Another New Year and a boring Post...

Another year passes by this weekend. Old calendars will be replaced with new ones on the wall – where ever they are still used… Some will party through the weekend, others still wondering what to do…

I am probably one among the others… For a few days now, I have been beleaguered with the question on what my plan for the New Years Eve is… every one seems to have a standard question on this. I wonder if not having any plan is a plan in itself… I can claim it to be so – if I can loan from what PV Narasimha Rao once said about his governments’ indecision on Ayodhya issue “Deciding not to take a decision is a decision too”.

Well, that’s it for me… I have decided not to have a plan. For that matter, I am still clueless how the New Years is any different. Unless you are sure of dying within next one year, every other day is a New Year day…. Ok…somewhat over philosophical… I take that back. Neither do I want to get into a rant of how New Years is a western celebration…

Actually my dilemma is more basic…wife is out of town, friends are busy parenting this weekend, work is on a slow lane – a long weekend (two in succession actually) suddenly looks too much of a respite. Though I have a pretty long ‘to-do list’… I am not sure if that would count as a decent plan to have for the New Years…

So in nut-shell I am still looking for a socially acceptable answer to “What’s the plan for New Years”…

Another question that’s likely to rounds next is – “What new year resolutions (NYR) did you make?”… Damn!!! This never goes out of fashion… Somehow cliché’ never killed it….

It still lives… in spite of the fact that NYRs are just that…resolutions for that day – with a shelf life of barely a few weeks into January. Actually I do have a good claim to having kept an old NYR… when I resolved not to make any more NYRs.

I don’t know why you are still reading this totally boring post – I am just yanking off at the keyboard just to alleviate my own boredom.

The mass emails wishing me well for the New Year are back… wonder how many of them would care to send these wishes if they had to pay for those e-cards or emails.

News Channels and papers are back too with their routine New Year masala’s…

Vote for the Man of the Year… Indian of the Year, NRI of the Year, Bangalorean of the year, Mumbaikar of the year, Chinch-pokli’te of the year, Politician of the year, Sportsman of the year, Actor of the year, Item girl of the year, Reality show hero of the year, Idiot of the year,...

(Bore of the year (this post is my self-nomination))… If you want to vote for me...please send an SMS instructing your bank to transfer money to my account.

Kya tamasha hai…? Actually it just doesn't stop there... there are also contests on for phone of the year, car of the year, bike of the year, Mp3 player of the year, pyjama of the year, underwear of the year.... and so on. Don't worry - the latter categories too will come next year for real...

TIME just kept it simple this year – announcing that YOU and I all; are the winners… Wonder why YOU and I lost last year though…and all the previous years… Damn!!! They didn’t even tell me so far…

New year's day seemed to have some meaning sometime back... or maybe it was just the childhood factor - when you try to seek some pleasure and meaning in everything. A new calendar actually used to be brought - and first thing one would do was to note down which day birthdays and holidays were on... The New Year eve TV shows were the celebration event for the family... Thank God there was no 'remote' back then to spoil the fun.

Maybe I am just getting old...

Sreesanth Swinging His Bat?

Take One more look... Doesn't it seem as if India was chasing and he win the winning shot!!!

Win in SA - 2

The win over South Africa in Wanderer’s has come at a time when the Indian cricket fan had totally got dejected – down and almost out. The stars have been a jaded image of their dazzling past for a long while, and even without any great change in form of the stars, the team has risen to give a fresh lease of life to the ‘cricket fan’.

Indian cricket has been reeling under the pressure of too much of media attention – there is a good feel factor about this success – since the victory came on the shoulders of the not-so in the prime stars. Sreesanth – with or without his antics – was brilliant. Zaheer was dropped and recalled not too long ago… Sourav and VVS have been in and out – the former captain having gone through the worst phase of his career in last 6 months or so.

Kumble – in spite of being the old war-horse of the team and having feats not lesser than those of any of the other stars in the team – is never for some reason given the star treatment…

The tigers on paper for once rocked as a team – instead of individual dazzles…

But even today, when the team just needed to complete some formalities for the win - the age-old skepticism was alive in the fans… each of us wondering inside us – will it really happen. Each of us scared that there was still a possibility for the team to goof it up from even such a strong position. Hasn’t it happened so many times earlier… Pollock smashing a few too many gave some such scares… Is it that the confidence of Indian cricket fan has been shaken and smashed so often, that we don’t believe it till the bails are still on.

