, the annual discounted tariff is between Rs. 9000 and Rs. 18000. Still more searching on the net led me to so many cases like the one I encountered, where the seemingly 'harmless' and sasta Rs 250/month Home Plan managed to churn up mind boggling bills.
2. It seems to me that BSNL, with its broadband service, is doing its best to deceive people into its extremely tricky, fishy and complex packages. One look at the webpage which they have designed to provide usage data to internet users removes any doubts which I might have had.
a) When you login to your account, nowhere is it mentioned as to what kind of a package you actually have. Thus, the user has no knowledge as to what the limit is, what the rates for usage are, all they provide you with is a log which enlists all your service records. When you log into the service account, you obviously expect the essential features of your package to be listed there.
b) Ok, maybe there was a fault with the site-designing. No big deal, I'd just make a quick phone call to the Customer Care service, give the details asked for and I'd have the package details in a few minutes. So…I had thought.
But it seems, the Customer Care Service is more of an endurance test for the user. The Customer Care Executive option is the one which people need to use the most frequently and always...the last option. Maybe you can just skip all the crap which the IVRS has to say and directly come to the executive option? No! You have to; you just have to listen to all the options, one by one. It takes about 5 minutes for the machine to finally get to the option you want...And then???
Then, you have another menu; again you will hear the same irritable and slow IVRS giving you details about all available mobile packages, SMS packages or whatever. Here also, you have to; you just have to listen to all of them...Another 5-7 minutes gone. Then the phone rings.....Ah Finally! Err, No! I find myself listening to some music, whichever chart-topper is doing the rounds. Then the message, "Our Customer Care Executive will be with you in a minute" or something on those lines. Its really funny, how much of an effort is made to avoid any kind of direct communication with the customer. Don’t think anyone would be dumb enough to not get their way through to the executive, if that’s what they want. Ok, I finally made my way to the executive, gave all the required details...username, phone no. etc. and then...a pause, more cool music… and finally what I am looking for? No.
"Sir, you will have to call up the BSNL Internet Office for this query."
Oh, Ya! How dumb am I!
Ok... so, on the basis of that referral, I make another call, this time to the Internet Department. The entire process repeats itself again. Another 15 minutes pass by before I manage to get through to the executive, with cool music constantly playing on the background. I repeat my problem, with the executive asking every detail ever so intently. And what do I get?
"Sir, I'm unable to get you the required information. You will have to call up --------another office, another number-------."
Oh wait, I try and recall, wasn't that the number I had dialled first? Ya.
While I'm thinking, the executive rambles the customary "Thank you for calling..........Have a nice day." Nice day? Indeed!
So, is that what this is all about?
Keep referring customers from one office to another, and pretty soon the numbers of all the offices have been dialled. Still no answer. Such professionalism! It’s baffling really, how a simple query cannot be cleared by the people sitting on the "helpline". Even a personal visit to the office does not seem to be enough to get the required details. So, do users have to file complaints to avail the basic features of their internet package???
Basically, there is no point in expecting anything to come out from a call to the helpline, atleast for BSNL I am sure.
c) So, all my efforts to find out, what package I have, have failed. From the designing of the website, it would seem to the average user that no matter what your package is you have unlimited hours between 2 AM and 8 AM, which is rather misleading. No effort to somehow trick the user into using the internet more than the maximum limit is spared. This is where BSNL is trying to capitalize, by somehow not providing the required information to the user, by misguiding them through their very misleading site and taking advantage of the users' helplessness.
For example:
Users having the very "sasta" Rs. 250/month Home Internet Plan have a download limit of 1 GB. Which means each MB costs about 25 Paisa. Now, once you have crossed that limit of 1 GB, this per MB rate increases to a whopping 90 Paisa. On the usage site, you will have 2 3 columns which indicate your total use. Now, which one do I have to see? Can't they just give 1 column indicating what the usage is? No! 'We are so professional!!! We have to somehow take advantage of the users' misinformation.' So, you might have crossed the 1 GB limit, but there would be 3 columns, one showing your usage to be to the effect of 200 MB, one 700 MB and another 1.2 GB. Not missing a trick here as well, very cleverly the 200 MB column has been made the last column, making it look as if that is the net internet usage. It is such cheap gimmicks which BSNL has resorted to in its quest to trick the user into bills of thousands from a Rs. 250/ Month Plan. You will never know how much you have actually surfed, you might have crossed 3 GB, but still the last column would indicate it to be much lesser. Can't a simple message saying that the download limit is over be flashed? The language used to describe each column is equally confusing and seems rather deliberate. Suppose, you end up downloading a reasonable 3 GB in the end. Let’s take a look at the bill which might turn up for that month. The regular and very sasta 250+ 0.9*(3 GB - 1GB) = Rs. 2050. For the 2 GB extra you have been charged at the rate of 90 Paisa/MB adding an extra Rs. 1800 to the preset 'sasta' Rs. 250.
So, ya.. that’s what they are up to. Try avoiding the customer as much as possible, somehow use his misinformation, deliberately not sparing any chance of misguiding the user and in the process churn out bills for a month which could very well have been an entire year’s expenditure. It is a shame to see that a professional organisation such as BSNL has to resort to such cheap and fraudulent tricks. It makes you think that they are out there to fool the user, whatever way they can. Disgusting!
