Take 123

In the news channels, we see a lot of people opining on various things. It can be from Indo Pak relationships to the price of safety pins.
When I see this, I am reminded of an incident that happened quite some time back. This incident happened 6 years back. There was a company where I worked for a month. This company was a partnership firm and one of the partners was a politician’s son. (My mom was the most relieved when I quit the company, as she always imagined that politician’s sons were no good – but actually, this fellow was a decent person)
Well, one day, there was an India Pakistan match. There was a reporter from a popular channel, with the camera and crew. No names, as this person is a very popular politician now. This persons father and the partner’s father belonged to the same political party.
Well, they made us stand at various locations in the office (for it to look like they were actually interviewing people, from a lot of offices) and speak on Indo Pak unity. You won’t believe it; they took two of the employees to the beach, and interviewed them there, to again give the interview the appearance of mass coverage. I was shocked at this kind of journalism. Then, I was very excited about appearing on TV. But as soon as I saw the telecast, I was kind of ashamed; that I had participated in such a staging, duping the mass.
So even now, when I see people giving opinions and so on, I am reminded of this.
So much for responsible journalism !!!

My Ammachi

This time, when I went to Kerala for a vacation and visited my Ammachi (grandmother), I thought that I should write about her. She was widowed at 32, and still managed to raise her 6 daughters well.
She is close to 80 now and is a reader of the Malayala Manorama newspaper for the past 60 years. Lives all by herself, with a maid for company. She still wears beautiful starched neriyathu and white white chatta and mundu. She has very severe arthritis of her left knee, and the right too is not too good. With the latest feavers affecting Kerala, she had an attack of Chikunguniya. This has left her all the more in pain.
She was a part of the Asharayathu family, Thumbamon. She got married when she was 13, and my grandfather 17. After marriage she went back to her house and then went to live with my grandfather when she was 17.
She was pregnant with her sixth child, 3 months gone, when my grandfather died of a snake bite. She was 32 with 5 daughters and pregnant and all alone.
They sold off the land they had and moved to another place. She had the financial support from my grandfather’s brothers and that’s it. She had 6 beautiful daughters (the genes I say they inherited from her) and had to ward off men, drunken men, old men, young men..all men , all the time.
She is a very very strong woman. Single handedly she looked after her 6 daughters and looked after her land. Many a times she had driven off drunken men off her property. Such strength I have never seen in anyone I know of. My mother says that the men in the area were scared of her. She would never be scared to pick up the vetukathi (a big knife) and be after the men who tried to trouble her daughters. Such courage, my Ammachi had. Never have there been any rumors of affairs or activities of any sort, about her or her daughters, which is quite a surprise in our country, when a woman lives all alone with daughters.
She is still a very strong person, with very strong opinions and principals. Since all these years of her life, she has been the sole decision maker, she gets irritated if any one advises her to go and live with her daughters :-) . She says she is capable of taking care of her self. She is the most courageous and strongest woman I have ever met. Her endurance and her way of life…. A sad story this may be, but, a very strong one.

Titleless

Long since I wrote
Each time I see something worth blogging about, I compose it in my mind…
But don’t have the time to put it down.

Veggie

Being a vegeterian does not make you a superior peorson.Its just the way your life is.And by the way, you are missing out on a lot of things...
The other day when at a training program, we were divided into groups and asked to do some
stupid activity. Soon our topic went on to restaurants. We were speaking about a malaysian restaurant and the food they served. I was of the opinion that they serve the best fish paratha, when suddenly the guy i was talking to said ''yuck..i dont know all that and i dont care''..i was surprised at the reaction.
Please, grow up people.Understand that people are different and different people have different habits and cultures.
We Syrian Christians, even have non vegetarian items for breakfask.. appam mutta curry, appam beef stew...and so on..
Do not put up a show like you are the child of a greater God..Vegeterianism is your way of life and not mine....

Fast Track to Nowhere

Yesterday George had to go to the Airport and we had booked for a call taxi - Fast Track - to pick him up at 9.45 PM. The flight was scheduled for take-off at 11.15 PM. When i called up to check the status at 9.40 PM, the fellw there told me that the booking status showed cancelled. I was shocked. It was pouring cats and dogs and there was no way he could go to the airport by bike. No autos were also willing to come in the torrents. The nearby travels' too didnt have cars. Finally, he took our car and left it at an uncles place close to the airport and then that uncle(he is close to 70 years of age) dropped him at the airport. If not for him, he would not have been able to make it. So much for the call taxi, which never even came.

