Ginger & Cardamom

Congratulations Vinnie, I am so happy for you. I wanna PARTY :-)

was going through a blog where I came across the idea of representing the idiosyncrasies of life in a pictorial form. Did something on the same lines. Hope you people like it. :-)

Movies: My Take & Reviews

With this habit of watching movies at every weekend, I realized that I have developed a taste to appreciate movies as a whole and in elements. I was reading across one of the public forums and I came across statements like “Bhool Bhoolaiya- remake of ApthaMitra” , and “This film is a remake of south film. In Malayalam this film was Manichitrathazhu and in Kannada this was ApthaMitra As many are aware that Priyadarshan usually remakes all south films to Bollywood”.

I am not contemplating on the facts of the statements above but their tone seems to be condescending for the director & producer who has made the movie. I believe that movies are cultural artifacts. It’s a different piece of art, its far more than story telling. We actually fail to understand and undermine the movie as a piece of art when they judge it solely on the basis of the story. A movie not only consists of a storyline, but also other essential parts that make it a different art form all together as compared to story writing. Movies is the story, the art of story telling, the art of living the story, the art of showing the story, the art of holding interest, the art of music and dancing and moreover so the art of placing other art in it’s place. So even if someone makes a remake of another movie (irrespective of the language) he should not be despised of his creativity. It is not that he lacks creativity or the art of movie telling. What matters is that he is trying to tell an old story in his way, with his choice of presentation and its contents. That can not be wrong about the movie, when a director picks up a storyline already used than it does not necessarily means the movie is bad or the quality has been compromised.

There are a lot of things which are reused including the story; the important question is to view it as the art form and the intent behind it. For example rights for the song “Pretty Woman” were bought from Hollywood for Rs. 800,000 to use it in the movie “Kal Ho Na Ho”, but isn’t the song original. Similarly, when Farhan Akhtar made Don, and RGV made Aag, they openly made the remakes in the sense the story was already told by someone else but still the movies are accepted as different movies. So why degrade the movies just because the story has already been told, judge them accordingly and benchmark it to the previous movies. My take on two recent movies I saw-

Bhool Bhulaiya- Story: The story line was good and relatively new (p.s. I haven’t seen the Kannada or Malayalam movies mentioned above, and I am not aware of another Hindi movie in the same genre), though there were some loopholes in the movie and couple of questions are left unanswered towards the end. Over all the story keeps you interested. A weak part pointed to me by a lot of people was Akshay Kumar doing comedy amidst of a ghost being present. I will grant it to Priyadarshan because of the line Akshay says towards the end, that he knew from the very beginning that who the ghost was and why it was acting this way. Overall the story line was good enough to keep you occupied for the duration of the movie.

Acting: The star cast was well chosen and everyone did a very good job, even Rajpal Yadav was humorous, instead of being irritating like he was in Partner and RGV ki Aag. Characters like Paresh Rawal, Asrani and Manoj Joshi played their part extremely well. Akshay Kumar and Shiney Ahuja were also good. On other hand Amisha Patel had a very subdued role to play. She didn’t left any substantial impact. Vidya Balan was the centre point of the movie, specially in the later half. The kind of acting she has done in the movie is amazing specially towards the end. It’s been commendable to see her journey through Parineeta, Lage Raho Munnabhai, Guru and now Bhool Bhulaiya. She has proved time and again that she is not an actress who can be ignored on the face of the hindi cinemascope.

Music, Cinematography & Dialogues: As usual for a Priyadarshan movie dialogues of the comedy were very well written, but the dialogues could have been more effective at a lot of serious places. Specially the dialogues for Radha (Ameesha Patel) could have been a lot better for her role. The choreography is good, and the location entirely fit the setup and background of the story. The music by Preetam is average except for the title song which is a very rocking tune. While the rest of the songs I can’t even recollect.

Laga Chunari Main Daag: Story: This is the age old story of a woman turning into a prostitute because of her family troubles. There is nothing new in the storyline, those who willing to watch it for the story it’s a strict not watch kind of movie. The ending is one of the most stereotyped Hindi cinema ending and a very shabbily wrapped one.

Acting: Rani, Konkana, and Jaya Bachchan have been amazing through out the movie, the expression and the delivery of the characters is outstanding and one can relate to the scheme of things through them. They make the entire movie watchable. Kunal kappor and Abhishek Bachchan have hardly any role to play in the movie. They are just there to give a happy ending. Hema Malini, in her 5 minutes of role created a dramatic impact. While Anupam kher was not even half as good as he generally is.

