The Hard Way

Guess who?

They are worshipped.

They are studied on behaviourial competencies.

They are enticed.

They are ones who decide Q1,2,3,4 results.

They are the cynosure of every marketer.

They get royalty on loyalty.

They turn the tables around.

They are put on a pedestal.

They are the 'Customers'.

Customers are vested with the power of making and breaking the business structure.The power which even superman and spiderman might borrow one day.To pay due respect to this humungous power watts,the business came up with 'Customer Care' or say 'Customers we dont care'.There have been such interesting conversations with the customer care that now with great humility I say that i no more care.

The first conversation goes like this.Its between Vodafone-Happy To Help!(V) and myself-Happy to Listen!(me)

V: Good Morning Ma'am.Ma'am could i speak to you if you could spare me a few mins.

Me: yeah,sure

V:Ma'am we have realised that your monthly bills are on the lower side due to less usage.Are you facing any problems with our service.We needed to check on that.

Me(surprised):haha,no nothing like that.I have no problems as of now.

V:Thank you Ma'am

Hello,so if my bill comes on the lower side,they remind me that I am not making good use of it? Or was it really a part of Customer care but I no more care.

The second conversation goes like this.Its between ICICI Personal banking-Hum hai na!(IC) and myself-Main hoon na!(Me).It's a real task to get connected to the customer care and when you finally get connected this is what you get to hear.

Me:I have a problem using my credit card.While using at the ICICI payment gateway i received a message that my card is blocked due to duplicate merchant id.Could you please help me unblock my card.

IC:Sorry Ma'am you need to discard this card and go for a new card.
Me(disgusted):whattttt? another application for a new card

IC:yes Ma'am

Me:Listen,but i made another transaction using AXIS bank gateway that transaction was successful.What's wrong then?

IC:Let me check Ma'am

Me(waiting):--------

IC:Yes Ma'am it seems you made a transaction of Rs.1400 right?

Me:Yes

IC:Your card is fine Ma'am maybe some problem with the server.

Me:Alright,how much time will it take to put the server up.

IC:Ma'am you can ahead with your transaction in an hours time.

Me:Alrite,Thanks.

I was given the same lame excuse of server down thingiee for the past one month.My patience was lost and i was completely disgusted with their laid back response.My next step was to shoot a strict mail to the customer care whose response is expected in 48 hours.To my surprise,i received a response within 4 hours and my card is functional now.

I had to play the hard way for one can be taken for a ride unless one reminds them that we are their coveted CUSTOMERS.Don't ever forget that!

Old Wine,Older Jokes

‘What if I have a few grey hair strands,
I am still a lot wiser.
What if I take more time to speak,
I am quite more patient.
What if I walk a little slow,
I am far more steadier.’
Minced by an old man he feels wiser, patient and steadier than all of us. In this oldie context there is only one thing that gives me a pause is the ‘AGE’. Two great icons turned into archives with that ‘AGE’ context. Sachin Tendulkar, the world’s greatest batsman has lost his contract as brand ambassador of FMCG PepsiCo. John McCain seems to be losing out against Barack Obama way before the final verdict of the presidential race. Apparently, I don’t see any signs of old age in Sachin though his jet black hair could be misleading courtesy: Garnier or Godrej hair dye, his face shows no wrinkles that could also be misleading courtesy: Botox treatment. Whereas McCain has all the signs forcing to withdraw my evident support. I’m unquestionably not alone; in a university poll of swing states (Florida, Ohio, Pennyslvania) published two weeks back, nearly a quarter of respondents said that his age made it less likely they would vote for him. It wasn’t just the young who had an issue with it, either. More than 20 percent of those 55 and above agreed. So what makes him fall flat in the public face. Surprisingly, he is the culprit for the string of self-deprecating jokes. On ‘Saturday Night Live ‘he joked that we should be looking for someone ‘very, very, very old’ to be the next president. I guess his inspiration lies with the Indian politicians age bracket. It was disconcerting when he flubbed a joke on MTV about ‘being older than dirt’ with ‘more scars than Frankenstein’. It was quite alarming to hear his confession about computer illiteracy in the age of Google, YouTube and MySpace, when jehadis maintain their own websites and the rival candidate is Obama-a Borg-like Internet juggernaut. Perhaps, there is no political botox (Sigh! The stilted grins & blank expressions) in his self-flagellating humour. It’s not good to be too modest that it takes the hell out of you.
Coming to our homeland, Sachin did nothing unlike McCain to prove his age. PepsiCo brand gurus are for ‘Youngistan’ run & Sachin seemingly doesn’t fit in. A price of 4 Crores is too much wherein with the same sum two young goodie players Ishant Sharma and Rohit Sharma can be roped in. Inflation affects everybody isn’t it! So ‘young’,’youth’ are the new buzzwords. We are awed by the pageants of ‘Young CEOs’,‘Young Entrepreneur’,’ Young politicians’,’Young diplomats’ and of course ‘Young actors’ .The media and society have become more conducive towards the young and perhaps berated the old. All said and done, one must act one’s age & stop talking about it all the time. If you really can’t resist than lauds its merits of wisdom. No witty streak please ;-)