When call taxi operations in chennai started off, they were good and always on time and cosidered superior to the autos.But now, they are so unreliable, and we are forced to travel by the autos. The modus operandi of the taxi drivers too are similar to the auto drivers. If one is not aware about the place, then the taxi drivers too take you around the city. In the end, its the kilometers you pay for. Furthermore the disvantage is that, unlike autos, you cannot fix a fare and start..becoz its the meter that matters in the end.

My ICICI Experience.. Part 2

My association with ICICI, I guess is never good. Some time back (actually a long time back), I had written an exam conducted by the bank.
Didn’t hear from them for months. Then one day, a lady called me up from Mumbai. She informed me that I had an interview the next day at their Santhome branch. I asked her about the position offered and the department. She told me that it was for a mid mgt position and that they would decide about it later and all that. I was really excited. The next day, I went to the bank. The receptionist told me to go to the 3 rd floor and wait. I was to meet a lady named Jennifer. Well when I went up, I saw two people already waiting. There was no one to guide us. There were two training rooms on that floor and there was a training going on in one. We sat there and waited and waited while our numbers grew and grew. Finally after half an hour, we met a person from the HR (His English was very bad, and so were his people skills). Anyway, he took us to the other training room and gave us a psychometric test. We then gave him our resumes and the test paper. We waited for some more time and then two people came and asked us to be sent in one by one to another small room.
The interview had finally started, and we had spent a total of 2 ½ hours there. Well when I was called in, I was met by a very stylish lady and a silent looking guy. She had an interview sheet with her, and more than listening to me answering, she was filling up the sheet. So much for effective communication. And she made the HR guy look like he had a lot of people skills in comparison. She told me that the job is for the branch office and that I might get placed anywhere. I will be the staff at the counter and the average working hours will be 10-12 hours. God, what do they think? This she told me, in spite of the fact that I told her that I had a baby. Unlike others, she didn’t even ask how old the baby was; for this staying back business. Then she told me that I would have to do over the counter sales of the insurance and all other crap ICICI sells. I told her that I would not be too keen.
I was so so surprised about the interview. It was so badly conducted. In a nutshell, this was the worst interview I had ever attended. So much for the dramatic “ Hum Hai Na.’’

My ICICI Experience

I had booked for a Hero Honda Pleasure on Akshya Trithya day (not that I believe in good luck and stuff, for it is turning out to be a very bad experience), paid 18000+/- as advance and filled in an application for a two wheeler loan from ICICI bank. When I went to give in the originals to the representative from the bank, he asked me for a statement of accounts; and that’s when trouble started….
As I never receive these statements, I called up the call center on 23rd of April and requested for a statement of accounts. I got a confirmation message on my mobile that it had been dispatched on the 24th and would take 7 days to reach me. It never reached me.
I called up ICICI on 7th May, spoke to one lady named Vibudhi- Complaint # 24437129. She promised to revert the next day, and she never did.
Next I called up on 15th May and spoke to Mani. She said the courier has been dispatched and that she will give me the number of the courier agent and that I could call up and trace it. And you know what?? ''Madam, we do not have Chennai numbers, can I give you any other city’s number, where you can call up and trace?'' God, where are their brains? To think that I will make an STD to call up some courier company.
Then I asked to be transferred to her '' superior''.. Spoke to the Service Manager Vishanth – Complaint # ZC5143435. He promised to call the next day. He too never did.
When I called him on 16th May and asked as to why he didn’t call, he said ‘’ I just could not call’’.. So much for being the manager…
He told me that that the courier was dispatched twice and that he sent another one the day I spoke to him.. a sum total of three. I then asked if he could not trace it.. and you wont believe the reply '' That’s a totally different department and you have to speak to them, I cant check'' I thought bureaucracy was existing only in the government offices. He then gave me another complaint # SR24865438 and told me to go collect the statement from a nearby bank, and that he would waive off the charges (Charity after the bureaucracy). Its all ended where it started.. I wanted a statement sent, just because I didn’t have time to go to the bank
My salary gets credited here, and this is the only reason for continuing this stupid relationship :-(
Believe me; I still haven’t got the statement, and my two wheeler is waiting.
And I wish someone from ICICI reads this…

The Kiss - An Issue ??

