PR #2, 10000 visitors and two blogs – thanks Bengaluru!

One of the aim of this site was to create content that my visitors would like and to enlighten them about life in Bengaluru. With my many posts I have managed to convey this information in pictorial ways to make you enjoy and see Bengaluru city through my blog! With encouraging comments (good and bad) from all of you, I shall continue to go foward with this venture to measure up to your expectations. Just to let you know, the website today crossed 10000 visitors since its inception and a record 4000 visitors since just six months.

Not only that this website now has a page rank of 2/10 on google, which in itself is an achievement. As I go foward, I intend to make this blog a PR4 blog with my contributions and I look forward to all your support to make the Bengaluru blog the most liked blog about Bengaluru!

Shown below is the statistical data about this blog, with data got from www.siteranks.net

So do keep visiting and happy reading the Bangalore blog and the Technology Blog!

http://blog.chowchowbath.com

http://technology.chowchowbath.com

Technorati Tags: Life in Bengaluru, Bengaluru, Bangalore, Blog, Technology, Chowchowbath, Srikanth eswaran, Google, Page rank, Visitors, Favourites

Google introduces group email chat!

I was browsing through my google mail when this menu item caught my fancy:

Upon clicking it, it showed me a new feature launched by google, group email chat!

For more information, google says:

About group chat

The group chat feature lets you chat with many friends at once. There’s no limit to the number of people you can chat with, and any participant can invite others to join. To get started, follow these steps:

1. Start a chat with a single person in your Contacts list.
2. Once you’ve started the chat, click Options at the bottom left of your chat window and select Group Chat.
3. In the field labeled ’Add a person to this chat,’ enter the name of the contact(s) you want to add to your group chat.

To end your chat, click the X at the corner of the chat window. Others in the group chat will get a message saying that you’ve left the conversation. If you want to rejoin, you’ll need to be invited back by a contact who’s still in the group chat. The group chat will continue until all participants have left.

So how easy it is exactly to access this group chat? would it accept names or only email IDs? Well it does accept names so you can type the name of the person as you have named him, and he will be invited to chat with you on the same window with other people. I tried it, but did not find the window so intuitive enough, perhaps I would have preferred a list from where I could pick up the persons I wanted in one shot. Typing each person’s name is pretty painful, hopefully google will change that shortly! Way to go google, you never cease to amaze!

Technorati Tags: Technology, Google, Gmail, Email, Chat, Group chat, Icons, Smileys, Emoticons, Invites, Multiple chat, Chat window

Gmail chat now has smiley icons!

Recently while chatting with a friend on google email chat, I noticed the following support for icons in google. It was a long desired feature, and now that its there its time for you to be emotional with your chat partner! So go ahead, frown at him, smile at her, do what you feel good doing, with emoticon support in google email chat!

There seems to be support for text icons, round icons and square icons, pick your choice!

Technorati Tags: Technology, Google, Gmail, Chat, Gtalk, Email, 3gb, Icons, Smileys, Emoticons

Chowchowbath – sweet, sour, spicy, bland – all the things you need to know about Bengaluru

The time has finally come to explain why this website is called chowchowbath.com – why this name and what it signifies. From the day I began to understand life, about 25 years ago (a silver jubilee of sorts!) I slowly began to be associated more and more with Karnataka, Kannada and our very own Bengaluru. In these 25 years, Bengaluru has seen so much of metamorphism that no other city in India would have probably witnessed. From the days of having no TV or telephone, until the present day Tata Sky’s to DishTVs, and to Reliance free mobile to mobile calls, so much has gone in between like you would find a burger from Mc.D’s! We have come across sweet things, spicy things, sad moments, sour moments and bland moments. In essence this represents Karnataka’s favourite dish, Chowchowbath. From the day I began to build my website since 1997 until now, it went through different stages until I reached a juncture where my blog became my shoutbox and the site itself attained this name – Chowchowbath.com. And to keep it just like the age old Karnataka recipe, I try to give you to the best of my ability, all news and opinions, sweet, sour, spicy and bland on my blog. So the next time you head to a nearby Darshini(Fast food joint in Karnataka) – remember to order for CHOW CHOW BATH! – It has all the things you need to eat, just as this site has all the things you need to know!

