Customer is King!

I have this uncanny habit of almost always filling up the feedback form which is handed over at restaurants or coffee shops or fuel stations or even online shopping websites. As an extension to this habit I also make sure to give a feedback to the service providers whose services I use whenever I face any problem with their services and also whenever I exceptionally like something about their services. Given my experience, most often a feedback ensures that any deficiency in the service is abated. In fact, after hearing the many stories of how effective my feedback has been, a buddy of mine has suggested me start a professional service of reviewing and providing feedback on various services to service providers for a fee. On the other side, there is another friend who is still adamant that "feedbacks are just for the sake of a formality".

Anyway, this recent experience of mine at the R-City Mall (Ghatkopar) is yet another saga of how important a feedback is and how organisations are actually striving to keep their customers happy.

I've been regularly visiting R-City Mall for the last few months but this Sunday's experience was an unfortunate one. While entering the Mall I learnt that the parking has been made a paid parking and I had to park my car on level 'H' (8th floor) given the rush of cars due to the recently opened Big Cinemas. However, while I was exiting, it took me over 35 minutes to reach the parking payment kiosk. It was a real pain to move so slow in a downhill ramp. Further, given the tariff structure of parking I had to pay the parking fee for an additional hour just because I took so much time to exit the parking bay because of improper management of Metro Parking. I was completely dissatisfied with the experience. I have been to other malls across the city and they surely have better parking management and charge cheaper parking rates.

The same day, after returning home I sent a mail narrating the above experience to Mr. Siddharth Sahgal (Centre Director, R City) and urged him to take appropriate and prompt actions to resolve the situation. To my surprise, early next morning I received a mail from Mr. Sahgal assuring that the bottlenecks would be resolved. Subsequently, I received a call from Ms. Jyoti from R-City apologising for the inconvenience caused and stating that they've taken up the matter with Metro parking (the vendor who manages the parking system of the mall). Further, I was sent a bouquet of flowers from the management of R-City.

Surely, I am overwhelmed by the pro-activeness of the mall's management team and they have indeed made me feel like a King!

Wake me up when September ends!

The last few weeks have been a potpourri of an experience and the hectic schedule and the pace at which things have moved have precisely been the reasons why I haven't been able to blog for long. To sum up, my experiences over the last one month have varied:

(i) from numerous visits to hospitals, clinics and chemists to an almost equivalent number of visits to ice-cream parlours in the city;

(ii) from surviving a stampede at Lal Baugcha Raja to visiting the Siddhi Vinayak temple in almost complete isolation;

(iii) from struggling with the office lunch to get my minimum calorific requirements to hoarding loads of calories by having pizzas for lunch as much as thrice a week;

(iv) from working late at office for almost the entire month to sneaking out for a four hour lunch session during office hours;

(v) from attending to a galore of guests at home and craving for my personal space to being in complete isolation and craving for people around me;

(vi) from being in the clouds at Malsej Ghat to sweating around in the streets of Ghatkopar;

(vii) from a failed attempt to watch Abhishek and Ash shooting for Ravana to sharing the elevator with Bobby Deol and his family adn not even greeting him with a 'Hello';

(viii) from making up an altercation with a friend over lunch to having an altercation with another friend after a lunch;

(ix) from attending a training on structured investment products at BSE to struggling with taxation matters of the family;

(x) from quarelling with the car mechanic and crying foul over their customer care services to being sent flowers by the management of a Shopping Mall for giving them a feedback on their services;

(xi) from eating street food in the by-lanes of suburban Mumbai to being at Leopold's and Theobroma in the heart of the town;

(xii) from enjoying the loud and heavy downpour of a retreating monsoon to suffering the heat and humidity of this peculiar season;

(xiii) from struggling with the gears and pedals for hours in the traffic to driving at over 100 kmph in the city.

But for now I want to enjoy this extended Dussera weekend by sleeping over and wish to be woken up only when September ends!

Technology - complexity of simplicity!

I'm an ardent admirer of technology (flair for technology as I coined it!) - it makes our work easier and simpler. But sometime, making things simpler can end up creating complexity. My recent experience with the Jet Lite website rightly demonstrates so.

The website provides the facility to check Flight Status but thanks to the complexity they've created (probably to make things simpler), I was unable to use it.

I wanted to check the status of a flight which was scheduled to land at Kolkata Airport (CCU) at 2340 hours. So, I searched for Arrivals by Airport and selected the date and the airport from the drop-down list. Now comes the complicated part - I had to select the earliest time and latest time (both in hours and both drop-downs providing numbers from 00 to 23). Since I wanted to check the flight status between 23 hours and 00 hours, I selected the options accordingly.

Bleep - "Choose latest time greater than earliest time" - erupted the error in red!

"Preposterous!" - I exclaimed. The site has a validation script which prevents entering the latest time lesser than the earliest time and hence preventing me from checking the status of any flight scheduled between 2300 hours and 2359 hours! Thank you Mr. IT Guy who programmed the script!

I intend to post a link to this post as a feedback to Jet Lite (since the site does not accept a feedback more than 200 characters - another complexity!). Hope they fix up the bug(s) soon!

Two wrongs make a right!