Inconvenient Truth Unfolds

Geyser for the hot water bath. Toaster popping the crispy toast sandwich for the high-powered energy breakfast. Fans rotating in full speed to respite us from the hot summer of 2008.Rooms all illuminated with the halogens and PL lights for its easier to locate things and give credibility to Edison. Cell phone needs to be kept ringing all day to flaunt the no of friends and business exhibits and charged for the important communication to be. Air conditioner is a necessity for the good night sleep in the unbearable summer warmth. Iron steaming out working over the crease of the shirts for Looks matter and clothes definitely adds to it. Huh! That’s just a quarter of the whole electricity consumption that the billion population across the world makes on a SINGLE DAY. Not surprising at all!
We have other tendencies also .We just don’t switch off our PCs at our workplace; it is such a tedious job of booting the computer. We throw and litter things around and spitting is our contribution towards the red mosaic painting on walls, road, footpath, you name it and there we go. We are so good at nit-picking such as if incidents like the Mumbai Deluge do occur we have a thousand reasons to blame the Municipal Corporation for the poor drainage system and poor infrastructure. We love to experience the heavy downpours, the rising temperatures and shaking and swirling EARTH. Deluge, Floods, Tornados, Tsunamis, Earthquakes we have seen it all. As a matter of fact all are natural disasters so naturally they are bound to happen.
We are quite cool and calm and don’t even waste our time on the petty things of life.
We haven’t even learnt the meaning of consequences so far.
That’s the Inconvenient Truth; we are inhibiting ourselves from facing the truth of Global Warming a problem so severe that it will destroy the flora and fauna of our mother Earth. This is the truth. Face it.
An amazing documentary Inconvenient Truth presented by American Vice-President Al Gore is enlightening and brings to light the grueling and shocking facts of Global Warming. When he points on that blue dot in a satellite picture taken, he said something so stirring-In his exact words: ‘You see that pale, blue dot? That’s us. Everything that has ever happened in all of human history, has happened on that pixel. All the triumphs all the tragedies, all the wars all the families, all the major advances…….it’s our only home. And that is what is at stake , our ability to live on Planet Earth, to have a future as a civilization .I believe this a moral issue , its your time to cease this issue, its our time to rise again to secure our future. What we take for granted might not be here for our children’. After hearing him there is a gearshift inside you and you say inside ‘Oh my God is that all true!’
Future generations may well have occasion to ask themselves, what were our parents thinking? Why didn’t they wake up when they had a chance? We have to hear to that question from them , now.

Namesake.

What’s in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet
-Shakespeare
William Shakespeare ‘What’s in a name?’ has become quite an adage for our times. But honestly, who would like to be called by some other name as Mr. and Miss so & so. As a matter of fact, everyone who belongs to this world works towards success to make his or her NAME in the world. If the NAME gives u an identity, I surely would have lot of problems in not having one or being addressed by some other weird name. Truly, author Lahiri and Mira Nair too realized it with her book and movie ’Namesake’.
When a child is born a special name ceremony is kept and from that very day he is entitled with that identity. Our politicians are too not sparing us from displaying our identity in the capital city, without which u could be suspected and can get screwed up jus like Dr. Haneef in Australia. For me, everything is in our name, would OBAMA, the candidate giving a wild chase to Hillary Clinton would like to addressed as OSAMA. Never.
It was quite interesting to find the root meaning of my name ’NIDHI’ the other day. According to the Hindu mythology, Nidhi is a treasure constituted of nine treasures [navanidhi-that’s quite a lot of wealth ;-)] belonging to Kubera, the god of wealth. According to the tradition, each Nidhi is personified as having a guardian spirit, and some tantrikas worship them. The nature and characteristics of nidhis have remained largely unexplained and have not been fully understood.
So its no use in putting efforts in understanding me- I stand misunderstood!!! And mind you that I stand for precisely my name-Nidhi. Shakespeare defied.