Technorati Tags: Life in Bengaluru, Chowchowbath.com, Blog, Chowchowbath, Kesari bath, Khara bath, Kannada, Karnataka, Bengaluru, Darshini, Mc donalds, Mac donalds, Burgers, Tata sky, Dish tv, Reliance

South Indies, Bengaluru, a one-off experience

A friend who dropped down from the USA to Bengaluru, wanted to meet up with me and another pal, at a ’decent’ restaurant where we could spend some time chatting away. We were thinking of the usual Ebony Restaurant at Barton Centre, MG Road, when one of them pointed me out to South Indies, at Indiranagar 100’ Road. The idea appealed to me as it was South Indian food, and they also had a menu that looked like a travelogue which highlighted important aspects of the four southern states of India (Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Andhra Pradesh)

So after having a concurrence from all friends, I booked a table (this is a very important step to get there!) at 7pm (early dinner!) and we reached there. Though there was valet parking, I hated to give the keys of my Swift VDi (rocket as I call it) to anyone in Bengaluru to handle. I hated the concept of valet parking as the last time I did it in church street, I ended up having a scracth on my precious asset – my car. Luckily since I was one of the earliest to reach there, I found a good parking place (which are at premiums these days in the city) and settled down to have food. The rest of this post is about South Indies and my experience there.

In my opinion, the rates are horribly expensive. The food varieties are minimal and there are no deviations possible. Certain food items are procured based on an analysis of estimated orders and hence no customizations will be done for you even on request. The food presented there does not present the true picture of the four southern states. I have eaten Chettinad food at the Curry Leaf (which unfortunately is no more!) restaturant in Koramangala, and I would bet any day that the food there is much more authentic and tasty compared to South Indies. Having the benefit of knowing about Tamil food and also being a Kannadiga, I have no qualms in saying what I just did about South Indies. I have eaten some tasty Mangaluru (Mangalore) food at my office and that was anyday much better than the tastiness here.

The ambience of South Indies is good, and architecturally the building has been spruced up to the best extent. But I believe strongly in the weakest link – the link to my stomach! If that is not good, no matter what amount of ambience is provided, I dont feel like I had the best. I had a soup (which was basically sambar in our terms – I still dont know how they call anything and everything soup), Uralakazhangu poriyal (spiced potato sliced thin), brinjal gravy, curd rice,one neer dosa and steamed rice. Even if each of these costed Rs.100 the worst case, my bill should have been 600 bucks, but I ended up with a bill of Rs.750 which is why I said this hotel was horrendously expensive for simple items. Lets be practical, everyone earns a lot, everyone likes ambience and magazine styled menu cards, and coat-clad waiters and valet parking, but no one will tolerate improper food or dish selections for that price.

I dont intend to always play down their food selections, but I expected better when smaller restaurants from the southern region operating out of Bangalore are more focussed in what they do delivering quality.

One another thing you pay for is for the waiters holding PDA’s to take orders. I dont understand this fancy of hotels asking waiters to use PDAs, tablet PCs, mobile phones, pagers and what not to take orders. I however appreciated Coffee Day’s scheme of using a wi-fi enabled order machine which would bill your order then and there. Just using a PDA for no reason isnt exactly style!

So at the end of it, I went home and told my mom about the dishes I ate, and the price of Rs.750 and she said she could feed me for atleast a fortnight with much more tasty food at the same price and same southern authenticity! In one statement this sums up south indies for me – horrendously expensive, not much variety, you pay for ambience, valet parking, and technology, not for food.

South Indies – thanks, but no thanks, not again.