You must remember this, a kiss is just a kiss...~ Herman Hupfeld

A kiss is a lovely trick designed by nature to stop speech when words become superfluous.~ Ingrid Bergman

Is not a kiss the very autograph of love?~ Henry Finck

A kiss can be a comma, a question mark or an exclamation point.~ Mistinguett

a peach is a peach, a plum is a plum, a kiss ain't a kiss without some tongue... so open up your mouthand close your eyes, and give your tongue some exercise...~ Diesel

Shabana Azmi, Nelson Mandela, Shilpa Shetty , Richard Gere, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad .......Does that ring a bell? Well its all about kissing :-)This morning, i saw the newspaper (Deccan Chronicle), and i was surprised by the front page news.... President of Iran admonished and the whole Islamic community angry with him... All because, he kissed his teacher's gloved hand on Teachers Day. The sin is that he kissed a woman in public and that it is against Islamic law to kiss someone unrelated to you. This is not considering the fact that his teacher is a very old woman, may be as old as your grandmother, and was his first grade teacher. The issue is that it is against the Islamic Sharia - whatever that is.I am not against any rules and laws and i respect all religions. But this incident has hit the world press, and even our Indian paper(s) have thought that its big and published it in the front page. So much for display of affection...From where i come from, Kerala's Syrian Christian community, its not a sin to kiss someone. Passionate kissing in public, though is forbidden :-). Its Ok to kiss and say good bye.Its not a kiss, lip on cheek, rather a cheek to cheek. We still call my grandmother who is touching 80, '' Umma Specialist '' which translates as " Kiss Specialist ''. All of us get kissed when we go to visit her. Be it when meeting her or saying goodbye to her. Most of the grandmother age, aunty age people - related/ non related in Kerala, i know of, kiss us all when we meet and part.
Not to be left out, we have a desi version of everything. Our very own Shilpa Shetty incident. So much of focus has gone into the incident, that it had sidelined all other major events of the country. People who dont participate in any socially useful meetings were seen to display mass protests, burn effigies and shout slogans. Please, we have better things to do in life. Instead of focussing on Shilpa and Richard, lets look at what we can do to bring people together to work against the evils that are dominating our society. And dear media, we are fed up of sensational news, models clothes falling off during catwalk, shilpa crying in Britian during the Big Brother show, shilpa getting kissed...We like better NEWS..Please give us a breaaaaaaaaaaak.

Appraisal - A Gripe

Are appraisals meant to motivate you or are they meant to make you feel that you haven’t been doing much at all? Just sitting around in office, drinking coffee, and warming your chair?
Appraisals are an assessment of what you have done. But then it should also focus on what you will be doing till the next appraisal.
The focus has to be on how best you have done your work, and not on some weird data that you cannot comprehend, and which would be difficult for even your appraiser to comprehend after a few days. Also please do consider the many many days you have stretched and stayed back to complete tasks. Its something I have done for my company, no personal benefits, and also that the company doesn’t pay me for overtime.
It’s actually very difficult for women to balance both career and family. I am not saying that it’s not possible, but I believe it’s very difficult. When there is a question about which takes precedence – family or your job, it’s obviously family (at least for a majority of the women folk, from where I come from).
The women have to balance both office and home. Work, work, work in office, go back home and find a host of things waiting for you; family stuff, babies, food to be cooked, clothes to be folded, guests… and trust me its one hell of a balancing act.
And coming back to appraisals please let it not be about crap data, learning curves, blatant blaming and the whole exercise, an intolerable gyaan session, about what you could have done. And please don’t show favoritisms. Do accept that people are different and we tend to work differently. She/ He may not be good at something I am good at and vice-versa.
I don’t need rewards, but please dont hold back on recognitions ….
Let me not continue to feel - enda deivamae, inganae oru jeevithamo !!!!

Mobile Menace

Mobile communication is something most of us Indians cannot live without now. Accepted that its one of the best things to happen. All fine. But then what about the fact that these companies actually sell our numbers to other companies, for us to be harassed by a number of callers ….. ‘’ Madam I am calling from ICICI bank / Citibank / SBI Cards (and what not)… and you number has been selected and you have been chosen to be one of our privileged customers, and have been allotted a personal loan’’.
These people trouble us all the time, any time of the day. Not to blame them, they have a mindset that the answer would be ‘’ no, not interested ‘’ . I guess of the 100 calls they make may be 1 person will be actually be interested. These calls are such a menace!!
So are the SMS’s. Free franchise, Brain Gym, Lose Weight… The list is endless. Try calling the number from where the SMS came, and you get to listen to the message that the mobile is switched off. Mobile companies offering free SMS services, is a major reason for this kind of advertising.
May be I can tolerate one or two calls from a bank or a few SMS’s. But when bombarded by SMS’s and calls, its natural to loose cool. Where are ethics? I don’t want to be disturbed means; I really don’t want to be disturbed. It doesn’t mean, please call later.