Amol Bol 5

“It was a kind of love at first sight.

I saw him for the first time and he took me over.

He is a kind of guy who made me fall in love again.

He is the reason of my sleepless nights and he doesn’t even know it.

I crave for his smile.

I can watch him for hours without a blink.

He made me feel proud of myself.

He is in my thoughts by day and nights even while my husband’s around.”

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This is my wife Deepali for you on her new love interest, Abeer – our 2 ½ months old son.

Amol Bol 4

Dil pe mat le yaar!

A truck fully loaded with steel rods. Goes without saying, the rods can’t fit in the carrier and they are dangling out at the rear side of the truck. Obviously, the rusted steel rods are not tied together or there’s not a single piece of red showing the danger to the vehicles following the truck.
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A family man with his entire family (himself with his wife and 2 kids) laden on the bike sees an amber light from a distance. Still, he doesn’t bother to stop or even slow down as the signal is going to turn red till he reaches. He increases his speed and vrooms to surge ahead. The signal turns red and the adjacent one turns green. The vehicles, already half way down, geared for the daily race to destinations are unleashed. Our family man makes his way out by risking the lives of the whole family by setting an example of how to break a rule successfully before his children.
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These days, the huge water tankers are often seen penetrating through the heavy traffic. I think they are issued a permit only if they fulfill the following terms while driving on the road.
- Drive through the right most lane which is usually meant for the light vehicles.
- Take an immediate right or left turn wherever you wish.
- Take a ‘U’ turn at least once.
- And most importantly, don’t put a lid on the tanker so that the water could drip heavily on the concrete road and let the two wheeler riders enjoy the slides on the road.
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Someone suggested me not to mind of these and many such incidents in reply to the first post of my blog. So, I have decided to do so. Let’s see how far my resolution remains unbroken.

Amol Bol 3

The happiest Ajmal Kasav

The Govt of India’s soft attitude towards the international criminals has been proved once again and that provides a reason for Ajmal Kasav to be happy.

The Bhopal Union Carbine gas tragedy has once again showed India’s soft corner towards a criminal. As the reports from the media say, Warren Anderson was not only let off but was escorted to leave the country safely. We all saw the great escape of Mr. Anderson on the television. And 26 years later, when the same issue has surfaced again, the man is of 89 years old today. It seems highly impossible to bring him back to India for interrogation. Moreover, he might be freed again, now officially.

Ajmal Kasav – our royal prisoner – must be watching it closely. People and our media have forgotten him for a while. So he can be assured that he will remain in the prisons of India and live a secured life for at least 26 years. After a long long time when the issue of Mumbai attack will be raised again, we’ll remember him. The decision makers at that will hardly be able to connect to the gravity of the issue and Kasav might be freed.

Although they say that ‘an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind’, sometimes raising an eyebrow too can translate your opinion. If the principles of ahimsa are so strong, what’s the need to keep the handsome share of the budget for the defense?

May it be Anderson, Afzal Guru or Kasav, it’s time to make foot forward and not to encourage them. It’s time to decide and not to discuss.

Amol Bol 2

Customer ‘rare’ service

Gone are the days when service used to come first. When people used to know you by your face and your name. You used to be feeling at home being at the service providers’ places. They used to serve you just because they wanted you to be happy. They never put the typical management quotes like ‘customers are important. Let’s keep them happy’ or never put the taglines such as ‘we serve you better’. They didn’t even know what the customer service is, still they used to serve better.

While installing my internet connection, the service provider’s executive told me that I can register my complaint with an e-mail. If my internet is down, from where am I supposed to send an email?

You have to be extremely lucky to be taken care of by the selling companies. First of all you should have heart to call them and get entertained.

It’s sounding funny. But it’s true. Where does a customer go once he is sold with a product or a service?

Our desi companies have opened the call centres to attend the customers keeping their US counterparts as the role model. Once you call them, you have to undergo the process of pressing buttons. Most of the times you miss the buttons. If by chance you press a correct one, then a standard tone of ‘All our executives are busy at the moment’ keeps your irritation level high till you disconnect the call. (I think these people must have a hidden agreement with the pharma guys who sell the tablets for high blood pressure.) I celebrate with friends and family when I get to hear a telephonic tone of the lady or a man sitting with the mouthpiece and I hardly get a chance to do so.

If it’s about a complaint or an inquiry at a government office, then we are already used to it. But it keeps on happening with the private companies also. They call you hundred times to get your appointment to sell their product. But then you are a told story for them. You are not going to get any reward points. Each time you get a different voice to talk to. Then you again have to tell all your kundli to the person. He or she doesn’t know the whereabouts of previous conversation. (They also might have a mutual contract with the telecom companies.) Again you have to tell everything to them. Then they give you a simple solution which says your query will be taken care of in 48 hours. Now these 48 hours don’t include weekends, public holidays and other offs. The funniest part is they record your number. Previously I used to think this a very ideal system. But later on I discovered that this is an ideal system for them. They can easily understand you and your nuisance value. This doesn’t end here. Now it’s our turn to call them hundred times to get your work done.

If you go to their premises, then the customer care executives show you their efficiency. You are given a token and made seated for hours for the smallest work. They have only couple of executives to attend you. Ek free advice. Go to their place with eatables, magazines, water and some ice. Yes! You require it to put on your head. Otherwise you cant keep your cool. And above all, nobody can guarantee that this is your only visit for that work.

As a customer, least we expect is an assurance of a work done with a smile. Dont we deserve that? Globalization brought us opportunities. But are we really mature for those?

Amol Bol 1

June 21, 2010

On the busy street on a weekday morning, everyone was trying to push their wheels to make an inch for themselves. The early shower was making the life even hell. As we all were crawling in the middle lane to reach our destinations, suddenly the left indicator of the car ahead started blinking. Thanking god for creating a space for me, I tried to shove in the empty space created by the car moving to its left. But it was my turn to be surprised and brake my car. There she was. The reason of that slow moving traffic.

A small puppy, shivering with cold and fear, was trying to make its way out of that horrendous traffic. Poor puppy must be of 10-12 days old. She was trying to stand firmly on her tender feet on the muddy surface. Vehicles behind me already started shouting out with different sounds of horns. Surprisingly each driver was trying to save her life by avoiding the circular space of 5” diameter around her. That small angel was the cause of that whole mess in the rush hour. But no one was even complaining.

Then, 2 cute looking young girls got down from their car, who could never put their highly priced heals in the mud, and took that even muddier small puppy in their hands. They took her on the side of the road. Took some hot milk from the chaiwala on the street and gave it to the puppy. She happily drank all of it.

The traffic had no time to see the after scenes. It started moving a bit faster. Me too made my way. But what a sight it was! The whole traffic was stopped by a small puppy and each one was trying to drive cautiously to avoid any mishap with her.

(Excerpt from a news from Daily Sakal)

On a newly constructed concrete road in a suburb of Pune, some unknown vehicle rammed over an unknown pedestrian sometime in the midnight. The victim couldn’t survive and died on the spot due to brain hemorrhage. Not a single vehicle stopped to help him. The worst part was yet to happen. No one put his stranded dead body aside. More and more vehicles drove over the dead man till a patrolling van could find it.

Were the drivers in both the cases come from the same species… human?