3. There is another thing which I want to bring to your notice. Usually, after every month, the bill for the internet usage of that month is sent along with the telephone bill. It’s been about one year since we had BSNL Broadband installed. Till now, we have always had the bill reaching us on time. But after the month of April, no such bill turned up. Shockingly, it was found that the bill of the month of April had later been included with the next month’s bill, which reached us early June. All this seems to be a little too fishy to be a co-incident. I mean, never before have we ever unknowingly surpassed the downloadable limit and the bills would always come on time. But, the first time that the usage unknowingly sprung up to 6 GB, why no bill??? It seems to me, that BSNL did not want the user (us) to come to know about the package we had. If we had been given the bill for the month of April on time we could have looked into the whole 'fishy-package-matter' and could have atleast done something to avoid a bill of Rs. 7000 for May. Too fishy to accept all of this as a mere co-incident. Thus, a Rs. 13,000 bill for 2 months April and May turned up.
So, before you plan to take up any package, make sure that you completely understand what the provisions, rates and terms for the particular package are. Because...believe me, these 'ever so professional' organisations are out there to make a fool of you!!!
Wednesday, May 16, 2007
Keys to Blog success (Read on, it might help you..)
After officially entering the blog world, there are a few doubts which I am harboring:
1. How much more time before someone other than me actually comes and takes a look at this master piece, I'm sure you will agree it is.
2. Why is my blog so bursting with activity?
and lastly, which is the most important one..
Till when can I use sarcasm as a pretext for making entries in my blog?
Actually, I learnt this one from Sania Mirza, who has been in the professional tennis circuit since 2003. But even after 3 whole years in professional tennis she continues to give interviews claiming there shouldnt be any expectations from her using her "inexperience" as a pretext to just stay up there and do nothing. Oh pleaseee, till when are you going to continue with this "I am new, I am here to play my game and enjoy" crap. No one likes to lose, and I'm sure she doesn't either, but I am afraid, there is no use constantly using your "inexperience" as an excuse to failure. At the end of the day, I feel she is not that good enough (I wish Sania can prove me wrong here), and is inconsistent. Anyways, I can only hope for the best for her, like all of us...optimistic as you like.
So, coming back to course, as i was saying, my blog is not exactly bursting with activity as of yet. So what do i do? Should i do a Kaavya Viswanathan, copy one part from your blog, another from somewhere else and get myself "known" in this blog world, which seems to be increasing at a rate which could easily bring shame to the population growth rates of India and China?
No, I dont think so. I can suck but I would rather be original at sucking...
So, What do i do?!? What do i do?!?
Questions, it seems get answered in strange ways. The other day, I was watching one of the 'news' channels "India TV", a channel which annoys me no limits, but still I find myself watching it, just to see how low can something/someone fall to increase the popularity (TRP) ratings. Strange as it is, I was shocked to actually see that the channel was actually showing news for once. Please excuse me, but I wish to share this moment with you. Ya, can you believe it, THIS IS INDIA TV ACTUALLY SHOWING NEWS FOR ONCE"
On the other hand this is what usually goes on:
Usually, whenever I switch to this channel, I find reports such as "INDIA TV KA SANSANEEKHEZ KHULASA" and nonsensical things like 5 or 6 or 10 year olds getting stuck in wells and all sorts of things.Fine, you can give a comment or two regarding his/her safety but is it so very necessary to divert a whole days news to it? Is this a national concern? No. If you are a news channel, stick to your job. Other times, you can find even more foolish things being telecast, which dont even need mention. Not just India TV, I find more and more news channels are reducing the actual news time in favour of irrelevant issues which certainly do not not need that much attention. Now most of the channels have sections diverted to all kinds of "sansaneekhez khulaase's" (God, i hate that word, really..) After watching these reports I tend to feel, is there anything even going right in this country which happens to be the seventh largest in the world. Surely it cannot be just about gruesome killings, nonsensical protests, moral policing the list is endless, just pop onto any news channel other than NDTV, one channel which I feel has stuck to news reporting and has done a great job.
I'm pretty sure that most people would agree with me when i say that the media really has gone out of control. But, why is it that even after sucking so much these channels (espescially India TV) continue to be 'successes'. Is it that easy to be a good channel in India? To have a few controversies here and there, which I dont think there ever will be shortage of (after watching all these reports i tend to feel that way) led by a news reporter gone bad (namely Rajat Sharma), no shortage of them either. So what is it that keeps these channels running? Well to begin with, it would help if I just look within. I, even after hating this so much, find myself spending 10/15 minutes of my valuable/invaluable time on India TV and its nonsensical reports. So no wonder they go on and on just like Rajat Sharma and his repetitive reports on how X killed Y, how A got angry with B's paintings and blasted his head off BLAH BLAH BLAH. Freaking pathetic.
But in all of this misery, do i find a way on how to somehow make my blog a hit?
Can you be a hit even if you suck? Maybe , I just need to sensationalize it somehow and adopt the Sania Mirza policy of continually undermining me and my abilities, as I keep rambling on in my blog. Add to that some India TV style "sansaneekhez khulaases" and who knows, VHP willing, my blog will find its way into the very best?
With this I wish to now end this rather large entry, hoping next time that I find myself at http://just-another-blog-in.blogspot.com/ , I see the 100 comments and 100 hits.
By the way, someone needs to tell me how to put a stat counter, I dont have any stats regarding how many people actually visited this blog, I was just assuming that it sucks, part of my Sania Mirza policy to guaranteed blog success! :))