Uncalled Battle

It has been a long time since i have posted on my blog.Hearing all the complaints from my dear friends for not keeping my blog updated its high time i feel guilty about and get going with it.It was not as if i was lost in translation or had nothing to share or discuss but can assure you the relunctance and indolence took a toll on me.Will definitely give a shot in overcoming it after all blogging is all about narcissism.
Now its very important that u revisit my blog so i had to share sumthing intriguing and definitely that topic should be driving me within too,because for very creative writing you need to have ur inspiration.I came across this article by a famous happy bachelor which really tickled my bone and i had to have my say on it.But before i go ahead i will give you a sneak into the article -my source of inspiration.
TRAVAILS OF A METRO MALE
Liberated or hoodwinked into running all errands? The world seems to be making a fool out of the metro male!
A lot has been written about the metrosexual and i guess a lot more will be written once people understand that this is not some unique species we are talking about.However, what has been conveniently ignored is the harrowing life of men operating under high pressure in a city like Delhi or Mumbai!
This debate about gender equality has banished most metro men to their kitchens ;they are running errands, they are the ones queing up outside Mother Dairy booths,they are the ones trying to get the little brat to school ,attending parent teacher meets and playing with children in the park!But does anyone recognise their pain ? No sir!Instead a myth is created ,eulogising their sacrifice by calling them modern or liberated!All in the hope that they will run a few more errands,I am sure!
Tell Me,what is so liberated about standing in line waiting to fill your vessels with some milk?Or to listen to some wretched school teacher drone about all the aweful traits your IVF-induced child is plagued with?What is so liberated about fasting on Karva chauth jus to express solidarity with your wife?Solidarity went out with Lech Welesa in Poland and we don't need it to recur either in Malabar Hill or Maharani Bagh.
An unsuspecting war has been unleashed on the hapless Indian male.They are now questioning everything about us:their psychometric tests make a narco test look like kindergarten stuff, and yet there is no one to stand up for us.We are a minority and we don't even have a Mamta Banerjee to go on a hunger strike for us.We live within such pressurised homes as if we were born into a family of Hawkins.
This column will be the voice of the male.An impassioned voice that will appeal to all who matter and also to those who don't.It will reflect on the issues that we men are inflicted with and affected by.It will about Man Poised when India is.It will be about the Indian man who has come a long way in nation-building.It will extol our virtues of patience and the tolerance of boundless sufferance.Through this column we men will show the world a side of ours that is never seen because we are never allowed to take our clothes off and those who do are punished by being kept out of the cricket team for periods of time.This will be a column that will tell the world how arduous it is to stay manly in todays world, in every which way.If you look around ,the prettiest women don't want hunks anymore!They seek softer sensitive people:so you've either got to be gay or you've got to give in.There is no third option!
They say the age of chivalry is dead and yet there is no comment on why men must be packed like sardines whereas women get to travel in Ladies Only compartments?Why men cannot be allowed to listen to Gloria Stein's lecture just because she is a feminist and we are not all that bright?This perverse exclusion must stop in India.Even politically the indian male has been weakened .Te south saw a rampaging Jaylalitha and Vajpayee was so often downon his knees that both his knees had to be replaced.And the east today sees a very hungry yet extremely rotund Mamata go on a fast but catch a man fasting and not even his own family will be there to commiserate.This is how the Indian male is being treated today.Rabindranath tagore if he were alive would have goaded the indian male a voice,a platform,from where we can be seen ,even if never heard.At least in the 60th year of India's independence,the indian male can look forward to some freedom!
Well Well....the only reaction i get after reading it was 'Finally!'.So over the centuries we have been discussing the plight of Indian women , the atrocities inflicted by the Indian male on them n Finally if the same plight ,the same pains(which is hardly a matter of fact)is being experienced by our poor Indian males i am only filled with great exhilaration.If the time is ripe for role reversal the Indian male should definitely gear up !