Recently in The World Around Me Category

I walked into a small gully off Raja Street, Coimbatore this Saturday to pickup my favourite Tapioca Appalam (மரச்சீனி அப்பளம்). I am going to this place after a long time and this is how the conversation went.

அப்பளம் மாமி: வாங்கோ, என்ன, ரொம்ப நாளா காணும்?
நான்: ஊர்ல இல்ல.
அ.மா: எங்க? USA-வா?
நான்: இல்ல, பெங்களுர்.
அ.மா: பெங்களுர்ல எங்கே?
நான்: JP நகர்.
அ.மா: இல்ல, Infosys-ஆ, Wipro-வா?
நான்: Yahoo!
அ.மா: ஓ! அந்த மேயில் க்மபனியா?
நான்: ஆமாம்.

And I ran away before she dissected me any further :)

I have been using two mobile phones, one a Nokia E75 for my personal use with a BSNL Cellone connection and an Airtel Blackberry for office use. It had been a pain to carry two phones but I let it be for almost an year. Last month, my E75's display died. I figured out that it would cost about Rs.2500 to get this fixed but if I tried it sell it would fetch me much less. I decided to use this opportunity to port my existing number to Airtel and do away with the need for a second phone.

I thought this would be an easy job but little did I know it would take so much effort. According to the process, it is as simple as sending an SMS to 1900, get a UPC number and submit a form to the new provider and voila, the magic happens.

But Cellone ruins this magic. For one whole day, any SMS to 1900, would result in a reply from 1901 with invalid message format, please send message 'PORT ' to 1900. I read, re-read, tried and retried in vain. Infact another co-worker said, I was sending it wrong and tried the same thing and failed.

The next day, I requested Vasu to call customer care to see if they could help. Their customer care was a serious joke. I was surprised how I lived with this pathetic support for such a long time. Thankfully, I never had to call them.

The next day I decided that I would walk into their CSC to see if it would help but wanted to give 1900 a last try and thankfully it worked. I thought it was the end of all my woes and walked into a Airtel Relationship Center for MNC. The guys were very pleasant, even waved off the paltry Rs.19 fee for MNP and told me that it would be ported and activated within a week.

In a few days time, I got a message from Airtel that my number would be ported the next day. Next morning, I inserted the new SIM into the BB and it worked. I called customer care to enable the BB plans and I was back to business with in a couple of hours.

Now I thought it would be another call to Airtel Customer care to get my existing Airtel BB connection cancelled. I called the customer care and they tried to woo me to keep the connection by giving me a bunch of offers. With great difficulty, I coaxed the customer care executive to take the request and give me a request number. When she finally did provide a request number, she told that the request would be completed in a month? I was baffled and asked again to be sure? It takes a couple of hours to activate a new connection but a month to disconnect one. :) And since the next day, for almost a week, I was getting calls to see if they can provide a better deals, so that I can keep the connection active. I got frustrated and showered my choicest cuss words and got them to deactivate the number. Last week I got a bill from Airtel for the old number with excess rental being charged. I am still fighting with them to get this resolved. Despite that, I still get emails from them every week if I would be interested in reviving that connection.

From devil to the deep sea, the network follows...

I am not a mac fan boy. For that matter, I am not a gadget freak. I have been using a Mac for a couple of years. I very recently started using an iPod and an iPad, all thanks to Yahoo! And I am amazingly impressed by both the devices. I am sure both these devices are going to change the way I look at gadgets.

May be that is why, when I woke up this morning to the news of Steve Jobs death, I felt as if someone close to me has died. Even after all the fun we had today, somewhere in the bottom of my heart, that sorrow feeling lingers on.

RIP Steve Jobs. You have changed the way people will look at gadgets.

In June, while I was preparing for my trek to Roopkund, I was looking for trekking shoes. I was recommended Forclaz 500 Ventiv by friends. The shoe was retailing at Rs.2999 at Decathlon. The same was available for Rs.2499 online with free shipping. I went to the store to try it out, thinking that will order online and save Rs.500. John, the salesman helped me out with my questions and suggested that I pick up a tight fit. It was too tight but he suggested that it will expand a bit and will be fine. He also promised that he will replace it if I find it uncomfortable after a couple of days use. I told him about the online store and price and he told me that he can give it to me for 2799 and joked that Decathlon needs to pay him salary and hence cannot match that price. I bought the shoe and paid the premium just for his service.

A couple of days burn-in did not help and it was causing pain in the toe. I called up the store and Kuldeep another salesman at the trekking section suggested that I bring in the shoe for replacement. I picked up one size bigger and it was very comfortable for most part of the trek.

On the last day of the trek, thanks to heavy snow and rain, the shoe lost its shape. There was a bulge around the ankle support and due to this the show wasn't stable, causing ankle strain. After I reached Bangalore, I called up the store and mentioned about the problem. Kuldeep asked me to bring the shoe along with the bill for exchange. I never had the time and I almost forgot about it. Last week I remembered and took the shoe to the store. I had already lost hopes but wanted to give it a shot.