Will this ever change?

As an Indian cricket fan – I am scared. Would this one win again set the team back on its complacency track – get them back in front of more camera’s shooting more endorsements – or would it really help the team get up and running from now on…?

As usual – I still have my fingers crossed – hoping for the best…

Of God's and Media

Yesterday there was one more news story in all the news channels – Sanjay Dutt performing a pooja/havan in Siddhivinayak temple – we all know why?

This sort of had a deja-vu… or rather a news burn-out effect on me. Why is it that every second day there is a news item of someone visiting Siddhivinayak Temple in Mumbai? Why is it news first of all?

I have come believe now that all TV news channels have a dedicated team of reporter/camera-man deputed permanently to watch the visitors in this temple now…It’s a great place for celebrity spotting and getting some scoops for news… Whether its some one coming to pray for a favourable judgment in the courts, or reality show contestants coming in to pray for more SMS’s in their favour, or cricketers for finding favour with selectors, wannabe leaders or have been leaders just before the election results, parents and family members of ‘Big boss’ hostages, the finalists of Indian Idol or Nach Baliye, or someone from Ekta Kapoor pack emoting for a dying ‘husband’… yahan sabh milta hai!!!

So why go elsewhere pleading and begging some so-called celebrity for news bites… you get them fresh and easy here – served to you on a pooja thaali.

For years, star crazy Indian’s have flocked to Bombay for a glimpse of some stars. My advice to them is – don’t bother about battling with the Nepali guards at your idols house or the rude chowkidaar outside Filmistan or RK studios… just hang out at Siddhivinayak temple a day before release of his/her film – you will find more than a handful of ‘stars’ out here easily.

The temple authorities can probably be smarter - and install camera's all over their premises and tie up for the feed with some TV channels... some cool revenue to be raked in here.

Win in SA!!!

Well... finally it’s a Win!!!

Doesn’t matter if it comes after a pitiable six months of lowly performance… A win makes an incorrigible Indian cricket fan forget everything.

More so, if it’s a win on foreign soil…

And immediately – all those so-far disheartened fan’s will come back to life...again churning out their unbeatable strategies for India, unlimited game plans to win the World Cup few months down the line… un-solicited suggestions for Guru Greg and Dravid…

This one win will keep the enthusiasm alive through all the defeats from now till World Cup... that last wicket today instantaneously made all of us forget all the previous humiliations… And yeah!!! Suddenly we are all back to believing that the World Cup is ours for taking…

And by the way – if you didn’t see this on TV - do enjoy this one from Sreesanth

I have failed to rationalize why Indian’s are so crazy about cricket… Is it the last vestige of our awe for the Britisher’s…or is it that the Indian psyche’ has got bogged down so much that we don’t believe we have a better chance of beating anyone at anything else – and the wonder of 1983 is still something we lick on to…

Regards
An incorrigible Indian Cricket fan... Sudhrenge nahi

Mother Tongue or Teacher Tongue...

Marathi becomes mandatory in all schools in state

This is back...

First it was the 'Kannada' compulsion... now the bug has bitten the Maharashtra politicians... The Karnataka education minister forced closure of over 800 schools in Karnataka because they weren't using Kannada as medium of instruction in their schools. They weren't teaching algebra and trigonometry or chemistry and biology in Kannada... and ignoring the need for the keeping the culture and ethos of the language alive.

Now same realization have dawned upon the neighbouring state - Maharashtra... apparently they are scared that Marathi as a language is under threat - unless they force students to learn it in classrooms.

Mother Tongue politics has been an old ploy for whipping emotions and getting masses swayed. Politicians are at it again now...

But why?

India is a land of hundreds of languages and dialects... and all of them have been in existence for more than a few centuries. No doubt the last language to set foot into India is English... yet, none of the earlier ones died. They have their own history and ethos associated with them... and didn't get die because a stronger global language entered India. Then why this phobia now...

