A Train Journey to Madras -I

It was Thursday night 23:45 in Whitefield railway station. Waiting for Cauvery Express, i was nostalgically thinking of my past. Whitefield is a small suburb in outskirts of the city of boiled beans-Blore. The British built the small railway station located at the end of Whitefield. During the colonial regime, all trains from Blore to Madras would stop here briefly. But shortly after independence, Whitefield lost its charm as the predominantly British settlers left the place to rice farmers. Soon, it became a small village county away from the main city. The lush green Whitefield attracted people from Mysore and Madras state as holiday retreat. It was favorite picnic spot and bastion for the poor pensioners who could not afford to buy a house in Blore. We had a small bungalow in Whitefield. I always considered Whitefield as part of Blore city, tough people consider it as a far away picnic spot. Once as a kid, i went to a relative's house at Madras. A visitor there, started chatting with me and casually asked as to where i am from. I said "Blore". With a gleaming smile he further enquired "where in Blore?" , I quickly replied "Whitefield" ...and asked him if he knew Blore. with shrunken eyes he quipped "Whitefield? ..That isn’t Blore.. It's on the way to Blore." He was right, a 20km from downtown Blore would not be considered as part of city, yet, i could not accept his remark. I grew up in Whitefield enjoying being closer to nature till 1991. After that we shifted to Madras, a coastal city towards east of Blore. People would enquire me as to where i came from, and I would say Whitefield, Blore. They would remark "Oh! Whitefield, Its not Blore.... umm, a good place though". Soon the times changed. Madras was renamed as Chennai. I forgot Whitefield, and was busy with urbane life of Chennai and stayed there till i finished my college, in 2004. I got a masters degree in computer science and was hired by a software company located at Whitefield, Blore. By now, i heard a lot about Whitefield. About its IT parks, Call centers, BPO's and R&D centers of big multinational companies. I was quite eager to see a developed Whitefield, hoping that its really a part of Blore city. I was quite excited about this offer to work out of Blore and waited quite impatiently to get final orders from my company. And finally it happened. I boarded the Blore mail on 14th feburary,2005. This train left Madras at 22:45 and reached Blore at 5:00am, the next day. I asked the TTR (ticket collector) whether the train would go through Whitefield. He said, "Yea, but it does not stop." Next morning, at 5:05am, the train arrived at Blore Majestic station. I went to take an auto(taxi) to Whitefield and he charged me Rs300. "Ah! Bull shit!!. I paid Rs200 to come from Madras to Blore and you want me to pay Rs300 to go to a place with in Blore?". I tried in vain, to bargain with him and finally he said "Sir, Nobody would go to Whitefield, Its in the other world. We can do five trips within t he city and make more money. In fact 300 will put me in loss as i may not get anyone on trip back" Finally, I relented and took the taxi and paid him Rs300. I got down before my bungalow and was warmly received by a relative of mine. I had breakfast and took the car to go around and see the changes I heard about.I found that nothing had changed. The British style bungalows in the inner circle and outer circle area were quite intact. The Anglo Indian population, the Xavier’s Church, Churchill’s home, the Whitefield club, central lake and coconut farms… all are the same. The school i studied did not get any new coat of paint. As I came out of ECC road i got the glimpse of new Whitefield, which was hidden from old town by the canopy of trees that surrounded that area. I was mesmerized to see the International tech park standing as high as 100 feet, accompanied by other sky scrappers near by. The imposing Sathya Sai hospital looked like Mysore Palace. I thought the necessary transformation has set in. May be, sooner than later, Whitefield will be accepted as part of Blore. But that was not the case. People in my office would often, remark that commuting from Blore to Whitefield is very difficult. The vegetable vendor would say that he has to travel all the to Blore city and get the load to Whitefield. Once I booked my tickets to Madras from Blore Majestic and boarded the train at Whitefield. The TTR rebuked me and said that as I did not board with in Blore limits the ticket was sold to someone else. I had to really fight with him to get another ticket, and much to my dismay he refused to accept Whitefield as part of Blore. Ah! It hurt me so much and I thought railway people are so greedy and intolerant. Two weeks after this incident, On Sep 1st 20006, the Blore City municipality had announced that five adjoining municipalities near Blore will be annexed with Blore efective from Thrusday 21st september.And Mahadevpura municipality, in which Whitefield is part of is one of the five. I was totally excited and felt as tough i won the Nobel price. Today I am waiting at Whitefield station, again, to board the train to Madras. The train leaves Blore at 23:45pm and would soon reach Whitefield. This time I booked it from Whitefield. I booked it over the Internet and took print out of my ticket. As I was thinking about my past, the train pulled in. TTR opened doors of S10 compartment. As I tried to get in, he asked me for my tickets. I pulled out a sheet from my wallet and handed it to him. I moved towards my berth and found a old lady sleeping. I told TTR that I did not want to disturb a sleeping old women and that I would take some other seat. He carefully glanced through ticket and told that "First of all you don’t have a Valid ticket, then you can think abut donating your seat to some one else." I politely asked him what the matter was? And before he opened his mouth, I told him 'Now don’t tell me Whitefield is not part of Blore. This train is empty..even if u have given my tickets to someone else, I can take an alternate seat" He was surprised and said"I don’t care if u consider whitefield as part of Blore or not. The rule says that you cannot board the train without a valid ticket" I picked the ticket and looked at the date. It said Coach# S10 Berth# 42 Thrusday , 21st sep 2006 . I gave back the ticket telling that it was right one. He said this is ticket for the train that left Blore yesterday.I said, "Oh, that cant be, i booked this on wednesday for todays train" and before i could proceed further, he said "Gentleman, its already friday morning 00:30. This train starts from Blore at 23:45 and reaches Whitefield at 00:30. If you are booking from Whitefield, you should look for Friday morning 00:30 train. I was starring at him helplessly, and he finally said , "you see, you may be right that Whitefield is in Blore, but this ticket is not valid. " This time I happily paid Rs400 (Rs200 as fine for boarding train without valid ticket) and got a new ticket. At last, I found one guy, who agrees that Whitefield is indeed part of Blore.