Technorati Tags: Life in Bengaluru, Mangaluru, Mangalore, Seafood, South indies, Kerala, Karnataka, Tamil nadu, Andhra, Spicy food, Aloo poriyal, Uralaikazhangu, Coffee day, Pda, Wi-fi, Tablet pc, Neer dosa, Curry leaf, Koramangala, Bengaluru, Blog, Kannadiga, Swift vdi, Church street, Ebony restaurant, Barton centre, Indiranagar 100 feet road

We the people of Bengaluru

Today transportation in Bangalore has many options compared to a few years back. You got buses (volvos, pushpaks, red boards, white boards, private) , the notorious autorickshaws (I ll give you a funny analogy of these later in this post, dont forget to read it, it still makes me laugh even after reading a thousand times by now!) , private indicabs, corollas, honda city taxis, the latest sx4 taxis from maruti suzuki, and then you got some 35,678 types of two wheelers (well its just a huge number that came to my mind nothing else!imagine 1500 vehicles getting registered every passing day), and you’ve also now got a trillion bicycles all over our roads. And dont forget the bullock carts, horse tongas, human pulled rickshaws, mini vans, trucks and the list goes on and on and on. Now what happens if you own sand lorries, or cargo vans, and you also have 20 people to ferry? This is what happens

What if you want to carry a military tanker on the roads of Bengaluru? You’ve got a truck for that too, no worries!!

And before I end this post, here is a hilarious excerpt often sent to me by email, to have my share of laughter! Read and enjoy!

Driving in India :: Enjoy your ride!

Basically you start on the left of the road, unless it is occupied. In that case, go to the right, unless that is also occupied. Then proceed by occupying the next available gap, as in chess. Just trust your instincts, ascertain the direction, and proceed. Adherence to road rules leads to much misery and occasional fatality. Most drivers don’t drive, but just aim their vehicles in the intended direction. Don’t you get discouraged or underestimate yourself except for a belief in reincarnation, the other drivers are not in any better position. Don’t stop at pedestrian crossings just because some fool wants to cross the road. You may do so only if you enjoy being bumped in the back. Pedestrians have been strictly instructed to cross only when traffic is moving slowly or has come to a dead stop because some minister is in town. Still some idiot may try to wade across, but then, let us not talk ill of the dead. Blowing your horn is not a sign of protest as in some countries. We blow horn to express joy, resentment, frustration, romance and bare lust (two brisk blasts), or, just mobilize a dozing cow in the middle of the bazaar.

Keep informative books in the glove compartment. You may read them during traffic jams, while awaiting the chief minister’s motorcade, or waiting for the rainwaters to recede when overground traffic meets underground drainage. Night driving on Indian roads can be an exhilarating experience (for those with the mental makeup of Chenghis Khan). In a way, it is like playing Russian roulette, because you do not know who amongst the drivers is loaded. What looks like premature dawn on the horizon turns out to be a truck attempting a speed record. On encountering it, just pull partly into the field adjoining the road until the phenomenon passes. Our roads don’t have shoulders, but occasional boulders. Do not blink your lights expecting reciprocation. The only dim thing in the truck is the driver, and with the peg of illicit arrack (alcohol) he has had at the last stop, his total cerebral functions add up to little more than a naught.

Truck drivers are the James Bonds of India, and are licensed to kill. Often you may encounter a single powerful beam of light about six feet above the ground. This is not a super motorbike, but a truck approaching you with a single light on, usually the left one. It could be the right one, but never get too close to investigate. You may prove your point posthumously. Of course, all this occurs at night,on the trunk roads. During the daytime, trucks are more visible, except that the drivers will never show any Signal. (And you must watch for the absent signals; they are the greater threat). Only, you will often observe that the cleaner who sits next to the driver, will project his hand and wave hysterically. This is definitely not to be construed as a signal for a left turn. The waving is just an ex-pression of physical relief on a hot day. Occasionally you might see what looks like a UFO with blinking colored lights and weird sounds emanating from within. This is an illuminated bus, full of happy pilgrims singing bhajans. These pilgrims go at breakneck speed, seeking contact with the Almighty, often meeting with success.