Mathematically, two negatives (multiplied) make a positive. But do two mistakes or two wrongs make a right? A recent incident has made me ponder over this theory.

It was evening and I was about to leave office, waiting for the elevator in the lobby when I heard a senior colleague (SC) calling, "Vivek, which car do u have - is it an 800?".

Me: "I drive a Wagon-R, any problem, ma'am?"

SC: "No, I've left my car key inside the car (Mistake no. 1), just wanted to check if some other key could help. Do you know anyone with an 800?"

Me: "XYZ and PQR bring 800 to office, but they would've left office by now. We can try using my key or else I know how to open the door using a ruler - let me see if I can help you out."

We went to the lower basement taking along a chauffeur who drove an 800 and had met us in the upper basement.

A few tries with the two keys on both the front doors and the boot lid did not help. The only course left was to slit open the rubber lining on the window and use a ruler to unlock the door.

I was about to go to my cubicle to get a ruler when the chauffeur who was accompanying us shouted - "The rear door is open, you forgot to lock it madam!" (Mistake no. 2)

"wOw, what a blunder!", I said to myself with a smile on my face and bid farewell to the SC.

Coming upstairs to the upper basement I mused over the incident and muttered, "Two mistakes can actually make a right!"

Wish life was indeed that way - two wrongs/mistakes making a right!

Top 13 food items I miss from Kolkata

Mumbai is a good city and I truly like it. But when it comes to food (apart from ice-creams), I can hardly compare it with Kolkata. After having left Kolkata 13 months ago, here are the top 13 (in no particular order) food items I miss from Kolkata:

1. Bhel Puri @ Belurmath.
2. Garam Samosa and Faluda Kulfi @ Tiwari Sweets [counted as 2 separate food items].

3. Garam Rosogullas at night from Shreedhar (local bengali sweet shop near my place).
4. Pure veg dinner @ Gangaur (Park Street).
5. Doodh-ThumbsUp @ Bhawanipur (Sardarji's dhaba beside the gurudwara).
6. Sabji Kachori and Jalebi @ Sharma's in Bhawanipur [counted as 2 separate food items].
7. Chole Bhature @ Mission Cafe.
8. Chilla @ Vardaan.
9. Pav-bhaji @ Mayaram and Kanishka.
10. 'As You Like It' ice-cream @ India's Hobby Centre (Park Street).
11. and finally....Puchka (pani puri, as called in Mumbai) @ any damn place in Kolkata.

Am I missing something? Not in the list - but I'm missing the people with whom I used to have these food items (my friends and family members). I'm sure without them these would have never tasted soo good!

An agnostic - I am!

A buddy of mine had felt offended after reading the fact that I call myself an agnostic. There might be some other souls too who might be incorrectly interpreting my agnosticism. So, here is the version of the clarification which I had mailed to my buddy:

Etymologically, an agnostic is a person who claims that they cannot have true knowledge about the existence of God (but does not deny that God might exist).

Of course, I believe (a belief - which is a vague idea in which some confidence is placed,  is different from knowledge - which is the  psychological result of perception and learning and reasoning) in the existence of a Supreme Authority (called by whatever name) but unlike most ignorant people (I call them so), I do not claim to have true knowledge about the existence of God.

The version which we hear about God in our everyday lives is a result of  religious prejudices. Why else would Allah, Jesus, Guru Tej Bahadur, Rama, et al. have different origins? Why do we have different versions of God for different religions (I often associate such version with technology only - different operating systems for different micro processors - Mac or Windows; Symbian or Android; etc.)? And for a person like me who believes in the religion of humanity - have we ever heard the name of the 'God of Humanity'? Perhaps, we would never hear it 'coz that God lies in the good deeds we do -  be it a gesture of kindness, a smile with purity or even some words of truthfulness. A movie addict like you would appreciate the monologue from Angels and Demons in the same context: "Religion is flawed because man is flawed" - this is precisely the contention that I have.

Further, I also see my parents as a manifestation of God. And there are so many other people and things with whom I can relate the so-called Godliness (have been hearing the idiom 'Cleanliness is next to Godliness' from my early childhood).

Why is there is plethora of confusion when we actually think about the existence of God? I do not have the answers! Hence, I call myself an agnostic.

i-Pill - boon or bane?

"Q. What are the two things that have beaten the economic downturn in India? A. IPL and i-Pill!" - aptly read the sms that I had received a couple of months ago. But the recent splurge in the promotional activities (numerous TV commercial during prime time, advertisements on Meru Cabs, slideshows on the advertising LCDs at Cafe Coffee Day, hoardings at prominent crossings and bus stops, jingles on FM radio channels, etc.) of i-Pill make me wonder something else - Is i-Pill promoting more unprotected and unsafe sex than preventing unwanted conception? Is i-Pill promoting more of unplanned sex amongst youth? What really could be the repercussions if my doubts are valid, given the fact that India is already among the front-runners of the number of HIV +ve cases?

Can the safety warning (which is hardly legible on the i-Pill website and reads - Important safety aspects: i-pill is neither a regular contraceptive nor an abortion pill. It is not a substitute for condoms and does not protect against sexually transmitted diseases including HIV/AIDS.) be made a mandatory part of any promotional activity for all similar products?