India, whether some like it or not, is the slowly becoming a powerful back office of the world - a position which is strongly impacting in a positive way the economic footing of a wide range of Indian people. The ITES industry alone is projected to create more than 3 million jobs in another 2-3 years... lots of such feel-good projections. The numbers can be off by some factor - but none of these politicians and so-called champions of mother-tongue can deny that the outsourcing industry has been a boon of sorts for India... and relieved a lot of burden off the government. The youth today don't look towards the government for giving them jobs... the industry/corporate sector has lived up much better to that expectation.

But the government is now out to kill it...

The colonial rule of the Britisher's gave India the English education - wherein almost any educated youth is a multi-linguist - knowing at least English, Hindi and his/her mother tongue. The wide spread understanding and skills with English - the local pronunciations and variants not withstanding has given us the edge in the BPO sector for sure. Today, masses in the west are scared of getting "Bangalored" - meaning they could loose their job to an English speaking Malayalee or a Kannadiga youngster still in some Indian city.
Something this young lad could snatch just because his ancestors were subjugated and over-powered by the English speaking whites.

One could call it - divine retribution. Today low cost Asian countries are in a way reverse colonialising these jobs. But instead of building power around this, the short-sighted politicians of India are killing it. Instead of bothering about staying ahead of China, which has embarked on teaching English to its kids on a war-footing to wrest this advantage away from India - our guys are out to hand it on a plate to them.

I don't deny that Indian languages and culture is a valuable asset which needs to be protected, valued and enriched - and the local languages are the key to that.

But learning to speak and read your mother tongue need not be done from a schooling system - let the schooling system focus on imparting marketable skills to the masses.

I saw an interview by this NCP politician - Jeetendra Awhad - a self-styled champion of the 'mandate Marathi' campaign on TV a day ago - and Mr Awhad has a concern that in spite of being a Marathi by birth and born to Marathi speaking parents (himself), his daughter in 8th standard can't speak Marathi. So it’s the fault of the school she goes to...because they taught her to speak English, made her good at Physics, chemistry, biology, History, geography etc - but not Marathi.

My dear Awhad - I would first request you to demand compulsory "Parenting schooling" for parents like you. It should be made a constitutionally mandatory - because I would call your parenting a failure.

I was born in a Kashmiri family, where parents and grand parents spoke in Kashmiri to me - and that’s how I learnt the mother tongue despite the fact that the language was NEVER taught in school.

Mr. Awhad and his ilk need to accept that they are forcing the schooling system to do what the parenting system was meant to done.

So Mr. Awhad needs to get out of the bad parenting habit of talking to their kids in English at home - just because its cool to do so; and impart the mother tongue to them.

After all Mother Tongue - is what one gets from mother - at home, not a teacher in school, else it would have been called "Teacher Tongue"...

Big Bazaar ya Chor Bazaar...

After this post (Billing Blues...) highlighting the frequent billing errors in the retail outlet across out metro's... I still thought that this could be just an inadvertant mistake, a data entry error, a human faux-paus...

But today, just 2-3 days after the previous instance, we encountered this once again. Today - 20th December 2006, at about 6-6:30pm we went to the Big Bazaar, on Old Madras Road, Bangalore – the much-hyped “Biggest Big Bazaar” of India.

Picked up a lot of usual items, juices, groceries etc…

Somewhat alert after the previous post – we were conscious to track the billing. And guess what, as expected there were the usual con jobs…

The billing agent at the counter swiped the barcode reader on a ‘Sundrop – 1 litre pack’ – and guess what – instead of an MRP price of Rs. 73/-, it billed Rs 80/-. Another item – a pack of ‘Everest Masala’ had an MRP of Rs 42/- but the bill screen recorded it as Rs 49/- after the barcode swipe.

Now that we were constantly watching this – we interrupted the agent on the spot. As expected, the first response was ‘Sir, bar code error’… and he quietly tried to enter the price manually. But we were adamant that we wanted to speak to the manager. Our constant requests were avoided – by the agent and the few other agents who gathered there. On persistent insistence, one agent supposedly went off to get the manager – returning in 2 minutes to say that manager wasn’t present at that time.

What? The “Biggest Big Bazaar” doesn’t have a manager!!! It was obvious that they were avoiding it…

But we didn’t intend to budge – and a system hang added to the wait time at the counter anyway. Since we refused to move further – the agents brought forward a newbie looking chap to us – as the manager. Somehow I was not convinced that this was the manager – and the “temporary badge” gave him away. On being confronted on his role, he chickened out – saying that he was a trainee manager. Not sure what that means. Once again we were back to the demanding that the manager show up. Now the so called trainee manager went out in supposed search for the manager. No sign of the manager still.