Auto Rickshaw (Baby Taxi): The result of a collision between a rickshaw and an automobile, this three-wheeled vehicle works on an external combustion engine that runs on a mixture of kerosene, oil and creosote. This triangular vehicle carries iron rods, gas cylinders or passengers three times its weight and dimension, at an unspecified fare. After careful geometric calculations, children are folded and packed into these auto rickshaws until some children in the periphery are not in contact with the vehicle at all. Then their school bags are pushed into the microscopic gaps all round so those minor collisions with other vehicles on the road cause no permanent damage. Of course, the peripheral children are charged half the fare and also learn Newton’s laws of motion enroute to school. Auto rickshaw drivers follow the road rules depicted in the film Ben Hur, and are licensed to irritate.

Mopeds: The moped looks like an oil tin on wheels and makes noise like an electric shaver. It runs 30 miles on a teaspoon of petrol and travels at break-bottom speed. As the sides of the road are too rough for a ride, the moped drivers tend to drive in the middle of the road; they would rather drive under heavier vehicles instead of around them and are often ’mopped’ off the tarmac.

Leaning Tower of Passes: Most bus passengers are given free passes and during rush hours, there is absolute mayhem. There are passengers hanging off other passengers, who in turn hang off the railings and the overloaded bus leans dangerously, defying laws of gravity but obeying laws of surface tension. As drivers get paid for overload (so many Rupees per kg of passenger), no questions are ever asked. Steer clear of these buses by a width of 3 passengers. One-way Street: These boards are put up by traffic people to add jest in their otherwise drab lives. Don’t stick to the literal meaning and proceed in one direction. In metaphysical terms, it means that you can’t proceed in two directions at the same time. So drive as you like, in reverse throughout, if you are the fussy type.

Lest I sound hypercritical, I must add a positive point also. Rash and fast driving in residential areas has been prevented by providing a ’speed breaker’; two for each house. This mound, incidentally, covers the water and drainage pipes for that residence and is left untarred for easyidentification by the corporation authorities, should they want to recover the pipe for year-end accounting. If, after all this, you still want to drive in India, have your lessons between 8 pm and 11 am when the police have gone home and the citizen is then free to enjoy the ’Freedom of Speed’ enshrined in our constitution.

Having said all this, isn’t it true that the accident rate and related deaths are less in India compared to US or other countries?

Technorati Tags: Automobiles, Lorries, Pushpak, Volvo, Bengaluru, Bangalore, Blog, Autos, Autorickshaw, Bullock cards, Tonga, Mini vans, Trucks, Cycles, Two wheelers, Military tankers, Baby taxi

Yeddi, Gaddi and JD

With the Janata Dal doing a U-turn on supporting BJP government for the voting session in assembly, the situation in karnataka state comes back a full circle to the same situation as one month back. A few reasons why JDS is not willing to support is clear:

they dont have rights over bangalore administration portfolio, which means they cant control ashok kheny

they dont have rights over mining portfolio which means they cant control janardhan reddy and loads of cash inflow

they dont have rights over BDA, which means they lose all money related to bangalore project clearances

they anyway dont like the aspect of a yedi chiefministership

Having said this, what will happen next? – there are a few options

JDS aligns with congress and forms government, it will be remote controlled by gowda again

in all likelihood kumaraswamy would be chief minister

if congress does not agree with this, then it will be polls

an alternative government can be formed with vatal nagaraj, mp prakash and supporters, and splinters from congress and bjp, and samajwadi party (bangarappa) which in most likelihood will finish full term

presidents rule back again upon governors recommendation

its interesting to note that we the public of karnataka have brought the state to such a situation where we allow a minority party to function as the government which defeats the basic purpose of voters rights!

What would you want in karnataka now?

What will happen to the karnataka government now?

