Another rant ahead!

I watched Don2 last night. I am dreadful not because of the movie but of an incident that happened in the theater. We made plans only before thirty minutes of the movie and by the time we collected the tickets and 3D glasses the movie had already started. With great difficulty we found our seats and got started. Though it was a late night show, the movie hall was completely packed. There were still people walking in late, struggling to find their seats and making noise. The chaos continued for the next twenty minutes. There was a family of thirteen members who had come to watch the movie. Unfortunately, they didn’t get the tickets in the same row but got split rows. They were hell bent on sitting together and convinced the others to exchange the seats with them. Since they had few of their seats in the first row and it was a 3D movie the others didn’t want to exchange their seats. The staff tried to help but failed to do so without the co-operation of the customers. The whole convincing act became an argument. The family started complaining that the management told them that they will convince someone else to exchange their seats. This whole yelling, fighting scene happened while rest of us was watching the movie. This became such a public nuisance. How could we watch a movie when there was a live melodrama that was happening right amongst us? The family missed out the movie so does everyone else. Then the whole crowd started yelling at the management. They asked them to stop the movie and play back again. The management agreed to do.

I can’t believe that such an incident happened in a multiplex. What’s wrong with our so called-educated-highclass-people? They picked up a big fight for not getting the seats in the same row. For heaven’s sake, you have come to watch a movie not to sit and socialize. During the heated conversation with the staff, the lady slapped one of the staff members. What rights does she have to do so? Come on people, you don’t get respect if you are dressed in topnotch branded clothes and carrying expensive designer bags. You need to learn how to behave in public. Treat everyone with the same respect. Just because you bought thirteen tickets, the management is not going to treat you differently. If you have so much love and bonding with your family member, why don’t you watch the movie at home, why come and create a public nuisance?

I was shocked to see the same rage in each one of them starting from the parents to kids. Everyone behaved the same way. Parents should set an example to the kids and show them the directions. If parents behave this way what would the kids learn from them?

Anyways the rest of the movie was peaceful.

An open letter

This is an open letter to the lady who always peeps into my kitchen through her balcony.

Hello lady,

I can’t address you by your name as I don’t know your name. I’ve always seen you from my kitchen when you are standing in your balcony and shouting at your husband. I have completely ignored that by not invading your privacy. You are so loud that I can’t miss out on what you say; I have to forcefully listen to your conversation. Why do you fight so much with your family members? Every day you shout at your husband giving you the tea late, when you know your cab timings, either you should ask him to make the tea early or you make it yourself. I am bored of listening to the same lines every single day “Are yaar, abhi 9.15 ho gaya, mere cab aachuka hoga. Kya abhi chai ke liye rakhe ho, kyun itna late karthe ho yaar”. Anyways I don’t want to interfere in your personal life. I am least bothered about it. The reason I had to write this letter for you is because of Selvi. Today while I was chatting with her she told me some interesting stories about you. The stories were so damn interesting that I couldn’t stop writing to you.

1. You have kept a separate plate/cup for your maid and you’ll serve her only in that. Which era are you living in? How could you discriminate people? When you have no problem with your maid washing your dirty clothes and soiled plates, how could you have a problem when she eats in the same plate?
2. You only talk to her when you are bored. You have all the time in the world to sit and gossip when you are alone. You can’t talk to her when your husband and kids are around. Why is that? Do you feel ashamed to talk to a maid in front of your family members?
3. You make her eat stale food. It’s fine to give away the leftover food which is refrigerated and re-heated. It’s totally unacceptable to give the food which is musty. Would you eat the same food, if someone offers you? That’s why we have garbage bins, please use them.

I understand the maid gets paid for the things she does in your house, but this is not the way you treat her. Remember your life is finished without a maid. Try to be a little more civilized.

Irked!

People get off the road when you hear an ambulance speeding away with the siren on. The siren is meant to give way to the vehicle and not to block it. Why can’t people understand the sense of urgency? The ambulance is in a hurry for some emergency. Don’t you understand the value of somebody’s life? If you think your life is important so does others. You may also land up in one of them someday and the others will just behave the same way you did. Be little sensitive about it.

Don’t be a dim-wit saying there is no one in the ambulance; perhaps it’s going to pick someone who is in danger. Allow them to reach the destination faster and help them to save someone’s life.

