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Showing posts from September, 2009

Totally depressing experience with my favourite Airtel

Today I want to share the unpleasant experience I had with Airtel digital TV. I am a happy broadband customer, the technology Airtel offers for DTH is good and so is the advertising. These factors made me to go for Airtel’s DTH service inspite of having Tata Sky dish installed for my building. Saturday 26 th September 2009 5pm. I paid Rs.4850 for the installation and one years rent for the entire package. Saturday 26 th September 2009 5.30 pm Called up the customer care on 1800 102 8080 and fixed the time for installation of the equipment next day at 10am on Sunday 27 th September 2009. Now the fun started. Sunday 27 th September 2009 11.30 am Waited till 11.30am for the installation guy. But neither did he come nor did he or Airtel have the courtesy of calling me to inform that he wasn’t available. I called the customer care yet again. The customer care guy admitted that he did not have any updates but requested me to wait for till 1pm. Sunday 2

The Sugar Crisis

(My view of the problem). Sugar prices have risen very high in the recent past. The share prices of some sugar companies are trading at all time highs. So what must have caused sugar to taste bitter? The government has admitted that there is a shortfall of 5-million-tonnes this year between India’s sugar demand and supply. So the wise men in the government debated on the pro’s and con’s of importing sugar. Then, the government asked STC, MMTC and PEC to import white sugar. But then importing sugar at international prices and selling them nationally at low prices didn’t make sense. Prices kept rising. In the meantime the sugar time bomb was ticking. The festival season is approaching followed by elections in Maharashtra. The commodity futures trading in sugar was banned in May with the intention of curbing high prices, so no one had a clue how high the prices would rise. The prices continued their upward journey. The next action from the government was to issue warning to “hoarders”. Th

Stock Market Widget

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Ranjish hi sahi

A superb gazal that brings out the angst and helplessness of a person in love. The lyrics are by Ahmed Faraaz and sung by Mehdi Hasan. I had heard this gazal long time ago .... maybe 1982 in a program (was it Gaan Manjiri at 12.30pm) on Vividh Bharti. I could not understand a word of it then. Later I heard Lata's version and another one by Asha. This song can be heard HERE and seen HERE I have tried to convey the meaning in my limited knowledge of Urdu (using the Urdu to English dictionary from HERE !) Like other Indian languages in Urdu too, a word may have more than one meaning. The meaning depends on the way the word is used in a sentence. रंजिश - anguish or distress मरासिम - agreement or relationship गिरिया - crying or weeping or tears भरम - consideration or regard पिन्दार - ego or pride or arrogance महरूम - deprived फहम - understanding or intellect रंजीश ही सही दिल हि दुखाने के लिए आ आ फिर से मुझे छोड के जाने के लिये आ Be it in anguish or to torment my heart Return even if i

One way traffic experiment

Everyday I travel through the Simla office chowk and go past Sacheti hospital. In order to increase the average speed of traffic and to make it manageable, Pune police are conducting an experiment. The triangle Simla office chowk –> Sancheti Hospital –> Modern Café chowk –> Simla office chowk is now made one way. Now the traffic flows as follows: Simla Office chowk --> Traffic from University road, Shivajinagar station and Revenue colony converges at Simla Office chowk. The traffic from Revenue colony either goes straight to Shivajinagar station or turns left towards University road or takes a right turn towards Sancheti hospital. Traffic from Shivajinagar station takes a left turn to proceed towards Sancheti hospital. On the road opposite Lok Mangal (Bank of Maharashtra building) we have a situation where some motorists travel from Revenue Colony and proceed in the direction of COEP through Sancheti chowk or going straight past Sancheti hospital towards the Courts. For doi

Champoo

Got this in email today! परेशान थी चम्पू की wife Non happenning थी जो उसकी life चम्पू को न मिलता था आराम ओफ़िस मे करता काम ही काम चम्पूके boss भी थे बडे cool Promotion को हर बार जाते थे भूल पर भूलते नही थे वो deadline काम तो करवाते थे रोज़ till nine चम्पू भी बनना चाहता था the best इसलिये तो वो नही कर्ता था रेस्ट दिन रात कर्ता था वो boss की गुलामी Promotion की उम्मीद मे देता सलामी दिन गुज़रे और फ़िर गुज़रे साल बूरा होता गया चम्पूका हाल चम्पूको अब कुछ याद न रहता था गलतीसे बिवीको बहन्जी कह्ता था आखीर एक दिन चम्पूको समझ आया और छोड दी उसने promotion की मोह माया Boss से बोला, ” तुम क्यो सताते हो? Promotion के लड्डू से बुदधू बनाते हो? Promotion दो वरना चला जाऊन्गा Increment देने पर भी वापस न आऊन्गा ” Boss हसके बोला, ” नही कोई बात अभी और भी Champu’s है मेरे पास ये दूनिया चम्पूओसे भरी है सबको बस आगे बढने की पडी है तुम न करोगे काम तो किसी और से कराऊन्गा तुम्हारी तरह एक और चम्पू बनाऊन्गा! ”

Woes

Some Flaws in the basic planning of infrastructure If there was an award for the worst citizen, Punekars (including me) would win hands down. We do not have civic sense. We throw garbage on the road, we believe that celebrations have to be noisy, we don’t bother to understand if our celebrations are disturbing others, we also believe that all celebrations have to be in the public arena and in general we are never satisfied with anything. Add to this the infrastructure woes. Everyday I have to travel across the city and noticed that there are some very basic mistakes in the planning done. Here are some: Bremen chowk near Aundh to University circle – At the starting of this road near Bremen chowk the road is narrow. What this means is that when a motorist starts from Bremen chowk he is on a three lane road at the traffic signal. As soon as the chowk is crossed, there is PMPL bus stop. Due to this the road is narrowed down to two lanes and Punekars being what they are immediately change