JDS and congress will form government
Presidents rule will be imposed for another 2 years
BJP will sign memorandum and continue with JDS
Independent parties will form government

> View Results
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Technorati Tags: Bangalore.Technology.Life, Bangalore, Bengaluru, Yeddi, Gaddi, JDS, Coalition government, Rameshwar thakur, Governor, Politics, Congress, HD kumaraswamy, HDK, Deve gowda, BJP, Yediyurappa, Yashwant sinha, Tv9, Udaya varthegalu, Merajuddin patel, Ashok, Katta subramanya naidu, Sadananda gowda, Ashok kheny, Nice, Mysore, Bangalore infrastructure, Corridor, Bda, Mining, Bellary, Janardhan reddy, Congress, Samajwadi, Bangarappa, Mahima patel, Vatal nagaraj, Independents, Mp prakash, Elections, Presidents rule

The Dell hell – Part 2, of 19 widescreens and 1440×900 resolution support

Just got the time to complete Part 2 of this torture, so here goes. You must have read part one of this article, which explained my frenzied monitor buying process with Dell India. Now read about getting the damn thing to work properly. Upon unwrapping this monitor I find a big print on the monitor soft cover that there are SPECIAL instructions for me to get the magic optimal resolution of 1440 x 900 @ 60Hz. This being the * ONLY * reason I bought a widescreen monitor, I am completely overjoyed with the prospect of Dell understanding my needs so promptly. For those of you who are wondering what 1440 x900 is, in short – its a pain in your ASS for older motherboards!

It is only at this resolution on a widescreen that you dont find your icons bloated up and stretched as through you are seeing them on a convex mirror. If you have seen yourself on a convex mirror, you would understand that the mirror stretches your body and makes you look short stout and perhaps pregnant!! This is the same effect the icons on the wide screen monitor have for any resolution below 1440 x 900. So it was time to address why on earth would the DELL monitor I painstakingly bought spending 10 grand wont work at that magic resolution.

A few reasons why it may not work is because there is no support for that resolution. The culprit could be either my motherboard, or my inbuilt graphics card or my BIOS or my monitor itself. Now I tried reasoning out with my inner self which one of this it is.

Monitor: It cant be my monitor, since DELL clearly stated that they do support this resolution and there are “SPECIAL” instructions inside the box as to how to get this possible. All I found was a dumb CD which said there was a monitor driver meant for the stone age, which neither had any documentation nor had any details on supported motherboards or BIOS. So I safely assumed this was not the culprit

IGC: (In built graphics card): My IGC was a SiS 650 chip and I updated my driver from the SiS website for this IGC (www.sis.com) I then eagerly set my resolution to see the highest and poooof ! 1440 x 900 IS NOT THERE!

BIOS : My urge to NOT change my motherboard made me approach a company called www.eSupport.com for an upgrade of my AWARD BIOS in the hope of making my BIOS support higher resolutions for my monitor. This was a cost of $30 which I took up on my head using my credit card. I used a software called Everest Home Edition, which gives you details of the PC chip by chip! Its a fantastic software which is of a lot of use to know your system internals without opening the case! I suggest everyone of you must install it for their own good for future upgrade knowledge. It was Everest that told me about eSupport.com and I went with them. They were very prompt and I got the software (255kb) by email. This was supposedly the latest BIOS for my motherboard (ASUS P4SGX-MX) and I went ahead with their SureFlash software and flashed my BIOS. I was praying to the almighty not to test my already worn out patience by causing a power cut in my great Silicon City and screw up my motherboard once and for all. And the almighty granted me that boon, I was safe. BIOS upgrade over, $30 well spent I thought and booted up my PC only to find another pooooooooooof ! 1440 x 900 resolution not supported.

XP: For sure I knew XP had all support for many types of display chipsets. So I would not doubt the super rich Bill Gates with such obvious problems!!

Show does not end there. My motherboard has a solitary AGP slot so I heard to our friendly neighbourhood Computer Warehouse, and try atleast 3 Nvidia GE Force MX cards of 1.6 grand, 2.5 grand and even 6000 bucks value. None of them supported 1440 x 900 resolution. Thankfully I decide not to buy any of those cards and instead think of going in for a new 945GC Intel motherboard itself. That would also mean I jump into the Dual Core Core Duo processor madness as well and the great DDR2 667 Mhz Ram as well – a total of 10000 bucks of additional expenditure – all for the sake of the magic 1440 x 900 resolution.