The Shell Experience

It was thrusday evening, i was about to get back home and i realised tht i have to fill fuel in my bike. This time i went to a Shell outlet in the AECS layout. It had 12 counters in total. There was a seperate counter alloted for two wheelers. I entered the booth from wrong side and a security gaurd politely guided me to the right counter and told me the right side to enter the bunk. The employee at the counter, smiled at me and said "Namaste, Welcome to shell" . I was bit surprised to hear that and possibly did not even acknowledge his "namaste". I just opened my tank and signaled him to fill for Rs100. He looked into my eyes and said "Namaste" yet again..I was certainly bowled over by this repeated courteous greetings. This time i said 'aaann..namste namaste.. hundered rupees"

Shell employee (in kannada) : "sir you have to get down from the bike"
Me : Its okay, just fill it fast..

Shell employee made polite gestures with folded hand and said "sir please get down from bike, I cannot fill the tank otherwise."I got down from the bike and he told me to look at the LCD display screen that showed the initialzed values: zero against rupees, zero against the amout of fuel filled. He read that out loudly, saying sir please see Zero rupees, Zero literes and todays price is Rs55.45/lit. And finally he filled the fuel. I gave Rs100 and kick started the bike. Barely, i moved away from the counter, he shouted aloud "Sir ,Sir." I turned back and saw him approaching me with a bill. He smiled at me and said 'Sir please collect your bill".

I was surprised and thrilled to experience the american way of customer friendly treatment in our land. It was certainly a good refuelling experience. . In days ahead, when US retail chain open their shops, we can expect lot more of such customer friendly interactions...

Aside:
and finalllllllly the construction of over bridge at Marthahalli has entered into visible state.I could see some work going on.
This morning i saw a blog on gossip in NewYork, it was very nice..may be i shud start one for my town,..I will henceforth call my town as New York.

