TATA Indicom sucks!!! Do they have customer in their line of sight?

Sometimes mid march, my Indicom connection was failing despite I had no outstanding dues. I thought, it was because of my modem settings etc. I tried all possible tricks that Windows allows but did not succeed. Finally, I called Tata Indicom help desk and found that my connection was disabled by them....they discovered that there is not enough documents that establishes my identity. I was puzzled as what else document besides photo copy of PAN, Passport and rent agreement, I could have missed to submit ( I was using this connection from last several months ). The Indicom help desk guys ( girl, to be precise ) are only trained to tell - "I am sorry sir, I can not help you" and "Sir, do you have any other issues that I can help" in a perpetual sequence. Frustrated, I resubmitted all documents and thought waiting for 2 days before attempting net from home. After, 3 days, when I checked the line, I found that the line is still disabled. When I called the help desk, they informed that there was a power cut in their office, so they could not give any status to my complaint !!! After two weeks,when I called the help desk, they informed that the line has been enabled....but ordeal is not to finish here. Any attempt to connect internet was responded with - "the remote server did not respond"!!

Decided, I won't talk to the help desk, instead I checked the internet (from office) logged a complaint with more f***words in the content than the actual issue itself. The TATA Indicom seems to understand f***words very well !!! .....the line was enabled finally with an executive calling me to get a confirmation. It took 25 days - what a great customer service!!!!
The tata indicom customer support executives (thats what they like to be called)are the worst ....very poorly trained...have no idea of what the cusomers could face....they are worst that I came accross.

Anyway, I m going to change my service provider soon... may be I will go for a BSNL broadband.

Do not ask HOW MUCH MONEY YOU MADE, MINISTERJI

If this is to believed, I am really disappointed, given that we have MMS as PM!! Looks PMO has yielded to the pressures from Amar-Mulayam, Lalu et all. Too bad Mr PM.

Week that was ---

Saturday - On weekend, ended up offending a friend by a poor joke (sad, everyone is not intelligent like me to understand jokes)...had to write big emails saying - sorry:-) Today was supposed to talk to doctor (for a stomach problem) n take an appo but the doctor's phone number was in my office id. Tried the VPN to connect to my office network but thanks to the slowest-on-earth-tata-indicom-dial-in-connection, could not get the office network either (though could check india-au cricket score after day 3). The doc is my friends brother-in-law (good that, i don't have to pay consultation fees) - tomrow, wd ring up my friend's resi number to get the doctors phone number and consult him on Sunday - poor sis of mine, who came last to last Sunday- no movies or shopping on Sunday! Though she made few friends here in the compound by this time, she is not that bored - atleast that's what she said to me.
Saturday night- My sis is there…so no “party” on weekends – but weekends are not dull when you have a sister around. Planning to catch a movie on Sunday.

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Sunday - Could not manage time for a movie. May be next week....I’m desperate to prove that I m alive:) so have to add something in the blog. An old incident does not seem to be bad to place it here!
My friend Ranjan told me about this. The incidence is a year old. Ranjan always insisted that we (particularly me, my other friend Tapan) would take a thousand years of “sadhana” to reach a level of our other friend Sidheswar. We all gracefully agree the talent of Sidheswar but that difference in ‘level’ never came out to be a factor in our friendship. Enough of “alaap”, let’s go to the story.

It was a puja vacation, last year, Sidheswar started for home- his train, Teesta Bhorsha express departed from Kolkata at 8.30pm. Sidheswar occupied his seat at right time and was sipping his mineral water bottle frequently. It was a hot day. Eventually by half an hour, when the train is well past the Calcutta station, his water bottle was empty and Sidheswar went to bed ( He didn’t feel like having the dinner). Everything was fine until midnight when he got awake to go to urinals. Mind that smoking is banned on trains now a days, Sidheswar did not light a cigarette in the urinal. After returning to the seat, he saw all his belongings are gone!! A cool person, he thought of reporting the theft to police, but on a second thought, there is little hope of getting the things back, so Sidheswar decided to stay back. He uttered choicest of curses n abuses for the bag-lifter. Since it was real hot and dry, he was more worried about the other mineral water bottle kept in the bag. Since there was no way of getting back the lost items, a cool head, he decided to sleep again. Having a relieved bladder, he slept immediately. Having a sound sleep, he got up early and had a cup of tea from the “cha grom-wala”. He was feeling bad and his brain is working on various possibilities. By the time he finished the tea, so observed something unusual with his seat number. His ticket shows, he’s allocated berth #35 and he was @ berth#53. He immediately went to b number 35 and ALAS…EVERYTHING WAS THERE. His bag, gifts for near n dear ones, medicines for a relative etc etc…everything untouched!!. Now, it’s time to get down at next station…Sidheswar was cursing railways for making the seats so similar.