Music, Cinematography, and Dialogues: The dialogues of the movie are very well written giving the strength to the characters and are a backbone of the film. Cinematography is very good the locations and the expressions have been very well taken into account. The treatment of the Banaras, Mumbai and Zurich all has been equally good. The music of the movie is really good and evenly placed, the title song in the voice of Shubha Mudgal evokes a lot of emotions, while the songs like “Hum to Aise hai Bhaiya…” and “Kachi Kaliya…” are very refreshing. I would say Shantanu Moitra some more pieces of awesome music to his name.

Zindagi: La Vie Leben Vida Vita

One of my close buddies asked a harmless question "whats wrong with your zindagi or whats right?" I gave him the following answer, Nothing wrong with it. I told him exactly what I was thinking at that point of time, but I am not thinking on these lines at every point of my life. I really believe that if I can carry this form of attitude at all points of time in my life. I don't know about anything else I would be a better person than I am now-

The only thing right about anyone's zindagi is it's mere existence the fact that it is still there, the clock and the beats are still ticking and u have another second to live by and everything other than this what we perceive about zindagi is wrong. It is the weight of expectations that we bind in our own desires and ambitions to the zindagi.The only fact is sometimes the weight is light and the zindagi zips past. While the others its heavy and then we say life sucks but life never sucks, its our expectations from our own life that make it suck so if anything that is wrong with my zindagi is me.

so THINK!!!!!!

Airtel: Kusht-mar Care

I was reading an advertisement of Airtel which read 50 million and another 950 to go. Amazing feat for a company, I have had a mixed experiences with the services. I like it because I feel indebted to Airtel and Reliance with their closed user group & intra network calling schemes. When I could not actually afford, I managed to have conversation, whose thought sends shivers down my spine, how on earth I could manage such long hours on phone while now even an hour on phone and I get bugged of like hell.

I have had a personal sense of gratitude for these two cellular companies. I am going to talk about Airtel today, I remember seeing the golden lettered display in Airtel Office (Swargate, Pune) where they desire to become the top most consumer brand in their category. I smiled at it and felt with pride of being an Airtel user.
Leave aside the pride, the amount of pain to be a Kusht-mar of brand like this. I have seen people having including myself having really painful experiences with the brand which wishes to be the apple of the consumers’ eyes. Few examples-

1- Having a pre-paid number in pune Airtel, reaching Kusht-mar care executive through 121 is a pain. First of all they would not connect you, even if they do in most cases the query will not be resolved appropriately. And mind you if you dialed to them more than 3 times a day they block customer care number on your phone (No you don’t need to talk rudely to them, neither you need to be abusive, you just need to tell them sorry ma’am my problem is not yet solved) and three times you are simply gone. Forget that you might ever reach to customer care. You will have to drive all the way to their office. I am sure brands do that, its excellent service and I am happy to believe that 50 million are facing this and the company desires it shove it the backside of rest of 950 million lucky Indians.

2- One of my close friends, did the grave mistake of activating GPRS on his mobile phone which was liable for daily deductions of Rs. 11 (I don’t remember exactly might be 10 or 12 also) and after few months he realized that he wasn’t using the service extensively. So he decided to deactivate it and the prompt reply from the customer care was that service would be deactivated in 24 hours and indeed it was. But for the next 3 months despite 100 calls and trips to Airtel office we could not make them stop the daily deduction for Rs. 11 and finally my friend had to surrender his connection, go through the ordeal of changing his number. Now he is a proud Idea cellular customer who vouches never to use Airtel in his life.

3- This one is an amazing experience with the real kusht-mar service of Airtel. Read through the mails of one of my colleague and Airtel

Message 1:

hello,

Please activate International roaming on my phone. Request you to do it on urgent basis as I am travelling today and will reach Singapore by 4:30 AM IST on 29th Sep.

Regards

Kusht-mar

Message 2:

From: 121@airtelindia.com [mailto:121@airtelindia.com]

Sent: Saturday, September 29, 2007 4:30 PM

To: Kusht-mar

Subject: Regarding your mobile number 9999999999 [REF:00000]

Dear Mr. Agarwal,

Thank you for contacting Airtel. (Now that you have called us, your bad time has already started)

You had requested us to start International roaming facility on your Airtel mobile number 9999999999. (Lets see you going foreeen land, and me sitting in India… Irony of life isn’t it??)

We request you to send us a scanned copy of Passport through email to document in our records. (he he he nahi ji mazaak kar rahe ho aap, passport bhi hai aapke paas foreeen jaane ki baat karte ho)

Alternatively, you could also send the passport copy in the below mentioned formats for further action.