Kadugodi Police & Cyber Crime

Recently, we came to know about a fraudulent website that claims to sell Nokia cell phones for throw away price, and it can only be purchased online using credit cards. As dutiful citizen four of P9 members went to Kadugodi police station, to alert the cops about possible Internet scam. Indians usually have unknown fear in meeting police, and we are brought up listening to dialogues like “how lowly and immoral this person is….he has stepped the doors of police station….no one in our lineage has stooped to such low levels of going to police station” …four of us mustered all courage and decided to go to Kadugodi police station….someone reminded us tht recently the police were under tremendous pressure to find a nagging criminal and they just arrested few youth who entered the station to give some complaint….and given the recent IISC attack….we could be unnecessary victims…but anyway we thought such things should not deter the dutiful law abiding citizens of this country……


Scene: Kadugodi police station
It’s a vast spacious compound, with a small dusty red façade. A constable was lazily leaning against the wall and looking at us…we gave a smile and thought he would inquire “what’s the matter?” hmmm…he did not speak anything and we did not want to report such a intellectual finding to a mere constable…..we went inside….the first room had few wooden tables…possible taken from ruins of Tipu sultan’s palace….a person seated on the chair was intently looking at few documents and making notes…….did not bother to see four able, young and imposing men walking deep into the station… the second room had lot more table and chairs and had “what we can interpret as jail” ..it also had a small computer room with a lady operator moving her finger all over the keyboard rapidly…and behind her is seated a thick mushed person….we thought they r using some complicated imaging s/w to figure out the identify of most wanted criminal….i just wanted to c what it is?..how it works…may be I can offer some imaging expertise….before I could peep in, a voice asked …..”yes hey who r u ..what u want?” …all four os us tried to explain him the possible internet scam…..certainly we moved him…not tht he appreciated us social responsible initiative…just tht he was completely disoriented and confused as to what the case actually is….he then tried to understand the situation clearly …so he asked us questions ….

Police:Ok…can u tell me in short..the scene of crime…place of crime,, victim of crime….time of crime..then we can talk about other details…

P9: aaaaa…place of crime…we looked at each other….place of crime?..its on Internet……

Police: (quite amazed) oooo!Internet…..hmmm… so what is the crime..
P9: sir! Somebody is trying to cheat people…we suspect this website(http://www.nokiaind.com/) is fraudulent…its not Nokia’s official website….

(Sudden interruption..)
Police: ok tell me Victime of crime…who lost the money…how much?
P9: None…atleast none of us….we already suspected it to be false…
Police: None?…if u did not lose money…why did u come here…none of u r victims….
P9: true! …but we want to alert u…someone else may lose?
Police: quite annoyed and confused….hmm…ok wait outside…talk to sub-inspector…..

As we were moving out, I peeped in the computer room to see the operator working in MS-Word……hmmm…after waiting for 10 mins…another constable came….he aske dus in Hindi….tell me whats ur problem..He just could not believe that ppl can come to police station and alert them about possible “mis-happening”……..he almost told us.. ” if none of u r victime…then whats ur problem…why the hell r u guys here…eating our time” …this constable seem to be more inquisitive than the other..he again enquired us from the beginning…..and he asked

Police: how did we come to know of such a website…..
P9: “got a mail”…..
Police: from whom
P9: from a friend
Police: who sent him..
P9: We understood his motive and said some unkown guy sent him……..
Police: ok…where did u get the mail..
P9: in our inbox:
Poloce: where is it?
P9: in our office computer..
Police: where is ur office?
P9: In whitefield…..
Police: where in Whitefield?
P9: behind ITPL…
Police: aaaaaaaaa!…so u got it in ur office which is in whitefield….actually this case shud be referred to ITPL police,…this is Kadigodi police….He was gleaming…as though he has successfully cross examined some criminal lawyer …..
P9: no internet is available all over….we came to nearest police station…our house is in kadigodi…
Police was insisting that we should go to ITPL station….