----Disclaimer: #1 -Those not-so-near to Sidheswar, were saying, his mineral water bottle contained something intoxicating, but we don’t believe it.
----Disclaimer: #2-The above paragraphs are just a possibility – any resemblance with any real life incidence is purely coincidental.

"Heaven gives its glimpses only to those..."

Probably everyone goes through a phase where he/she feels betrayed or denied. It's hard to accept the disappointment when u don't get something which u are made to believe yours and desired too passionately. But won't there be caos if everyone's dreams come true?
Was reading a bengali novel during my Eid vacation...got an interesting piece as quoted below ( no I m not into poetry, particularly if it is in english...but this might give you some food for thought:))
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A Passing Glimpse - Rober Frost
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I often see flowers from a passing car
That are gone before I can tell what they are.
I want to get out of the train and go back
To see what they were beside the track.
I name all the flowers I am sure they weren't;
Not fireweed loving where woods have burnt--
Not bluebells gracing a tunnel mouth--
Not lupine living on sand and drouth.
Was something brushed across my mind
That no one on earth will ever find?
Heaven gives its glimpses only to those
Not in position to look too close.

Back to work place.....

Reached Calcutta at around 2.30 PM. First 3/4 days after Eid, the weather was very bad in Silchar. The road condition and other basic civic amenities are getting worse day by day. Feel very sad for my home place. Corruption has taken a deep root in every sphere of life (Some of our land was acquired by highway authority and we were asked to pay the Land and Revenue officials 20% of total compensation amount ! I will write more details later - meanwhile I am trying to contact higher administrative officials…don’t know if that would help…keeping the fingers crossed for now).

Met a college junior in the airport whose flight to Chennai was scheduled in the evening. It was so nice to meet Tapash first time after college days.. Tapash came to my flat and we had an adda after quite a long long gap - 12 years to be precise. Saw off Tapash in the evening. My sister gave some sweets…time to do some ‘misti-mukh’ and call my friends here to wish Eid Mubarak and Suvo Bijoya.........logging off in 10 seconds!!

Cultivating corruption – “Maha-sarak in Silchar, ASSAM”

This Eid ( 2 oct 08) when I visited home, I saw a lot of house building activities in my village ( a village about 10 KM from Silchar town). In last two months there has been atleast 20 new houses built and similar number of houses are under construction. In a small village like mine, this appears to be a real estate boom….but in reality this has nothing to do with soaring demand for housings, no one is going to live in those houses!!

The supper highway from Imphal ( through a bridge over the ‘ Barak’) will make a crossing with the superhighway from Mizoram; the crossing is supposedly to be in our village. Some villagers would be uprooted to make way for the national development! Well this may be hard for a those villagers who are living there for generations - guess who is making hay out of it? The Land and Revenue officials advised the villagers to make concrete houses so that they can manipulate official records and get some higher compensation. Well, no advice comes for free! The office needs 20 to 30% of the proposed compensation paid in advance, so that villagers can get a ‘good’ package!! It is an ‘official deal’! The villagers are made to think that this is a win win situation for everyone!! Well, the officials are not saying this to be bribe; in fact no one is saying that – they are just showing the villagers a way to claim more compensation and in return they are taking some ‘service charge’. The brokering the 20-30% deal with the villagers, on behalf of the officials, has become a lucrative career option for many.


Few acres of our (inherited) fertile family land are in the designated highway area. My father currently being almost invalid, my uncle is running from pillars to post to claim the legitimate compensation/ sometimes to get information about the rate of compensation which is meager compared to what has been paid in other parts of the country ( Remember Nandigram, WB? We don’t have a Mamata Banerjee to exploit the situation! ). Nevertless, due to absence of a young male member who would have negotiated with the officials, we had no option but to be ‘happy’ to give the land at the govt offered price. But thanks to the hungry land officials, we cannot get anything until we pay 30% of the amount in advance!!
I feel like an escapist who work for a multinational and give advice to others not to encourage corruption. My father, my uncles are having all the pains for their legitimate money- they can not pay the 30%, they can not pay a good advocate to have an RTI petition filed in the court… I am proud of my father – you really helped innumerable persons to get established…I am proud of my uncle, who served the govt and despite many options to be richer, opted to remain same as before.


Dear reader, if you are looking for a bride, go and try an alliance with anyone working in the Land & Revenue department. It’s possible that you would end up getting gifts comparable to what is given in some of the north-Indian royal marriages. If you are in kidnapping business, get someone from L&R dept, Assam. You would probably get more than what you demanded !

Disclaimer:---
The blogger does not encourage dowry but the above lines are for those who, in any case, would have received some gifts! Kidnapping is also strongly discouraged but this is for those who are already established in this career and do everything with their own risk…. though sharing some ransom might not be discouraged):

Checking that this site is still accessible...