1. Hard copy of the passport copy in the nearest Airtel Relationship

centre

2. Scanned copy of the passport copy

3. Fax copy of the passport copy

You could fax the letter to us on 9845500121 / 9845600121.

Please be informed that the monthly rental for the international roaming facility is Rs. 149/- and the same would be charged on prorate basis.

Click here for tariff details of International Roaming.

http://www.airtel.in/InternationalRoaming_Postpaid.asp

We would start the International roaming facility within 24 hrs on receiving your document. (24 ghante, Singapore nahi yeh India hai mere bhai, 24 din main ho jaye to badi baat hai)

Regards,

Yuvaraj

Customer Support Service

Airtel

Message 3:

Dear Yuvraj,

Thank you for responding so late with an unsatisfactory reply.

Question 1:

Why was all this not informed when I called up customer care? I specifically mentioned in the mail as well as during my interaction with the Customer care agent that I have to leave on the same night and requested for the services to be activated urgently.

If you can not process the request within requested time or without certain documentation can you not inform the customer upfront rather that running the loop over multiple interactions? That too, with no sense of urgency whatsoever (I had placed the request at 10:21 PM on 28th Sep, your reply to which is received at 4:30 PM on 29th Sep, which itself is more that 18 hrs

delay)

Question 2:

What exactly is the need for my passport? As I understand relevant Government authorities for both the countries have verified my documents including passport/visa/bank statements etc and the fact that I am accessing the services from Singapore should be sufficient enough for you to bill me. Why so much of a fuss?

Regards,

Kusht-mar

Message 4:

From: 121@airtelindia.com [mailto:121@airtelindia.com]

Sent: Wednesday, October 03, 2007 11:58 AM

To: Kusht-mar

Subject: Regarding your mobile number 9999999999 [REF:00000]

Dear Mr. Kusht-mar,

Thank you for contacting Airtel. (aao, pata tha dubara aaoge, kaha than a 24 din se pehle nahi hoga)

You had expressed concern over the activation of International roaming facility on your Airtel mobile number 9999999999.

We understand your concern and will work together to resolve your issue. (Work Together, samjhe kuch? Work karoge tum aur hasenge hum he he he )

We would like to confirm that mobile number 9999999999 is on the Company employee scheme.

We are unable to process your request as we are not in receipt of the salary slip. (acha passport nahi hai, koi baat nahi fir bhi Singapore jaa rahe ho, chalo acha batao kitni salary hai? Fir hum decide karenge tum Singapore jaa rahe ho ya mazaak kar rahe ho)

Further, if you wish to start the International roaming facility, a copy of the salary certificate has to be provided.

The requirement of the Gross salary depending on the service requested for is as follows:

ISD 20K Gross

International Roaming 40K Gross

If the salary slip does not match the requirement, the relevant deposit amount will have to be maintained.

For the above mentioned mobile number the refundable security deposit amount to be maintained would be Rs.6000/- in order to avail the International roaming facility. You may visit the nearest Airtel outlet to make the payment towards the same.

Please find attached the details of nearest Airtel Relationship center along with this mail for your reference.

Kindly be informed that there is a monthly rental of Rs.149/- towards the International roaming facility on prorate basis.

Click here for tariff details of International Roaming.

http://www.airtel.in/InternationalRoaming_Postpaid.aspx?path=1/6/7/12/63

International roaming facility would be activated within 24 hours of receiving your salary slip and request for the same.

Regards,

Josmy

Customer Support Service

Airtel

Message 5:

Dear Josmy,

Thanks for the response. Your reply does not directly answer to any of my 2 queries (1. why relevant documentation was not informed upfront? and 2.

What is the need of Passport?).

However, looking at your answer now I am even more perplexed. Now you are stating that it is not the Passport but my Salary certificate that is required. Now this number is with me for at least 3 months. I have never been informed about the need of salary slip/certificated as a required documentation for a Corporate number. Neither was I informed about it during my interaction with the customer care executive when I raised the request for ISD activation. So why and from where these prerequisites are surfacing now.

I would be obliged if you could please let me know:

1. Why relevant documentation was not informed upfront by the customer care executive when I raised the request for ISD activation?

2. What exactly are the necessary documents required? Is it passport? Is it salary certificate?

3. If there were certain documentation to be provided when I applied for a number under Company employee scheme, why were they not intimated then, and why there has been no intimation since till now?