I walked into the store on Sunday, explained him the problem and showed the shoe. Kuldeep / Jon, said only one thing "Give it at the counter calling it a defective piece and pick up a new one'. Absolutely no questions, no nagging, not trying to put the blame on the buyer, no delay.

This is an excellent example of customer service. I had to go to the store 3 times but I will never mind the distance of driving 20+ KM to the store for such excellent service. Looking forward to the store opening in Bannerghatta Road. I am a Decathlon convert.

Thyagaraja Aradhana is an annual carnatic music festival, held every year on the day, the saint attained mukti at Thiruvayaru. On the Aradhana day, the Pancharatna kritis are sung by all artistes, in unison. Over the years, the event has spread to various places and now many cities have an annual commemorative event to pay homage to the great composer and one of the Trinities of Carnatic music.

We attended one such event a few weeks back, presided over by R.K.Padmanabha. The event had a concert by Pattabhiram Pandit followed by the singing of Pancharatna kritis. While speaking, RKP narrated a hilarious event that happened a few years back at his home town Rudrapatna.

For Thyagaraja Aradhana, he had organised a week long music festival and on the day of the Aradhana, he had arranged for food for everyone. When he was explaining the contributions of Thyagaraja and the importance of Aradhana, one gentlemen misunderstanding the meaning of Aradhana (which also means worship) interrupted and said - Sir, We should do an Aradhana to you for all your good work and for the feast. RKP was stunned but when he quipped, "Give me another 10-20 years and then you can do my Aradhana", the entire audience burst into laughter.

Most of February, I was thinking about what I wanted to do for the next few months. I had signed up for a training program for a 10K run in May. I egged a few friends to find out some place for a trek or a tour. I was asking my wife if she wanted to go anywhere. Suddenly during the last week of Feb, everything changed. I was asked to travel to San Francisco for a couple of weeks. I came here with a mixed bag of reactions and a lot of apprehension.

I landed in San Francisco on the first of March. The first couple of days passed by and then I discovered _the city_. This has been an amazing place and I have enjoyed every day here. Sometimes when I am completely upset or bogged down, be it due to work or otherwise, all I do is take a walk or a jog. And then I feel as if I am in heaven. I forget everything. All I feel is the chill air and the noise of the speeding cars around. This city is a jogger's paradise. The other day, I was really hungry and went down to get some breakfast. When I saw people running, I started running. I ran till Fisherman's Wharf and came back to the apartment without even having breakfast. Today I went to the airport to see a friend's wife off to India. He and a couple of others came back to my apartment and we went for a walk. We came to the apartment around 6 and they left around 8. I finished my dinner and was planning to go to bed. I am scheduled to go to Sunnyvale tomorrow and after a week back to Bangalore. So, I decided to take a walk one last time during this trip. I went down and I started running. I ran till the Gandhi statue at the Ferry Building. I spent about 15 minutes there listening to the sounds from the water, watching the Bay Bridge, thinking how much things have changed in the two weeks.

SF, I am going to miss you. Good bye until I come back again.

The 8th edition of Bangalore Barcamp happens at Yahoo! on 7th and 8th March. There has been enough debates about BCB8. So it will be interesting to see how it goes. I am not in town and will not be able to make it. But if you are around, you should go. It helps to connect with like minded people in town.

I was getting ready to leave for my morning jog yesterday when I read this shocking news. The third page of The Hindu routinely carries such information. The reason why it worried me was that every day when I run, I see a whole lot of people walking / jogging / running on the road. Many of these folks are more interested in carrying a conversation on the road rather than concentrate on the road. Many times I see folks completely blocking the road or walking in parallel oblivious of the surroundings.

So if you walk or jog on the road here are some tips:

• If there is a park in your area, please walk there.
• Always walk / jog on the extreme right of the road facing traffic.
• If this is a new road that you are running, first for the first couple of days focus on the road and traffic to get an idea.
• If the foot path is usable, please use it.
• Keep an eye on the traffic. There is no guarantee that the guy in the car is going to see you
• It is okay to lose a 30 seconds waiting for the car to pass, rather than risk your life.

And if you are driver, please respect the traffic rules. If a road is marked one way, _it_ _is_ _a_ _one_ _way_. This does not (atleast in Bangalore) change based on time of the day. If you are interested in racing, go to a racing track and not the road. Give space to pedestrians.

A hallway conversation:

A1: Coming for the standup?
A2: Will come after running to the loo.
A1: So you have one standup to attend before this one?

A coworker was admitted to a hospital due to food poisoning and dehydration. We went to visit him and were talking to him. The talk turned towards diarrhoea and stomach cleansing. He remarked about people voluntarily taking castor oil to clear their bowels when another coworker jumped into ask "2 Stroke or 4 Stroke". It took more than 5 minutes for everyone to return back to normalcy.