My wife took it on herself to go hunt out the big man – only find on 1^st floor that the big man and the trainee were yapping away. On seeing her approach, they made a quick haste towards the billing counter as if they were

Finally 30 minutes into the imbroglio – the manager did show.

So the manager - Mr. Aftab Alam came to the counter and readily started shouting at the billing agents – I don’t know why. They were acting to the script… So was Mr Aftab Alam extending the script as well... The manager was however not ready to agree that this was a reoccurring problem. Instead to make a show of concern, he asked someone to take off all the items (Sundrop/Everest) from the displays and not to sell them anymore. A good show was put up to make us feel that this was just an inadvertent mistake… Till a day ago I too would have fallen for it.

But not anymore – and here is more of why?

More user distress records…

http://www.mouthshut.com/review/Big_Bazaar-115061-1.html

http://www.mouthshut.com/review/Big_Bazaar-113747-1.html

http://www.mouthshut.com/review/Big_Bazaar-113361-1.html

http://www.mouthshut.com/review/Big_Bazaar-97815-1.html

….oh too many of them out there… and so far I only looked up only mouthshut.com

Wonder what Big Biyani is doing… you don’t become a Walmart of India by cheating customers…

I am increasingly convinced that there is something to this by design…

For long there have been 'chor bazaars' in some corner of Indian cities, where a buyer got some useful stuff for cheap - just because someone somewhere had been robbed.

Is this the retail model of it now...?

Airtel or AirHell...

This has to be a long one…

My agony began with taking a connection from Airtel in Jan 2005, when I moved to a new city and a new employer. As expected, I didn’t have a permanent address on the first day in the new city – so the Airtel executive (or was he a Airtel DSA… don’t remember) who used to visit our office (an Tech company in Bangalore) assured me that a letter from office was good enough to get a connection. Good… and I had a connection in no time, which I was paying for directly through ECS from my own account. However, this is where the issue began. Unknowingly, the connection was recorded by Airtel as ‘company owned’ connection – even though they had a direct ECS paying for it. And my name would appear only as a “user:” in the bills. Fine… not unless I wanted to get any change of service done. So, each time I needed to change a plan, activate or deactivate roaming, ask for a duplicate bill etc, they would force me to get the company executive to send this request – pretty painful.

And apparently the Airtel guy had done this quick fix to lots of other employees in my office to snare in quick customers. So – our office requested Airtel to fix this issue enmass. As a result a camp was held in our office on May 19^th 2006. Great !!! But little did I realize that they had again sent a DSA – who cared only about selling new connections that day. The DSA ‘Raghav’ from InformAcc (Airtel) collected all my documents (address, identity proof, new ECS activations, salary proof for waiver of deposits, photograph etc) – and I was assured that the change of ownership of my existing number would be done in no time.

Weeks passed… months passed… Still no change…

DSA Dance

I kept calling Raghav – and he assured me that he has submitted the documents to Airtel office in Bannerghatta, Bangalore – and it would soon be done. Umpteen calls to Airtel call centre didn’t give a solution either.

Finally, one day in June 2006, Airtel says they have no got the documents at all – and I need to resubmit. Why? God knows… I try to call InformAcc and they say Raghav is no more with them – and its not their headache what he did to my documents. I raised requests with Airtel to ask to see if my documents were misused – they say they don’t know…they can’t help?

I was finally forced to resubmit fresh set documents to Airtel for the change of ownership – but neither Airtel nor InformAcc has so far come back with an answer on what happened to my earlier set of documents. I wonder if I should go and file a FIR against this – lest Raghav (who is nowhere to be traced now) should have misused my documents.

Airtel shrugs off any responsibility of its own DSA partners.

Wonder what I as a customer should do next time you have to deal with another DSA – whether telecom service provider, a bank or any other agency? Maybe I should ask for a copy of personal identity proof (voter id, DL, ration card etc) in addition to seeing his company ID – before dealing with the person.