4. I was promised that the ISD services would be activated within maximum of 24hrs and minimum of 4Hrs of sending a mail request to 121@airtelindia.com. This was "The only" requirement mentioned to me. On what basis such commitment was made?

5. Why was such a huge delay in response from your end even after mentioning that it is urgent? I even mentioned the date and time of my arrival for your convenience.

For your kind information, I have concluded my tour to Singapore and have already suffered the inconvenience. However I am pondering over why I should not take appropriate action against you for "Non providence of promised services within assured timeframe".

Hoping to here some satisfactory response from your end.

Regards,

Kusht-mar

Message 6:

From: 121@airtelindia.com [mailto:121@airtelindia.com]

Sent: Wednesday, October 03, 2007 3:37 PM

To: Kusht-mar

Subject: Regarding your mobile number 9999999999 [REF:00000]

Dear Mr. Kusht-mar

Thank for contacting Airtel. (satisfactory response chahiye tere ko satisfactory!!! Abhi deta hoon )

As we understood that you had already requested us to activate ISD facility for your Airtel mobile number 9999999999. (Humko sab samajh main aa gaya hai, ISD ya International roaming hum toss kar ke pata laga lenge. Yaar passport nahi hai to salary certificate de do. Apna nahi to padosi ka de do, kyon faltoo argue kar rahe ho?)

We apologize for the inconvenience caused to you in this regard and would like to assure that appropriate action would be taken to rectify the same.(really really sorry, we wanted to irritate and exasperate you but kya karein sirf inconvenience hi hui aapko. Don’t worry we will make up for it in near future)

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. (he he he customer centric organization…. Joke suna hai kabhi aisa… Pleasant kaise yahi soch rahe ho na?? Who pleasant humare tumhare liye to irritating tha kyon ???)

Further, we would like to confirm that ISD facility has already been activated with effect from 08/08/07 as per our records. (Abhi toss main aaya tha ISD to ISD kar diya ab roaming ke liye mat rona… zindagi main har kisi ko sab kuch thode hi milta hai)

Please find attached the tariff details of ISD for your reference.

Alternatively, please click here for ISD tariff details for your rate plan for your kind perusal.

http://www.airtel.in/PostPaid_tarrifs.asp

Regards,

Shibu

Customer Support Service

Airtel

Message 7:

Dear Shibu,

Just a small correction. My request was for activation of "International Roaming" and not "ISD".

Regards,

Kusht-mar

Message 8:

From: 121@airtelindia.com [121@airtelindia.com]

Sent: Wednesday, October 03, 2007 8:25 PM

To: Kusht-mar

Subject: Regarding your mobile number 9999999999 [REF:00000]

Dear Mr. Kusht-mar,

You had requested us to start International Roaming facility on your Airtel number 9999999999. (Abey yaar kaha tha tumko panga mat karma ISD kar diya hai ab roaming maang rahe ho??? Yaar life main sab ko sab kuch nahi milta…. Main bhi jana chahta tha Singapore jaa tum rahe ho… Jo hain usme khush raho… Santosh dhanam param sukham school main nahi sikhaya kya?)

We would like to inform you that, your mobile number is on the Company employee scheme and we are not in receipt of your latest salary slip.

To enable us to process your request, kindly send us a scanned copy of the salary certificate would have to be furnished.

The requirement of the Gross salary depending on the service requested for would be as follows:

Regional Roaming / National Roaming - 15K Gross

ISD - 20K Gross

International Roaming - 40K Gross (Along with

Photocopy of Passport)

Request you to send the Salary slip in the below formats

1 Scanned copy of the salary slip with company seal

2 Salary slips with company logo in Acrobat format.

3 Hard copy of the salary slips with the company seal.

4 Fax copy of the salary slip with the company seal.

We request you to kindly make the refundable deposit for the activation of required facility. You could visit the nearest Airtel outlet to make the payment towards the same.

Click here for tariff details of International Roaming.

http://www.airtel.in/InternationalRoaming_Postpaid.aspx?path=1/6/7/12/63

Further, with regard to the enquiry of the documentation, kindly be informed that we require the above said documents as per our records for the activation of the International roaming facility. (He he he… Gussa aaya… karo karo… Jyada gussa karoge to khud hi jaldi maroge mere baap ka kya jaata hai)

Regards,

Prem latha

Customer support service

Airtel

Message 9:

Dear Prem Latha,

This response have already been given to me and I have replied to that too.

Please go through the entire chain of mail.