This is when I was going through Wims Bios forums (www.wimsbios.com) which had some useful information about this resolution. There was a member whose nickname was “cp” and he called himself a BIOS guru. I was mighty impressed with his answers. He always had a BIOS patch sent to his customers asking questions, which claimed to be the magic medicine for any BIOS related problems. So I signed up for that forum. And decided to put forth my problem. Also I noted that the Video BIOS (vBios) version was 1.10.0 before and after my esupport.com upgrade. According to WimsBios they said it had to be 2.28.0 or above to support this magic resolution.

After not knowing whether to laugh or to cry, with my stupidity of upgrading the BIOS for $30 without any use, I decided to ask for a refund from esupport.com who were well known (according to them) for refund policies that were customer friendly. I told them I need a refund since my problem was not solved, and they were very prompt and made a refund in two days. $30 back, and feeling much better about my mistakes, I asked the BIOS guru “cp” for vBIOS patch. I must tell you here is that this person is from Germany, and eats BIOS for breakfast, lunch and dinner. He is good and when I say that, I really mean he is a master of BIOS in all terms. I mentioned my motherboard details and pat came the reply with a patched BIOS which I flashed into my motherboard (putting all my belief and trust on the BIOS guru, not even god). If this effort failed I was even prepared to throw my motherboard and go in for the 10 grand upgrade of MB, Processor and RAM.

I flashed the motherboard and booted into windows eagerly. Desktop -> Right Click -> Properties -> Settings -> and VIOLA !!!!!! there it was – the magic resolution that I so desperately needed to protect my monitor investment! For that moment “cp” was my god for all practical purposes. I shot him off a thank you mail with all honesty and I think most good companies in India must think of hiring these kinds of guys! Dedicated gurus/experts always are the most simple of people to talk to really!

Now that I got this resolution and when my investment felt safe, I wanted to bask in the glory of my 19″ widescreen. So I played around with the OS for sometime. But then started a horrible flicker that drove me completely nuts bringing me back to the same thought process as before. I asked “cp” again, but with only 60Hz support for this monitor, nothing could be done about the flicker. For sometime my left side of the desktop had clear icon titles, the right side had blurred icon titles. I was zapped beyond words why this would occur on a brand new DELL monitor! I tried calling tech support of DELL only to find that the guys were busy bursting fireworks on their holiday. After a whole day of watery red eyes and unable to bear the flicker, I read many times on the web only to find out that LCDs should never flicker like CRT counterparts. After much of time waste I traced out this problem to the monitor cable that was faulty. Once I replaced it the flicker was gone. Finally and it was about time too, considering that my patience level was frying now. The only thing left out was the icon blurring to be solved. After another whole day of fooling around I finally traced the problem to wrong Phase and Clock values on the monitor, which I solved after adjusting for sometime.

As I complete the post, I now have that secure feeling about this investment that made my hands totally dirty but still provided me with the knowledge that I needed to be better equipped the next time around. And I end up without watery eyes, and with a feel good picture of my new monitor with the magic number – 1440 x 900!

Technorati Tags: India Inc & You, Dell, Award bios, Esupport, Everest home edition, 19″, Widescreen montior, Lcd, Tft, Convex mirror, Motherboard, Bios, IGC, Xp, Gates, Bill, CRT, Bengaluru, Bangalore, Blog, Tft, 1440 x 900

The Dell Hell – why you should be careful with dell bengaluru – Part 1

This is for those of you who are replacing their old monitors with new ones, but with their same old motherboards in place. Please read this carefully to avoid wasting your hard earned money. My 14″ Samtron 40BN CRT monitor (yeah, the same age old stuff we used at college about 10 years ago) gave way and it refused to switch on for atleast a good 30 minutes. It flickered to glory before it decided to go on and until then it was a feeling of having cataract or glaucoma in your eye. That’s the amount of blur it showed up.