Sound Sleep

Today, my laptop was crashing repeatedly while booting. I had to POR (Power On Reset) four time to get it to normal. Mine is a Dell latitude 650 model with XP SP2. Compared to available models today, it's reasonably older with 40 GB HDD and 512M RAM. I did not look for a replacement as I have tons of official and personal data stored on it and also I have developed a comfort with the keyboard and other accessories attached to this Lapu. Most importantly I have seen a strange telepathic link between the lapu and my mood (partially this is also the case with my mobile phone). Whenever I feel little down, I have seen, my laptop also gets into troubles. The more gloomy I am, more is the frequency of crash. If one checks the event manager logs in my system (in the administrative tools), he/she can easily get a measure of my mood for that particular date.
I was feeling sad today - for no particular reason as such. Got up very early while it was still dark outside (though last night I slept after midnight). After having a glass of water I tried to sleep again but could not. The mobile alarm started beeping at 5 AM. No, I am not an early raiser ( I hate getting up early), I intended to set the alarm at 7 but by mistake I set it @5.00am. Partly the blame should go to the dilapidated keypad where the digits can not be seen. Anyway I set the alarm @730 and tried to sleep again. Alas, my domestic help came @6:10am while normally she does not turn up before the time I am ready for office:) I thought I would force her to take an off by not answering the calling bell but that was not to be. She kept on pressing the door bell and at the same time was knocking the door and with every passing minutes the intensity just started raising exponentially. So before whole housing society members come to examine the situation, I had to get up and let her in. I told her to clean other rooms, leaving my bedroom - I went to bed again and tried to sleep. Half an hour passed, the doorbell ringing again and it was just like before except this time the visitor was not knocking the door. I got up to see my domestic help again. This time she rang the bell not to get in...just to tell me that she was leaving :)). This time I didn't try sleeping again - had a shower and started preparing for office.

Literally, I had a "sound sleep" today.

A lesson from Jodie Foster

"... There is nothing in this world I am prouder of than my ability to feel, to survive and yes, to be a fool for what I love and believe in."
-Jodie Foster

"Hotel California"

RAN OUT OF IDEA - So just putting a song ............again:)

On a dark desert highway, cool wind in my hair

Warm smell of colitas, rising up through the air

Up ahead in the distance,

I saw shimmering light

My head grew heavy and my sight grew dim

I had to stop for the night

There she stood in the doorway;

I heard the mission bell

And I was thinking to myself,'This could be Heaven or this could be Hell'

Then she lit up a candle and she showed me the way

There were voices down the corridor,

I thought I heard them say...Welcome to the Hotel California

Such a lovely place (Such a lovely place)

Such a lovely face

Plenty of room at the

Hotel California

Any time of year (Any time of year)

You can find it here

Her mind is Tiffany-twisted, she got the Mercedes Benz

She got a lot of pretty, pretty boys she calls friends

How they dance in the courtyard, sweet summer sweat.

Some dance to remember, some dance to forget

So I called up the Captain,'Please bring me my wine'

He said, 'We haven't had that spirit here since nineteen sixty nine'

And still those voices are calling from far away,

Wake you up in the middle of the night

Just to hear them say...Welcome to the Hotel California

Such a lovely place (Such a lovely place)

Such a lovely face

They livin' it up at the Hotel California

What a nice surprise (what a nice surprise)

Bring your alibis

Mirrors on the ceiling,

The pink champagne on ice

And she said 'We are all just prisoners here, of our own device'

And in the master's chambers,

They gathered for the feast

They stab it with their steely knives,

But they just can't kill the beast

Last thing I remember, I was

Running for the door

I had to find the passage back

To the place I was before'Relax,' said the night man,

'We are programmed to receive.

You can check-out any time you like,

But you can never leave!'

Home - MICHAEL BUBLE

"Home"

Another summer day

Has come and gone away

In Paris and Rome

But I wanna go homeMmmmmmmm

May be surrounded by

A million people I

Still feel all alone

I just wanna go home

Oh, I miss you, you know

And I’ve been keeping all the letters that I wrote to you

Each one a line or two“I’m fine baby, how are you?”

Well I would send them but I know that it’s just not enough

My words were cold and flat

And you deserve more than that..

Another aeroplane

Another sunny place

I’m lucky, I know

But I wanna go homeMmmm,

I’ve got to go home

Let me go home

I’m just too far from where you are

I wanna come home

And I feel just like I’m living someone else’s life

It’s like I just stepped outside

When everything was going right

And I know just why you could not

Come along with me

'Cause this was not your dream

But you always believed in me

Another winter day has come

And gone away

In even Paris and Rome

And I wanna go home

Let me go home

And I’m surrounded by

A million people I

Still feel all alone

Oh, let me go home

Oh, I miss you, you know

Let me go home

I’ve had my run

Baby, I’m done

I gotta go

me go home

It will all be all right

I’ll be home tonight

I’m coming back home