Stop concluding that the ambulance drivers misuse the facility given to them. The siren is just to dodge the traffic jams, so on and so forth. Even if they do, it doesn’t happen all the time.

It’s important to value someone’s life. Be responsible.

Maruti- Suzuki : Way of life!

This incident happened exactly a week ago and just couldn’t ignore on putting up on the blog.

We (Dhivya, Gazelle, Arnab, Sada and I) were on our way back to Bangalore from Mysore after finishing Nitin’s engagement. All of a sudden, Dhivya’s car broke down in the middle of the road. First thing we did was to call Maruti on-road service for help. The call centre agent promised to send a technician in thirty minutes. However, that didn’t happen, we had to wait for more than two hours. It took so long for him to reach, in spite of giving out the landmarks and minute details about the location. We made couple of more calls to the call centre and then finally he reached. All of us heaved a sigh!

The moment we saw him, we were a bit scared, he was a lean, old guy who looked drunk. We ignored the looks and watched him work. He started checking the car, with a phone in one hand and occasionally asking some questions. In less than ten minutes, two Maruti Vans stopped in front of us. One man complaining there was no petrol in his car and the other saying something wrong with door-handle. The technician, who was addressing our issue, conveniently stopped and went to address their issues. By now it was getting dark outside (6:30 PM) and we were restless. I went to him and almost screamed. The look on his face was, as if he was doing a favor to us. He came to our car blabbering something.

After trying out all the troubleshooting steps for almost an hour, he finally realized that he can’t fix the issue. The next plan of action was to tow down the vehicle to Mandya, which was the nearest service station. He assured that it won’t take long. He tied a big rope from his vehicle to ours and gave enough instructions to Sada. For some reason, I always thought that we don’t have to do anything while someone is towing down the vehicle. I learnt that we still need to balance the steering and hand breaks. We cribbed, cursed, fought and rammed into his car while we reached the service station. He parked the car and we thought it was just a matter of few minutes, we were good to go. Without informing us anything, he got off the car and drove away in another car. We waited for about ten minutes and realized no one came to address our issue. I then approached a man who was fixing a car, he looked at me and said “you will get your car tomorrow, please come and collect it”. I was baffled. I said “excuse me, that’s not what the technician said, how do we go home now?” He looked puzzled and called up the technician and handed over the phone to me. The technician conveniently said, “The pump is worn out, and we will have to replace it with a new one. Today is Sunday and the office is closed, so come tomorrow, even before I could respond he hung up on me”. By now I was totally agitated and fuming. The guy whom I spoke to earlier was the branch manager and offered to help us. He made us wait for another two hours and finally agreed to fix the issue and send the vehicle to Bangalore. We hired a taxi and reached Bangalore at midnight.However, as promised they sent the car to Bangalore after two days with a big bill attached to it.

So moral of this story is:

• When in crisis, look out for local mechanic who can fix your issue. Call Maruti on-road service only as a last resort.
• Technician will never reach in thirty minutes, be patient.
• Ensure you have someone who can speak a local language.
• Make sure you have the complete details of the location(where your car broke down) before calling the customer support.

What's wrong with people?

The traffic in Bangalore is terrible these days. I am sure every Bangalorean will vouch for this. I understand it’s frustrating to drive on the roads. Nonetheless, we are not entitled to abuse anyone and everyone.

One incident that happened today forced me to write this post. En route to my office, while my cab driver tried to overtake a car near the traffic signal, the girl next to our cab seemed irritated. She was so aggravated that she zipped through and overtook our cab. When she was next to our cab, She gave a dirty stare at the driver, showed him her middle finger and said ‘FU’. Poor cabbie didn’t understand what the girl said. He was bewildered, naively asked me “what did the girl say?” I was flabbergasted at the sight and didn’t know how to communicate to him.

What was the need for such a reckless behavior from the girl? Is it a big mistake that he surpassed her car?

For some reason I always feel people treat the cabbies negatively. I do agree, at times the cabbies are rude in their behavior. I too have witnessed their slapdash driving and bypassing traffic rules skills. However, I personally feel putting all of them under the same category (as bad) and treating them the same way is just not acceptable. Come on guys, let’s be sensible. Not everyone is as bad as we think and hear. Let’s just admit there are some genuine guys out there who are innocent.

PS : Girls, stop being melodramatic. Think twice before you act.