Customer Service

Funny name for no-service… It should be called Customer harassment service. During the course of this issue and even later (issues didn’t end with the conversion) I must have talked to about 50 Airtel customer ‘service’ executives over the 121 call centre. I have talked to all kinds of agents – umpteen Preeti’s/Sanjay’s/Vanitha’s/Santosh’s/Ajay/Vijay and who not – and each time having to repeat the story of my agony. Having put several service requests and quoting the service ticket numbers “9105867/9380722/10217862” not-withstanding…

Sending emails to the 121@airtelindia.com doesn’t help either – because for each such mail you promptly get an automated response assuring you

“Thank you for writing to us. We will revert to you within 24 hours.”

But these “24 hours” in Airtel time can mean 24 months too… And it’s so frustrating to see this email response – when the complaint itself is that my previous complaints haven’t been responded to/addressed so far even after weeks.

I have repeatedly replied ‘No’ to the SMS customer satisfaction query – but did Airtel ever bother to take note. Never!!!

Backend Front-End… Agony to no end…

Wonder if you have seen the Airtel subscriber registration form. A pink coloured form which you need to fill when applying for a new connection. I was made to fill it again even though mine was not a new connection. Fine – no arguments…

So I filled the form and handed it over to the new DSA (Deepak) who came to pick it up from my office – and gave him all the documents (id/address proofs, cheque/ECS etc) and attached a photograph in the top right hand corner of the form – exactly as per the space given. The space in the form is for a stamp size photograph and I duly complied.

A week later, Deepak returned demanding a bigger (passport size instead of stamp size) photograph. When I demanded to know why they couldn’t honour what they had asked for in the form in first place – he had a simple reason “Backend people are not accepting stamp size. Doesn’t matter what the form specifies”

What is this ‘backend’ people – are they some Airtel agency… something TRAI set up. If its Airtel people, why don’t they see what the form has. Why don’t they change the form instead and provide a bigger space…

As expected – Deepak had no answer – neither did any of Vanitha’s over the call centre.

Privacy Doomed!!!

So – I finally did get my number converted to self-owned (yeah!! But again 6 weeks after the fresh set of documents and fresh bigger photograph was given to them).

But Airtel unilaterally chose to disable my national roaming etc – without caring to inform me – leaving me stranded during a visit out of Bangalore.

My web account access (to http://www.airtelworld.com/ portal) was also suddenly disabled – weeks after the conversion. More than a dozen service requests raised with 121 are still unaddressed. I can’t imagine why it takes umpteen days to just reset a password. The “Send an SMS ‘web password’ to 121” method has given me “sorry – unable to process this request. Try again later” response several dozen times.

To top it all, after I lost it once and demanded they activate the access right away – I received an email apologizing for not having given me the billing information (When did I ask that?) and enclosed 3 Airtel bills in pdf format (no password). I was shocked to find that these were billing details of some hapless Airtel customer “Mr Guhan Kumar” resident of Malleshpalya, Bangalore (994xxxx792). I can now easily mess up Mr. Guhan’s happiness – by playing with his data. After all, now I know his billing address, account number, phone number…all that’s needed. Don’t worry…I don’t intend doing any funny thing.

Airtel has rewarded me with the full knowledge of what calls Mr Guhan has made right from Sept 2006… not that I know who Mr Guhan is – or care to know. I actually feel sorry for him and all unknowing customers like me – whose personal information is being ill-treated by shabby customer ‘harassment’ executives in Airtel.

On receiving these pdf bills of Mr Guhan (and still not getting the web portal access I had asked for) – I shot back a strongly worded email to 121@airtelindia.com – and here is a snapshot of the standard so-called apology I got back.

Dear Mr. (my name),

Thank you for contacting Airtel contact center.

With reference to your e-mail dated 14/12/06 expressing concern over receiving wrong bills, at the outset we regret for the inconvenience caused to you in this regard. We would like to assure you that, we at Airtel are committed to providing you with the highest levels of customer service. To maintain this service parameter, we ensure strict adherence to protecting our customer?s privacy. All information pertaining to our customer database is highly confidential and we have not at any time shared any of our customer details save for information required by any other persons.

We realize that this situation must have greatly inconvenienced you. We are a customer centric organization and as such would want every interaction you have with us to be a pleasant one.

We would also like to inform you that necessary action has been taken and the same would not recur in the future.