Regards,

Kusht-mar

Message 10:

Dear Mr. Kusht-mar,

You had expressed concern over the non activation of International Roaming facility as per your request in the previous mail on your Airtel number 9999999999.

We understand your concern and will work together to resolve your issue.

We would like to inform you that, your mobile number is on the Company employee scheme and we are not in receipt of your latest salary slip.

To enable us to process your request, kindly send us a scanned copy of the salary certificate would have to be furnished.

The requirement of the Gross salary depending on the service requested for would be as follows:

Regional Roaming / National Roaming - 15K Gross

ISD - 20K Gross

International Roaming - 40K Gross

Request you to send the Salary slip in the below formats

1 Scanned copy of the salary slip with company seal

2 Salary slips with company logo in Acrobat format.

3 Hard copy of the salary slips with the company seal.

4 Fax copy of the salary slip with the company seal.

Also, if the salary slip does not match the requirement, the relevant deposit amount would have to be maintained. For the above mentioned mobile number the refundable security deposit amount to be maintained in order to avail of the roaming/ISD facility, please find below the deposit details:

International Roaming - Rs.6000 (Rs. 149/- Monthly rental Prorate Basis)

Since there is no deposit available in your account, we would request you to kindly make a deposit of Rs. 6000/- in the nearest Airtel Relationship Centre, if the salary slip does not match with our requirement in order to activate International Roaming facility on your mobile number 9999999999.

Please find the details of Airtel Relationship centre for your reference.

Click here for tariff details of International Roaming.

http://www.airtel.in/InternationalRoaming_Postpaid.aspx?path=1/6/7/12/63

We would like to assure you that International Roaming facility would be activated within 24 hours on the receipt of your salary slip and if it matches the criteria. (Lo ab aur Gussa karo…. Dekha humein aapka kitna khayal hai aur aap humesha shikayat hi karte ho)

Regards,

Raja

Customer support service

Airtel

Now seeing this we can actually see how prompt and attentive is the customer service actually. Isn’t it a responsibility of the companies to tell people if they are taking some documents, then why they need it, how would they use it and ensure that these documents will not be misused in any way. Is it not the responsibility of the company to their call center employees that customer service is not about giving a response in a definite time, but it is giving the response to customers’ problem that would define customer service. Not a monologue of what is defined by the system. A small amount of common sense needs to be applied.

After all this I still use Airtel not because of anything else but for the sense of gratitude I have towards this brand and a hope that someday they will understand I am not a Kusht-mar but a customer.

P.s : The comments inside the message in italics and brackets are my personal comments

Change: The Universal Constant

When I was in third grade I guess I would have learnt this word called “change” which simply mean “to make the form, nature, content, future course, etc., of (something) different from what it is or from what it would be if left alone”. I never thought that how the word would change itself in style and meaning,

Third grade:
Change was a new 6 letter word, easy to spell. Teacher gives it in the dictation and I get an extra mark

Fifth Grade:
Time out for bicycles, Change was zooming through the city on my new bike.

Eighth Grade:
Change was the newly added F- words to my lingo and the sexy pictures on the debonair covers.

Tenth Grade:
Change was the board examination and growing awareness of my own self.

Eleventh Grade:
Change was the moustache and an option to take science as my career.

Twelfth Grade:
Change was being the senior most in the school and leaving the place where we spent 12 long years.

1^st Year:
Change as being ragged and treated like shit. Change was the everyday changing crushes.

2^nd year:
Change was the power to rag and Computers becoming my second life.

3^rd year:
Change was being against everyone else you knew and still sticking to it. Change was my first girl friend.

4^th year:
Change was getting my first job. Change was getting hooked to reading as a hobby which still exist.

MBA- I:
Change was a whole new world beyond computers and programming. Change was the power to express in this blog. Change was a powerful force. Change was what made the good company’s great.

MBA-II:
Change was traveling through flights instead of trains. Change was sitting on the window seats and see how small things become when you are 35000 feet high. Change was my first Goa Trip, change was my second job and my lost love. Change was the movies I started to love.

Workex year 1:
Change is shifting to aisle seats from window on planes. Change was the salary in my bank account. Change was the designation under my name. Change was the acknowledgement that I had so many new and old people in my life that mattered.

This has been my tryst with change so long, I don’t know if I have changed with the change or because of the change. I know one thing for sure, if there is one virtue I am ready to accept anytime and ready to for it is “Change”.

P.s. Where this is coming from, reading “Out of My Comfort Zone- Steve Waugh”, amazing lessons on how change can make you or break you. The question is Do you have the change? ;-)|