Heights of Stupidity

She liked the boy and the boy liked her too. They exchanged words with each other in a book every day. She was afraid of someone checking her book. Her mom found the diary and read about everything. Mom was furious went to the school to report it to the teacher. The girl felt sorry for the boy, didn’t know how to face her mom. She ended her life at the age of 11 years when she was still in class VI. Do we call this love or infatuation?  How can anyone end their life like this?

Is 11 years even an age to fall in love and end life? Isn't this stupidity?

Lay-Offs

It's the 'D' day in the AOL India office where the verdict was announced about layoffs. AOL did let go of about 400 employees from technology and about 300 employees were transitioned to different companies. Although AOL is famous for downsizing its employee base every year in the US, this came as a shocker to Indian employees. I don’t know if I am fortunate or not to move to a different organization. The point is this was not expected to happen in such large magnitude. The thought of moving out of AOL campus is still not sinking in me. I feel bad for the ones who lost their jobs. That way I am thankful that I at least have a backup option. I really feel sad about the whole incident. I miss a whole lot of things about this office.

Smart Thieves

Two very well dressed women, both carrying babies boarded a fully packed bus. There was not enough space to even stand. Two young girls seated in the first seat, discussing about their corporate futures saw them and one of them offered a seat. The lady sat down with her baby, the baby must be not even a month old. It was a tiny little baby, tucked in a warmer, sleeping cozily. I stood in front and admired the beauty of the baby. The lady sat down with a hand-bag and a baby on her lap. She offered to hold my hand-bag. I said, “It’s fine, I shall get down in the next stop, I will manage”. She smiled at me and then asked the girl, who gave her the seat. The girl gave this lady her bag and stood behind. The baby cried and the lady tried to sooth the baby. After two stops, this lady gave the girl her bag and stood up to get down the bus. The girl looked happy as she got her seat back and continued the conversation with her friend. As soon as these two ladies got off the bus, the conductor shouted from behind. He asked everyone to check our hand-bags to see if anything was stolen. Everyone checked their hand bags frantically. The girl who offered the lady a seat checked hers and realized her wallet was missing. She screamed, the bus stopped, they looked for those two ladies but couldn’t find them anywhere. Poor girl who offered her a seat thought she did a good deed. In return to her endeavor she lost her wallet. Her wallet was stolen by the same lady who took help from her. I got down the bus thinking my wallet would have been lost, If I had given her my bag. I probably would have given mine, is she didn’t had the baby on her lap. I didn’t give her thinking it was an inconvenience to her.

It is difficult to trust anyone these days. We cannot be suspicious at everyone we meet. How can we not trust anyone? When we look at those two ladies, we won’t even get a second thought about them being thieves. She flicked the wallet in front of everyone, no one even realized it. Should we praise her intelligence?

Beware of such incidents in the bus. Do not give your valuables to any strangers.

We are like this only :-(

I am still enraged with today’s incident in the gym. As I am typing this I am hitting the keys on my laptop so hard that the guy next to me is actually looking at me. I usually hit the gym after 8 PM when it’s pretty much empty. So I get enough space to work out. Not that I would require the entire 20x15 space for myself.

Today for some reason Thiru and I decided to go at 6:30, by the time I was about to start my workout it was almost 7 PM. The moment I entered, I saw many guys flaunting their toned bodies (about ten of them); I was uncertain to get inside but made up my mind to go. I was dazed to see the remaining ten. I have no clue from where the rest of them came from. I didn’t find a vacant treadmill (obviously 20 people and 3 treadmills not an easy chance). I looked around and found an unoccupied elliptical cycle. I jumped and grabbed it even before someone could put an eye on that. As you all know about my OCD, I can’t workout without running on a treadmill. I couldn’t put my heart on that machine. I got off and still hoping to find an empty treadmill. I didn’t know what else to do except to stand and wait. While I was doing that I counted the number of people in the gym. No exaggerations, there were about twenty (including us). OMG! You must be wondering how can twenty people fit inside a 20x15 room, isn’t it? It actually happened today and I am the witness for that.