On rare occasions, like experienced by you, we fully recognize the shortcoming and take the responsibility to provide you with superior personalized service.

We take this opportunity to assure you of better services in the future. It?s our privilege to have you as our customer and look forward to a long association with you.

Should you require any further clarification or assistance, please reply to us via email at 121@airtelindia.com or fax us on 9845500121 or 9845600121.

We value your association with Airtel.

Warm regards,

Ubaidullah

Customer Support Service

(Underlining emphasis is mine…)

The lines underlined so much belie the facts… they don’t give a damn. If they really did, was an apology sent to Mr Guhan as well. I bet not…

The claim of being a customer centric organization made me laugh… and worry at the same time. Worried – because I don’t know who all have been given my earlier billing details.

I actually called up Mr Guhan and alerted him of how Airtel had compromised him…and guess what, he was already pissed off with many other issues he was facing with them.

I still wonder if it was any use alerting – after all there are probably scores of such compromised customers out there…Its the Service Provider who needs to wake up...

By the way, I am still waiting for my web access!!!

Billing Blues...

Recently came across this example of "lack of customer service"... from some co-workers. And it struck me instantly - because this is something I have seen ample number of times, but always thought it was just another error... But...!!!

Both are cases of overcharging while billing at check-out counters in some of the reputed retail outlets in town... Of course, both times - the error was blamed at the computers, bar-codes, system etc...


In first case, customer was charged Rs 86 for a toothpaste - on which the (MRP) qouted price was just Rs 50.


The second case - in Foodworld was similar... the customer was billed Rs413/- instead of the MRP of Rs363...for a pack of 5lt cooking oil. Once again, the excuse was to blame the computer, the bar-codes, the systems...

Had the customers not been vigilant enough in the above cases, they wouldnt have noticed how they ended up paying way above the price tag - while believing that they got a bargain.

No! I was not the vigilant customer in these cases... but it doesn't matter who the customer was... what matters that this happens regularly to us week after week - and these are NOT the usual urban legend hoaxes you get spammed with.

And I relate to these because me and my wife have been near-victims scores of times at Foodworld outlet on 100ft road Indira Nagar, Bangalore. We now follow a simple rule - one of us puts the items from the cart onto the counter while other keeps an eye on the display - assessing each item getting charged. This - because scores of times - we found either an item was billed twice, or the billing person chose the wrong SKU. More often, the billing agent wouldn't hand over the free-gift without us asking for it...

And on all such occasions - it was an unapologetic floor manager justifying, making excuses and blaming. The most weird excuse I heard for an over-charge was that price charged by error is the price for the new stock of that item, and the piece I had on counter was from the old stock - hence the old price/MRP on it. No way justifies why you should get charged more for an old stock item - yet, they don't seem to care how cheated you feel.

No wonder - we have reduced the frequency of our visits to this store...

But are others any better - I wish!!!

Bangalore Woes - II

Sounds and looks funny... but this is true. You probably saw this picture already on the front page of Times of India (Bangalore) on Dec11th 2006.

It isn't off place to find a new big swanky car worth more than a cool million rupees... negotiate a foot deep pothole on the left side and a heap on the right... resulting in a tilt which almost gives an impression of the driver and the passenger being in two different floors.

An amusement of witnessing these wobbly drives aside - Bangalore roads are in a league of their own. As the classic joke goes - in US they drive on right side of road, in UK on the left side of the road, in Bangalore - on what’s left of the road.

Bangalore may soon be the first city to have a full WiMax network... its the silicon plateau of India, its the jewel of brand India,... but its still going to take an hour for a 5km drive in Bangalore any day. And it doesn't look like it will change anytime soon.

The irony is – that techie’s (I hate the term techie as a classification for anyone working in IT industry… but anyway, it’s the one that sticks) are ridiculed and criticized if they complain about lack of infrastructure in the city. Politicians of all kinds want to have a pro-rural image – especially after the debacle of pro-Industry CM’s like Chandrababu Naidu and SM Krishna. So, raising the infrastructure concerns of the people is a vote-bank killer.

Which brings me to the moot point – why is it so? Bangalore city has a few LS constituencies. And the city according to different estimates has anywhere between 7-10 lakh such techies living here, paying the highest of taxes for the worst of services. But I can safely bet than not more than 5% of these techies would have bothered to register themselves as voters.