This is when I decided that I would go in for a new monitor. I was content with having a newer 17″ CRT in place. I checked out at my favorite hardware upgrade store in Bangalore, the Computer Warehouse and their pricelist indicated about Rs.4000+ (~ 100$) for a monitor of that type.Although I did not want an LCD at this point in time, I could not resist an offer from Dell, which provided a 19″ flat panel LCD at just Rs.8000+ (~ $200). I tried adding 4% VAT to that to be on the safe side of calculations, and it worked out to Rs.8400/- so I thought I was getting a great deal. I even compared monitors of the same kind from Acer, HP, Zenith, and HCL, Viewsonic and even Lenovo. But only DELL had a contrast ratio of 1000:1 and along with other monitors had a brightness level of 300 cd/m2 which made it the best among the lot w.r.t features. Also it claimed to support the infamous 1440×900 resolution as well.

So ditching computer warehouse this time, I was pleased with the prospect of being associated with the famous Michael Dell once during my lifetime and I ordered the 19″ monitor “ONLINE”. You may be wondering why that last word is in quotes. Let me tell you in detail. The definition of online for Dell is limited to putting across your interest in their product onto a service rep after which he takes it ’’FORWARD” for you. If you are wondering again about the the word in quotes, FORWARD means a service rep calls you, takes your credit card number including the 3 digit code, expiry date, full name and places the online order for you from his side!

I might have been foolish enough to provide these credit card details to him knowing pretty well that this is enough for him to enjoy my money the way he likes shopping online for himself, but a tiny bit of consideration that he is a DELL employee and the assurance that Michael Dell would have taken care of his salary and perks, prompted me to go on with this step. Our friendly neighbourhood salesman finally places the order to Chennai unit for the monitor in question. But surprise of surprises – Dell chennai is on an extended Diwali break from 6th of November to 12th of November! Which means my monitor is not going to be at my home on time.

The sequence is like this

October 30,Tuesday : I express interest to place an order

October 30, Tuesday: I get an email saying the request for invoice has been forwarded to a rep and “someone” will contact me “shortly”

October 31, Wednesday: I get an SMS on my mobile saying Mr.A has been assigned to me as my “account manager”– Smile on my face with the efficiency of Dell

[The Dell Hell begins here]

October 31, Wednesday : I call Dell toll free, toll paid numbers to talk to Mr.A, and it so happens he tells me he is not handling my order at all (after about 20 calls to DELL). He puts me onto Mr.AB who is incharge of my order. Mr.AB is polite takes my credit card details and vanishes into thin air.

November 1, Thursday : I call Dell numbers to be greeted by – “Thank you for contacting Dell, it is a state holiday today, please call on a working day again. “

November 2, Friday : I call DELL again, speak to Miss.P whom I Yell at, fume at and sound furious at for not providing me an order number by email even after taking my credit card details. She says she will talk to “someone” and find out about the order. I even ask her if she were to buy her own company’s monitor, is this the service level she expects? I send forward her the email on my service enquiry that Dell sent me. She promises action – then its lights camera – poooof – she vanishes into thin air again. I call DELL (perhaps the call serial number has now crossed a few hundreds, i dont remember) and speak to Miss.L, repeating the same ruckus. She too vanishes into thin air again.

November 2, Friday : I call Mr.A,B, C and D only to find out that they are on long leave and will return when they please. A says B will take his calls during his absense, B says C will do it and its a damn vicious cyclic loop of proxies to take calls. Finally the answering machine takes my call and bangs the receiver on my face and snubs be out. After repeated calling I get back to Mr.AB who is handling my call. I ask him where he escaped with my card details and he assures me the order is being placed. The “order” is finally placed thanks to his goodwill and it goes into a “QUEUE”!!!!! The queue remains like that for 1 day. I beg and plead with him for the order number mail and he says he has sent it long back. Little does he realize that the email id used was a wrong one and the mail bounced back to him. And he vanishes into thin air again. By the time I get him again I have lost hope about the order, but he “helps” me get back the order mail to my inbox.