Anyways I was still hoping to find an empty treadmill standing in a corner. My trainer Karthik comes and says “you do the lower body workouts today” (different versions of lunges and squats). I laughed at him and said to myself how on earth I will do lunges and squats when there is no place to even stand. I ignored his instructions and still waiting for an opportunity to grab the treadmill. Luck didn’t seem to favor me; it looked like people were running a marathon on the treadmill. Finally I went up to one guy and asked him how much more time he would take to get off. When I heard he would just need three more minutes, I didn’t budge and stood next to him. While I was standing there (facing the mirror) I see a heavy weighted man with a really big belly, sweating buckets trying to wipe off his sweat from his forehead. The minute he realized he didn’t completely wipe it off; he pulled off his tee till chest level and started wiping his whole face showing off his big belly. I froze with embarrassment looking that in the mirror. The sight was totally unpleasant. Firstly if he was working out in a gym, it’s obvious that he would sweat. The basic fixation is to carry a face towel along with him. Say if has forgotten to get it, there is something called face tissues, please he should use them. It’s totally unacceptable to pull his tee and wipe it by showing his full belly. People might be crazy to watch some six-eight packs or even the flat belly of some belly dancers. Mind it, they wouldn’t want to look at a single pack (full belly).

Finally when I got the treadmill I ignored everything else and enjoyed my running. But once I was out from there couldn't stop to pen it down.

Note: Please contact Prashanth for another interesting story about sweatothon.

Traffic Signal

After a long day of work and workout I got into the cab to head back home (around 9:30 P.M). I rolled up the windows and stayed warm inside the cab. I didn’t know if it was the tiredness or something else which made me feel low. I looked outside the window hoping to swerve away from my thoughts. When we reached Silk Board Signal, I heard a tap on my window. There was a small boy, probably about 8-9 years old standing outside. He was selling some toys. He showed me a small car and insisted me to buy. I refused. He kept hopping at all the other vehicles. He sounded confident in his sales pitch. I must say there was something eye-catching about that boy, I painstakingly looked at him and listened to his conversations.


It was cold and I couldn’t roll down the window. I felt bad for the boy who was selling toys outside in that cold. I was on the phone talking to someone, but my eyes were just following that little boy. Since all my focus was on that boy, I didn’t realize the signal was slightly longer than usual. It didn’t matter to me as I was admiring that little boy’s sales strategies. Through his perseverance he did made some sales :-).

The boy came back again to the car which was parked next to our's. There was a family seated (husband, wife and a kid). The moment he saw the kid, he was sure he would get a sale. He showed the kid the best of cars he had with him. The kid was impressed with the toys and started demanding for one. The kid’s mother got a little irritated and started shooing away the boy. Nevertheless, the kid didn't seem to give up. He was stubborn and demanded even harder than before.

Finally, the mother agreed to buy a toy. She checked on a few and finally took one toy. The boy did not stop at one, he started up-selling some other things. When the mother was not interested in the other stuff, he offered the second toy on a discounted price. The mother was skeptical and tried to negotiate for lesser amount. Finally she picked up two toys and started searching for her purse. By then, the signal was green. Slowly, all the vehicles started moving. So did our cab. The boy started running behind the car as the car drove away. The boy was hoping that the car would stop after the signal. He continued to run. He probably wouldn’t have ran like that in his life. He couldn’t run more. He stopped in the middle of the road and started gasping. The car was gone, money was gone and the toy was gone too. He vulnerably looked back at all the vehicles that were approaching him. It was really disheartening for me to witness the situation.

What do we say about these so called civilized urbanites? Did they really have to deceive that little boy? That modest boy works so hard for his living. I had so many questions in my mind but couldn't do much other than just grumbling.

Gym-Mania

Fitness is in the air. Stay healthy/Stay fit seems to be the mantra for everyone. I realized the importance of staying fit very recently and from then no looking back. I exercise regularly and do watch out on what I eat. Off late my workout routine has taken a back seat :-( I was feeling guilty about it. All thanks to winters :-( December being cold, I got excuses to miss my gym. Those early-foggy-mornings, who wants to wake up and go to the gym? When your feet needs blanket to cover up. You just feel like cuddling up in the bed. I belong to the same category. Ever since the winter has started, I am skipping the gym regularly, blaming it on the weather. I started getting scared about putting on those extra few kgs which I had knocked off in the last few months. Finally, I decided to use the office gym. With that little hesitation I packed my bag and got ready to sweat out. It was difficult to hit it off because I belong to the category of “tag me along” types. I needed company and didn’t know who to ask for. I convinced myself a little hard and finally caught hold of Rakshith and went with him. The moment I walked inside, I saw many people busy working out. It was a small room, looked very congested. My enthusiasm which was in the sky fell on the floor. My mind said " go back Sowmya" but my heart said "Yes you can do it". I went with my heart and didn't care about people who were around. There were some curious set of eyes looking at me from head to toe. I didn't bother and continued to work out.