It took us a very loong time and effort to meet the SI. He was very decent person. He confessed his ignorance on the toipc and requested us to report the same to bangalore Cyber crime branch.He said, he would contact the Cyber branch and pass on the information;We left the station and planned to send a email complaint to cyber crime office...something never tht materialised...

Tele-Marketing: A Nuisance or Entertainment?

Yesterday, I was watching “Friends”. Lisa Kudrow (as call center gal) made me feel call center jobs cud well be entertaining for both the parties. Earlier I used to get peeved to receive any call that tries to sell me some stuff over phone, but now after seeing this serial, I thought I can covert these intrusive and invasive calls into nuggets of entertainment during work hours. One of my friends got a call from a bank to buy its credit card. Despite being irritated with the call at odd time, he politely refused saying he already has two. The lady at other end suggested him that three is ideal number and started giving a discourse on why one should have more number of cards. My friend, quite annoyed, asked her if she cud give him 1000 cards. The lady was bit confused and before she could speak anything he said, he has found a big Dinosaur Egg and tht he want to hatch the egg by incubating it with credit cards. Needless to say the phone was hung.

Deeply inspired by Lisa Kudrow and my friend Ramsu, I was awaiting a call from any merchandise, and I got one from Country club. Earlier, she has asked me several times to become member of Country Club and patiently enumerated all the benefits. I used to simply say “Not now or Its costly..” This time our conversation was as follows..

“ is any swimming pool “
“Yes sir infact we replace water every day”
“can I bring my pet animals to the club”
“yes sir”.
“Ok ..I am planning to get two of my Buffaloes. Will u charge me extra money for this?””(Giggling) No sir.. U cant bring Buffaloes…U can get ur dog”
“But u just said we can get our pets”
“Buffaloes are not pets”
“No they are…. I rear them….”
“sorry sir.. they our policy does not allow tht”
“Ok fine…next time if u call me. Make sure we can get all our pets..infact I am planning to get a pig this weekend … and I wud love ot get tht too…

Call hangs up….and I had my fun at work…

Months after Supreme court’s ban of “Unsolicited calls”, we still get calls asking us to spare few minutes to listen to a standard dialogue delivery. Its certainly intrusive and has negative impact on performance at work. We cannot again do wat Harsh Patak did. A better way out is to convert this harassment to fun by bullying the caller. :-)

The Call Center Chicanery

Servicing the customer needs has been the motto of every company. Be it soap or Software product. Call-Center gals play important role in the growth and retention of customer base for every company, and as in every job this too has its own strenuous expectations and need quality soft skills. It may be true that US customers shower call center gals with torrent of racial and sexual slurs, but I had terribly irritating experience from these gals who have niched a unique to keep themselves cool at work. Let me narrate my terrible experience....

Recently, I called my mobile service provider to enquire about a service that I had told them to activate. All Call Servicing Officer picked up the call and even before I cud complete my complaint, she put me on hold telling that she would verify the case in her computer, after around 3 minutes, she came back and told me to be online for some more time as there is some problem with her computer only to com back after 2 minute to say tht “ sorry sir, sever is down I am not able to help you now. Kindly ring up after 5:00 pm” I just rang up again with in few minutes, and this time I was lucky. My problem was fixed after 6 minute long interactive session. Few weeks later I had to call them again and this time again the same problem. After putting me on hold for 3 mins, the lady call Servicing officer told me “ server down.. Call again”

In the weekend, I happen to meet my cousin, who works as personal banking officer in IIICC bank. She said if pressure is too much then they politely tell the customer the standard template “ server Down. Plz come later”. Ofcourse, they do to annoy same customer with this message more than once. And some times they pack the message in extraordinarily user friendly interface. They have to say “ I am very sorry sir. Just give me few more minutes let me help you…. then “ oh god sir plz leave ur number here we will get back to you if server comes up before 8:00 pm”

Well…. having learnt the lesson. I alwys prefix my calls with this standard message. “ Hi, I called thrice earlier and I was told the server is down…. Is it fine now? Can u service my problem now”. Hmm As of now, I feel this template has positive effect.