Election-day is just a holiday to be optimized for most of us (yeah, I am a so-called techie too). If polling is scheduled on a Monday or a Friday, its all the more fantastic – a long weekend is a treat. Yeah, the compensatory work we need to do some other Saturday for this unscheduled day-off is fine too. But no one really considers the prospect of actually participating.

So if we don’t decide the people who rule and represent us, we have no control over the results we get. No point complaining then… A 7-10 lakh vote bank will make any politician worth his salt jump out of his couch… A fraction of this can swing results in any election. Yet, we don’t care to assert ourselves. Standing in queues on those election days is a thing to be done by my maid and the watchman. I am too cool to be seen standing in a queue for casting my vote. Not until Election commission comes up with Online Voting – where, as a keyboard enthusiast that each one of us is – we will mark a 110% poll (Indian keyboard junkism is illustrated in all online polls – whether it’s electing Amitabh Bachhan as the Man of century or Sachin as best batsmen in the world, or getting Taj into the list of new Seven Wonders…)

So, till Election commission does an technology upgrade… our roads will remain the same.

SMS Now!!!

Anyone soul who has ever switched on a television set or ever been in front of one – particularly when its beaming one of the many news channels that have mushroomed has been subject to one of these exhortations.

• ifyou want Saurav Ganguly to be included back into the cricket team, SMS to 2424 now…
• if you want Bharati Yadav to speak the truth in Nitish Katara murder case, send an SMS to 6388…
• if you want to President Kalam to change his hair style send us a message at 8888…
• if you want Ash to marry Abhishek send us an SMS,
• if you want Lalu to have one more kid – send us an SMS…

Yeah…I won’t be surprised if the last one too shows up some day on one of these channels.

And why not? Aaj Tak began this crazy marketing gimmick few years ago – and what a gimmick. TV channels in partnership with the service providers have been raking in a cool moolah for a while… each time a gullible viewer yields to the exhortations and punches away an SMS, either voting on some irrelevant questions or sending in a comment which no one cares for. And of course, there are millions of such gullible viewers in this land of tube addicts. The folks at the channel who worked out this idea for the first time must have got a hefty bonus for it…

But what amuses me beyond limit is the stupidity of the questions… and worse still the stupidity of thousands of viewers who actually spend their own money (sending one such sms costs anything between Re1 to Rs6) responding.

Do people really fall for the idea that their SMS will cause a change of heart in Bharti Yadav… or does CNN-IBN claim to have a power to influence the judges with the revenue they earn from the poll campaigns.

Do people believe their SMS will pressurize BCCI into picking Saurav again (he did it finally)… or does the Star News mean to tell the viewers that they can actually buy him a place in the team with the revenue they earn…

Or they can sign up the President for a image makeover contract with some good deal, or convince the Bacchaans, Rais and the stars to fall in-line with the public opinion.

If not, then what compels these people to really send in those SMS’s…?

To my understanding, the closest explanation that exists is – a false sense of control. People get a false sense of ego satisfaction and control over forming an opinion – which, given the total lack of control we otherwise have in spite of our democratic setup, is a huge boost for the otherwise battered middle class. Having failed to get their due from politicians they elected, the bureaucracy that abuses them, the judiciary that keeps them waiting, the taxes that don’t benefit them… the thousands of actions they take daily without a power to change anything and not off their own sweet will – people get a false sense of salvation – when they get to give an opinion. Not withstanding that this vote of their makes no difference to anything at all – except to their next cell phone bill. Not withstanding that the result of all such polls is more predictable than the way Indian cricket team will loose next time. Not withstanding that this poll and its result will be forgotten the moment the next breaking news happens…

Reminds me of a dialogue in “You’ve Got Mail” where Tom Hanks’ character says something like –

"The whole purpose of places like Starbucks is for people with no decision-making ability whatsoever to make six decisions just to buy one cup of coffee. Short, tall, light, dark, caf, decaf, low-fat, non-fat, etc. So people who don't know what the hell they're doing or who on earth they are, can, for only $2.95, get not just a cup of coffee but an absolutely defining sense of self: Tall! Decaf! Cappuccino!"

That’s the story of this Indian middle class viewer too…