To my surprise I really liked the place. Phew! That was lovely I really enjoyed the workout. In-fact, someone even complimented about my running (he just didn’t know that running was my weakness). Whatever it was, it actually made me feel good. I always think that running is not my types and I could never do it. But the truth is, these days I started liking it. Now, I don’t have to worry about not-having a company to the gym. Thanks to Sowmya NS, who volunteered to join me. We have a solid plan now and will surely execute all of them.

For all of you who are still making up your minds to start: You should buck up. Exercise regularly to stay healthy.

Bankathon

When people complain/crib about getting any documents from the bank, I always wonder why?

Today I realized why people hate so much about interactions with nationalized banks. Every service with them is just horrible- be it personal loan, housing loan, credit cards. They would be just behind you if it’s a late payment or non-payment but when you need something from them it’s so difficult to catch them. Even if you do, they will give you such a run around that you’ll repent taking a loan from them. Here I am with such an experience. Recently I took a housing loan from this X bank (in my opinion it’s the “best bank”). They were more than happy to release my loan amount after giving them about zillion documents. I was happy that it happened very fast. In fact, I was proud of it. Yeah! The reason I was proud of it because, for most of my friends either they didn’t get the loan or they had to run around for a really long time to get one.
I was beaming in this happiness for 6 months. The only thing I (we) did was to pay the EMI promptly. All the proudness about the “best bank” didn’t last longer. I was asked to collect a provisional certificate for the income tax exemption from the bank. I conveniently assumed that it’s the “best bank” in the world and I’ll get it right away. I picked up my phone and sweetly called the “Bank manager” requesting for the certificate on a Monday. He refused to give it to me saying he will have to go through my records and it would take a day. I politely said, “Oh no problem Sir, take your time”. But I was actually thinking about how much time it takes for him to pull up my account and find out what's the loan amount and the interest rate.

Well on Tuesday, I called him thinking that he had enough time to go through the records and hoping he would have kept my letter ready. For my surprise he said “Oh I am so sorry Sowmya! It totally skipped out of my head I couldn’t do it. Do one thing, give me a call at four in the evening and remind me once again”. I was aghast! Firstly he did not do it; secondly he is asking me to remind him again. I needed that letter so badly that I called him up and reminded him.

On Wednesday morning when I called him he said “I am really sorry Sowmya! we have some problems in our building and the power line is cut. Since there is no power, I can't take the print out. As soon as the power comes I’ll keep it ready". He did not even let me speak further and hung up the phone. I was looking at my phone receiver with a big disappointment.

Well on Thursday I decided to go to the bank without calling him. When I went there he was sitting in his lavish cabin. He gave me a fake smile and told me to wait for five minutes. I waited for fifteen minutes, by then I had already finished reading stuff on their notice board and everything that was hung on their walls. Now I am totally educated with interest rate on gold loan, fixed deposits and senior citizen fixed deposits. He didn’t seem to bother about me waiting there. Occasionally he kept looking at me and pretending to be busy on the phone. I could hear him talking about probably his son/daughter about why he/she did not brush his/her teeth and drank milk. This went on for the next 30 minutes. So, totally it was forty-five minutes. I finally gave up. Totally frustrated I headed towards his cabin telling him “Sorry, I am getting late for my cab. Can I get my letter”? May be I sounded too determined and he was left with no option.He immediately pulled the bank’s letter head and started writing something. I was clueless still sitting and waiting for my piece of paper. I thought someone would come and give me (he might have given a print). He was still busy writing and trying to convince me to take the car loan. I confidently denied the offer, didn't want to make so many visits again. I waited for fifteen more minutes, still no clue of anyone coming inside the room. By then, he finished writing and tore the page from the letter head, started looking for some rubber stamps and put the seal on it. He found an empty envelope and put the letter in the envelope and handed over to me.

Yes, I finally got my provisional certificate which was a hand written note, which talked about the loan and interest amount. That’s it. For this two liner document, I had to wait for 4 long days. If he had to just give me this hand-written document, he could have done it on Monday itself. Why all that stories about no power, can’t get a printout blah blah blah….. I still can’t believe.

I was so confused about the whole episode that I walked out speechless.

Hence I conclude that my so called “The best bank in the world” is not the best anymore.