November 3, Saturday : armed with the order number I decide to fire DELL at WILL on the toll free number – only to be greeted by – “We at DELL work only 5 days and enjoy the same 2 days as you, so shut up and hang up”

November 5, Monday: Feeling sick, tired and in thirsty – I call up DELL and tell my order number. The kind lady on the other side, tells me the order is placed and even procured, but due to an extended Diwali at Chennai for one week, it cannot be shipped to my home.

November 6, Tuesday: Its one whole week withotu updates, I am dejected, totally low and decide to forget about the monitor once and for all till it comes on 12th and go home with a more calm mind and what do I find there? – A big fat box labelled DELL in blue. The monitor finally reaches its destination. The bill shows another 4% of some freight charges, some 8% of customs duty for importing parts from Singapore for manufacture of the monitor and associated taxes !!! So I end up paying 11.5 grand for a 8 grand monitor that DELL intended to give me at a special price! Wow!

To top it all each DELL sales rep email contains a link at the bottom of the mail that says:

How Am I doing? Let my manager know at mymanagers-id@dell.com

I am sure the managers’ mail boxes at DELL would be full by now for all the wrong reasons!

Did you think this was the end? Well hold on, its only the beginning of the DELL Hell ! Read Part 2 of this article for more details!

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Raam Bhakt Hanuman in Bengaluru

Innovative are the ways of Indians, especially when it comes to the matter of getting money by hook or crook. I bumped into one such innovation right in front of my home. To give you a bit of a background, beggarism or the beggar/begging activity is at an all time high in India, thanks to increasing rural-urban divide and poverty levels.

One can notice many different types of begging – women begging with babies that look shabby and unkempt at traffic signals, a bunch of street urchins doing acrobatics with their bodies (twisting and turning into rings and the likes) and demanding money for their acts – irrespective of whether or not they amused us, men on crutches with the arms put forward asking for money (irrespective of whether or not their limbs are ok or not), genuinely handicapped people and last but not the least – elderly who have been left desolate by their families – who neither have the strength nor the time to earn and look after themselves – begging at every possible junction to feed themselves with at least one meal a day.

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There are no innovations here however. The innovative ones are much more unique in nature. People wearing a big board containing a god’s picture and holding incense sticks in their hand, begging money from you as though its their earnings that is going to decide the lord’s future itself! The eunuchs – how can I not remember them as an innovative lot! Our previous office was very close to a traffic junction that had these eunuchs swarming like bees all over the place. One open car or truck window and that’s it. The driver used to be harassed for at least 2-3 minutes until either to his luck the signal went green or he paid up the money. And these eunuchs are the ones who curse you if you dont pay up and do all kinds of things on the road (honestly it is not their fault that they behave that way, but one cannot tolerate their behaviour though) – stripping, dancing and what not.

source : news.bbc.co.uk

source : haystack.lonelyplanet.com/LPImages

See an interesting presentation of eunuchs who are now working in normal companies, and doing normal work like any of us. Click here to view the full story from BBC!

I have even seen people coming up with cows and trumpets every Sunday morning and blaring the trumpet with the most audacious performances of the original religious tunes that makes me wonder if the trumpets got a throat ache or the one blowing it has one! Cows are weaknesses for Indian people and we dare not insult a cow or a cow herd you see!

Having said that here comes another innovation – the Raam Bhakt Hanuman (Hanuman, the devotee of Lord Ram) – full with dress code, behavioral tactics and songs accompanied. This guy actually went to a local shop, bought himself frilled color paper strips, made an attire out of it for himself, painted his face like the monkey god himself, and hold your breath – even had a full blown tail at his back. See for yourself :

The red circle shows the tail portion from this view. He even wore a crown made of paper! On Diwali day, his innovative skill set would have surely come to a great use to earn himself some good dough. When the whole country is working towards eradicating begging, here are people who show innovation in begging!! This is a classic case of the beggar promoting himself to beg with a golden bowl !! So we will have to agree with the fact that we are beggars not choosers!

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